ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the manhunt after the blast in San Francisco on July 22, 1916. The authorities vowed to swiftly bring the "swarthy man" they believed responsible to justice. As the police and investigators scrambled, most of them assumed that the perpetrator(s) must have come from one of the city's poorer sections, particularly its primarily transient "lodging houses", as they were known. The attack, according to an agreeable press, was the work of a "fanatic demon". The national attention on San Francisco surprised few, but especially those across the country skeptical of labor and the left. City officials swiftly alleged a much larger conspiracy. The District Attorney, Charles M. Fickert, typified this mindset and remained convinced that a "nationwide organization perpetrated the outrage". With the arrests of Berkman and Goldman, in New York, a representative from Fickert's office indicated how these arrests had bearing on determining the fate of the Preparedness suspects, given, in their mind, the obvious associations.
