The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1882-11-22
A Woman,S Fight for Her Rights.

There is not q case IN the annals OF
American Jurisprudence which ap-
proaches in interest and complexity,
in what really might be called ro-
nance, to the damage suits instituted
by Walburga Wackerle against the
Etna and Mutual Life Insurance
companies, and the history therein
contained. 70 the impartial observer
Mrs. Wackerle does not look at all like
a heroine. She is a manufactured,
w%ashed-out, demonstrating little wo-
man, wiry in build, blue-eyed, partly
gray, and bearing upon her shoulders
the burden of fifty years of hard
work. She does not look at all like
one of those women of whom we read
in novels, whose nature has been
transformed and who devote
themselves, body and soul, to
retribution, with an upper case
"R" thereafter. Mrs. Wackerle has
been about as deeply wronged as any
of these h~eroines, however. She has
always been poor. and yet she has
fought and won a battle at desperate
odds againsttwopowcrful corporations.
She has travelled up and down the
countryfrom Connecticut to Texas, and
from Louisiana to Minnesota time and
time again, without money. When
kindly people secured passage for her on
her quest she rode, when there was no
other way she walked, often walking
fifty and sixty miles at a stretch. In
a word, this woman with her pale,
wasked-out face. her hard hands and
Earring nerves has been and is a very
volcano, a steam engine of energy in
righting the wrongs which have been
done her.
The history of the case as it came up
in the St. Louis courts has been al
ready told. Mrs. Wackerle brought
suit against the Mutual Life Insurance
company to recover $4,000, the amount
of Il policy upon her husbands life.
For answer the insurance company
produced the dead man in court. 1t
was the supreme moment of the wild
owls life. After a hard legal fight the
bogus Wackerle was stripped of his
false feathers and exposed in court as
a fraud and Il perjurer, and the long
weary nine years struggle for justice
was closed with justice won. After a
nine years fight Mrs. Wackerle will
get her money. Mr.. a. r. Taylor and
Mr.. Donohue, who have conducted
the case for her, spent
their own money in helping
her to get her testimony together, have
already received an intimation that the
defendants are ready to disgorge. Who
the false Wackerle is no one knows.
Mrs. Wackerle believes that he is Chris.
Wackerle. hut is not at all sure. John
Wackerle swore that the false Wack-
erie was his brother, and stopped there.
His benefit comes from the fact that
he secured back pension and arrears
and benefits amounting to nearly
$4,000; besides, he wore to receiving
$45 a month and board and expenses
from the Mutual Life Insurance COM
iJdlly 1Ol lllS SCl NlICo AZ III 'ouiI A'hi'''
Wackerle believes that he gets Il like
allowance from the Etna. Wackerlc
gets$2,0O0 and his expenses. Mr.. Bliss,
the district attorney, has ordered his
pension stopped, but the impostor can
not be arrested until he returns to the
place where the pension fraud was
committed, or until the United States
court in California orders his arrest.
lie has left st. Louis E; no n knows
for what place. Mrs. Wackcrle is liv-
ing at Seventh and Rutgers streets. in
a tenement, and is Just now in wretched
health. She was out at work every
day, and it may be two or three months
before the case is definitely settled.
There are technicalitics to which the
defense may still cling, which can de-
lay but which cannot bar ultimate JUS
tice being done to this most indomita-
bic AMI wonderful woman.-St. Louis
Post-D&patch.