by Richard van Pelt, WWI Correspondent

The Oregon Statesman’s front page reports that police foiled a terrorist threat to bomb St. Patrick’s cathedral:

DYNAMITE PLOT IS DISCOVERED BY N.Y. POLICE
Anarchists Planned to Terrorize City by Assassinations and Explosions.
CATHEDRAL IS SAVED
Detective Prevents Bomb Explosion in St. Patrick’s.
Two “Reds” Taken Into Custody – Abarno Confesses to Campaign Which Included slaying of Rockefellers, Vanderbilts and Carnegie and Looting of Banks.

New York, March 2. – The discovery of an anarchistic plot involving the assassination of Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller and his son and other wealthy men, and the organization of a reign of terror and looting in this city, was announced by the police today after they had arrested under dramatic circumstances, a man who had just placed two bombs in St. Patrick’s cathedral where several hundred persons were worshiping.

Bobbing and weaving through the complexities of contraband, embargoes and blockades challenged efforts to provide relief to non-combatants, and Germany announced further restrictions in this article from the Oregon Statesman:

HAMPERS RELIEF
Germany to Grant No More Safe Conducts.
Permit for Relief Ships to Return to U.S. Contingent On Taking Shetland Island Route.

March 2. – The German government has determined not to grant any more safe conducts for American relief ships to touch at English ports for coal on the homeward voyage, according to advices received here. It also is reported that a permit for the return voyage to the United States will be given only to vessels which take the course north of the Shetland islands.

It is considered in influential circles in Holland that the efforts of the American commission of relief to save the civilian population of Belgium from starvation are thus threatened with immediate danger, as Rotterdam is the only practicable port through which the Belgians can be fed, and it is argued that the relief ships must be able to proceed to and from that port by the direct route with a safe conduct under the commission’s flag, or the work of relief will be absolutely hopeless for practical reasons.