On 16 September 1920, a wagonload containing 45 kilos of
explosives and 230 kilos of lead weights placed outside the JP
Morgan bank at 23 Wall Street in New York was detonated, killing
38 people and injuring many more. The glass in the tall windows
was blown inwards killing at least one JP Morgan employee of and
injuring others. Interviewed in the New York Times the following
day, one of the partners of JP Morgan Bank said: “From what we
have learned I am inclined to believe that the explosion was due
merely to an accident. There are no reasons that we can find
that would lead to a premeditated bombing.” He was wrong, of
course. The confidence of the police that the explosion was an
accident led them to remove the detritus and lose precious
evidence as to the identity of the perpetrators. Although no one
was charged, it is believed today that the bombing was conducted
by a group of Italian anarchists known as the Galleanists, after
Luigi Galleani who by 1920 had already been deported from the
USA. Once the re