The Miller press. [volume] (Miller, S.D.) 190?-current, 1910-10-06

With Charles Focken, the gardener,
be found a suit case hidden under a
bunch of vines under a bay window on
the side fronting West Lake park.
Detective Rice ~telephoned Chief of
Police Galloway who went immediate
ly to General Otis home. Together
they examined the suit case.
Chief of Police Galloway wanted to
take it to the police station without
opening it. Rice insisted upon open
ing It there and finally stuck a knife
into the side of the receptacle. A
buzz of mechanism was heard inside
and smoke began coming out around
the edges of the aperture.
Convinced that the suitcase con-
tanned a bomb, eXcitedly Chief Clio
way ordered the Internal machine
explosion could do but comparatively
little damage.
Rice and Focken picked it up and
dashed across the street. Putting it
down they sped away and put about
100 feet between them and the bomb
when it went off with a crash that
threw the entire n~eighborhood into a
panic.
The explosion tore out a portion OF
the curbing of the street paralleling
the park. Branches of a tree directly
overhead were torn off, together with
a portion of the park fence. A plate
glass windshield in the Otis home was
also shattered.
That no greater damage was done
was due to the fact, experts say, that
the explosive it contained was not
packed or closely confined.
In the Otis family at the time of the
explosion were Mrs. Harry Chandler,
daughter of the general, and a rela-
tive, Mrs. Booth, and the latter's two
children.
The Internal machine found at Mr..
Zeechandelaar's was composed of Is
sticks of giant powder attached to a
fuse and set by clockwork to explode
at / o'clock in the morning-the same
hour at which the explosion occurred
in the Times office. The bomb was
first discovered at the Zeehandelaar
home by a servant in the employ of
the family who called a special Off
Ger, who reported to the police.
The president of the local typo.
graphical union issued orders that
union printers may work in conjunc-
ton with the %non-union printers Of
the Times in any of the local news
paper offices in getting out the edition
of the Times.
The city council met and appropri-
ated 1926, 900 for the purpose of de-
termining the cause of the Times ex-
plosion, and provided a reward of
$500 for the capture of those respon-
sible for the outrage.
Mayor Alexander and the city coun-
ell, meeting with other city officers
and local union leaders, during the
day, mutually agreed to call off the
big union labor parade planned for
next Monday night as a demonstra-
ton against local conditions alleged
to he hostile to the interests of union
labor.
Plot, Says Editor.
Harry e. Andrews, managing editor
of the Times, gave out the following
statement:
"The Times building was destroyed
by dynamite by the enemies of indus
trial freedom. 1t will soon, be reis-
sued from it's auxiliary plant and will
fight its battles to the last"
The Times building is located at
First and Broadway, in the heart OF
the business section Of the city, and
is owned by General Harrison Gray
Otis. The Times is the largest non
union paper in the west and has been
the scene Of bitter warfare between
General Otis and friends of union
labor.
The police had their fire lines
stretched around the scene and re-
serves were SOC patrolling the dis
trict armed with riot clubs, but the
half-clad crowd which watched the
flames from behind the fire lines was
orderly.
Thomas p. Smith, an lad" compos.
itor, working on the second floor when
the explosion occurred, gives the fol
lowing versions:
There were at least fifty men at
work on my floor. | believe that half
of this number may not have escaped.
|, with others, rushed for the street
Immediately and we then saw the
whole building in flames"
From the fact that twenty-five extra
printers and several extra men en-.
ployed in the mechanical department
were at work on the Sunday pages,
considerable difficulty was at first tx.
~perienced in getting accurate figures
as to the number of dead and injured.
Newspaper Plant Burns.