Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 October 1897 — A Card From R. S. Dwiggins [ARTICLE]

A Card From R. S. Dwiggins

With Some Editorial Comments On The Same.' Irvington, N. Y., Sept. 23, 1897. Geo. E. Marshall Esq. Dear Sir: I am just in receipt of the Republican of the 17th inst. containing a libelous article referring to my sons. You say that it is almost the universal opinion of the people of Rensselaer that the failure was planned and contemplated to take place as it did. That statementds. not only a libel on my sons but it is a libel on the good people of Rensselaer. When I say that the people of Rensselaer will not, and do not, condemn anyone without knowing something of the facts in the case I but state what everyone who is well acquainted with them knows to be true. I lived with these people more than thirty long years and I know them well. They are fair, honest and candid and do not condemn anyone without a hearing. At the time you wrote and published this article you did not know one single fact which in any manner tended to prove that the failure was “a premeditate money-making scheme” as you say it was. I had no interest whatever in the firm of J. R. Willard & Co., and was not familiar with the details of the business but I personally know that Elmer (Jay was in Europe. Sent there by his physicians) raised every dollar he could, by selling and pledging everything they both had, and put the money in the business and thus did everything in his power to stem the tide and carry the business over. The boys have both lost everything they had. Your statement that the boys left Chicago to avoid prosecution is libelous in the extreme. “ You can’t put your finger on one iota of evidence to sustain the charge. On 4he contrary the facts are that it was publically known in Chicago for weeks before they left for New York, that they were going. They have both been back to Chicago repeatedly since they left there. Their place of business in New York was published daily in both the Chicago and New York papers. The authorities could have found them any day, had they desired to do so. The whole article is a libel from beginning to end. Yours &c., R. S. Dwiggins.

We do not care to enter into any extended controversy on this matter, but a few of Mr. Dwiggins’ rather vehement assertions will be briefly alluded to. In the first place we hasten to assure him, that the people here seem to endure with great equanimity the alleged libel upon them, contained, as Mr. Dwiggins asserts, in our statement that the majority of them seem to believe that the recent failure was a part of a scheme. So long as the people here are not troubled by the alleged libel against them, we see no good reason why Mr. Dwiggins should be disquieted on their account, either. We would also say, further, that however good an opinion the people here hold of Mr. Dwiggins himself, that it does not necessarily > follow that the same good opinion extends to all the financial methods of Mr. Dwiggins’ talented sons. Mr. Dwiggins asserts that our whole article is a libel from beginning to end, yet we notice that of the quite numerous points qf that, article he enters special denial on only two. If what we said about the Mexican mine fraud, Elmer’s connection with that great scamp, Pennington, their gambling bucket shop business under other people’s names, and the booming of the Griffith fake town were libelous, he does not tell us wherein the libels consist. What he declares to be libelous in the extreme, was our statement that the boys left Chicago to avoid prosecutions for their bucket shop dealings. The statement has been

generally published in the New York and Chicago papers. Probably it is not literally true, but certain it is that about the time the general movement against the bucket shops was inaugurated in Chicago, the boys found it convenient to close up their Chicago houses and seek other fields. Certain it is, further, that had they remained in Chicago and continued their bucket shop dealings they would have been prosecuted, as others who did continue in that business there, have been prosecuted. In regard to the statement that the Dwiggins boys published their places of business in Chicago and New York papers, we would remind him that that was the very thing they seem to have been careful not to do. In Chicago their bucket-shop dealings were concealed under the name of Arbogast & Co., aiid Valentine & Co., and perhaps other aliases, while in New York it was J. R. Willard & Co. The man Willard being, as New York and Chicago papers repeatedly assert, simply hired to give the firm the use of his name. A circumstance in itself that looks suspicious. People doing a legitimate business in a legitimate way, do not usually conceal their identity with so much care. As to the assertion that we knew no facts tending to prove that the failure was a njoney making scheme, we will say, first that we did not assert that it was such a failure, but that the people here generally took that view of it. In forming that conclusion they would naturally be influenced very much by the young men’s past financial history. The nature of their business also would have its influence. It was so illegitimate, or at least irregular, that the nominal head of the firm, J. R. Willard, was expelled from the Chicago Board of Trade for his connection with it; or so at least the New York and

Chicago papers openly assert. Furthermore these same papers assert that the firm’s methods’were so suspicious that the police had it undersurvelliance some time before the failure. Another feature that would naturally create suspicion, was the assertion of the New Jersey man who was the principal creditor of the firm, that they owed him $500,000. If the firm was looking for a good time to let go, the time that the Jersey man was stuck for a half million would have been well chosen. Mr. Dwiggins admits that he knows nothing of the details of his sons’ business; is it not also quite possible, and we mean no disrespect in saying so, that he knows much less about their failure than he thinks he does? Simply as a sample of what the city papers published regarding this failure, and which, not being denied by anyone, naturally had great influence in causing people here as well as elsewhere to doubt the genuineness of the failure, we give the appended short extract from a long article in the New York Journal, a paper published right on the grounds. It will be noticed from the extract that no less a person than J. R. Willard, of Chicago, the nominal head of the busted firm and presumably knowing more about its business and conditions than anyone else, outside of the active partners, is said to assert that there was no need for the failure. The following is the Journal extract: “J. R. Willard, whose name they used, and whom the Chicago Board of Trade suspended for that very reason, calls them “clever money sharks,” and says they came to New York to turn this trick, and that Starbuck was the tool whom they brought along for the purpose. He says there was no need of their failure; that they have plenty of money; that they could continue

business without a chance of failing. , The assignee, Starbuck, gives as an excuse for the failure that the firm was short on the rising market. Is that true? One of the clerks of the firm, under strenuous cross-questioning, has said within the last forty-eight hours; “All hands have been leaking money —barrels of it—making it hand over fist.” One of the Starbucks has said, but not for publication, that Jay Dwiggins took $700,000 of money with him when he went abroad. The boys had come to New York to make money, had risked their necks and won. “How much?” “Over $ <OO,OOO ” “And how much more do they want?” “Everything in sight,” answered Starbuck. And now that the Dwiggins coup, if indeed it be what the title partner of the concern calls it, is complete, there are others whose turn is to come. Some of the head employes of the firm are planning to go into business for themselves. There may be more circulars, and more branch houses, and perhaps after a conventional time allowance of two years, another failure. Then other Indiana retainers will take up the lines.” This we repeat is from the New York Journal, the second most popular paper in that city. In all candor we ask Mr. Dwiggins what he could expect but that the people here would believe as we said they did, when the daily papers were full of such statements as the above, and when furthermore, the past financial the parties has been such as it has?