The German Secret Service in America 1914-1918Jones, John Price
History
The German Secret Service in America 1914-1918
Jones, John Price
World War, 1914-1918 -- Secret service -- Germany
The stranger was Harry Newton. He had been employed in a munitions
plant in St. Catharine's, Ontario. He suggested to Galley that he
would take any orders for arson which the Germans had in mind, and
recommended that as proof of his ability he would oblige with a
dynamiting of the Brooks Locomotive Works at Dunkirk, N. Y., for a
retainer of $5,000. Or, he said, he could arrange to destroy the
Federal building or Police Headquarters. This was more than the German
had bargained for, and assuring Newton that he would first have to
consult the "chief," he ran straightway to the police and in great
agitation told what had happened. Captain Tunney, of the Bomb Squad,
assigned Detective Sergeant George Barnitz to the case.
The detective, posing as a German agent, found Newton at Mills Hotel
No. 3, and opened negotiations with him. After several talks, they met
on the afternoon of April 19, 1916, at Grand Street and the Bowery.
Barnitz said: "Now, I'm in a hurry--haven't much time to discuss all
this. You say you're in the business strictly for the money. The chief
is willing to pay you $5,000 if you will smash the Welland Canal
or blow up the Brooks Locomotive Works or burn the McKinnon, Dash
Company's plant at St. Catharine's. But how do we know you won't demand
more from us after you are paid? Maybe you'll want more cash for your
assistants."
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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