9/11 attack, railroad strike: Pages of history, News Journal archives, week of Sept. 11

"Pages of history" features excerpts from The News Journal archives including the Wilmington Morning News, The Morning News and The Evening Journal.

Sept. 12, 2001, The News Journal

Bush vows retaliation after hijacked planes destroy World Trade Center, set Pentagon ablaze

In the most devastating terrorist onslaught ever waged against the United States, knife-wielding hijackers crashed two airliners into the World Trade Center on Tuesday, toppling its twin 110-story towers.

The deadly calamity was witnessed on televisions across the world as another plane slammed into the Pentagon, and a fourth crashed outside Pittsburgh.

“Today, our nation saw evil,” President Bush said in an address to the nation Tuesday night. He said thousands of lives were “suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror.”

Said Adm. Robert J. Nater, commander of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet: “We have been attacked like we haven’t since Pearl Harbor.”

Establishing a death toll could take weeks….

No one took responsibility for the attacks that rocked the seats of finance and government. But federal authorities identified Osama bin Laden, who has been given asylum by Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers, as the prime suspect….

For the first time, the nation’s aviation system was completely shut down as officials considered the frightening flaws that had been exposed in security procedures. Financial markets were closed, too.

Top leaders of Congress were led to an undisclosed location, as were key officials of the Bush administration….

Evacuations were ordered at the tallest skyscrapers in several cities, and high-profile tourist attractions closed: Walt Disney World, Mount Rushmore, Seattle’s Space Needle and the Gateway Arch in St. Louis….

More:2,977 church bell tolls and other ways Delawareans marked the 20th anniversary of 9/11

Sept. 13, 1922, The Evening Journal

Men confess blowing up 14th Street bridge

Four men are locked up at the Wilmington Police Station, guarded by extra officers, and will be arraigned in the Municipal Court tomorrow morning on the charge of having blown up the 14th Street bridge of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company Aug. 31.

The men, who are said to have made complete confessions of the crime under oath before a notary public, are former employees of the Todd’s Cut shops of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company and went on strike July 1….

In less than half an hour after the explosion, every available detective of the local bureau was put on the job of solving the crime as well as the best detectives the Pennsylvania Railroad had on its staff and trained Pinkerton men….

The first man to get any definite evidence was Detective Sutton of the local detective bureau. Keeping his own counsel, he quietly worked last week, part of the time disguised in such a manner that even his best friends would not have recognized him….

Sunday morning, Sutton conducted Captain Benson to a place near the 11th Street bridge, and, after hiding themselves, the officers lay in wait for the men expected. They did not wait long nor was it long before they overheard the whole story of the explosion and the admission of one man that he had placed the dynamite under the track and had lighted the fuse that caused the explosion….

Recent railroad newsCar hit by CSX train on tracks near UD leaves 2 with 'life-threatening' injuries: Police

Sept. 15, 1994, The News Journal

Baseball goes down looking; Owners cancel rest of season, Series

Acting commissioner Bud Selig canceled the rest of the 1994 Major League Baseball season Wednesday, including playoffs and World Series amid the likelihood that the continuing labor dispute will jeopardize the 1995 season as well.

It is the first time since 1904 that the World Series will not be played.

Selig, owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, said in a news conference at Milwaukee County Stadium that the failure to reach a collective bargaining agreement and the 34-day strike by the MLB Players Association had made it impossible to resume play without substantial conditioning time for the players.

“We ran out of ground,” Selig said. “It’s tragic, but I wasn’t going to allow the most important games of the season to become a farce.”

Donald Fehr, executive director of the players’ union, said it was all part of the owners’ plan to break the union through unilateral implementation of their salary-cap proposal….

Wilmington Trust to keep expanding

Delaware will remain a banking center under a new federal bank law. And its dominant bank will keep spreading into other states, its top executives said Wednesday.

The interstate banking law, which cleared Congress Tuesday and awaits President Clinton’s signature, should help big lenders cut costs and grab new markets by merging local banks into multistate megabanks.

But the law will have “not much of an impact” locally, Wilmington Trust Corp. chairman Leonard W. Quill told a luncheon crowd of 50 investment analysts and bank officers at the Grand Opera House.

Liberal state laws allow Delaware lenders to run lucrative investment, insurance, incorporation and credit card businesses restricted or denied in other states.

Since 1981, out-of-state companies have bought at least six Delaware retail banks invested with those special powers. And they have opened more than 20 credit card and corporate service banks, creating 15,000 new jobs….

For all of its competitors, Wilmington Trust holds around 40 percent of Delaware’s retail bank deposits – a dominance unmatched by any other bank in the continental United States….

Reach reporter Ben Mace at rmace@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: News Journal archives 9/11 attack, railroad strike, no World Series