Galleanists | |
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Galleanisti | |
![]() Luigi Galleani, c. 1912 | |
Leader | Luigi Galleani |
Dates of operation | 1914 | –1920
Country | United States |
Ideology | Insurrectionary anarchism |
Political position | Far-left |
Notable attacks | Preparedness Day bombing 1919 United States anarchist bombings Wall Street bombing |
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Anarchism in the United States |
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Galleanisti (Italian for Galleanists) are followers or supporters of the insurrectionary anarchist Luigi Galleani, who operated most notably in the United States following his immigration to the country. The vast majority of Galleanisti or Galleanists were similarly poor and working class Italian immigrants or Italian Americans, and especially Italian anarchists and Italian immigrants or Italian-Americans involved in the labor movement of the time. Galleanists remain the primary suspects in a campaign of bombings between 1914 and 1920 in the United States.
Galleani and his group promoted radical anarchism by speeches, newsletters, labor agitation, political protests, secret meetings, and, above all, direct action, often referred to as propaganda of the deed. Many used bombs and other violent means to promote their political position, practices that Galleani actively encouraged but in which he apparently did not participate, except for writing the bomb-making manual La Salute è in voi! .
The Galleanisti were a group of Italian anarchists and radicals in the United States who followed Luigi Galleani and his message of "heroic" violence in the face of capitalist oppression. Galleani was a figurehead in the Italian anarchist movement who, following the violence of the 1913 Paterson silk strike, turned from promoting a general strike to promoting individual acts of violence against capitalist targets. He believed that the spectacle of terrorism would trigger popular revolt. [1] For the part of his followers, Galleani prompted a symbolic war that continued after his deportation and the raid on his newspaper. [2]
The police used La Salute è in voi , Galleani's Italian-language bomb-making handbook, to profile anarchist attackers. Historians later used the handbook as proof of Galleanist responsibility for crimes [1] and detectives referenced it as evidence of Galleanist conspiracy. Its invocation represented a power through threat of violence. [3]
Galleani attracted numerous radical friends and/or followers into the Galleanisti, including Frank Abarno, Gabriella Segata Antolini, Pietro Angelo, Luigi Bacchetti, Mario Buda (also known as "Mike Boda"), Carmine Carbone, Andrea Ciofalo, Ferrucio Coacci, Emilio Coda, Alfredo Conti, Nestor Dondoglio (also known as "Jean Crones"), Roberto Elia, Luigi Falzini, Frank Mandese, Riccardo Orciani, Nicola Recchi, Giuseppe Sberna, Andrea Salsedo, Raffaele Schiavina, Carlo Valdinoci, and, most notably, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. [4]
Galleanists were primary suspects in a campaign of bombings between 1914 and 1920. Instances included mail bombs to business and government officials and the 1920 Wall Street bombing, which killed 38 people. [1] In effect, however, none of the Galleanisti' bombs hit their targets: capitalists, police, or judges. Their casualties were themselves and bystanders. [5] Their bombing methods borrowed from the Italian Black Hand extortion rackets, in which the attacker would write a threat of future violence and place bombs in doorways. These extortionists adapted fireworks, a popular Italian industry, with shrapnel or stolen dynamite from construction jobs. Anarchists, however, lacked the community experience with high explosives and thus overestimated their ability to create working bombs and underestimated their risk. [5]
New York City Galleanisti formed the Bresci Circle in honor of Gaetano Bresci, the anarchist assassin of Umberto I of Italy. [6] By 1914, almost 600 members met regularly at a rundown house in East Harlem. A plot to bomb the Rockefellers increased police interest in the group. [7]
Several months after the 1914 Ludlow Massacre, the type of capitalist violence that incensed Galleanisti, a group of anarchists carried a bomb to the Tarrytown estate of the Ludlow coal mine owner, John D. Rockefeller, in July 1914. They miscalculated, both in failing to trigger the device and since Rockefeller was out of town. [8] A member of the Circle was arrested [7] and the bomb, which they carried to an East Harlem tenement near the Circle's headquarters, exploded, demolishing half of the building and killing three anarchists. [8]
