THE DYNAMITE PLOTTERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 December 1915, Page 2

THE DYNAMITE PLOTTERS.

GIGANTIC PLOT FOILED. STORY OF THE FAY CASE, Sun Francisco, October 26. A gigantic plot to Mow up munition plants and steamships has been unearthed by the Uinted States secret service men and New York detectives, and the ramifications of the cunning scheme of a gang of German criminals has created a great senaation from New York to San Francisco. Two men, Robert Fay, lieutenant in the German army, and Walter Scholz, also a German, were arrested. Fay admitted that he had been sent to the United "States to make bombs and mines for blowing up ships. He sa ; d tlmt before leaving Germany he had been advanced 2000 dollars. He explained the working of his instruments with brazen effrontery. The men were arrested in a wood at Grantwood, New Jersey, where they were testing a small bomb filled with trinitrate of toluol, the highest and most deadly explosive known. The detectives declare they caught the two men in the act of placing a quantity of toluol in one of the small bombs. At a signal they closed on them. Realising that they were outnumbered, the men did not put up a fight, but readily accompanied the detectives to the police station.

After they had 'been locked up the detectives went to two rooms the men occupied. (Here they captured the toluol and the dynamite, which were in one suitcase, while another was filled with the bomb cylinders and percussion caps. They next visited Reichter's storage warehouse, at West Hoboken, where the five mines were stored. The mines are four teet long and one and a-half feet wide, They are painted a dark green color, so that it would be most difficult to detect them as they rode m the water, LATEST DEVELOPMENTS. Meanwhile the secret service operatives were again investigating the destruction of a grain elevator which was blown up by a bomb in Weehawken last July. From it was shipped enormous quantities of wheat for the Allies. The manner in which it was destroyed was never known, but it is generally believed that Teutonic craftiness was the cause of it. Recently, too, there have been mysterious explosions at the Du Pont powder mills in New Jersey. The day following the arrest was brimful of striking incidents in the most gigantic 'bomb plot ever known in America. Robert Fay, lieutenant in the Sixteenth Prussian Artillery, admitted having received 2000 dollars or more from the chief of the secret service of the German Government in Brussels to visit America and ascertain what he could do to cripple the munitions trade. Dr. Herbert Kienzle was arrested and made disclosures to Assistant U.S. Attsrney Knox, which were immediately communicated to the Department of Justice at Washington. Kienzle is reported to have implicated persons high in the German Government. Also, he is said to have mentioned prominent Ger-man-Anericans. As a result of this a special deputy attorney-general and investigators are in New York preparing a special report for (President Wilson and Secretary of 'State Lansing. Five men— Robert Fay, Walter Seheltz, Paul Bacche, Dr. Kienzle and Max Bretitupg— are cnarged in a complaint drawn by Chief Flynn, of the United States secret service, with piracy in port. All but Bretitung were under arrest. From the stories of the two men, Fay and Kienzle, the police have learned enough to make them believe that Fay came to America as the result of deeplaid schemes. He did not volunteer, but was sent by the German secret service, in spite of his declaration that he effered his services.

Not only at the port of New York, but at 'Boston, Norfolk (Virginia) and other places from which shipments of munitions of war are being made, was it planned eventually to use the Fay bombs. The characteristic thoroughness or" the plotters provoked the admiration of the detectives who rounded up the plot. They had one of the fastest motor boats in New York Bay, "and in this 'boat the conspirators made speed tests of every munition-carrying ship that sails out of New York. They had charts showing the approximate speed of each ship, the approximate revolutions per minute of their j»r»pellers, and the time consumed in getting beyond the three-mile international limit. They had Government charts showing channels, currents and tidal differences. They had 'a high-power, latest-type touring motorcar for use on land, and no detail was neglected. Last night (October 25), in New York, Lieutenant Fay made a full confession of the bomb plot.