Cold Open

It’s midday on September 16th, 1920, on Wall Street in New York City.

17-year-old messenger James Saul steps out of the road as a motor car makes its way down the busy street. James watches the progress of the expensive vehicle with a hint of jealousy. The driver’s probably a rich investor, and James doesn’t have that kind of money. Instead, he spends his days waiting outside the New York Stock Exchange, hoping to earn a few coins carrying messages between the banks that line Wall Street.

More than 50 years ago, the New York Stock Exchange became America’s biggest financial marketplace. When rich investors first started meeting there to buy and sell stocks, banks scrambled to set up branches that were close to the action. Now, Wall Street is a bustling hub where Americans can gain and lose fortunes in a matter of minutes, so speedy messengers like James are vital to keep the system running smoothly. But in between jobs, messengers just have to wait around for someone to enlist their services.

A noisy group of brokers exits the stock exchange, and James looks up hopefully, but none of them gives him a second glance.

Instead, the brokers pause on the sidewalk as a horse-drawn wagon rolls down the street. The wagon stops outside JP Morgan’s bank, and the driver hops down from his seat and hustles into a side alley.

The wagon is blocking an intersection, though, and traffic can’t get past. James wonders if the driver’s been caught short and needs to relieve himself. That’s all well and good, but his abandoned wagon is quickly turning Wall Street into a logjam. James is just turning away, shaking his head at the situation… when an explosion knocks him from his feet.

After a few moments, James groggily rises from the sidewalk, a ringing in his ears and a pounding in his head. As he blinks through the smoke, he’s disoriented by what he sees. There’s just a small crater in the road where the wagon once stood seconds ago. A car that was stuck behind it, is now on its side, and splintered wood is scattered all along the street. Windows in the surrounding buildings have shattered. And there are dozens of people lying on the ground—many with puddles of blood already pooling around them.

Messenger James Saul will spend the rest of the day ferrying victims of this explosion to the hospital, but there are more wounded than he can help, and forty people are beyond saving. It will soon become clear that they were not killed in a tragic accident, but by a bomb — and not for another 75 years will America suffer a deadlier terror attack than when New York’s financial district was torn apart by an explosion on September 16th, 1920.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is September 16th, 1920: The Wall Street Bombing.

Act One

It’s April 29th, 1919, in Atlanta, Georgia, 17 months before the explosion on Wall Street.

49-year-old Thomas Hardwick places a stack of letters on the desk in his study and takes a seat. The mail has just arrived, and he opens the first envelope as his coffee cools beside him. As a former US Senator from Georgia, Thomas is used to receiving plenty of correspondence. Often, it's just routine business, but Thomas also gets the occasional angry letter from people who see him as a symbol of a corrupt and failing political class in Washington, DC.

But today, before Thomas can even open the first envelope, the walls of his study shake, and a loud explosion echoes through the house. Thomas instantly forgets the mail and rushes out of his study and down the hall to the parlor. There thick smoke and dust fills the room. Thomas throws open a window and waves his arms to try to clear the air. Only when a few seconds have passed does he realize that his wife and maid are lying unconscious on the floor.

Thomas’s wife is covered in blood but her wounds are only superficial. The same can’t be said of the maid. Her hands are severely injured. And when she regains her senses enough to speak to police, the maid explains that she was opening a package that had just been delivered with the mail when it blew up.

Investigators soon realize that Thomas had been targeted by a letter bomb. Within hours of this explosion, the US Post Office is put on high alert, and all staff are ordered to keep watch for suspicious packages. It’s a warning that comes too late to stop another explosive device being delivered to the Mayor of Seattle, but that bomb thankfully fails to detonate when it’s opened. The following day, sixteen more bombs are identified in New York and experts dispose of them safely. By the end of the week, investigators have found another 20 bombs. They’re all addressed to politicians, newspaper editors, even John D. Rockefeller, the richest man in the world. And there’s a common thread that links the targets: they’ve all publicly attacked the anarchist movement.

