The sun., 1919-05-11


birthstone.
Eagan's experience has qualified him,
he believes, TO conclude that there
are characteristics in the making OF
bombs which prove almost to a GER
tainty that q bomb must have been
constructed by an individual or a
group OF individuals employing the
same methods. This fact or deduc-
ton may be OF the utmost Importance
in the present bomb plot investiga-
ton growing out of the mailing Of
twenty-five dynamite bombs to as
many prominent Americans - men
noted for their hostility to l. w.
W.ism and Bolshevism. The first
man sent for when sixteen OF these
parcels were intercepted in the Gen.
eral Post Office here was owen Eagan.
1t was Eagan who opened the first
bomb, the one addressed to Postmas-
ter General Burleson, and who made
the report to Chief Post Office In
spector William E. Cochran which gave
the Government detectives their first
workable clues. These bombs were so
cunning in their distinctiveness that
Eagan insists the plotters can and will
be traced.
Two Days on One Bomb.
The instances in which his analyses
have proved invaluable TO the police
and the District Attorney in the prose-
cution of criminals are innumerahle.
The Federal Government has recog-
nized the value OF his work. In the
notorious Fay case during the war,
when German bomb makers, working
in Hoboken, turned out powerful devil
toys containing 100 pounds of chlorate
OF potash mixture, each Internal ma
chine designed to blow up an Ally
ship, 1t was Eagan who furnished the
first evidence in the chain OF facts
which led to the arrest and convic-
ton OF the German plotters. This was
one of the hardest jobs he had. 1t
took him two days to let the light into
the first specimen he tackled, for the
slightest bungling would have been
disastrous.
How does he do It? Well. no magi-
clan ever exposes his secrets. More
over, it would be against public policy
to let every criminal know the prin-
is a better answer even than the fore
going. 1t Is this. His methods are
seldom twice alike for the simple rea-
son that bombs are seldom precisely
alike in their construction. A descrip-
ton Of the method by which he opened
one OF the Fay bombs, n tremendous
affair, with its 100 pounds OF high ex-
plosives, its wrought iron construc-
ton. its riveted and bolted sides and
its double invitation to death-spring
and plunger and fuse-the story OF
how he slowly and patiently unscrewed
the heavy top lid and slowly and pa
tiently detached the rivets themselves,
would not apply at all to his method Of
opening other and smaller types. 1t
is possible. however, TO tell how he
opened the Burleson bomb. the first
sample OF the lot intercepted in the
Post Office here.
It will be recalled. no doubt, that
this neat affair was enclosed in n
pasteboard box about the size OF a
Cneeda biscuit holder. and that the
box was covered by yellow white wrap
ping paper sealed with little red seals
and bearing the fraudulent label,
"Gimbel Brothers," and that inside the
pasteboard carton was a lacquered
and tightly capped wooden tube con-
tanning a small vial OF acid, three full
inmate OF mercury decorating caps and
'mush" OF dynamite which had been
nitrated to make the mixture more
powerful. When Chief Inspector Coch-
ran handed one of these samples TO
II. A.