The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-09-21
Hour Set for Explosion Passed
With No "Show."
Probe of Wall Street Explosion
Now at StandstiII.
FISCHER is POOR WITNESS
Government Agents Convinced
Warnings Were Imaginative.
Are Also Forced to Release Rus
sian Journalist Held.

new 1OEk sept GA nefVOuSly
expectant throng lined streets around
the customs house here at 1870 today
thirty minutes before the hour set
for an explosion predicted yesterday
in postcard addressed to Customs
Collector Edwards.
When 2 o'clock passed with no ex-
plosion. the immediate crowd began
disintegrating.
Inside the building, except for the
guards, there was no sign of expected
trouble.
Crowd on Watch.
In front of the building Bowling
Green" was vantage point for hun
dreds. The crowd was kept back by
soldiers and sailors armed with rifles.
bavonet fixed. Extra police were at
hand
Visitors were admitted to the Gus
toms house only on definite proof they
were on legitimate business.
The corridors inside were kept clear
by the military and police. Window
space in the tall building of lower
Manhattan was at premium Every
open space was jammed by spectators
Photographers were scattered thru the
crowd with their machines focused on
the big stone building.
The crowd, compelled to stand al
most mOtiOnless because Of the guards
in front and the pressure of hundreds
from the rear, buzzed with cOnserva-
tion.
In some quarters there was a sort of
fear that there would be no show
Workers in the customs house ap-
peared to be attending to duties as
usual There was a tension apparent
in the office, however, accentuated by
the alertness of the uniformed guards.
AS the hour approached, the crowd
became more dense.
Probers are BaIIed.
Federal and police authorities to-
day were admittedly as far as ever
from a solution of the mystery sur
rounding the explosion that spread
death and destruction in Wall street
last Thursday.
Clues. at first apparently promising,
have not developed and today virtually
the only trail being followed was that
supplied by Samuel b. Wellington,
president of the West Indies Trading
com pany, who told newspaper men he
remembered seeing three suspicious
looking men Fastening from in front
OF the United States assay office a
few moments before the detonation
knocked him unconscious. wellington
was asked to repeat his story today to
the police and to Chief William ].
Flynn. of the department of justice
agents, investigating the explosion as
we'll as to the September grand jury.
Hunt Death Wagon Driver.
Investigators had not entirely given
up pursuit of the story by Joseph
Meade, of the Society for the Preven-
ton of Cruelty to Animals that he had
seen the death wagon" standing for
more than an hour before the eXplo-
sion in front of the assay office. The
importance they attach to his story
lies in the hope that thru it they may
be able to identify the driver of
the wagon. and this may lead to the
discovery of the person or persons, re-
sponsible for the plot.
Hope of developments from ques-
tioning Edwin P. Fischer, lawyer and
former empIoye of the French high
commission. and Alexander Brailovshy,
Russian journalist. went glimmering
with the commitment of the former
for psychopathic observation in Bel
levue hospital and the unconditional
release of the latter after authorities
had satisfied themselves that he had
nothing to do with the tragedy The
incoherent and eccentric story OF
Fischer. who sent postcard warnings
which he said he received from the
air. to friends here. convinced the gov
ernment agents of his innocence
Brailovsky. who was detained on the
technical charge of being an unde-
sirable alien. was released because
there was no evidence to warrant
prosecution