Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 95, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 August 1907 — MAKES STARTLING CHARGE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MAKES STARTLING CHARGE.

Pension Commissioner Claim* Step* mother In of Negrro Descent. The charge !■ made by Vespasian Warner, former Illinois Congressman and now United States Commissioner

of Pensions, that his stepmother and half-sisters have negro blood In their veins. Mrs. Isa bella Robinson - Warner, second wife of the C o m m 1 s s ioner’s father, John Warner, Is prosarated IWf the accusation that she deceived his father as to her

parentage and blood when she married the millionaire In 1874. They declare that the ex-Congresstnan’s charges are false, and that Mrs. Warner and her two daughters will sue him for libel. Mr. Warner’s allegations against his stepmother and ihalf-sisters, Mrs. Arabella Waraer Bell and Mrs. Minnie Warner Mettler, were made under oath in the contest against his father’s will brought by Mrs. Warner. Mrs. Warner began the fight to secure her widow’s share of the $1,650,000 estate of the banker, who died in 1903, refusing to abide by the terms of an antenuptial contract which gave her an annuity of SSOO and SIO,OOO. She declared that her husband lhad induced her to sign this agreement by fraud and by grossly misrepresenting the amount of his property. Hence she contends that the agreement is void. The widow’s claim is considered -*! strong that she is said to have been offered $300,000 by Vespasian Warner, executor of the will, and bis sister, Flora Warner McDermott. She refused the offer, It is declared, and the charges followed in an amendment to the executor’s answer to the widow’s petition. This amendment argues that, since Mrs. Robinson deceived her husband, the amounts provided for her in the Ante-nuptial contract are all she should have. Mr. Warner affirms that Isabella Warner is the daughter of Stephen Robinson,;an Ohio negrejThe Commissionerof Pensions claims he has Searched the country for affidavits bearing out his claim. Most of them were secured in Norwalk, Ohio, former home of Stephen Robinson. The Warner will case has been the talk of the countryside for months, for the family founded by John Warner, farmer and former head of John Warner & Co., bankers, of Clinton, 111., Is the most prominent in a social and business way in the county. Vespasian Warner was a member of Congress for twenty years. „ Fur thirty years- Mfs. Isabella Warner has been a leader of the De Witt County, Illinois, society. Of fine features and gray hair, cultured and attractive In dress and manners, no one ever has breathed a whisper of suspicion against her name or blood.

VESPASIAN WARNER