Newton was quick to reply that he worked alone and wouldn't trust any assistant. He was anxious to start with the Brooks "job" at Dunkirk and told Barnitz he had left in the baggage-room of the New York Central Railroad at Buffalo a suitcase containing powerful bombs. (The suitcase actually contained a loaded 4-inch shell, with percussion cap and fuse.) It would be necessary only for him to go to Buffalo, get the suitcase, hasten to Dunkirk and blow up the locomotive works.
"Fine," said Barnitz. "You are under arrest."
Newton stared a moment, then laughed. "You New York cops are a damned sight smarter than I ever thought you were," he said, "and you made me think you were a German!"
At Police Headquarters he described his plan for blowing up the Welland Canal. Having worked in a town located on the canal, he was familiar with the position of the locks. "It would be a simple matter," he said. "You see these buttons I am wearing on my watch chain and in my coat lapel. The plain gilt one reads 'On His Majesty's Service.' The blue and white one reads 'McKinnon, Dash Company, Munitions. On Service.' Those buttons are passes that would let me into any munitions plant in Canada or this country. They would pass me through the guards of the canal. It would be easy for me to pretend to be a workman, get a boat and, carrying a dinner pail, filled with explosives, to pick out a weak spot in the canal works and destroy the whole business.
"It would be a cinch to burn the McKinnon, Dash plant. I could go back to work there as foreman. Any Saturday night I could be the last to leave. Before going I could saturate flooring with benzine and put a lighted candle where within a half hour or so the flame would reach the benzine."
Newton also suggested his willingness to dynamite the banking house of J. P. Morgan & Co., at 23 Wall Street, or to dynamite the banker's automobile. He had a series of postcards in his own handwriting, which, in case he was hired for a dynamiting, were to be mailed from distant points every day while he was on the assignment, in order to establish an alibi.
He was an irresponsible person, and one who could not be said to be under orders from the attachés in lower Broadway. Yet he is typical of the restless and lawless floating population of which the Germans made excellent tools. When he heard Galley he promptly offered his services; his boldness would have made him a capital destroying agent, and it was fired by the speech in Herald Square, a speech inspired from Berlin. Here was his opportunity to make money. Thus, by a word of encouragement, by the whisper of "big money" to discharged, dissatisfied or disloyal employees of munitions plants, the seed of German violence was sown everywhere. Men who were well dressed and of good appearance would be remarked if they prowled about factory districts; men must be employed who would fade into the drab landscape by the very commonplaceness of their clothing and action. They could be hired cheaply and swiftly disowned, these Newtons!
The New York Times on November 3, 1917, recapitulated the damage wrought by German incendiarism as follows:
"A graphic idea of what the fire losses in the United States owe to the work of war incendiaries may be gained from consideration of the fact that the total fire insurance paid in the United States in 1915, according to the figures of the National Board of Fire Underwriters, was $153,000,000. It is estimated that 60 per cent. of the loss by fires in this country is represented in insurance. Therefore, the total fire loss in the United States in 1915 was something over $200,000,000. Of the $153,000,000 paid out by the insurance companies, $6,200,000 was represented by incendiary fires. A total of $62,000,000 was charged to fires from unknown causes.
"In 1916 the total jumped by 20 per cent., meaning an increase of about $40,000,000. The biggest items in this loss were those sustained in munition fires and explosions. Black Tom holds the record with a loss of $11,000,000; there was the Kingsland explosion, the Penn's Grove explosion, and others, all generally admitted to be the work of spies, which caused losses running into millions.