The Washington times. [volume], July 30, 1916, SUNDAY EVENING EDITION, Image 1

About The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
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, WEATHERTORECAST:
Fair and Wanner
(Full peport on Page Two.)
Sunday Evening
Edition
1
.J
NUMBER 8977.
WASHINGTON, SUNDAY . EVENING, JULY 30, 1916,
PRICE! ONE QENT.
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GIGANTIC MUNITION EXPLOSION
IN NEW YORK HARBOR KILLS 50
AND DOES $50,000,000 DAMAGE
White Light District of Broadway
Thrown Into Panic and Every
Street Is Littered With Broken
Glass and Debris; Hundreds Flee
From Big Hotels.
Windows Smashed in Maiden Lane
and Police Reserves Are Called
Out to Keep Looters Away;
Shells Scream Over City From
iBlown Up Ammunition- Cars.
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ELLIS ISLAND.
Whero the Shock Was Most Severely Felt and From Where Many Immigrant a Were Rescued.
People Aroused for Ninety IVfiles
Around, Hundreds of Buildings
Wrecked and Numberless Win
dows Shattered to 'Pieces as
Blast Shakes Five States!.
Blazing Barges of Dynamite Float
Down River and Ships Are
Obliged to Cast Off arid Make
For Open Water; Entire Phone
Service in Jersey Disrupted.
NEW YORK, July 30. Fifty killed, scores injured, $50,000,000 in damage, is the net result of a series of terrific explosions in
munition cars, barges, and warehouses near the Statue of Liberty shortly after 2 o'clock this morning.
New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, all were rocked by the upheaval which caused a panic in New York
nd Brooklyn. . ' " " . . ..
- 'The first explosion was foil owed'" By thirty minor explosions in railroad yards and terminals on the New Jersey shore.
Hundreds of. fragments of shell's rained on the lower city and bodies were hurled high in air in plain view of police and firemen called
frantically, to the scene of the blazing warehouses.
Rocked by the upheaval, Ellis Island immigrants ran screaming from their beds, were hurried aboard barges and rushed away as two
lighters, loaded to the gunwales with explosives and blazing fiercely, bumped into the piers of the island.
MILITIA
AIMED
ON TEXAS SIDE OF
PEOPLE AROUSED FOR NINETY MILES AROUND
BORDER BY BANDITS
Fusillade of Bullets Fired Into
Train Carrying First Dela
ware Infantry.
EL PASO, July 30. A troop
train of the First Delaware Infan
try was attacked at a point west of
Sierra Blanca, Texas, early today.
The train reached El Paso at 1 :30
o'clock.
Stones were first hurled through
the windows of the cars, and a fu
sillade of bullets followed. None
of the soldiers was injured.
By the time the men had tum
bled out of their berths and armed
themselves the train was a consid
erable distance from the scene of
attack.
Lights were extinguished and
the train in darkness continued on
its way to El Paso.
Some of the militiamen reported
narrow escapes from bullets and
flying glass.
BLAMED ON BANDITS.
The attack Is supposed to have been
rnado by Mexican bandits.
Such attacks on troon trnlnn nlnn.
the border have been frequent since the
movement of mllltla began.
Sierra Blanco. Jf east nf v.
a detachment of United States troops
Is stationed, there, guarding ranches
and settlers In the Big Bend district.
The soldiers, after a short stop In El
Paso to clear the train of broken glass,
proceeded to Its station at Demlng.
N. M,
An official Investigation Is being made
today of an attack from the Mexican
(Continued on Fourth fage.)
Through Service to Florida, At
lanta, Birmingham via Seaboard Air
Line Railway. Handsomely equipped
all-steel trains. Inqulie HIS New YorU
avenue. Advt.
For ninety miles into New Jersey people were roused from bed by
the thundering echoes of the catastrophe.
In Manhattan and Brooklyn the first effect of the reverberating
quake was amazing. People rushed to the streets half clad from hotels
and homes.
Windows in hundreds of stores were shattered, leaving the con
tents easy prey for looters, who gathereda harvest.
Police headquarters flashed orders all over the- city, bringing
every available man on reserve duty to lower Manhattan to guard the
prizes that had been exposed i Maiden Lane and in other wealth-laden
.streets of that district.
Reserves who had been detailed to car-strike duty were called off
and scattered throughout. the city.
Broadway was a sea of glass. Signs were torn down and crashed
to the gutters.
Fulton street, in Brooklyn, and even Bath avenue, in Benson
hurst, were strewn with fragments of broken windows.
WHITE LIGHT DISTRICT OF BROADWAY TERRORIZED.
Broadway's white light district was terrorized. At first it was
thought the subway had blown up or a building had collapsed.
