Mail bomb sent to Times publisher

Sept. 16, 1913: Gen. Harrison Gray Otis, publisher of The Times, was sitting at a table in the den of his Wilshire Boulevard home, which he called “the Bivouac,” when his servant brought in the morning’s mail, The Times reported.

The servant “tore a string from the little package and started to unwrap it,” the newspaper said. Then he stopped and said, “It’s dynamite!”

Otis at first laughed off the warning, then unwrapped the package a little more “and uncovered the protruding ends of what appeared to be a bomb. He phoned the police office,” The Times said.

The Police Department’s powder expert examined the device, made of a stick of dynamite, percussion caps, fuses, matches and sandpaper.

“The infernal machine was crudely constructed, yet it was so accurately arranged and with such demoniacal care that friction at either end would have caused a terrific explosion,” the newspaper said.