| OCR Text |
Show WOULD-BE HERO PUIS FUSE H OFFICES, j Watchman Seeks Revard for ! Finding Explosive in Agricultural Agri-cultural Building. CONFESSES HIS GUILT Says He Wanted to Frighten Secretary Houston and j Earn Promotion. By International Now s Service. WASHINGTON, Juuo 2. After placing plac-ing four sticks of dynamite in a basement base-ment corridor of the main oiliee build-in build-in fj of tho dopartmeut of agriculture and then pretending ho had discovered j the explosive and risked his own life j to extinguish the sputtering fuse just in timo to prevent the disaster, Daniel j . Jaueh, a watchman, admitted to tho po-! I lice tonight that he had hoped to gaini j recognition as a hero and bo rewarded by promotion. Had the dynamite exploded the building; build-ing; ivould have crumbled to ruins and over 200 clerks and government employees em-ployees would probably have perished or have been seriously injured. The police are inclined to doubt whether Jauch actually planned to blow up the buildiug- or merely wanted to frighten the employees and head otli-cials otli-cials and pose before them as the man who had prevented a calamity. When the bundle of dynamite was discovered, after the watchman had sounded the alarm, a fuse had burned nearly its entire en-tire length and gone out. Whether the fuse burned out accidentally or was extinguished by the watchman in a moment of repentance, the police have not been able to determine. Planned Little Drama. Jauch declares he did not liht the fuse after he had deposited the dynamite dyna-mite in the building. He burned the fuse dowu to the end Monday while alone in his room, he said, and then ear-1 ear-1 ried the explosive to tho office building and arranged the stage setting for the little drama he had plannod to play. Jauch has been employed as a watchman watch-man at the main office building for the! past live years. Ho patrols tne corri-j dors and offices, his hours being from 3 o'clock in the afternoon until Hi o'clock at night. He is 42 years of l age and single. Monday he returned , from a two-weeks vacation in Spring-' Spring-' field, Ohio, where he visited his mother and sister. Shortly after 3 o 'cloek f this after- noon Jauch came tearing into the of-j fiee of Beverly L. Galloway, assistant ; secretary of the department of agri-i culture, "shouting that the building was about to be blown to the skies, and : warning the clerks to flee for their I i lives. Apparently Wildly Excited- The man appeared to be laboring under un-der intense excitement. A number of government employees surrounded him, each demanding an explanation, but it was several minutes before the 'watchman 'watch-man was able to speak coherently. ' ' What 's the trouble? ' demanded Andrew A. Ormsby, assistant chief clerk, elbowing his way through the; crowd. I "I found a bundle of dynamite in: the basement," Jauch said when he i became more composed. " There was j a fuse attached. It was lighted, but! I guess I put out the fire all right. See, here is where I burned my fin- j gers. M He held out his blackened ; hands for inspection, but no one stopped! to look. A general rush was made for the basement with Assistant Secretary Gallowav in the lead. Directly under the assistant secretary's office, in a dark corner on the cement j floor, was found the dynamite. Four , sticks, eight Inches In length, were tied together with heavy cord and wrapped In oil paper. A fuse that had burned almost al-most to the very cap attached to the bundle could be seen. "You found tha fuse burning"?" Ormsby as kd the watchman, Jauch having followed fol-lowed the crowd to the basement. Gets Story Twisted. The watchman related the story a 1 second and third time. FinaJIy, one of the clerks asked the watchman what he was doing In that part of the building at su'-h an early hour In the afternoon. "I was on my way to the guardroom," guard-room," he replied. "But the guardroom Is at the other end of the building," he was told. Jauch explained that the guardroom (Continued, on Page Two.) WOULD-BE HERO PUTS FUSE IB OFFICES (Continued from Page One.) had been removed while he was awav on his vacation and that he did not know of its new location. The man became almost hysterical under un-der further, questioning, so the police were notified. Jauch was taken to th .first precinct station and placed in a cell for an hour. After he had regained some , of his composure Captain Peck began to 1 interrogate the man. "I put the dynamite there mvself." Jauch finally admitted to Captain "Peck. "I realize now it was a foolish thing- to do. but at the time I thought I could get away with this stunt. Resented His Treatment. "You see," Jauch continued, "thev haven t been treating me just right over there. I ve been watchman now for five years and I've seen one man after another an-other promoted right over my head. I've asked to be promoted time and time again and I never received any satisfaction. satis-faction. "A few months ago Acting Lieutenant Hull was put in charge over my division and Hull has been nagging at me constantly. con-stantly. I thought I'd like to do something some-thing just to get even with him. He was always making it hot for me and there were others who had tt in for me." Captain Peck asked the watchman if he had ever been confined to a hospital for the Insane, or If he had ever be'en t rea ted for any m e n ta 1 d i so rd e r. The man hotly resented the question and 'emphatically 'em-phatically denied that he or anv of his family, so far as he knew, suffered from mental derangement. "I'll tell you the whole truth about the thing," he continued. "When I went away on my vacation this time I got to thinking about how they had been treating treat-ing me and I figured out that perhaps I might be able to cook up some scheme and win a promotion. I wanted to show the other watchmen that I wasn't eo slow as they thought. "I bought this dynamite in Springfield. I got it at a hardware store there. I i j told the man I wanted the dvnamite to blow up some old tree stumps on the farm. I brought the dynamite with me to Washington. Thought He Was Smart. "I had the dynamite prepared, readv for use. Monday afternoon I was alone in my room, so I took the dvnamite out and lighted the fuse. I waited until it burned down almost to the end and then I doused it in a glass of water. I figured that If I left this package of dynamite in the building and then told the secretary I had found it there, with the fuse lighted, maybe I'd get a better job. "It was kind of a foolish thing to do. wasn't it? Of course the scheme seemed right clever for a time. 1 was patting myself on the back and thinking how smart I was to think it up all uy myself." my-self." Jauch talked quite freely with the police officials and newspapermen who came to the cell room to visit him. He smoked cigarettes incessantly and did not appear to be much concerned with the outcome of his case. "Why, I wouldn't hurt a fly," he said, and laughed. "I never had the least intention in-tention of blowing up anyone. Don't get that idea. I just wanted to scare 'em j and I wanted to be promoted, that's all." |
