How It Ends
28th December 2021
ZMan looks on the dark side.
A little over a century ago, September 16, 1920, to be exact, a horse-drawn wagon packed with 500-pounds of dynamite exploded outside the headquarters of the J.P. Morgan & Co. bank on Wall Street. Thirty people were killed instantly and another ten died from their wounds. Over 100 other people were injured. The bombing was never solved, but everyone assumed it was done by anarchists. Anarchist terrorism was becoming common over the prior decade.
One consequence of the bombing was the federal government got serious about the communists and anarchists in the country. They rounded them up and deported them even though they could not pin the crime on them. The elites also gained a new perspective on immigration after this bombing. All of a sudden, letting anyone walk into the country was not so popular with rich people. Not long after, immigration was sharply curtailed, especially from Southern and Eastern Europe.
The incident is a good reminder of the reality of politics. Things that vex the people will be ignored until they begin to threaten the rich people. The bombing of the Los Angeles Times building in 1910 did not register with the ruling class, because the people running the country lived on the East Coast. The terrible impact of immigration on the working classes was considered a feature by the wealthy. When the reality of immigration landed on their doorstep, their attitudes quickly changed.