New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-04-12
Shell Blast
Laid to Plot
OF Employe
Man Who Wrecked Eddy
stone Factory Lost Life,
Is Belief
Acted to Aid Foes
OF u. S., Police Say
Strange Boat Which Sped
Away Just Before Explo-
sion May Be Clew

Chester, Penn, April IA state
ment to-day By high official Of the
Eddystone Ammunition Corporation
placed the blame Of yesterdays dis
astrous explosion, the worst in the his
tory Of the state, on a disloyal employe
who is thought to have sacrificed his
life with the 1l6 known dead. most of
whom were girls and young women.
This development. late to-day. spurred
on the Investigations of the catastrophe
already under way by Federal, state.
county, local officials and officers Of the
company. Numerous suspects were
rounded up here, in Philadelphia and
Villa Nova, Penn, and in Camden, n. j.,
and in each case the disposition OF the
prisoners was placed in the hands OF
agents of the Department or Justice at
Philadelphia. The arrests so far, how
ever, have apparently furnished no tan
gible clew to the perpetrator of the
alleged plot, if such was the case.
The statement of the company's re-
sponsible representative. who declined
TO permit the use of his name, said
the tragedy "was the result OF plot
conceived in the degenerate brain OF a
demon in human guise" and that the
triple explosion was due to bomb
manufactured from a shell by one of
the employees.
Federal Agents Busy
Il is known that Federal agents are
tonight concentrating their efforts at
running down the clew to the explana-
ton of the explosion from this angle.
1t is pointed out by those familiar with
the explosives manufactured at the
plant that it would have been possible
for a workman to carry on plot IN
the midst of unsuspecting employees,
particularly the women engaged IN the
packing of time fuses in the structure
which was wrecked.
Unless the bomb was timed, it was
explained, the plotter must have met
the same fate as the rest of the VIC
Tins.
Of the dead, it was announced late
to-day by Captain ". VI. Wilhelm, vice
president and general manager OF the
company, iifty-two had been identified.
Between sixty and seventy injured
were still in hospitals here and at Rid
ley Park.
The belief that the explosion was
the act Of an employe who believed
he was doing a patriotic duty for
foreign nation. now at war. is shared
by Alba B. johnson, president of the
Baldwin Locomotive Works, which
owns the buildings occupied by the
Eddystone Ammunition Corporation,
and Samuel NJ. Vauclain, president of
the corporation.
In statements to-day each expressed
their conviction that the catastrophe
was the work of "enemy aliens in car
ryng out a fiendish scheme" Mr.
Johnson believes the explosions were
caused by a bomb or time clock
Act of Malice Is Traced
Mr.. Vauclain asserted the act was
zone of some maliciously inclined per
son or persons" Captain Wilhelm
said Sufficient TO say for the present
that there are some suspicious cir
cumstances."
The presence Of strange boat in the
Delaware River has given &. new lead
toward the possibility Of a plot
which resulted in the explosion. This
craft was noticed just off the pier Of
the Wilson Line by Albert Mcdowell,
of Eddystone. who was waiting for
boat to Philadelphia.
Mcdowell said the boat lay about 500
feet of shore. was about 40 feet long,
had a yellow stack and white body
Not a single flag was in evidence.
1t was This last fact that drew his
attention to the boat, which suddenly
started full speed up the river, and.
drawing near the Pennsylvania shore,
disappeared behind a point Of land.
"The suddenness of the departure
and the absence Of people on deck