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WAGNER SILENT ON ACTS "SEE MY LAWYER." THE ADRIAN, MO., BANKER SAYS. In Jail at Butler, the Former Assistant Cashier, Who Fled to Colorado, Awaits the Grand Jury Monday. By Member The BUTLER, Mo., Oct. 14.-Ernest J. Wagner, former assistant cashier of the Adrian Banking Company. is in the county jall here. His case is typical. He has nothing to say except "see my lawyer." Adrian holds the empty sack Well, say some people in Adrian. Ernest Wagner may be the "goat." He is the banker loafing in the Bates County jail, playing pitch with the boys, smoking cigars and telling the sheriff he had nothing to say to reporters or depositors or anyone except his lawyer and Mr. and Mrs. William Wagner, his parents. FROM GOOD FAMILY. Naturally everyone feels sorry for the parents, good German residents of Adrian. They have another son, the Rev. Oscar Wagner, pastor of the Church of the Brethren at Adrian. In jail, Banker Wagner combs back his pompadour. He is short and rather chubby. a bachelor. 37, he was the man about town. Adrian's population is 955. For fourteen years or thereabouts Wagner helped run the Adrian Banking Company, the oldest bank in town, almost 49 years old when it folded up a month ago. Just 8 few weeks before, Adrian citizens forced a run on the National Bank of Adrian, thinking it might go down in the depression that closed two banks in Rich Hill, south of here. They took their money out of the National Bank and put it into the Adrian Banking Company, symbol of security. Later some restored their money and those who didn't wish they had. Today the National Bank is the only bank in Adrian. When the closing order came. Wagner folded up his tent and silently stole away to let the storm blow over. TAKES MONEY WITH HIM. Banker Wagner took enough money along to take him to St. Joseph. Denver, Los Angeles, Denver, Manhattan and back to Denver again. Then he went broke and calmly gave himself up to the police. He was glad to have Sheriff A. C. Hartley come for him, at the county's expense, and place him in jail, also at the county's expense. He prefers to stay in jail to making bond. possibly feeling himself to be safer behind the bars. The grand jury meets next Monday and perhaps, under protection of the law and his lawyer. Banker Wagner will talk then. Everybody agrees that procedure is the wise one for him to follow. Now the people of Adrian are recalling what good boy Ernest Wagner always was. He came from fine family, went through the town's school. settled down and became a pleasant citizen. Maybe he wash't all to blame. Maybe he was very little to blame, some say. The examiner's report showed some $1,300 missing in the cash account, $1,500 gone in the deposit account. That's not such a terrible shortage. Perhaps Ernest was the "goat." The cashier of the bank. Wagner's superior. sits tight at his home in Adrian. and thus far has offered the depositors no enlightenment He is Warren W. Ricketts. reared on farm near here. He and Wagner ran the bank, the president and directors being farmers hereabouts. LOANS WITHOUT COLLATERAL. Of course, the air is full of talk of agricultural depression, frozen assets. crop failure, the same situation that affects all credit and assets and banks in farm communities. The state examination showed Cashier Ricketts, his father and brother owe the bank $16,000 in loans without collateral. Wagner and his father have notes for $7,000 without collateral. Wagner admitted an overdraft of $800 in his account How did Wagner spend the money? He lived at home with his parents. apparently did not gamble on the stock market. Some Adrianites refer to him now as the $10 perfume boy. He spread the zephyrs of a spring morn around him as he ambled smilingly down the street. He drove to Kansas City occasionally with certain friends and their families. But those trips didn't account for much of the bank's shortage. It is surprising how Adrian bears up. There have been two other bank failures in the town in recent years But business is about as good as usual and everybody hopes for the best. Indorsers of bad notes have been notified they must stand good for them, and are preparing to do so. Early Day Missouri Woman Dies. HIGGINSVILLE, Mo., Oct. 14-Mrs Lewine Hoefer. widow of Charles Hoefer, early day banker of this city,