While no group took responsibility for four additional bombings in 1914, the police continued to suspect the Bresci Circle. [8] In October 1914, bombs exploded at St. Patrick's Cathedral and the priest's house at St. Alphonsus Church. [7] There were also attacks on the Bronx County Courthouse and The Tombs, a jail. [8] The newly inaugurated New York City bomb squad [8] sent undercover detectives to infiltrate the group. [7] The plant coordinated a trap for an attempted bombing at St. Patrick's in March 1915 that involved fifty disguised officers and caught Frank Abarno and Carmine Carbone. [9] [10] The anarchists and police differ in their accounts of initial meetings, [10] including Abarno and Carbone accusing the police of entrapment, [11] since the undercover agent supplied the bomb materials and laboratory. [10] Their trial revolved around La Salute è in voi and the defendants' right to read any books of any kind, including bomb-making handbooks. [12] They ultimately received sentences for six to twelve years. [11] The case rekindled fear of easily accessible bomb-making instructions and sensationalism around anarchism. [2]
One Chicago-based Galleanist, chef Nestor Dondoglio, known by the alias Jean Crones, laced soup with arsenic in an attempt to poison some 100 guests, all figures in industry, business, finance, or law, at a banquet in 1916 to honor Archbishop Mundelein. [4] J.B. Murphy, a doctor among the guests, furnished a hastily prepared emetic that induced vomiting. None of the guests died, though many suffered greatly. [4] [13] Police discovered many vials of poison when they searched Dondoglio's rooms, but never apprehended him. Dondoglio left a series of taunts for the police, then fled to the East Coast. [14] He survived in abject poverty, hidden in the homes of other Galleanists, until his death in 1932. [4]
On December 6, 1916, the Galleanist Alfonso Fagotti was arrested for stabbing a policeman during a riot in Boston's North Square. The next day Galleanists exploded a bomb at the Salutation Street station of the Boston harbor police. Fagotti was convicted, imprisoned, and later deported to Italy. [4]
Some historians have also suspected the Galleanists of perpetrating the Preparedness Day bombing in San Francisco on July 22, 1916. [4] No known Galleanists were among those indicted for the attack, but the time bomb's design and construction – a cast steel pipe packed with explosives, a timing mechanism, and metal slugs designed to act as shrapnel and increase casualties – was typical of later Galleanist bombing campaigns, the work of Mario Buda in particular. [4] Additionally, in an ominous apparent reference to the earlier mass poisoning by the Galleanist Nestor Dondoglio, San Francisco police recovered two unsigned letters urging the headwaiter at the St. Francis Hotel to poison soup served to Police Commissioner James Woods, one of the organizers of the Preparedness Day march. [15]
About 60 Galleanisti left for Mexico following the April 1917 American entry into World War I and Galleani's advice to avoid draft registration. Their motives varied from draft evasion to fighting the active Mexican Revolution to preparing for an expected revolution moment in Italy. Morale quickly waned as they created new identities but struggled to find work, communicate between language barriers, contribute to the mexican Revolution, and accept that the Italian revolution would not be forthcoming. Growing increasingly disillusioned, the group split by August, with most traveling north for work and some traveling south for Latin America. [16]
Mario Buda is thought to have constructed [17] [18] [19] the large black powder bomb [20] with an acid "delay" detonator [21] that exploded on November 24, 1917 at a Milwaukee police station. Patrolmen had taken it there after its discovery in a church basement. [17] [18] [22] [23] The blast killed nine policemen and a female civilian, one of the worst incidents of terrorist violence in the United States up to that time. The bomb appeared to have been directed at Reverend August Giuliana, who had recently led a street revival meeting opposed by local anarchists. [24]
In late 1917 and early 1918, bombings occurred in New York City, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Boston, and Milwaukee that were later attributed to Galleanists, but no criminal prosecutions followed. In February 1918, U.S. authorities raided the offices of Cronaca Sovversiva, suppressed publication, and arrested its editors. Although a staff member hid the subscription list, officials gained more than 3,000 names and addresses of subscribers from an issue already prepared for mailing.
On January 17, 1918, a 19-year-old Galleanist, Gabriella Segata Antolini, was arrested for transporting a satchel filled with dynamite, which she had received from Carlo Valdinoci. [25] [26] When questioned, Antolini gave a false name and refused to cooperate with the police; she was imprisoned for fourteen months before being released. [26] While in prison, Antolini met the noted anarchist Emma Goldman, with whom she became friends.
