Watauga Democrat. [volume] (Boone, Watauga County, N.C.) 1888-current, 1923-03-01
CACHE OF HIGH EX-
PLOSIVES RAIDED
N NEW YORK HOUSE
Machine Guns and Gre
nades Part Of Big F ind.
SLEUTHS. AMAZED

NEW YORK Feb. "a. Associated
Press Dispatch.-The seizure of 75
cases OF hand. grenades and high ex-
ploslves being unloaded from truck
IN the Chelsea pier district tonight
led to the discovery of 100 more ca
ses which had been secreted in a riv-
er front lodging house.
A few minutes city and federal
authorities uncovered in the same
building 200 rifles 20 machine guns
and large quantities steel jacketed
machine gun ammunition in belts.
The explosives in huge packing ca
ses were addressed to IS. C. S..
New York" and to "Arthur Leibin-
ger, 263 west thirty-fourth street"
All were labeled "precaution, high
eXplosives-handle with care"
Edward and Patrick Howey, broth
ers, who claimed to own the moving
van whence the explosives in huge
packing cases, were. being skidded
along plank into the basement were
arrested as was Joseph O'Buryno.
proprietor of the lodging house.
Two others engaged in unloading
the munitions when a potrolman be-
came suspicious and summoned DO
ice and secret service agents esca-
ped. A half dozen tenants of the
lodging house were also taken to
headquarters to be questioned.
The Howey brothers claimed to
have hauled the seized cargo from
red brick warehouse on river street
Hoboken, N. J. at the instance of the
two men who escaped and whose
names they claimed not to know.
Authorities of every division of
the local and federal police system
surrounded the property where the
seizure occurred and Immediately be-
gan ripping open the packing cases
in the lodging house arsenal" The
found hand grenades, rifle grenades,
smokeless gunpowder safety cartrid-
ges, machine gun rifles, ammunition,
iron bombs and quantities of iron rod
the purpose of which was not known.
Pandemonium ensued at the lodg-
ing house when the police and fed
eral agents swarmed around and be
gan breaking apen ths packing crates
revealing their contents, and ransack
ing the place for more. Women lodg-
ers ran screaming to the street, and
stood, with few hundred other spec
tators. outside the armed Gordon
thrown about the building.
The Investigators were frank in
expressing surprise at the reckless
ness with which the explosives had
been handled and stored The gre
nades, some dozens of them, all
primed, were in black leather bags.
Hidden behind crude partitions the
rifles and machine guns were found,
and scantily covered by layers Of
coal, the ammunition.
Tenants of the lodging house said
they had seen the same truck de-
posit a load in the basement last
night and at-other times, as long
ago as last September
Tons of explosives were housed in
the building, the authorities learned
enough to blow up fair sized
city, as they put it. Tenements ad-
joining the sailors Inn were sreed-
lily emptied of ccupants, as the
news spread, and it was not until
long after midnight, when it was sa-
senal carefully and remove it at day.
break that the tenants went to bed
Two hundred detectives and secret
section of "Old Chelsea" awake to-
llSHC, III d SSdlSH lOI war
sives and for persons who owned the
arsenal"
The whole district in the neighbor-
hood of Eighth Avenue and West
Twenty Fourth Street was kept in a
tumult. The authorities, working
in squadrons, ransacked every base
ment, every tenement and every at
tic, and questioned all persons who
by reputation was listed at headquar-
ters as suspicious characters"
The fearful request of residents
near the lodging house the "arsen-
ap' first discovered and its content
of trench grenades, machine guns,
rifles, ammunition, high explosives,
bombs, cast iron "pipe-mortars" and
pistol cartridges was removed from
its basement hiding place to the bu..
reau of combustibles