Wall Street Bombing

On September 16, 1920, at noon when clerks, receptionists, and brokers were heading for lunch, a horse-drawn cart exploded in front of the offices of J. P. Morgan & Co. at the corner of Wall and Broad Streets in downtown New York City. Thirty people were killed instantly, more than 300 were injured, and several later died from their injuries. The noise was heard throughout lower Manhattan and across the East River in Brooklyn. The smoke-filled streets were covered with a layer of shattered glass, debris from the damaged buildings, and bodies; the chief clerk of J. P. Morgan, William Joyce, who had been seated near the front window, was decapitated. Junius Morgan, son of J. P. Morgan, Jr., was wounded. The Stock Exchange across Broad Street was closed immediately.

The police and soldiers called in from Governors Island helped the injured, guarded the scene, and searched for evidence. But the only evidence found was two charred horse hooves and fragments of sash weights. The investigation ultimately confirmed that a bomb made with TNT—trinitrotoluene—and reinforced with sash weights caused the carnage.

Because nobody claimed responsibility for the bombing, the New York Police Department considered a number of possible motives. The assassination of J. P. Morgan, Jr., was dismissed because he was in Europe. Another possibility was an attempt to rob the adjacent Sub-Treasury building where $900 million in gold bars was being moved that day. The bombing was ultimately decided to be an act of terrorism performed by “Reds,” anarchists and communism sympathizers, who wanted to shatter the symbols of [Page 400]American capitalism. A stack of anarchist flyers found in a mailbox a block away from Wall Street supported this theory. Suspicion fell on political radicals, communists, and anarchists of foreign origin—Italians, Russians, and Jews.

Although detectives visited every sash weight manufacturer and dealer in America as well as 500 stables in every town along the Atlantic seacoast, they had no success in finding the suspect or suspects. The Secret Service and the FBI interrogated thousands of people and even arrested many radicals—but no one was charged with the crime.

Edwin P. Fisher, a lawyer, champion tennis player, and frequent inpatient in mental hospitals, was a suspect. He had predicted an explosion on Wall Street in mid-September in correspondence with his friends and in conversations with the strangers. On September 16, however, he was in Canada (his premonition was interpreted by the authorities as the work of a lunatic's mind). Another strong suspect was an Italian, Pietro Angelo, who produced an alibi but was deported to Italy nonetheless. (Angelo was connected to the Gimbel Brothers bomb plot of April 1919.)

On September 17, the New York Stock Exchange opened at its normal hour. September 17, 1920, was the 133rd anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution. A usually small “Constitution Day” celebration near the George Washington statue, across the street from the J. P. Morgan office, turned into a demonstration as thousands of people came out and sang “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

The case was dropped in 1940. Morgan has never repaired the pockmarked building façade.