On December 30, 1918, the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania homes of the President of the Chamber of Commerce, the Acting Superintendent of Police, William B. Mills, and Judge Robert von Moschzisker were heavily damaged by explosive bombs filled with metal slugs, an act later attributed to the Galleanist group. [4] A woman standing across the street from Superintendent Mills' home was struck above the eye by a metal slug. [4] At each site leaflets were scattered denouncing "the priests, the exploiters, the judges and police, and the soldiers" whose time was coming to an end. [4]
In response to the violence and social unrest, in October 1918, Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1918, a law that expanded the list of activities that defined someone as an anarchist and justified deportation. In turn, Galleani and his followers distributed a flyer in February 1919 that said: "Deportation will not stop the storm from reaching these shores. The storm is within and very soon will leap and crash and annihilate you in blood and fire... We will dynamite you!" [4] A series of bombings of prominent businessmen and officials followed, including a bomb at the home of Judge von Moschzisker, who in 1908 had sentenced four Italian anarchists to long prison terms. [4]
On February 27, 1919, Galleani spoke to an anarchist gathering in Taunton, Massachusetts. [27] [28] The next night four Galleanists who had attended the rally attempted to place a bomb at the American Woolen Co. mill in nearby Franklin, whose workers were on strike. [27] [2] The bomb exploded prematurely, killing all four of the men. [27] [28] [29] [2]
In late April 1919, approximately 36 dynamite package bombs, all with identical packaging and addressed to a cross-section of politicians, justice officials, and businessmen, including John D. Rockefeller, were sent through the mail. [4] An early lead to the identity of the bombers was revealed when one package bomb was found addressed to a Bureau of Investigation (BOI) field agent, Rayme Weston Finch. [4] Finch had been tracking several Galleanists, including Carlo Valdinoci, and the agent's successes, such as leading the raid on Cronacca Sovversiva and his arrest of Raffaele Schiavina and Andrea Ciafolo, were well known to Galleanist militants. [4] The Galleanists intended their bombs to be delivered on May Day, the international day of communist, anarchist, and socialist revolutionary solidarity. [4] Only a few of the packages were delivered. Because the plotters had neglected to add sufficient postage, one of the packages was discovered, and its distinctive markings enabled the interception of most of them. [4] No one was killed by the mail bombs that were delivered, but a black housekeeper, Ethel Williams, had her hands blown off when she opened a package sent to the home of Senator Thomas W. Hardwick, a sponsor of the Immigration Act of 1918. [4]
In June 1919, the Galleanists managed to explode eight large bombs nearly simultaneously in several different U.S. cities. Targets included the homes of judges, businessmen, a mayor, an immigration inspector, and a church. The new bombs used up to twenty-five pounds of dynamite [30] packed with metal slugs to act as shrapnel, all contained in a cast steel pipe. [4] Among the intended victims were politicians who had endorsed anti-sedition laws and deportation, or judges such as Charles C. Nott, who had sentenced anarchists to long prison terms. [30] [31] The homes of Mayor Harry L. Davis of Cleveland, Judge W.H.S. Thompson, Massachusetts State Representative Leland Powers, and Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, already a previous target of a Galleanist mail bomb, were attacked. None of the officials was killed, but the explosions killed William Boehner, a 70-year-old night watchman, who had stopped to investigate the package left on Judge Nott's doorstep, [30] [31] as well as one of the most wanted Galleanists – Carlo Valdinoci, a former editor of Cronaca Sovversiva, and a close associate of Galleani, who blew himself up as he laid a package bomb at the door of Attorney General Palmer's home. [4] [32] [33]
Though not injured, Palmer and his family were shaken by the blast and their house was largely destroyed. The blast hurled several neighbors from their beds. Either Valdinoci tripped over his bomb or it went off prematurely as he was placing it on Palmer's porch. The police collected his remains over a two-block area. All of the bombs were accompanied by a flyer that read: [4]
War, Class war, and you were the first to wage it under the cover of the powerful institutions you call order, in the darkness of your laws. There will have to be bloodshed; we will not dodge; there will have to be murder: we will kill, because it is necessary; there will have to be destruction; we will destroy to rid the world of your tyrannical institutions.
