Log in

View Full Version : School bombing, 45 dead, including 38 children



Libertytree
17th December 2012, 06:39 PM
Mass school bombing in 1927 puts Sandy Hook in context (http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2012/12/mass-school-bombing-in-1927-puts-sandy-hook-in-context/) Posted 6 hours, 42 minutes ago.
By Scott Bomboy (http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/author/scott-bomboy)


Subscribe (http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2012/12/mass-school-bombing-in-1927-puts-sandy-hook-in-context/feed/)



The Sandy Hook tragedy in Connecticut has horrified Americans and in some cases, opened up wounds from a similar disaster in 1927 that have yet to heal.
http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Bath_School_Disaster-458x300.jpgAftermath of the Bath disaster. Source: Wikimedia Commons.



On Friday, a deranged gunman killed himself and 26 other people at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. The dead included 20 students, and the act sparked mass mourning and outrage worldwide.


The debate over the Sandy Hook tragedy has also led to discussions about gun control, mental illness, and the media’s role in covering such a horrific story.
In particular, the debate over assault weapons and the Second Amendment will be brought to the forefront in 2013. President Barack Obama pretty much said so at a public memorial event on Sunday night.


But what if such a terrible even happened in a different time? How would people have reacted, and would there be such a public outrage or intense debate about constitutional issues?
On May 18, 1927, a part-time caretaker at a school in Bath, Michigan, killed 45 people, including 38 children, when he blew up a school and then killed himself, along with two first responders at the scene. Another 58 people were wounded.


The 38 children were in grades three through six.


The Bath School Bombing faded quickly from history. What media there was in 1927 left the town after about a week, since aviator Charles Lindbergh had started on his flight to Europe.
However, there are parallels between the Sandy Hook and Bath disasters that are worth discussing.
The killer in the Bath School Bombing, Andrew Kehoe, spent months placing explosives inside the school. He used his job as a handyman to wire together two types of explosives, in an elaborate plan to bring down the building while it was occupied with students and teachers.


Kehoe also rigged his car with explosives and shrapnel, as well as his house.
Once Kehoe blew up his own house, he used a detonator to blow up part of the school. School Superintendent Emory Huyck performed heroically, rescuing children and adults from the disaster scene. After about 30 minutes, Kehoe drove up to Huyck and motioned him over to his truck.
Kehoe then blew up the truck, killing himself, Hucyk, and several others, including a child who survived the first blast.


Investigators later found more than 500 pounds of unexploded dynamite under the school. Kehoe had intended to kill hundreds of people, mostly students, but his wiring was faulty.
Kehoe had financial problems and was upset about having to pay taxes. He had killed his own wife before blowing up his house.


But the parallels to Sandy Hook are not in the method and motivation behind Kehoe’s madness. They come from the stories of heroism and compassion.
Bath was a small town, so all pitched in to clear the rubble, find the victims, and offer assistance. Help streamed in from the neighboring town of Lansing.
Michigan’s governor arrived that afternoon and helped to cart away the rubble. During the rescue efforts, the Michigan State Police had to disarm the huge cache of explosives that never went off.
In the days that followed, contemporary accounts said more than 50,000 people (http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/%7Ebauerle/ccrn26e.txt) descended on Bath, either to offer help or to see the disaster scene.


“Relief workers could not get in or out of the village unless accompanied by motorcycle policemen and even then they made slow time,” said one newspaper account.
In the end, the state set up a relief fund for the school, which received numerous public and private donations. One politician wrote a personal check (http://daggy.name/tbsd/tbsdmp-d.htm) for $75,000.
And the population of Bath, once the outsiders left, went back to farming and grieved. Unlike today, there were no 24-hour TV news cameras remaining on the scene or talk shows debating the merits of the Second Amendment.


But the wounds from the Bath School Bombing followed the survivors for generations. In recent years, people who were in the building were opening up about their experiences, as they reached their 90s.


In 2009, National Public Radio spoke with two survivors (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103186662) and the daughter of a third.

“You wouldn’t think a church member could do such a thing, would you?” said a 97-year-old man, Willis Cressman. “He was the caretaker of the school. In fact, I saw him that morning. He was working on a door, and he smiled at us as we walked in.

(http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2012/12/president-obama-says-he-won%E2%80%99t-prosecute-pot-smokers/)Cressman’s niece noted something that will also follow the Sandy Hook survivors throughout their lives.

“Years later, we still look at ourselves as survivors. So you look after one another differently, because you know that the absolute unthinkable can happen, even going to school,” said Johanna Cushman-Balzer.


The Bath disaster hadn’t been entirely forgotten (http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2012/0724/America-s-deadliest-school-violence-Not-Columbine-but-Bath-Mich.-in-1927) in recent years.
In July, The Christian Science Monitor spoke with author Arnie Bernstein, who spoke extensively with Bath survivors when he wrote his book, Bath Massacre: America’s First School Bombing.
“When I came in, it had been eight decades, and nobody had talked about it. It was just this scar on the land,” Bernstein said. He also spoke with a 99-year-old woman who wanted to describe what happened to her young brother, who was killed in the explosion, so other generations could understand.
“Out of that horror, out of the one or two people who commit these kinds of crimes, comes the good, the tremendous good that you see in the wake of these things. Our humanity comes through in the face of evil and the inexplicable,” Bernstein told the Monitor.
According to a detailed website about the Bath disaster (http://daggy.name/tbsd/index.htm), only 13 survivors were alive as of October 2012.

Glass
17th December 2012, 06:47 PM
wow, now there is a physco. What pills was he on?

That RP quote is very similar to the George Orwell quote.

Silver Rocket Bitches!
18th December 2012, 10:15 AM
It's sad we only remember the Bath massacre when we need it to overshadow a more recent massacre.


Those tiny hands are now at rest,
Those rosy checks we have caressed,
The moist red lips are now so still,
The babes we loved and alwavs will.No more we'll scold them for a fault,
For frivolous things that they have bought;
No more will hear that childish voice,
That made our parent hearts rejoice.
We didn't think when they left home,
No more those tiny feet would roam.
We didn't think that last good-bye
Would linger till we met on high.
The loving hearts that now are quiet,
Their mischievous ways that caused a riot,
The way their clear eyes looked at us,
When we would scold and say they must.
The drums, the bats, and all the balls,
Playthings hung on every wall:
The dog that waits them at the gate,
No more will meet him when he's late.
No more we'll kiss him in the morn.
Think of the time when he was born.
How proud our hearts when Doc did say,
Let's see how much the new babe weighs?
Oh God, it seems so hard to let them go,
But still you must want them, we know.
We say, "God's will be done,"
And know they're gone with the setting sun.
Help those dear mothers and fathers now so sad,
When it seems they've lost everything they had.
Cheer them, dear Father, in your own way,
And show them the light to a brighter day.
Help them look up and realize
They've just begun a brighter life.
They'll help us from their own bright sphere,
And cheer us ever year by year.
And when we too will leave this earth,
And have a new world hail our birth,
They'll be waiting there to welcome us,
And say through life, "In God We Trust."

- THE SCHOOLHOUSE BLAST
Horror and emotional stress, roused by the Bath disaster Wednesday, resulted in the following verse written by Mrs. Owen Abbey, 601 N. Walnut Street. The poem was written through spiritual guidance, according to Mrs. Abbey: