Grant and Elihu Pugh, Falsely Accused of Rape and Almost Lynched - 1889

FULL TEXT: Readers of the Bulletin are no doubt still familiar with the facts in the case of Commonwealth against Grant and Elihu Pugh, who were convicted at Flemingsburg about a year ago, and pent to the penitentiary for twenty years for rape.

A special says it was developed Friday they were convicted on manufactured and perjured testimony; that the alleged victim was a notorious woman who now consorts with low colored courtesans to whom she confessed her schemes, and they have been verified by careful investigation.

There was an epidemic of criminal assaults in Fleming at the time, no less than eight being committed in thirty days, and the public mind was violently inflamed. One night a mob broke into the jail at that place. They secured but one of the prisoners a negro charged with rape.

He was taken to a bridge near the town limits and strung up. The Pugh brothers, however, were brought here for safe keeping and lodged in the Maysville jail until the next term of court, when their trial resulted as above stated. While here they were seen by a representative of the Bulletin and protested their innocence, asserting that the woman had accused them falsely. But little attention, however, was paid to their protestations at the time. The recent developments have put a new phase on the case though, and the Governor will be appealed to at once to pardon them. The petition is signed by all the magistrates of Fleming County, ten of the jury who convicted, one being dead and the other removed, and the county and district attorney who prosecuted.

Commenting on the case the Cincinnati Post says: ‘The men have served but a few months of their twenty years’ sentence, and now by the confession of their accuser they are found to be innocent. The application is obvious. If the mob had succeeded in murdering two innocent men in the blind fury of the moment their consciences must have been most unpleasant companions henceforth.”

[“A Lesson For Lynchers. - The Pugh Brothers Sent Up From Flemingsburg Convicted on Perjured Testimony.” The Evening Bulletin (Maysville, Ky.), Nov. 4, 1889, p. 3]

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More historical cases of False Rape Accusations

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[574-10/16/21]

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Albert Heuck & Henry Azbill: Two False Rape Accusation Cases - 1894

FULL TEXT: Governor Markham has pardoned Albert Heuek, who was sentenced in the Superior Court of San Diego County in October, 1889, to seven years at Folsom for an assault to rape. He gives the following reasons for his action:

From written evidence produced by Walter Ferral and M. L. Ward, District Attorney of San Diego, it was shown that Heuck was convicted on the testimony of the complaining witness, who swore positively that at the time of the alleged assault she had never had intercourse with another person. Since his conviction, however, it is proved that before that time she was living with another man.

It further appears that at the time of the trial her true character was not known, nor was the fact known that she was living as a kept mistress of the man spoken of and the associate of persons of questionable morality.

Farther, it appears that since Heuck’s incarceration she has brought suit for damages against another party with whom she claimed to have been criminally intimate prior to the time of the alleged assault by Heuck, and as the District Attorney found her testimony in the two cases did not agree, he refused to have anything to do with the last case.

The State Board of Prison Directors being satisfied that Heuck had been unjustly condemned on perjured testimony, recommended his pardon, which is granted, and he is restored to citizenship.

He has also pardoned Marcus Cesena, sentenced by the Superior Court of Monterey County in September, 1889, to six years' imprisonment at San Quentin for an attempt at rape.

The State Board of Prison Directors, alter careful investigation of the case, have recommended that the sentence be commuted to four years on the grounds that from the testimony submitted there seems to be grave doubts of his guilt.

It is shown by letters from many prominent citizens that the prisoner had an excellent reputation prior to his conviction, and the petition is signed by the majority of the jury that convicted him, the Sheriff and District Attorney of the county and many prominent citizens and county officials.

It also appears from the papers on file that it is the general impression among the better class of people in the county that the defendant was innocent of the crime, and the party on whom the assault was claimed to have been committed has at different times and to different people acknowledged that her testimony was false, lie is therefore pardoned and restored to citizenship.

He has also commuted the sentence of Henry Hunt, who was sentenced in March, 1882, by the Superior Court of Los Angeles County to imprisonment for life for murder in the first degree, to twenty-one years.