Police eventually traced a flyer accompanying the bombs to the print shop where Andrea Salsedo, a typesetter, and Roberto Elia, a compositor, were arrested. Salsedo was questioned intensively (some say tortured) by federal agents. After providing some information, he was said to have become increasingly distraught. He died after jumping or being pushed by his compatriot Elia out of the window in the 14th-story room where he was being held. [34] Although Salsedo had admitted he was an anarchist and had printed the flyer, no other arrests for the bombings followed. The police lacked evidence and other Galleanists refused to talk. Elia was deported; according to his lawyer, he turned down an offer to remain in the United States if he would deny his connection to the Galleanists, asserting that his refusal to talk "is my only title of honor". [4]
After Valdinoci's death, Coacci and Recchi appeared to have taken more prominent roles in the group; both were bombmakers. [35] Recchi lost his left hand to a premature explosion, but kept making bombs. [19] Postal workers and police also found bombs before they detonated or failed, including many of the 36 mail bombs in 1919. [5]
With the public and the press clamoring for action, US Attorney General Palmer and other government officials began a series of investigations. They used warrantless wiretaps, reviews of subscription records to radical publications, and other measures to investigate thousands of anarchists, communists, and other radicals. With evidence in hand and after agreement with the Immigration Department, the Justice Department arrested thousands in a series of coordinated police actions known as the "Palmer Raids" and deported several hundred of them under the Anarchist Exclusion Act.
Following Galleani's deportation and the indictment of Sacco and Vanzetti for murder, more bombings occurred in the U.S. Followers of Galleani, especially Buda, were suspected in the Wall Street bombing of 1920, which killed 38 people and severely wounded 143. [36] [3] Historians believe Galleanist Mario Buda to be the bomber, as revenge for the indictment of Sacco and Vanzetti, his friends. Buda possibly had experience with dynamite from work in Michigan. The Wall Street explosion was timed for noon, a busy time of day. An extortionist leaflet found nearby demanded the release of political prisoners. [3]
In 1927, more bombings were attributed to Galleanists, especially as several court and prison officials were targeted, including Webster Thayer, the trial judge in the Sacco-Vanzetti case. [37] and their executioner, Robert Elliott. In 1932, Thayer was a target again; the front of his house was destroyed by a package bomb, and his wife and housekeeper were injured, but he was unscathed. [37] Thayer lived in the Boston University Club until his death, guarded by a private bodyguard and police.
After being deported to Italy, Coacci and Recchi quickly departed for Argentina. There Coacci joined forces with the Argentine anarchist Severino Di Giovanni, another advocate of violence. Di Giovanni was executed for his crimes and Coacci was deported from Argentina. After World War II, he returned and lived there for the rest of his life. Buda returned to Italy shortly after the Wall Street bombing, and lived there until his death in 1963. [38]
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were Italian immigrants and anarchists who were controversially convicted of murdering Alessandro Berardelli and Frederick Parmenter, a guard and a paymaster, during the April 15, 1920, armed robbery of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company in Braintree, Massachusetts, United States. Seven years later, they were executed in the electric chair at Charlestown State Prison.
Propaganda of the deed is specific political direct action meant to be exemplary to others and serve as a catalyst for revolution.
The Wall Street bombing was an act of terrorism on Wall Street at 12:01 pm on Thursday, September 16, 1920. The blast killed 30 people immediately, and another 10 later died of wounds that they sustained in the blast. There were 143 seriously injured, and the total number of injured was in the hundreds.
Luigi Galleani was an Italian insurrectionary anarchist best known for his advocacy of "propaganda of the deed", a strategy of political assassinations and violent attacks.
The Preparedness Day bombing was a bombing in San Francisco, California, United States, on July 22, 1916, of a parade organised by local supporters of the Preparedness Movement which advocated American entry into World War I. During the parade a suitcase bomb was detonated, killing 10 and wounding 40 in the worst terrorist attack in San Francisco's history.
Webster Thayer was a judge of the Superior Court of Massachusetts, best known as the trial judge in the Sacco and Vanzetti case.
A series of bombings were carried out or attempted by Galleanist anarchists from April through June 1919. The targets included anti-immigration politicians, anti-anarchist officials, and prominent businessmen, as well as a journalist and a church. Almost all of the bombs were sent by mail. The bombings were one of the major factors contributing to the First Red Scare. Two people were killed, including one of the bombers, and two injured.
Mario Buda (1883–1963) was an Italian anarchist who was active among the militant American Galleanists in the late 1910’s and best known for being the likely perpetrator of the 1920 Wall Street bombing, which killed 40 people and injured hundreds. Historians implicate Buda in multiple bombings, though the documentary evidence is insufficient to prove his responsibility.
Louise Berger was a Russian Latvian anarchist, a member of the Anarchist Red Cross, and editor of Emma Goldman's Mother Earth Bulletin in New York. Berger became well known outside anarchist circles in 1914 after a premature bomb explosion at her New York City apartment, which killed four persons and destroyed part of the building.
The United States Immigration Act of 1918 was enacted on October 16, 1918. It is also known as the Dillingham-Hardwick Act. It was intended to correct what President Woodrow Wilson's administration considered to be deficiencies in previous laws, in order to enable the government to deport undesirable aliens, specifically anarchists, communists, labor organizers, and similar activists.
Andrea Salsedo was an Italian anarchist whose death caused controversy as it was caused by a suspicious fall from the Justice Department's Bureau of Investigation (BOI) offices on 15 Park Row in New York City. Depending on the source, his death was either a suicide or a homicide committed by detaining officers; nevertheless, the case was widely debated both for its unclear nature and for its consequences on the Bureau and was one of the premises of the Sacco and Vanzetti case.
Insurrectionary anarchism is a revolutionary theory and tendency within the anarchist movement that emphasizes insurrection as a revolutionary practice. It is critical of formal organizations such as labor unions and federations that are based on a political program and periodic congresses. Instead, insurrectionary anarchists advocate informal organization and small affinity group based organization. Insurrectionary anarchists put value in attack, permanent class conflict and a refusal to negotiate or compromise with class enemies.
The Milwaukee Police Department bombing was a November 24, 1917, bomb attack that killed nine members of local law enforcement and a civilian in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States of America. The perpetrators were never caught but are suspected to be an anarchist terrorist cell operating in the United States in the early 20th century. The target was initially an evangelical church in the Third Ward and only killed the police officers when the bomb was taken to the police station by a concerned civilian. The bombing remained the most fatal single event in national law enforcement history for over 80 years until the September 11 attacks.
The Bresci Circle was a group of New York City anarchists who are remembered for a failed bombing attempt on St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1915, in which two of its members were arrested. The group was named after Gaetano Bresci, a New York anarchist who killed King Umberto I of Italy.
La Salute è in voi! was an early 1900s bomb-making handbook associated with the Galleanisti, followers of anarchist Luigi Galleani, particularly in the United States of America. The anonymous authors advised impoverished workers to overcome their despair and commit to individual, revolutionary acts. The Italian-language handbook offered plain directions to give non-technical amateurs the means to build explosives. Though this technical content was already available in encyclopedias, applied chemistry books, and industrial sources, La Salute è in voi wrapped this content within a political manifesto. Its contents included a glossary, basic chemistry training, and safety procedures. Its authors were likely Galleani and his friend Ettore Molinari, a chemist and anarchist.
Gabriella (Ella) Segata Antolini (1899–1984) was an Italian–American anarchist activist.
The Bay View Incident occurred on September 9, 1917, when police clashed with Italian anarchists in the Bay View neighborhood of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A group of Italian anarchists gathered to disrupt a rally held by Reverend Augusto Giuliani, who was the pastor of a local Italian evangelical church. A conflict erupted during the rally and gunfire was exchanged between police and anarchists. Two anarchists were killed and two policemen wounded. Eleven local Italians were later arrested and charged with attempted murder. Two months later, a bomb was found outside of Reverend Giuliani's church, allegedly planted by Galleanists as retaliation for the incident at the rally. It was taken to the local police station by one of Giuliani's parishioners where it detonated, killing nine policemen and one bystander. No one was convicted for the bombing, but the incident precipitated a larger campaign of Galleanist attacks across the United States. The November trial of the eleven Bay View anarchists arrested for September's shooting incident was influenced by sentiment related to the bombing.
Raffaele Schiavina was an Italian anarchist newspaper editor and writer also known by the pseudonyms Max Sartin, and Bruno. From 1928 to 1970 he edited and wrote for the US-based Italian-language anarchist newspaper L’Adunata dei Refrattari.
Carlo Valdinoci was an Italian Galleanist anarchist based in the United States and the publisher of Luigi Galleani's Cronaca Sovversiva. He is believed to have been involved in multiple Galleanist plots.
The Youngstown dynamite plot was a foiled attempt by Galleanist anarchists to move a case of dynamite by train from Steubenville, Ohio, to Chicago, from January 17–18, 1918. The 18-year-old Gabriella "Ella" Antolini Segata, part of the Italian Galleanist circle, was caught by a suspicious train porter. The dynamite was potentially en route to Milwaukee, where anarchists had been squaring off with police in a series of counter-retaliatory attacks stemming from the September 1917 Bay View incident. Antolini Segata was imprisoned for 18 months and the case was a big break for the Bureau of Investigation agent Rayme Weston Finch, who would come to lead investigations against the Galleanists.