Bath Massacre: America's First School Bombing (26 page)

Furthermore, Bath needed a new consolidated school. The original facility was built at a cost of $43,000, with an additional $5,000 for equipment such as desks, books, lab materials, and other necessities. Only $8,000 had been paid back on bonds used to finance the school; another $1,200 had been added to the bill, the result of a loan granted to the school board just one month before. On the day of the bombing, the school board’s coffers held only $188 in its general fund and $65 in the library fund.
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A meeting was held late Thursday in the governor’s office with Rev. Edwin Bishop and William Smith. Both men ran local chapters of the American Red Cross, an ideal body to wrangle donations. It was decided that money for emergency relief would be funneled to the Red Cross; all other funds would go toward rebuilding the school. Green personally offered to pay the funeral expenses of families that could not afford proper burials for their children.
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After the meeting Governor Green issued a proclamation, appealing to the empathy and generosity of his constituency.

It is hardly possible to imagine a more terrible catastrophe than yesterday’s at Bath. There is a little that we can do to lessen the grief of these stricken people. They have our boundless sympathy. While it is not given to us to assuage their grief, we can help in the material problem that confronts this community.

There has been a heavy expense cast upon them that I am sure the good people of Michigan will want to share. Besides the relief that we can give in individual cases, there is the restoration of their school house. The financial obligation on this small community of a new school house at this time is going to be very burdensome as the district is already heavily bonded. To assist in the relief work and to help in the matter of a new school building, I have appointed a committee headed by John W. Haarer of the City National Bank, Lansing, Michigan, to solicit and receive funds for this purpose. I believe that we will all feel better if we make a contribution to these people who have been so terribly stricken.
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Picking Haarer to head up the fund-raising relief committee was a smart choice. A former Michigan state treasurer, Haarer was a connected man now working as a vice president at the City National Bank of Lansing. Someone of his caliber was needed to make order out of the chaos of donations.

Unofficially, as noted in the
Lansing State Journal,
a relief effort began the day after the bombing “when Mrs. Franc D. C. Meyers sent a money donation to a local newspaper office, with an appropriate message asking that Michigan people contribute to the fund.”
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There were no bounds to the kindness and generosity of strangers. The terrible deeds of one man produced a vast outpouring of public sympathy in the form of financial contributions.

Individuals sent checks, money orders, and cash. Businesses took up collections; schoolchildren brought in their nickels and pennies. “Not everyone can give a spectacular sum of money,” said the
Journal,
“but many small contributions will exceed a large one, which will put a better aspect on the fund collected. The main consideration is the amount collected, but the more diversified the sources, the better the fund will seem to the people of Bath, who will then realize that sympathy is widespread and not isolated to a few wealthy people.”
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Contributions were heavy throughout Michigan and surrounding states though donations certainly came from other parts of the country as well as Canada.

Charles Shean, warden at Michigan’s Ionia Prison, announced that a group of inmates—murderers, rapists, and thieves of all sorts—had collected $200.00 for the cause.
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Another institution, the Ingham County Tuberculosis Sanitarium, contributed $17.80, funds raised by children afflicted with the terrible lung disease.
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A pair of benefits was scheduled at movie theaters in nearby Mason and Williamston, with screenings of
Irene,
an early Technicolor feature starring Colleen Moore. The film print was provided free of charge and the local Kiwanis Clubs handled ticket sales with proceeds going to the Bath Relief Fund.
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Floyd Fitzsimmons, a Michigan boxing promoter, gifted with a big heart and a smart sense for good publicity, pledged 25 percent of the gate at the upcoming May 27 Detroit fight between lightweights Phil McGraw and Clicky Clark. (For the record, McGraw won in a decision.)
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On a tonier plane, the Tecla Pearl Corporation, of New York City, respected throughout the world for its elegant jewelry, offered a percentage of all the money it made from May 26 through May 28 at its Fifth Avenue shop. Another New Yorker sent a telegram announcing that he was raising money to help rebuild the school.
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The fund-raising effort received an unexpected but welcome charge from Washington when Senator James J. Couzens, Michigan’s popular Republican representative, heard of the bombing.