In the middle of the 19th century, anarchism arose as a new political philosophy. Its adherents believed that the world’s leaders had created a system in which the powerful enriched themselves at the expense of the less fortunate. But they also believed that the capitalist system was on the brink of collapse - and that all that was needed was a little push to bring it all crashing down. To replace capitalism, anarchists favored a fairer distribution of wealth without the need for governments, banks, companies, or stock. And as one of the world’s biggest but most unequal economies, the United States was fertile ground for the anarchist movement. It found many supporters including Italian immigrants who had settled in cities on the East Coast. Many of them were willing to use force to overthrow the government—and one of the tactics they'd used, was sending bombs through the mail. Now years later, it seems like others are trying it again.

The parcel bombs sent off in April 1919, though, have little effect. The only device that detonates successfully is the one sent to Thomas Hardwick in Atlanta. But the terror campaign resumes two months later when nine more bombs are planted on the same morning. This second batch of bombs is more powerful than the first, with 25 pounds of dynamite in every one—and this time, they prove fatal. A New York night watchman is killed when he picks up a parcel left outside a judge’s house, and a second death occurs when a bomb explodes on the doorstep of the US Attorney General. But that death provides concrete proof that anarchists are once again behind the attacks because the man killed was in the process of planting the bomb himself—and he’s a known Italian-born anarchist. Shortly after his death is announced, the anarchist movement makes it official and claims responsibility for the attacks. They leave leaflets near the scene of each bombing announcing that a class war is beginning and that anarchists are prepared to unleash bloodshed, murder, and destruction in their quest to rid America of what they call its “tyrannical institutions.”

With anarchists confirmed as the source of the parcel bombs, authorities will attempt to bring the movement’s leaders to justice. But when their crackdown fails, they’ll move on to alternative methods to apprehend those they suspect of anarchism—even if that means arresting people for crimes they did not commit.

Act Two

It’s 3 PM on April 15th, 1920, in Braintree, Massachusetts, one year after anarchists began a parcel bomb campaign against prominent American politicians and businessmen.

A janitor at the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company sweeps the factory yard, clearing up the dust and grime that’s built up over the day. On the other side of metal railings, two factory workers struggle up the street, each with a heavy box in their arms. The janitor smiles and waves as they pass. They’re carrying the company payroll. And when the janitor finishes his shift, he knows his weekly pay packet will be waiting for him.

But as the janitor resumes sweeping, a commotion breaks out. He turns to see two men pointing pistols at the workers carrying the payroll. One of the workers drops his box and tries to pull out his own pistol—but before he can draw, the robbers open fire, and he falls to the ground. The other worker stands rooted to the spot, still clutching his box. It’s obvious to the janitor that this man is terrified and doesn’t know what to do. But the robbers do - they turn their weapons on the second worker and gun him down too.

Then the robbers spot the janitor. He ducks behind a crate as they begin shooting at him through the railings. The janitor presses himself against the ground as bullets slam into the wooden box he's taking shelter behind. But after a moment, a Buick motorcar races up the street and screeches to a halt next to the robbers. The two men stop shooting, throw the payroll boxes into the trunk, and climb in before the car races off. Only then does the janitor dare emerge from his hiding place. He scrambles over to the two wounded workers, but it’s too late to save them. They’re already dead.

When police arrive, the janitor gives a detailed statement about everything he’s seen. Down at the station, he looks through pages and pages of mugshots of known criminals in case any of them are responsible for the robbery. And after examining dozens of them, the janitor finally recognizes one. It’s the driver of the getaway car. According to the notes underneath the mugshot, the man is an Italian anarchist.

Ever since last year’s parcel bomb attacks, anarchists have featured heavily on police most-wanted lists. Five months ago, the US Attorney General Mitchell Palmer ordered the mass arrest of all known and suspected anarchists. What became known as the Palmer Raids saw 6,000 foreign-born suspects arrested across 36 cities. But the heavy-handed approach was criticized by civil rights groups, and legal aid was arranged for the arrested anarchists. In the end, the vast majority were released without charge.