The Prison Directors have recommended the commutation for the reason that the murder was not a cold-blooded, deliberate one, the man killed having interfered while defendant was trying to shoot another man, and the killing being apparently accidental.

Although the prisoner was an old man at the time of the murder, he had always borne a good reputation as a peaceable man, and was not a bad man, a ruffian or a desperado. In the opinion of ex-Sheriff W. B. Rowland and a number of other prominent citizens, the punishment was an excessive one under the circumstances and the prisoner was guilty of no higher crime than manslaughter, and is a lit subject for executive clemency. His conduct has been uniformly good since his imprisonment, and Warden Aull and Captain Murphy unite in recommending him to clemency. He is now old and feeble and has now been incarcerated for nearly thirteen years, and it is the opinion of the board that he has been sufficiently punished.

His sentence will expire in February, 1895.

The sentence of Henry L. Azbill (Lilburn Azbill) who was sentenced by the Superior Court of Ventura County in to four years' imprisonment for assault to rape, has been commuted to two and one-sixth years, to expire next month.

Hon. B. T. Williams, Superior Judge of Ventura County, who sentenced Azbill, says that the boy was beyond the age when he could be sent to the Reform School, where he should have been sent rather than to San Quentin. The girl's father and mother have since related facts raise a doubt as to whether the offense was actually committed, and the boy and his parents were densely ignorant. His father has died and his mother and her children are county pensioners. He has always behaved well and complied with all rules of the prison, and the directors think that the ends of justice have been attained.

[“Pardons And Commutations. - Governor Markham Records Four in One Day. - Two Men Sentenced on Perjured Evidence of Women – An Excessive Sentence.” The Record-Union (Sacramento, Ca.), Mar. 1, 1894, p. 4]

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More historical cases of False Rape Accusations

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[428-10/25/21]

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Fighting the Alimony Racket in 1938

FULL TEXT: The National Divorce Reform League is upsetting all precedent by trying to give a break to a forgotten man of New York’s Domestic Relations Court, the husband. it seems that in a case of non-support coming before that court the wife is represented free of charge by the Corporation Counsel, but the husband must present his own defense or retain counsel.

Obviously, the husband in most cases can hardly afford lawyer’s fees, and the poor man usually gets lost in the legal jungle. Many men haled into the court have complained that they were talked into a stupor by the lawyers mustered for their wives.

Once the hapless husband comes so befuddled he can’t speak for himself, he is likely to find himself required to pay more than he can afford to the demanding wife. And once he has been ordered to do so, he’d better keep up his payments or he’s likely to find himself in jail.

The National Divorce Reform League hopes to persuade Mayor La Guardia to allow these husbands at least equal rating with their wives, to give them, too, free legal counsel when the case comes to court. The way the judge would hear a legal version of their cases as well a legal version of their cases as well as of their wives’ rather than a layman’s garbled story.

The mere thought of someone’s taking interest in the husband of Domestic Relations is enough to bring tears to the eyes of even the most hardened reader of divorce cases. A system which requires that a man pay heavily for the privilege of once having called this women his wife is tear-jerking in itself. Too many selfish women have, through the sobbing plea of “I gave him the best years of my life,” been able to put a first-rate lien on their husbands’ income forever after. The husbands, who’ve already supported them for a good many years, get no sympathy from anyone.

Should a man’s income be cut, or should he lose his job entirely, no account is taken of such facts if his ex-wife wishes to make him pay. It’s “pay up, or go to jail.”

That this already lop-sided system should add the further irony of allowing the wife free counsel but forcing the husband to fight his own case (when whatever small change may be around is in the wife’s pocket) is no less than heart-breaking.

•◊•◊•

While we Americans sneer at the medieval domesticity of other nations, which makes the husband the master in no uncertain terms, those other nations have laughed right back at us for our idiotic glorification of the American wife. The American husband, it is claimed, makes the money but his wife gaily tosses it away. He is expected to stick to his job, but she sloughs off her housekeeping with a flip of the dust mop and spends most of her time in beauty parlors or at the bridge table. If she decides that she wants her “freedom,” she gets not only that but enough alimony to keep her from having to lift a finger for herself. And our European cousins think that such goings-on can hardly be turned be termed marriage.

Even the husbands over here probably wouldn’t really want a return to the shackles of the old days. But they would be the first to admit that women have walked roughshod over their own newly won privileges, and a harsh word from the law might do the more scheming females a lot of good. On those grounds we can only hope that the National Divorce Reform League wins its care for free counsel for the husband in arrears on payments to his onetime wife. It might just be the heralding of a much needed swing back toward equality between the sexes.

[Maxine Garrison, “Divorce Group Sheds Tears For Husband Who Pays And Pays – Reform League Opposes System In Which Wife Tosses Away Hard-Earned Cash,” The Pittsburgh Press (Pa.), May 27, 1938, p. 28]

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For more revelations of this suppressed history, see The Alimony Racket: Checklist of Posts

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“We can do it!” – Bolshevik Women Who Showed They Could Surpass Their Male Comrades in the Role of War Criminals – 1919

NOTE: “We can do it!” was a slogan used by the U.S. government during World War II to promote women’s participation in industrial jobs (within the safe confines of the combat-free homeland) in support of the war effort. The slogan, along with the graphic image accompanying it, has since been taken up by feminists as an expression of female capability in general. In the following article we see an example of female capability in the martial arena within the Russian civil war, where female members of the Bolshevik communist army (the revolutionary extremists) showed themselves to be more reliable than their male counterparts when given instructions to commit war crimes.

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FULL TEXT: Helsingfors – A terrible story illustrating the nature of the war waged by the Bolshevists is recounted by a traveler from  Riga [Latvia]. Toward the end of the Bolshevist rule in that city, before the Lottish Red leader Stutska, fled on May 22, companies of women were formed as Red Guards. Their duty was to carry out executions when the men refused that dreadful duty. Nearly 100 executions are known to have been carried out by these murderesses. When the Reds abandoned Riga the women were dressed up as nurses. Anti-Red troops on meeting the women in nurse’s uniform examined their hair. If it had been cut short they were arrested, as the presumption was that they had been soldiers. If found guilty of crime they were shot.

[“Women In Firing Squad In Russia,” The Newburgh Daily News (N.Y.), Aug. 13, 1919, p. 5]

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Maria Leontievna Bochkareva (Мари́я Лео́нтьевна Бочкарёва  Maria Leontievna Bochkaryova; born Frolkova (Фролко́ва), nicknamed Yashka; 1889–1920)

Here is a little bit of information from two years earlier on the Russian military’s use of female soldiers in the Great War before civil war broke out in that country. The leader of this effort was anti-Bolshevik tough gal Maria "Yashka" Bochkareva.

Men’s Human Rights Advocates will recognize the use of the shaming tactic, a method of exploiting chivalric tendencies, that was also used at the same time in England, in the guise of “White Feather Campaign,” to coax men into running off to war.

Wikipedia excerpts: Women's Battalions were all-female combat units formed after the February Revolution by the Russian Provisional Government in a last-ditch effort to inspire the mass of war-weary soldiers to continue fighting in World War I. In the spring of 1917, male shock units and battalions of death were created from pools of enthusiastic volunteers to lead the way in battle. Already some women had successfully petitioned to join regular military units, and now a number began pressing the new Provisional Government to create special women's battalions. These women, along with a number of high-ranking members of the Russian government and military administration, believed that female soldiers would have significant propaganda value and that their example would revitalize the weary, demoralized men of the Russian army. Simultaneously, they hoped the presence of women would shame hesitant male soldiers into resuming their combat duties.

After the 1st Russian Women's Battalion of Death failed to have the intended effect of revitalizing the war-weary elements of the Russian army the military authorities began to question the value of the women's units. In particular, the government found it difficult to justify the allocation of badly needed resources to such an unreliable project. By August 1917, there was a growing inclination in the military establishment to discontinue the organization of women for combat purposes.

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FULL TEXT: Petrograd, July 27. – When the Russian women’s battalion, known officially as the “Command of Death,” went into action against the Germans near Smorgon July 25 they captured a number of women from whom it was learned for the first time that German women also were fighting on the battle-front in Western Russia.

