15th October 1914, New York
Luigi Galleani, was planning, he had been sitting outside the Hotel Astor watching a stream of businessmen from the New York Merchants Association leaving a luncheon. Galleani stood and followed two of these plutocrats who were speaking loudly “he was right of course” said the first, a cadaverous figure in a pinstripe suit, “yes, we have a great opportunity here, with the British, French and Germans all busy slaughtering each other our exports will have no competition” replied the second, a piggish man, his jowls were flapping with delight. “Yes, I thought what he said about the Federal Reserve allowing discounts on foreign bills was interesting as well”, “Banking isn’t my thing as you know but all the big banks are all for it, yes they are busy buying bonds from Paris and Moscow” “the South Americans will be screaming for capital, with London disrupted this is America’s chance”. Galleani was sickened all he heard with this esoteric talk of bonds and debt was the capitalist class plotting how to enslave more people into their debt driven schemes.
These meetings of the Merchants Association were an ideal target, they always met at lunchtime and with a membership roll in the thousands, nearly a thousand members should be expected to attend each meeting. The Association was to have an extra meeting in two weeks’ time, this one was to discuss the uptick in labor disputes, and so people from the State government and representatives of both the Pinkerton Agency and Baldwin Felts were expected to be there.
Galleani had a number of ideas on how he might strike this target, he would need to source more explosives, but he had contacts with miners and quarrymen, so that shouldn’t be an issue. Getting the explosives into the building would be a bit more of a challenge but again the plutocratic system never considered the vulnerability inherent in their system of systematic exploitation. There would be an exploited member of the proletariat happy to assist with another blow at his oppressors. With only two weeks to carry out the plan, Galleani would need to move quickly, but since the success in Montana, he and his team were ready to stage another spectacular blow against the booted foot of oppression.
The manhunt hadn’t died down in Montana, police, BOI agents, Secret Service and various Pinkertons were swarming all over the state. Their actions were proving to be completely counterproductive; their ineptitude and heavy-handedness was going to be highly effective recruiting sergeant for the revolution. Mass arrests had taken place of various union members and the interrogations had been brutal even by the standards of frontier justice. Galleani wanted his campaign to carry on, he wouldn’t be able to remain a sword of workers if he was strapped into an electric chair. Therefore he would need to would try to make sure that this strike didn’t look anything like the last one, no truck bombs this time, he would have to pick a different method.