New-York tribune., 1920-09-19
Believes Reds
Aimed to Kill.
Not to DESTROY
U. S. Engineer Insists Bomb
Was Designed to Sacri.
fee the Greatest Posi-.
BILE Number of Victims
Job Planned by Experts
Amount and Location of Ex-
plosive and Hour Chosen
Cited tc Support Theory

FFom The 1F1ouhe's washington Burcdu
WASHINGTON, Sept. 1s.-The pur-
pose of the explosion in the heart of
the New York financial district was to
kill rather than to destroy property, in
the opinion of George S. Rice, chief
mining engineer of the Bureau of
Mines. Mr. Rice returned to Washing
ton to-day after making an investiga-
tton of the explosion.
every indication is that the explo-
sion was intentional and that the men
who are responsible had practical
knowledge of explosives and their
effect" said Mr.. Rice.
~ do not think the intention of the
perpet ators of the outrage was to de-
stroy property. They did not use the
explosive in sufficient quantity nor
with the proper preparations for this
purpose.
From their use of scrap cast iron
in connection with what 7 believe was
dynamite, l am pretty sure their in
tention was destruction of human life,
especially the force in the Morgan Of
fices. If so, they certainly could not
have planned better.
Hampered by Police Lines
II was in New York subway at the
! time Of the explosion, but arrived on
Wall Street within few minutes af-
pass the police lines for investigation
at the time, so was hampercd some
! what in my work.
When did get to work I first tried
to fix the place of The explosion. This
was readily able to do. From the
! angle at which missiles entered the
walls of the buildings I was able to
find the point pretty accurately.
"This point was in the street, at q
! place about twelve or fifteen feet from
the west jamb Of the Assay Office door
and about one-third of the distance be-
tween this building and the Morgan
Offices across the street.
Now, it is pretty generally known
that there Was hole in the street at
about the point where the explosion oc-
! Cured. I examined this hole, and am
of the opinion that it was not caused
by the explosion. 1t looked more as if
it had been dug up with pick and
/ shovel. From witnesses heard that
! this hole had been there previous tc
! tho explosion, as result of street re
pairing. and that it was at the time
J full of water.
"By queer coincidence the point o.
the explosion must have been a amos
. directly over this hole. The hole, how.
ever, had none Of the appearance of ar
! explosion crater. The bottom was fiat
and there was no debris around the
! edges, as is the case when crater is
caused by explosives.
d0 por CaDt n,n,,;.a Jr,.J
II think dynamite was used The
! quantity was probably between twenty
! five and fifty pounds of 40 per cent
! dynamite, certainly not enough to dam
I age buildings Of the character of the
Morgan offices and other buildings ir
the vicnit". This dynamite, | think
was in package; not in metal con
talner. The package was probab bly, coy
cred with heap of scrap metal mostly
cast iron window sash weights and the
like.
/ The men who arranged the explo
, sion placed the wagon containing the
! dynamite on the opposite side of The
street from the Morgan Offices with E
very definite purpose. They knew tha
would travel in an arc SO as to- crssl
through the windows on the lower floor
of the Morgan building and create the
greatest possible amount Of destruction
within. But think it was not SC
much destruction of property as dc
struction of life that was planned.
"Cast iron was largely used for mis-
silcs. Cast iron is the ideal N ctal TO,
shrnpnel use, as it fractures into sharr
missiles readily.
Force of Blast Horizontal
! "The force of the explosion was ex
erted in horizontal plane. rather thar
up and down. The sidewalks barrel,
/ were touched, and the missiles SCENE;
concentrated within a height of abou
three to eight feet above the walks
OF course. number Of fragments f1cv
up, but they were relatively few.
Then, too, the hour chosen was on,
when the greatest number of people
would be on the street. Luckily thu
missiles were not placed so as to rake
the streets lengthwise, or the numbe
of casualties would have been doubled
1t is surprise to me that there wer,
not more persons killed and injured.
Everything seems to point to th
fact the explosion was the work O