The wounded heroines of the women’s battalion arrived in Petrograd today leaving their commander, Vera Butchkareff, and Marya Skydloff, former commander of the Baltic fleet and Minister of the Marine, in hospital at Vitebsk.  Interviewed, the women  said it was reported that of the 200 of the command who reached the front only 50 remained. Twenty were killed, eight were taken prisoner, and all the rest were wounded.

“Several times,” said one wounded girl,” we attacked the Germans. Especially memorable was our attack at Novospassky Wood, near Smorgon, where the enemy hearing the voices of girls lost their nerve. The result was that many of them were killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. Among the prisoners were a few women, from whom we learned for the first time that German women also were fighting.

“We did not feel the slightest fear for our personal; safety. Our passion was to serve the fatherland. We advanced gaily against the foe with laughter and song, our only unpleasant sentiments being when we first came to the corpses. Once, when replying to the enemy’s severe rifle and machine gun fire, we discovered to our amazement that all our men comrades in the neighboring trenches had treacherously fled, leaving us – a handful of women – to face the enemy alone.”

[“German Women Fighting As Soldiers – Members of Russian Women’s Battalion Tell of Capturing Some Near Smorgon.” New York Times (N.Y.), Jul. 29, 1917, p. ?]

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FULL TEXT: Petrograd, June 22 – In a couple of weeks the first battalion of women soldiers expects to go to the front as an object lesson to malingerers and peacemongers. It is worth noting that the recruits to the so-called “Battalions of Death” are most exclusively women and girls of the educated classes.

The women responsible for the Amazonian “battalions of death” movement, began their propaganda of patriotism by a strongly worded and passionate appeal to Russian womanhood, to Russian soldiers, to soldiers and politicians at the front, and to those who wear soldier’s uniforms in the rear.

The women of Russia are summoned, in the name of those millions of fathers, sons, and brothers who freely shed their blood before the Petrograd revolution happened, to remember those sacrifices and losses.

True soldiers who have not danced to the piping of the enemy or sold to Germans food taken from the mouths of their children are reminded that every day’s standing idle costs Russia $25,000,000. the appeal proceeds:

“You are eating up your country. Know you that the last hopes are fainting in our hearts and that we weak women will turn like tigresses in defense of our homes and children and Russian liberty? Woe unto you if you earn our scorn! And you others, soldiers in name but Judases in fact, who are selling Russia to the foe, know that the time will soon be at hand when it would be better for you to face ten German bayonets and the curse she lays upon you.

“You who make war without annexation and contributions, but expect tribute from your own native towns and eat up your own country, take heed and be wise betimes. Your ‘brotherhood of nations’ is a jest for the enemy, who still occupies our soil. Until you march against the foe and enter his towns and capitals with flags flying and overturn with your bayonets the throne of Wilhelm, we have no words for you but cowards, traitors and Judases.

“We, your mothers, wives, and sisters, know one party only – the liberty and glory of great Russia. We know only one platform – our country and our homes and the future of our children. Forward upon our foe! We come to die by your side!”

Another appeal is addressed to workmen, bidding them take example from what the Germans are practicing, though their agents in Russia here preach something very different.

“The Germans,” says the appeal, “whether in soldier’s uniform or workman’s blouse, all are alike in fighting their fatherland and not talking about ‘socialistic heavens’ and strangling industry and commerce by exorbitant demands.”

Finally, there is an open letter to the women of the Allies begging them to have patience for a time, for if Russian men betray the common cause the women of Russia will save it.

[“Russian Women Warriors Denounce Men; Bid Slackers Beware of ‘Tigress Mothers,’”  (from The London Morning Post), New York Times (N.Y.), Jun. 25, 1917, p. 1]

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FULL TEXT: Petrograd, Sept. 20 – A small riot occurred to-day in the ranks of the Women’s Battalion drilling at Moscow and it resulted in an attack by the girls upon Vera Butchkaroff, the twice-wounded girl officer who initiated the woman suffrage soldier organizations. According to the Boston Gazette, an infantry man rescued Commander Butchkaroff after some rough handling from the infuriated girls, who resented some acts of their leader not clearly defined.

In a second riot a crowd of women wrecked the militia headquarters and had beaten to death a government agent who had shot into the crowd before they had shot into the crowd before they were dispersed by mounted militia and Cossacks.

[“Russian Women’s Battalion Riot – Corps Drilling at Moscow Make Attack Upon Vera Butchkaroff, the Twice-Wounded Girl Officer,” syndicated, Quebec Telegraph (Montreal, Quebec, Canada),  Sep. 21, 1917, p. 9]

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An Anti-Alimony Organization Attempted in the U.S. - 1912

Here is a report of what may be the first attempt ever to establish an anti-alimony organization. It seems that despite some early enthusiasm from parties across the land the idea never coalesced into a true organization. it would take another 15 years until the founding of the American Alimony Payers Protective Association in New York City by Robert Ecob for that aim to be realized.

The articles below offer a his-and-her version of the subject at hand. At this early stage of what would become a major public debate the arguments were quite simplistic and the question of merited alimony versus predatory alimony racketeering, “polite blackmail,” perjury, debtor's prison and persecution is not broached.

NOTE: Definition of the word “grasswidow”: A woman who is divorced or separated.

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FULL TEXT: Denver, Col., Dec. 12. – “Want address of every man in Denver up against the alimony paying proposition. Quick action necessary.”

This ad appeared in a Denver newspaper today. It was put in by Geo. R. Esterling.

Esterling is paying alimony to his ex-wife just now. He wants to form a league of grass-widowers and take the alimony question up to the supreme court of the United States.

Esterling’s is that is unconstitutional to fine a man for the rest of his life for a matrimonial mistake.

“When a man commits a burglary he is punished for a certain length of time,” says Esterling. “But at the end of that time, he is free to start life anew. Alimony goes on forever.”

[“War On Alimony Stunt.” The Day Book (Chicago, Il.), Dec. 12, 1912, p. 9]

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FULL TEXT: Denver, Dec. 21. – George Esterling, originator of the plan for the organization of all alimony players in the country to make a country wide fight against “Paying alimony forever,” has found himself famous. From all parts of the United States scores of letters come from other “victims” practically all commending this scheme.

From Everett, Mass., comes a letter from a man who proposes to establish at least one alimony club in Massachusetts. He says: “I am in favor of making the fight for our rights a national one and I am sure that if we all stand together and fight this dreadful imposition of endless punishment, and fight it increasingly, we will accomplish our purpose.”

A letter from Newcastle, Ind. among other things, says: “Men as a class are a bunch of gelatin spined shrimps. All that a woman finds it necessary to do nowadays is to bring a charge against a man and all his neighbors will say: “Well, he’s always seemed a nice fellow, but you never can tell.”

“A woman can even murder her husband in cold blood with the certainty that right after her acquittal she can take her choice of taking a position in vaudeville, or in the office of some longwhiskered billygoat who has been watching the farce of a trial.”

[“Anti-Alimony Leader Finds Self Famous – George Esterling Who Started Crusade Against ‘Endless Punishment” Now Has Many Followers.” The Milwaukee Sentinel (Wi.), Dec. 21, 1912, p. 1]

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FULL TEXT: Denver, Dec. 14. When George Esterling, would-be benefactor of all divorced mankind, proposed two days ago an organization of ex-husbands to bring relief to those who have been sentenced to pay alimony to their former wives for the rest of their lives, he forgot that divorced womankind might have something to say.

A woman now aspires to be founder of an organization for the protection of ex-wives who, in her opinion, are the real victims of matrimonial blunders. She is Mrs. Leona Oldham, freed from her fetters after a ten minutes hearing in the county court Thursday.

“It’s a woman in nearly every case that bears the real burden of a matrimonial mistake. She is the one that makes the big sacrifice of her home, her friends, her position and herself,” said Mrs. Oldham.

“What does the man sacrifice? Nothing, except a small part of his weekly salary. He does not give up any of his weekly salary. He does not give up any of his friends. He does not stay at home and wash dishes and mind the baby.

“Too many men regard marriage as a mere pastime. They don’t feel any responsibility about marriage. A man has no business marrying a girl unless he expects to support her as long as she is his wife or his grasswidow.”

