Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 67, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 November 1917 — GENERAL AND STATE NEWS [ARTICLE]

GENERAL AND STATE NEWS

Telegraphic Reports From Many Parts of the Country. SHORT BITS OF THE UNUSUAL Happenings in the Nearby Cities and Towns —Matters of Minor Mention From Many Places. HAD MADE STOCK INVESTMENT Elmer Dwiggins Tells Why He Fled From New York. Elmer Dwiggins of. New York, arrested at Montgomery, Alabama, on Charges of using the malls to defraud in connection with the sale of Liberty bonds on the installment plan, told United States Commissioner Thomas that his troubles began when he began taking payments on loans and Investing them In securities on the New York Stock Exchange. He lost about 1100,000 when the market declined and then decided to leave. Soon after Dwiggins left, postoffice inspectors began investigating his loan business and they traced him to Chattanooga. While enroute from that city to Montgomery he stopped off at Atlanta and bought a wig that threw the inspectors off his trail for a time. He was recognized when he arrived at Montgomery. Dwiggins told Commissioner Thomas that he -was anxious to get back to New York and felt confident that he could adjust his finances so that none of those /who had made payments on bonds he was supposed to deliver to them would lose any of their money. He was unable to give the $25,000 bond required and was locked up for the night. Postoffice Inspectors Hugh McQuillan and Alwyn B. Williamson took the prisoner to New York test Friday. Dwiggins said he left New York a wet ago Saturday. He arrived at Montgomery last Wednesday and was /unsucessful in his efforts to rent a room. He had instructed his wife to send him an express package addressed to E. A. Dunham, the name he 'had assumed, and he inquired at the hotels, but the package had not arrived. PostofflCe inspectors had beehi watching him in the meantime and arrested him when he was getting ready to leave for New Orleans. An involuntary petition in bankruptcy was filed in the federal court at New York last Friday against Elmer Dwiggins, promoter of the "United States Government Liberty Loan club,” through which it Is charged thousands of dollars were collected from small investors on the $1 a week plan (for the second government war loan. Dwiggins was arrested last Thursday at Montgomery, Alabama, on charges of misuse of the mails.