Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1897 — WORKING [ARTICLE]

WORKING

The Dwiggins Failure for All Its Worth Are the Great Papers of New * York City. A New York History of The Chica Mine Swindle. The New York papers work the Dwiggins boys’ recent failure for all there is in it, and probably a good deal more. Last Monday’s New York Journal, for instance, devotes a whole page to the subject. Pictures are given of Elmer’s mansion at Tiffany Park, at Irvington-on-the-Hudson, .and of the palatial interior of the office of the firm at 55 Broadway. Alleged pictures are also given of Elmer and Jay Dwiggins and James M. Starbuck, but they have no resemblance at all to the originals. The picture labelled Jay Dwiggins is that of some bowery tough and prize fighter, while Elmer is portrayed as a sleek, smooth-faced and bald-headed confidence man or bunco-steerer.

From the Journal’s statements it appears that Jay is still in Europe and that Elmer has not shown up since the failure. The history of the Dwigginses past financial schemes are gone into at great length but not always with any great degree of accuracy. Great injustice is done, as we think, to Zimri Dwiggins, who is represented as living in wealth at Storm Lake, on money saved from the Columbia bank and other failures, and also as directing the financial schemes of his nephews, Elmer and Jay. We think we state only the truth, however, in saying that Zimri Dwiggins is now a poor man, that he has had no connection with his nephews’ shady business transactions, and that his failure four years ago was a genuine one, and lastly that while his business methods were reckless and unsafe they were not intentionally fraudulent. At least the most searching investigation of the Columbia bank failure did not reveal anything criminal upon his part.

THE CHICA MINE AFFAIR. As the people of Rensselaer are interested to the extent of quite a good many thousand of good dollars in the Chica mine affair we give the substance of that part of the Journal’s article in reference thereto. » They acquired a property in the State of Guanajuato, Mexico, known as the La Chica Mine. The ancient Toltecs had dug gold there for their idols, and the Spaniards had grown rich from its treasures. All this was woven into a story for the depositors in the banks. They organized a company with §3,000,000 capital, calling it the Republic Gold Mining Company. The actual cash paid for the property was §5,000. They set the cashiers of their various banks to selling stock to depositors, and got back several times the money they paid out.

TO CONQUER EUROPE. Then the firm determined to float the property in Europe at an enormous price. Ladenberg, Thalmann & Co. consented to entertain the matter, and sent to visit the property Joseph Simons, an eminent mining engineer and

expert, who had been associated with the banking house of Baron Bleicheroder, of Berlin. Mr. Simons made a report, the original of which is now in possession of the Journal. Persons now’ in New York are ready to make affidavit that the property had been salted. Upon the representation of Expert Simons the Bleicheroder house organized a syndicate for the purchase of the property. Contracts were signed, Evarts, Cheats & Beaman and Foster & Thompson, of No. 52 Wall street were retained and ten days were consumed in preparation of the contracts. THE LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR. Dwiggins had accepted the place of treasurer of the Christian Church of Chicago commonly known in the West as the “Campbellites.” Ira J. Chase, the most notable minister of Mr. Dwiggins’s denomination, and afterward Governor of the State, w’as LieutenantGovernor of Indiana. He enlised in Mr. Dwiggins's scheme of selling certificates to members of his various congregations. Dwiggins insisted that Mr. Chase should go and see the property for himself. He made the trip to Mexico. The superintendent of the mine having been posted, he ran through the mill the accumlation of many months, and the Lieutenant-Gov-ernor watched the gold come out, and saw it weighed and made in a brick—large, beautiful and valuable. He took it to Indiana and showed it to the brethren and sisters of his flocks, and, of course, they bought liberally of the stock. When Anton Eilers went in behalf of the syndicate to examine the property, the complexion changed. He declared it worthless. There was a howl from the syndicate and Wiggs and Dwiggins held up their hands and cried that they had been mislead by the expert.