Couzens (“pronounced exactly as ‘cousins,’” he liked to say) was Canadian bred but Michigan devoted. Born on August 6, 1872, in Ontario, he moved to Detroit at age eighteen. Couzens worked low-level jobs for railroad and coal firms, saved his money, and invested wisely, becoming an early supporter of Henry Ford’s automobile factory. In 1919, he sold his interest back to the Ford family, netting a phenomenal profit of thirty-five million dollars. Couzens then turned his attention to politics and was elected mayor of Detroit. In 1922, when Senator Truman H. Newberry was pushed into resignation (his fellow members of the U.S. Senate disapproved of Newberry’s extravagant spending in his 1918 campaign against Couzens’ former partner Henry Ford), Couzens was appointed to fill out the term. It was a popular choice; Couzens was easily elected for a full term two years later.
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Although his public life was marked by considerable achievement, the senator’s personal life was shadowed by tragedy. Couzens and his wife Margaret had four children. One later served in his father’s old office as Detroit’s mayor, but two died under tragic circumstances. Their first child passed away as an infant. Their second son, Homer Couzens, died at age fourteen, killed after his Model T Ford—a birthday gift from his father—was wrecked.
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As if to atone for these heartbreaks, Couzens donated considerable sums to children’s causes. His gift of ten million dollars established the Children’s Fund of Michigan, a charity commissioned to help the poor receive free health and dental care. He established a foundation providing loans to the physically handicapped and gave freely to Michigan colleges and universities.
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A man of means with a strong sense of community, Couzens was deeply affected by Bath’s tragedy. On Friday he wired Governor Green. “My sincere sympathies go out to the people of Bath in their great trouble,” read the telegram. “Through you I offer any financial assistance that you desire whether in the interests of the parents or the children who lost their loved ones or in the rebuilding of the school.”
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Initially the governor felt that Senator Couzens should be dealing with Haarer. Governor Green’s original response was to put the senator in touch with “the committee in charge who will communicate with you.” A sense of tact, coupled with political expediency, wisely intervened. Green scrapped his first draft, instead sending Couzens a telegram reading, “Your sympathy and generosity in offering financial assistance incident to catastrophe at Bath is greatly appreciated by all the people of Michigan. You have done a fine thing and we are all proud of you.”
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Behind the scenes Green and Haarer grew worried. Although money poured in for the relief funds, they were concerned that Couzens’s substantial coffers might deter other potential donors. It was a difficult juggling act, balancing political etiquette with the desperate need for money.

Haarer pulled it off with a public statement on Saturday, the day after Couzens’s donation, as noted in the
Lansing State Journal.

Two points were stressed by Mr. Haarer Saturday afternoon. The first is that every contribution is entirely voluntary. There has been no solicitation, and there will be none. It is thought that many Lansing companies and large corporations from which nothing has been received are
waiting for a delegation to arrive with a formal request for money. The only request that anyone in Lansing will ever see will be in daily newspapers. The gifts must be spontaneous and quick for relief is needed, and cash must be forthcoming.

The second point emphasized by the chairman of the fund was that just because Sen. James Couzens telegraphed that he would extend any financial assistance that was thought necessary is no reason for everyone else dropping all plans for contributions. Senator Couzens has never said that he would shoulder the entire load. It was pointed out by Mr. Haarer, who also mentioned that it would be a gesture of very poor grace to assume that because he would be able to do this, if necessary, that therefore, he should be allowed to do so.
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Yet in the wake of Senator Couzens’s offer, the fears of Governor Green and Haarer seemed to be realized. Donations to the Bath Relief Fund slowed over the next month; Haarer pointed to Couzens’s deep-pocketed contribution as the cause.
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As time passed, it was hard to say whether the senator’s generosity had led to the gradual winding down of donations from individuals and corporations.

Taking no chances on bad publicity, Metropolitan Life Insurance authorized its Lansing office to “waive all formalities and pay any . . . claims that might arise out of the Bath school disaster.”
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There was little surprise when commencement exercises for Bath’s high school graduates were canceled. Diplomas would be given to students without formal recognition.
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It would be another fifty years before the class of 1927 would take part in a graduation ceremony.

Sheriff’s deputies and other lawmen were dispatched throughout Bath to conduct a cautionary search. Did Kehoe plant more time bombs? Stores and public buildings, barns and some houses were scoured for anything that had the appearance of a wired alarm clock or errant dynamite.

Nothing was found.
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Kehoe’s package, held overnight at the State Police headquarters, was held outside in a wide-open space. Keeping the box indoors risked damage
and death within another building. No chances were being taken. For all intents and purposes, the box was a live bomb.

Lieutenant Lyle Morse and T. E. Trombla, an inspector with the explosives unit of the Interstate Commerce Commission in Detroit, were assigned to open Kehoe’s package. Trombla knew his stuff; he had already looked over both the school and the Kehoe farm, providing his expertise to investigators.

They approached the crate carefully and gingerly removed the lid. Slowly light spilled inside.