But the violent robbery in Braintree gives the authorities another excuse to act against the anarchists. Attorney General Palmer pressures the police to wrap up the case quickly. After the failure of his mass raids, he’s eager to secure a real victory against the anarchist movement.

And in the process of working through the getaway driver’s associates, the police put several Italian anarchists under surveillance. Eventually, they think they’ve found the car used for the robbery in a garage—and when three men arrive to pick the vehicle up, police swoop in. One of the arrested men has an alibi for the day of the shooting. But the other two do not. Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are charged with robbery and murder.

But the evidence against Sacco and Vanzetti is thin. The car in the garage doesn’t match the witness’s description—it’s an Oldsmobile, not a Buick. And although Sacco and Vanzetti both own guns like used in the robbery, they’re a common type, and thousands of other weapons could be a match too.

This leads anarchists to view the arrest of Sacco and Vanzetti as another attempt to intimidate and unfairly target them, just like the Palmer Raids. But their protests don’t stop prosecutors from indicting Sacco and Vanzetti for murder after a three-month investigation.

But it’s not just the prosecutors who’ve been busy. The anarchists too have been plotting. Two days after Sacco and Vanzetti are indicted, on September 16th, 1920, one of these anarchists will drive a horse-drawn wagon down Wall Street—a road that symbolizes everything the anarchists hate about capitalism. The driver will block the street and abandon his vehicle seconds before a bomb aboard the wagon explodes, plunging the financial district into chaos and sparking a mystery that will last more than a century.

Act Three

It’s the evening of September 16th, 1920, on Wall Street in New York, a few hours after a bomb exploded and killed 40 people.

52-year-old Director of the Bureau of Investigation William Flynn steps out of a motor car, his feet crunching on broken glass. But as William approaches the New York Stock Exchange, he’s irritated to see dozens of men already sweeping up the debris and washing blood off the sidewalk.

Earlier today, William was having lunch in Washington, DC, when a waiter interrupted with a message about the explosion in New York. William immediately raced to Manhattan by train to take charge of the investigation—but his Bureau is still only 12 years old and lacks authority, so police in New York haven’t bothered to wait for William to arrive before cleaning up the crime scene.

William hurries to find the officer in charge and tells him to stop. But the officer refuses—he’s under orders from the New York Mayor, who is determined to prevent a financial panic and insists that the Stock Exchange must reopen tomorrow as normal. William sighs. In his haste, the mayor has destroyed evidence that might help identify the perpetrators of the bombing.

Still, William gets a stroke of luck when a nearby post box is emptied. Inside, a letter carrier finds four crude flyers from a group calling itself the American Anarchist Fighters. The leaflets are similar to flyers that were found in parcel bombs mailed to prominent Americans last year, but these ones demand the release of political prisoners including Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti.

But with the physical evidence of the bombing destroyed, William doesn’t have many other avenues to investigate. Over the next few weeks, his agents try unsuccessfully to find the printer who made the flyers. They have more luck tracking the blacksmith who shod the horse that pulled the wagon into Wall Street, but he can’t provide any helpful information.

So, the trail goes cold. All William can do is blame the bombing on anarchists generally. Their terror campaign will continue off and on for another decade. But they will never succeed in toppling capitalism or provoking a class war.

Still, the Wall Street Bombing will remain the deadliest act of terrorism in United States history until the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995. And unlike that tragic event, exactly who was responsible for the Wall Street Bombing is still a mystery today, the official line from authorities remains only that unknown anarchists killed 40 people when they targeted New York’s financial district on September 16th, 1920.

Outro

Next on History Daily. September 17th, 1849. Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery with her two brothers and goes on to become an American hero.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Mollie Baack.

Music by Thrumm.

This episode is written and researched by Scott Reeves.

Edited by Joel Callen.

Managing producer, Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.