The Worst School Massacre in U.S. History

From the New York Times:

The insane revenge of a man maddened by financial worries
brought death to at least thirty-three children today when the Consolidated
School in this little village of 300 souls, eight miles north-east of Lansing,
was dynamited just after the morning bell had called the classes together.  
Forty-one dead have been identified and one is still unknown.

When all was said and done, the Bath School Disaster had taken 45 lives.  This was indisputably the worst attack on a school in U.S. history.

The attacker did not use guns in this situation, he used dynamite.  It didn't matter what the tool was, the result was dozens of innocent people dead.  The attacker was not an immigrant, but if he was it wouldn't have made a difference.

In the case of the Bath School Disaster, the attacker was clearly having problems.  From the Clinton County Republican News:

The story of Kehoe's crime is almost unbelievable.  He had strongly opposed the Consolidated school from the beginning.  He contended that such an educational system was too expensive and had enough supporters in this belief to get himself elected a member of the school board.  He then fought for a 10-grade instead of a 12-grade school, but was overruled.  He became more bitter than ever and is said to have threatened to get even with the community.

Last year after the death of Maud Detluff, township clerk, he was appointed to fill the vacancy and was a candidate for the office at the election last spring.  He was defeated and this added to his rage against his fellow townsmen.  The owner of a fine farm, he neglected to work it and was forced to secure a mortgage.  Just recently the mortgage was foreclosed and Kehoe swore that high school taxes cost his [sic] his farm.

Andrew Kehoe clearly had mental illness.  No sane person would be willing to attempt to murder a single individual; much less a school full of children.  Dangerous people like this should not be in our society, and they should be treated for their illnesses and society should be protected from them.

I don't know why Cho Seung-Hui did what he did.  We may never know.  What is clear though, is that there is never any valid reason for murder.  We can debate the validity of gun control laws, the reaction of the local police, whether Obama or Edwards politicized it the right way, whether Bush politicized it the wrong way.  All that we know is that yet again, many innocent lives were taken for no good reason by an insane maniac.

The common thread in both of these cases is that the person doing the murdering is insane.  Many crimes committed on a daily basis are the result of mental illness.  Our society has ignored this elephant in the room for too long.  The Bath Disaster occurred because of a mentally ill man.  The Columbine shootings occurred because of mentally ill kids.  The murders of yesterday occurred because of mental illness.  Our nation needs to have a serious dialogue about treating mental illnesses in order to prevent attacks like these.  If we can help people move away from committing desperate acts of violence, and protect society by removing dangerous people from it, we will minimize the number of these incidents in the future.

•  Thanks for the fascinating history but

  I'm not sure we should be jumping to any conclusions here (like blaming the mentally ill).

  by ChuyHChrist on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 09:14:59 AM PDT

  •  Difference...

    No one is blaming "the mentally ill."

    They are pointing out that rational people do not resort to mass murder.

    Mentally ill persons commit these crimes. I hardly think that statement 'stigmatizes' the mentally ill community.

    by kmiddle on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 09:24:30 AM PDT

    •  Correct

      If anything, the "action item" I would want people to come up with after reading this diary is how we can better help those who are mentally ill get whatever treatment is available in order to prevent this sort of attack, and when necessary to have the social structures in place to keep dangerous mentally ill people from being able to harm others.  I don't want to harm the mental ill or demonize them, I want to help them.

      by theboz on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 09:39:17 AM PDT

      •  Yep...agree completely.

        The "how" is the big sticking point. It's way too soon to know whether this student had friends, support mechanisms, awareness of campus mental health services, enough self-awareness to realize that he wasn't mentating appropriately, or whether any of his friends, colleagues, dorm-mates, had any concerns.

        Unfortunately, I think the answer to this type of situation is that there is no answer. The fact that he committed suicide suggests that he had made the decision to do so prior to entering the second building.

        And just like terrorism, it is almost impossible to prevent someone who is willing to kill themselves from committing a criminal act.

        It's all very sad.

        by kmiddle on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 09:50:35 AM PDT

    •  similarly,

      there's the case of Charles Whitman (who killed 15 people and wounded 31 others), who was later found to have a brain tumor that was most likely pressing against his amygdala.

      by pb on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 09:57:17 AM PDT

  •  Not mentally ill. He was an anti-tax activist.

    That's the frame.
    That Va Tech is the worst school massacre since the attack on the Bath school BY AN ANTI TAX ACTIVIST.
    If Norquist wants to drown the government in a bathtub, we can call him a terrorist.

    by LunkHead on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 09:46:29 AM PDT

    •  Aren't anti-tax activists mentally ill?

      It could be determined that it takes a sociopath to not understand the purpose of society and understand that we need to work together in a democratic fashion, funded by taxes.

      by theboz on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 09:55:12 AM PDT

      •  C=MI

        (conservitasm=mental illness)

        by LunkHead on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 10:25:12 AM PDT

      •  Your point is understood and valid.

        However, after watching a Democracy Now! broadcast last week which stated that 40% of our tax dollars funds the military/industrial complex thereby enabling an ill-concieved and poorly planned war-machine, one could make the argument that the true sociopaths are the ones who are paying their taxes and funding this insanity!

        Not trying to be confrontational here... just something I'm thinking about on Tax Day today.

        by eyes of the world on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 10:29:43 AM PDT

        •  You're absolutely right

          It's just that in my post I was mostly referring to the purpose of taxation as a way of funding doing good for the public.  The reality of how our taxes are spent today is a horrible thing that should be changed.  It's just that taxes themselves aren't evil, but they can be spent to do evil instead of good.

          by theboz on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 10:53:37 AM PDT

•  Absolutely

  There's another diary somewhere on here today pointing out that we need to not take an either/or approach - we need to attend to both mental illness, domestic violence issues (which may have set off this rampage), as well as the too-easy availability of guns.

