1914.07.08: MISSING MURPHY HAS BOMB SECRET

July 7, 1914

MISSING MURPHY HAS BOMB SECRET

Police Unable to Locate Man, Who Survived Explosion.

SAY FOES SENT DYNAMITE.

Police Anxious to Locate Man Who Disappeared — Berkman Insists That No I. W. W. Members Were Manufacturing Bomb — Thinks Enemies of Caron Responsible For Outrage.

New York, July 6.--The whereabouts of Michael Murphy, the young I.W.W. sympathizer who escaped death in Saturday's bomb explosion in the flat of Charles Berg on Lexington avenue is still unknown to the police. It is believed that with his reappearance would come at least a partial solution of the bomb mystery.

The police feel sure that Murphy was in the flat at the time the explosion killed Arthur Caron. Carl Hanson and Charles Berg. I. W. W. sympathizers, and Mrs. Marie Chavez, who lived in another flat in the same building. Murphy fell through two stories in a mass of debris. With his clothing all but torn from him he ran to the East One Hundred and Fourth street police station, and, claiming that he had been slightly injured in a subway explosion, obtained a coat to cover his almost naked shoulders. He then telephoned news of the disaster to Alexander Berkman and was told to go to Wesheld, N. J., where Leonard Abbott, head of the Ferrer school, was giving a ????. He then dropped out of sight.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Rubin and Acting Captain Jones, who are in charge of the case, say that Murphy, so far as they know, has committed no crime and cannot be brought back to the city if he desires to stay away, but it is thought that Murphy's hands [hold] the secret of the death dealing bomb and its makers.

Says Foes Sent Bomb.

Berkman still insists that the bomb was not made in the Berg flat, but that the three men and Mrs. Chavez were murdered by enemies who sent the bomb to the flat. Berkman and other friends of Caron insist that the dead man always was opposed to violence and never had preached it in any of his public speeches. The fact that his body was perfectly recognizable argues, his friends say, that he was not connected with the bomb plot. Caron was killed by a blow on the back of the head from a piece of flying debris.

Although Caron was violently beaten by the police last May in Union square, he never had threatened violence against them. His strong arguments, those familiar with him contend, have been always for organization. Throughout the entire winter and spring, as the young graduate of the Worcester polytechnic school waxed more and more violent of tongue, he continued to use the same plan. He did not fear violence, but he argued that the time for it had not yet come.

In speech after speech he declared that the anarchists were not strong enough for violence. he used vile language often and had a remarkable flow of invective, much of which was directed at John D. Rockefeller, Jr., but invariably avoided advocacy of violence. he spoke of Marie Ganz, the girl who declared she was going to "shoot Rockefeller like a dog," as a "poor little music hall fool."