EXPLOSIONS IN FACTORIES
While these plots in the West were developed in vain and some of the culprits have been convicted, still other enterprises were conceived and set in motion in the East. A great number of explosions and fires have occurred in factories in the eastern part of the country. Though many of them were due to natural causes, yet suspicions seem to show that bombs were manufactured and placed in various plants and that incendiary bombs were hidden in other factories. The men believed to have committed the crime have been traced. They invariably proved to be Germans who, under assumed names, had obtained work in the factory; and then, shortly after the fire or explosion, had disappeared. But Federal agents following them learned that they had hurried back to Germany or skipped away to Mexico or South America. Bombs for their purposes were manufactured in various places in New York and Brooklyn; and in fact the authorities have obtained statements from men who made the bombs, but thus far they have not located the chief man. A German officer skilled in the manufacture of explosives spent a number of months in New York, living on board one of the German merchantmen and conferring frequently with Germans. He disappeared one day and was not heard of until a wireless message announced his arrival in Berlin.
Into this general scheme for preventing supplies from going to the Allies fits the conspiracy of Robert Fay and his associates. Fay, a tall, military-looking man, who has told many stories, some of which are true, some of which are lies, fought in the trenches for Germany and then obtained leave of absence and a passport to come to America. He had an inventive bent, and he conceived the idea of manufacturing high explosive mines which could be attached to the rudder posts of ships, and which would be so regulated by a detonating device that explosions would occur far out at sea. Fay says that he sought to blow off the rudder, disable the ship, but not to sink the vessel or injure her passengers.
His aim was to frighten steamship owners, and insurance underwriters, so that the insurance on munition ships would be raised to an almost prohibitive rate. Experts, however, have testified that so great was the amount of high explosive in the mines, that it would have blown off the stern of the ship, and detonated the cargo of explosives. In other words, had Fay’s scheme worked, nothing of the cargo and ship would have remained but a few chips floating upon the waves. But through the vigilance of Chief Flynn, of the secret service, and Captain Tunney, of the bomb squad of the New York Police Department, Fay’s plan was detected and John C. Knox, Assistant United States District Attorney, presented the evidence so thoroughly that Fay and his brother-in-law, Walter Scholz, and Paul Daeche, a German reservist, were found guilty. They were sentenced respectively to eight, four and two years in the penitentiary. Fay admitted on the witness stand that he laid his plan before Captain von Papen and Captain Boy-Ed, that he had more than one conference with Captain von Papen; but he asserted that both men warned him not to undertake the scheme. It will be remembered that Fay escaped from the Atlanta Penitentiary within a short time after his sentence, and he is believed to be either in Mexico or back in the trenches. He undoubtedly secured aid from German sympathizers.