Frightened guests ran from the Astor, the St. Regis, the Waldorf,
the McAlpin, the Biltmore, and a score of other hotels in Manhattan.
On every lip was the frightened cry, "The world is coming to
to an end!"
Lower Manhattan, with its streets of great skyscrapers, seemed to
rock like a tree in a gata Behind the towering Woolworth building
flared a ghastly light, adding to the terror of the thousands.
Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan Bridge seemed for a moment to
swing uncertainly. Crossing trolley cars seemed to hop into the air for
inches and then to stumble back to the tracks. Passengers were crush
ed against each other, and glass was shattered.
Thousands rushed for subways, more thousands dashed for tele
phones to ask police headquarters and newspapers for information.
NUMBERLESS WINDOWS SHATTERED TO PIECES.
Numberless windows were shattered in Staten Island, Jersey
City, and Bayonne and Communipaw, where the shocks were felt most.
Almost every building in York street, Jersey City, was wrecked
and the police closed the thoroughfare.
In the bay dozens of captains got up steam prepared to leave to
avoid ba.-iS which drifted like volcanoes with the tide.
Beyond the immediate radius of the greater city, Paterson, Pas
saic, Hackensack, and a score of other Jersey towns, including Cam
den, were violently rocked.
Two lighters, which had lain at the piers at the terminal, where
the first blow-up occurred, were shaken loose and ignited from sparks.
With their loads of ammunition afire they drifted down the bay toward
Ellis Island, the shells on board exploding a hundred a minute.
Dr. Joseph Wilson, of the Immigration Hospital, reported his dan
ger to the New York police, and it.was then that the immigrants were
taken off. Army headquarters sent the Governors Island ferry to aid
in the work, and the hundreds of panic-stricke aliens, mostly women
and children, were landed safely at the Battery.
NO EXACT ESTIMATE OF KILLED.
Until later in the day it will be impossible to give exact figures on
the killed, injured, and missing.
There are reports that many firemen were lost, but this is un
verified. Altogether there are thirty patients in Jersey City hospitals.
Many of them are cut and bruised. Others suffered from injured ears.
Surgeons say the condition of many is dangerous.
The most remarkable escape in the story of many strange escapes'
was that of Peter Razeto, a deck hand on Moran Barge No. 8, which
lay a little off the Jersey shore.
The explosion blew him clear of the boat and almost to the shore.
He swam to shore and then collapsed. He was picked up and carried
to the City Hospital.
The cause of the explosion is a mystery. The warehouse de
stroyed was owned by the National Storage Company, which was en
gaged in the shipment of ammunition to the allies.
Edmund L. Mackenzie, its president, when notified of the ex
plosion at his home in Plainfield, N. J., could not account for the
accident, as he said every precaution had been taken to guard against
any such accident.
SIX CARS WITH AMMUNITION ON PROPERTY.
Six cars had been run onto this property yesterday with ammuni
tion to be loaded on ships and fourteen .barges were tied to the piers
with cargoes of dynamite.
Black Tom Island, where the warehouse is situated, juts in the
New York bay and lies opposite the Greenville section of Jersey City.
It is a terminal for the Lehigh Valley and Jersey Central roads.
, (Continued on Page Two)
RIOTING FOLLOWS
SESSI0N0FSTR1KIN6
NEW YORK CAR MEN
Policeman Shoots Speotator In
Effort to Stop Alleged Brick
Jhrower May Tie-Up City.
NEW YORK, July -30. Rioting,
which included shooting at a
striker by a policeman, followed
the meeting of street railroad strik
ers at 201 East Eighty-sixth street
early this morning.
After an all-night session, the
union' leaders said three-airtcrj
of the employes of " , j ave
nue road " ' -ined tne strike '
the carme. " me Pranx W s'
Chester, anu WiKr r Uign.
pay and shoiter four-
Police rest .cs at the place of
the meeting were kept busy dis
persing strikers, and the shootkje
occurred when Patrolman Hetrick
pursued Richard Brannigan, whom
he accused of throwing a brick
through a car window at Eighty
third street and Third avenue.
BYSTANDER IS HIT.-
Hetrick fired at Branntgan, but the
shot went wild and hit Harold Rankey,
twenty, In the arm. Brannigan slipped,
hurt his knee, and was arrested.
Police Commissioner Woods toured
the Third avenue line this morning to
see that there was plenty of police to
prevent trouble In operating the cars.
The strikers were jubilant and pointed
to the fact that at 8 o'clock the Third
Avenue line had only thirty cars In
operation and that service In the
Bronx was at a standstill.
W. B. Fitzgerald, vice president of the
Amalgamated Association of Street and
Electric Railway Employes of America.
said after the session that all the car
men would go out and that the men
on all the lines In the greater city will
be organized at once. (
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