Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 259, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 November 1917 — PATRIOT FIRST, THEN A WIFE [ARTICLE]

PATRIOT FIRST, THEN A WIFE

SAYS MRS. ELMER DWIGGINS, WHO AIDS IN CAPTURE OF HER HUSBAND. Elmer Dwiggins, former Rensselaer boy and an alleged fraudist via the Liberty ' loan scheme, has been captured on information supplied by his wife, at Montgomrey, Alabama, and is being returned to New York to answer the charges against him. The following account telling of the capture of Dwiggins is given out by the Associated Press: New York, Nov. 15.—Elmer Dwiggins, promoter of the so-called United States government Liberty loan club, through which he is alleged to have filched thousands of dollars from women and children, who thought their money was to be used in assisting the government in war, was arrested today at Montgomery, Ala., on information supplied by his wife, it developed here tonight. “I am a patriot first—a wife next,” Mrs. Dwiggins is declared to have

told a postoffice inspector who sought her assistance in locating her husband. She at first refused to listen to the assumption that Dwiggins was dishonest. When told, however, that investigation had given grounds for suspicion that Dwiggins had defrauded hundreds of persons, many of them women and children of small means, through appeals to their patriotism. Mrs. Dwiggins is quoted by the inspector as saying: “If I satisfy myself that what you say is true, I will render you all the aid in my power in searching for my husband. He is unworthy of consideration if he has done what you say and I am a patriot first and a wife next” Dwiggins, manager of a New York agency of the Bankers Life Insurance company, of Des Moines, la., is alleged to have represented that the “club” through which he? operated, was a government agenfjf, and that its organization had the support of the company by, which ne was employed. Those whom he is said to, nave duped made payments on the “dollar down, dollar a week" plan. It is said that Dwiggins made application for the purchase of a large amount of war bonds, ostensibly for resale to “members” of the "club” in the same manner—by making a relatively small ’ initial payment. Dwiggins, who is to be brought to this city immediately, will be formaly charged with using the mails to defr&ucL