Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 60, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 April 1898 — Says Dingman Was Blowing [ARTICLE]

Says Dingman Was Blowing

A Card From Ex-Editor Babcock. . Editor Republican: Will you please accord me a little space in your columns in reply to a statement which appeared in the Republican a few days ago in regard to “a new paper for Remington;” you have evidently been misinformed in the matter and I desire to set you and your readers right. It is true that I had some correspondence with Mr. Dingman about selling to him the Remington Press newspaper plant, but no price was ever agreed upon I gave him ray figures, he never accepted them nor did I raise the price when he came here. Mr. Dingman stated that he had a residence property in Centerville, So. Dak., covered by a Building and Loan mortgage He wished to trade his equity in this property as first payment on the Press. He had no money, he said, but come here thinking he might raise some in Benton county. He left South Dakota, he stated, with but $4, and come through to Chicago on a stock train; ho expected to return the same way. On my informing him that I could not accept the alleged equity in his South Dakota property and his evident despair of raising any funds among his wife’s relations, Mr. Dingman proposed to work for me by the week, but, having all the help I needed, I could not use him and so stated His story about conversing among the business men here and meeting with so much encouragement in starting a new paper is the veriest rot. He has no money and can't get any. He states that he sunk $.750 in the newspaper business in South Dakota, thorefore it is hardly likely his wife’s friends or any Remington business man will care to let him handle any of their money in starting a paper here, or that the outfitters in Chicago will sell him a plant on time. < Had Mr. Dingman had any money we could no doubt have made a deal, but the Press was not for sale to a “stock train printer” with but $4 to his name. His desire in telling you the story that he did was evidently to injure the Press and myself, but we have heard many such “yawps” in our short newspaper experience, and have no fear of Mr. Dingman or his new paper. Fraternally, 1 F. E. Babcock, j