The Man Who Shot J.P. Morgan

 

The Man Who Shot J.P. Morgan ...

and Committed Other Nefarious Acts

by Susan Page Davis



Surprise Giveaway below

On July 2, 1915, Erich Muenter carried a package into the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. A former professor of German at Harvard University and several other colleges, Muenter was angry with Congress and American financiers who were aiding Great Britain in its fight against Germany.

The U.S. Capitol circa 1915

The chamber doors were locked, but Muenter was able to get into the Senate Reception Room. He placed the package, containing three sticks of dynamite, under the Senate’s telephone switchboard. He set the timer for a few minutes to midnight, then hurried to Union Station, where he bought a train ticket to New York.
No one was injured in the blast, as it was late on the Friday night of a holiday weekend. A guard feared the whole dome would collapse, but the damage was largely confined to the Reception Room.

John Pierpont Morgan

After watching from the station as an explosion rocked the Capitol, Muenter boarded his train. Arriving in New York the next morning, he went to J.P. Morgan’s estate on Long Island and gained entry using a false name. Muenter pulled a pistol and shot J. P. Morgan twice during a scuffle.
Some accounts say Morgan himself, though wounded, overpowered Muenter. Others reported that his servants tackled the intruder and the butler hit him over the head. Later it was claimed that Muenter planned to take Mrs. Morgan and other family members hostage until Morgan agreed to stop financing munitions for Britain. He denied being a German sympathizer and said he opposed war in general.

It's said Morgan hated photographers
 and is shown here taking out his wrath on one.

 

Soon it was revealed that Muenter had lived under the false name Frank Holt for the previous decade. Why was he in hiding? Because he murdered his first wife, Leone Krembs, in 1906. His second wife had no idea that the Frank Holt she married was actually Erich Muenter, a fugitive and murderer. He taught German at the University of Oklahoma, Vanderbilt University in Nashville, a small college in Virginia, and Cornell University under the name Frank Holt.

 

Muenter’s plans in opposing American intervention in the Great War hadn’t ended. Police discovered that he had purchased about 200 sticks of dynamite. He told them he had placed a bomb on a ship and that it would sink on Wednesday. In a letter to his second wife, delivered after his arrest, he had named two steamships that would sink that week. They were radioed and thoroughly searched. No explosives were found on the ships he named, but another, the Minehaha, did suffer an explosion on the day he had named. While the sailors fought the fire, the ship steamed to the nearest port.

Photo of Erich Muenter after
his arrest

Muenter attempted suicide in the Mineola Jail. His guard was told to be ready to rush into the cell if he tried it again. For this reason, the guard later claimed, he had left the cell door ajar so that he could reach the prisoner quickly if need be. When the guard was called elsewhere, Muenter left his cell and jumped to his death.


The mysteries surrounding Erich Muenter were never fully solved. For instance, only 134 of the 200 sticks of dynamite he purchased were accounted for, and it was never shown whether he had accomplices in getting the dynamite onto any ships. For some time, “experts” were unsure whether Muenter and Holt were the same man, though acquaintances of Holt identified Muenter as Holt, and both were known to have similar scars. Handwriting experts did not agree on whether or not their writing was similar.
There is much more to this story, and I found it intriguing. I first ran across it while researching my book The Crimson Cipher, set in 1915, prior to the United States’s entry into World War I. Many acts of terrorism were carried out in this country, but we rarely hear about them anymore.

If you would like to enter the drawing for a copy (print or e-book) of The Crimson Cipher, leave a comment below. This story of a young woman employed as a civilian cryptographer for the navy mentions several other attempts to stop America from entering the war or helping the Allies.

Susan Page Davis is the author of more than forty published novels. A history major, she’s always interested in the unusual happenings of the past. She’s a two-time winner
of the Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award, and also a winner of the Carol Award and the Will Rogers Medallion, and a finalist in the WILLA Awards and the More Than Magic Contest. Visit her website at: www.susanpagedavis.com .