  It's not about whether guns kill people or whether people kill people - our focus must be on both guns and people.

  by eugene on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 09:16:12 AM PDT

•  part of that illness is the gun culture

  dynamite bombs whateva. we're created a culture where violence is a solution. its part of what makes the mental illness. lets not try to pretend, as so many have, that the essence of these weapons does not invade the pyche.

  by AmericanHope on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 09:18:34 AM PDT

  •  1927 was a far cry from 2007.

    by ChuyHChrist on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 09:19:46 AM PDT

    •  and things have gotten worse

      i think we can agree on that.

      by AmericanHope on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 09:23:54 AM PDT

      •  Not sure what "things have gotten worse" means

        For example, in the 1920s, the NAACP had to hang flags from the windows of its New York offices quite often to protest lynchings that were taking place on a regular basis in the South.

        Every time has its challenges and its violence.

        by ChuyHChrist on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 09:30:01 AM PDT

        •  more people die of guns today than in 1927

          things have gotten worse.

          by AmericanHope on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 09:30:41 AM PDT

          •  Not necessarily true

            You have to leave out the "guns" part and look at murder rates in general.  Whether a person is killed with a gun, knife, poison, bombs, or blunt object, I'd probably guess that the murder rates were comparable to what they are today.  In fact one of the points I wanted to make in referencing the Bath Disaster is that what happened at Virginia Tech is not an isolated incident, and that we are not in a unique time in history with relation to violent crime.  This nation has always been full of violence.  The nation was founded upon violence and the land was gained through violence.  Through some perspectives, there is probably less violence today than throughout this nation's history.

            by theboz on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 09:45:14 AM PDT

            •  Murder rates, not attempted murder rates

              are what is lower. There's a difference.
              Concluding we are no more violent is like concluding bacteria became more polite when those death rates declined and not noting the role of antibiotics.

              Violence has inreased but lethality of the violence has decreased.

              This journal article based on US data notes

              They found that while the murder rate had changed little from a 1931 baseline figure, assaults had increased. The aggravated assault rate was, by 1997, almost 750% higher than the baseline figure.

              The Viet Nam war was good for improving trauma care. What would have added to the homicide rate becomes an aggravated assault.

              Murder rates would be up to five times higher than they are but for medical developments over the past 40 years.

              According to new research, doctors are saving the lives of thousands of victims of attack who four decades ago would have died and become murder statistics.

              Numbers alone don't tell the story.

              by joynow on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 11:09:23 AM PDT

          •  I haven't seen stats that go back that far

            Homicide rates are lower, though:

            http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/...

            Most causes of death have been trending downward, as far back as some of this data allows:

            http://www.infoplease.com/...

            http://www.infoplease.com/...

            http://www.infoplease.com/...

            by cappy on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 09:51:54 AM PDT

          •  Yet in 1927...

            ...you could literally walk into your local hardware store (or order through the mail) a fully-automatic machine gun.  Seriously.  And if anything, a higher percentage of American homes had guns in them than today.

            The conclusion has to be that it isn't just the guns.  Something else has gone horribly wrong.

            by Shadan7 on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 10:09:39 AM PDT

  •  I disagree - big time

    I lean toward gun-control and am not happy with much of the culture of violence in movies, video games etc. But the violence does not make the mental illness!

    I have worked with quite enough mentally ill individuals to know that their poor damaged minds latch onto a wide range of delusional thoughts. It seems to be their attempt to explain for themselves the voices or visions or other intrusions into their perception of the world. UFO's, JFK, the CIA, hospitals, religion; all kinds of things.

    by Catte Nappe on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 09:56:58 AM PDT

•  Thanks for the history

  Don't see much of a lesson, other than the more things change, the more they remain the same.

  by roguetrader2000 on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 09:22:09 AM PDT

  •  That's basically it

    Unfortunately, no real lesson.

    by theboz on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 09:36:03 AM PDT

•  When I was a freshman at Oregon State,

  a girl was stabbed to death in her dorm room across campus..it took three months to find the kid who did it--he lived one floor above her and had ultimately volunteered to be an escort for the program that was set up to walk people to their evening classes. I tell ya, I was just about paralyzed with fear..taking your laundry to the basement, or walking to the bathroom at night was terrifying..eventually they put big burly security guards, with dogs, in each of the dorms to patrol the halls at night. That made me feel a little better..and then there was another attack on a dance team girl, only that turned out to be her faking it to get attention, and the rumors were rampant. One was that a single piano wire had been stolen from a fraternaty, so then we were all freaked out about someone garroting us on our way to class. The police apparently had a pretty good idea who the killer was, but it took awhile to piece together enough evidence to arrest him. I remember he got just 10 years in prison...

  My heart goes out, of course, to the victims and their families and friends...but a special prayer for those who will live with the images in their minds for years to come.

  by fireflynw on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 09:30:55 AM PDT

•  I had never heard of this before

  Thank you for the diary.  What a terrible, hideous, sick person.  

  by Dizzy on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 09:34:31 AM PDT

•  good diary

  I live about 15 m away from Bath and have relatives in the community. It's something I was told about when I was a kid many years ago, when it was still fairly fresh in people's minds. I've since been to the memorial there. It's pretty stark. Maybe after the Va Tech situation has been fully investigated we can find some analogies between the situations, but I don't see a lot of them now. It does seem the media has forgotten about Bath, though. I've seen CNN and Fox both refer to the events in VA as the biggest massacre, which isn't true. If anything, this event has brought back a lot of memories about Bath and it's aftermath.

  by dougymi on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 12:23:13 PM PDT