Extracts from the New York Times.
By Jack McKillop of New Jersey.
This was the third bombing in New York City in two weeks. (Never a dull moment in
the Big Apple) The first blast was set off before the doors of a German commercial agency
in the same building as the German Consulate General at 17 Battery Place in lower
Manhattan. The bomb shattered doors and windows and injured nine people. The second bomb
exploded outside 35 East 12th St, the building
where the offices of THE DAILY WORKER, the Communist newspaper, were located. The
building also housed the offices of the Communist Party of the U.S. This latter bomb
shattered a plate glass window in a bookstore specializing in radical literature and cut a
woman standing in the doorway. Both bombs were electrically timed but the New York Police
Department (NYPD) and Federal authorities were unable to trace the bombs nor the person(s)
who left them.
The actions of the people at the British Pavilion on July 4th
were idiotic. The day before the explosion, an American electrician noticed a small bag in
the fan room that looked like an off-colored canvas overnight case. He thought one of the
employee had left it and ignored it. At about 1530 hours on the 4th,
he heard ticking coming from the bag and thinking it was a radio, he took it down through
a public staircase thronged with about 1,500 visitors to the pavilion and gave it to a
Briton who was in charge of building services. Then these two idiots took the bag back
through the public area to the Magna Carta room where it was shown to one of the British
uniformed staff of the building. He listened to it, heard the ticking and called the NYPD
and the bomb squad was notified.
Before the bomb squad arrived, one of the cops on duty at the fair took the bag out
a back door and across a street to a cyclone fence that borders the fair grounds; the area
is about 150 feet (45.7 meters) from the nearest building, the Polish pavilion. Two bomb
squad detectives arrived and attempted to disarm the bomb which was still ticking. The two
cut a small hole in the bag and they could see sticks of dynamite inside. Before they
could do anything else, the bomb exploded killed both cops; five other policeman were also
injured.
The word must have gone out to “round up the usual suspects” because one of the
sub headlines in the July 5th newspaper is 21
SUSPECTS SEIZED and this number had increased to 100 by the next day. One of these men was
Caesar Kroeger, a former member of the German-American Bund, the superintendent of an
apartment building at 121 West 81st Street.
When the police went to his apartment, they found “a 4.5 by 7 foot (1.4 by 2.1 meter)
map of the world with various parts marked off in white chalk. Pinholes in many American
cities represented, Kroeger said, where he had pushed red pins to mark the location of
Communist units in the United States. The 300-mile (480 km) neutrality boundary of the
United States and South America was marked off in white, the Russian progress in Finland
similarly outlined, and several groups of South Sea Islands ringed.” The police also
found two pistols, one loaded; each was covered with by a copy of the book MEIN KAMPF.
Kroeger was arrested for violating the Sullivan Law which prohibits New Yorkers from
possessing a pistol without a permit.
The NYPD further stated that Kroeger had entered the U.S. legally in 1923 but had left and
returned illegally in 1930.
For the next couple of days, the newspaper had the usual articles; (1) the sad funeral of
the two police officers, (2) the establishment of reward money and (3) outraged
politicians promising to “get to the bottom of this heinous act and prosecute the
perpetrators to the utmost extent of the law.”
I am going to cut to the chase now and give you the pertinent information I was able to
find. The dates indicate the issue of the newspapers.
7 JULY: The NYPD stated that the “packing used in the bomb was an expensive type of
upholstery material, which detectives will seek to trace to its source.”
Caesar Kroger was to be arraigned in Felony Court charged with violating the Sullivan Law
but the arraignment was postponed so that the NYPD could question him further.
12 JULY: New York Police Commissioner Valentine set off a firestorm involving the
Republican National Convention held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in June. Valentine
confirmed reports that a crude lead-pipe bomb had been found at a printing plant in
Philadelphia where a German language newspaper is printed; the arrests were made on 19
June. On 23 June, a search was made in Philadelphia’s Central City Building which
houses the Workers School, an alleged Communist organization and a bomb was found in the
washroom. Two men were arrested and the NYPD believes it is the same type as was used at
the World’s Fair. Both the Philadelphia Police and the Pennsylvania State Police
issued non-denial denials; seems that they had been trying to hush the whole thing up. The
next day, the Pennsylvania police confirmed the story.
16 JULY: Kroeger was indicted for violating the Sullivan Law and was taken into custody by
the Federal Immigration Department alleging he entered the U.S. illegally in 1930.