[“Calls The Grasswidows To Organize In Defense Of Their Court-Given Rights,” syndicated (United Press), Dec. 15, 1912, p. 14]

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For more revelations of this suppressed history, see The Alimony Racket: Checklist of Posts

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A. A. P. P. A.: The First Established Men’s Rights Organization in the U. S. - 1927

All the early Men’s Rights organizations in the United States were focused on combating the epidemic of alimony racketeering. The American Alimony Payers’ Protective Association was founded in New York City in May 1927. A month later the Alimony Club of Illinois was founded in Chicago.

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FULL TEXT:  Alimony, for many years, has been the goal of disgruntled wives, the material of the professional joke-smiths, and the weekly or monthly bête noir of all the ex-husbands who had to pay it.

Alimony, for many years, has been taken for granted as fine, progressive American institution.

But now no longer. For just the other day in New York a very earnest man appeared at the State capital with papers and a speech and all the legal requisites, to form the very first association of its kind in all America. [Chicago was to follow with the second, The Alimony Club of Illinois, in June 1927.]

~ The A. A. P. P. A. ~

The gentleman was Robert Gilbert Ecob, New York architect by profession, alimony fighter by avocation. Mr. Ecob is the founder and executive secretary of the first American Alimony Payers’ Protective Association, duly incorporated and now grown to 750 members. When Mr. Ecob launched his “Alimony Club” he explained its purpose and the reasons which prompted him to found it.

“The American institution of easy alimony,” said Mr. Ecob, “is responsible for the largest share of wives gone mad, marriages wrecked, husbands ruined, unscrupulous divorce court lawyers unscrupulously enriched. Alimony, in our country, and all that goes with alimony have become a menace to our children, our homes, and our law courts.

“Polite blackmail is committed every day in the name of alimony, perjured testimony is suborned in sadly too many instances; unscrupulous women, in our state of New York, have actually contracted marriages with wealthy men of wistful affections, just to bring about a speedy quarrel and collect the alimony ever after.

“If we are to protect our marriages, we must fight this easy alimony. That’s why I and the other founders of our association, have taken off our coats and started in to work.”

So much, Mr. Ecob says, by way of explanation. Then he elaborates, giving facts, details, specific cases which came to him when he had studied the matter of legal separation, alimony, shyster divorce court lawyers and disgruntled wives.

~ Some Do Not ~

“First,” says Mr. Ecob, “our association admits that the wife whose marriage is hopelessly wrong is entitled to alimony. But our association urges that many a reconciliation after an early quarrel would result, did not the average judge award alimony so easily. Now the women’s rights women will tell you that even with the vote women don’t have equal political rights. They don’t. they have political rights far, far ahead of any a man has. The husband in court is too generally judged and ordered to pay before he has adequately defended himself.

“But let me tell you of one or two pathetic cases we turned up in our study.

“There was Raphael. He was just a laborer, speaking poor English. His wife told a lurid tale to the judge, which our investigators later proved was made out of whole cloth in the office of her rascally divorce court lawyer. Raphael’s wife had learned American ways; she wanted to be rid of Raphael, but she wanted to keep his support.

“The poor wretch, on the strength of her story of abuse which never happened, was ordered to pay her $30 of the $40 he made weekly. He was also ordered to put up a $500 bond, to insure the regularity of his payments. That poor devil hadn’t $500! He had no lawyer, nor any means of procuring such a bond. He was promptly clapped into jail for contempt of court. When he had been in jail three months, he was ordered to pay three months arrears in alimony. ‘How can I?’ he asked, ‘when I haven’t worked, having been in jail?”

~ Poor Raphael ~

“’Very well,’ said the fine legal system of our State of New York, ‘then you go back to jail again, for contempt of court and for arrears in alimony. In addition, we impose a fine.”

“Now, our association contends that this procedure is violating the constitutional rights of this American naturalized citizen, since it seems to our advisors, very much like imprisoning a man and finding him for what is practically, the same offence. At any rate, Raphael’s is to be made a test case.

“But, as we studied the haphazard administration of the alimony laws, we were amazed and chagrined by the fashion in which those laws played into the hands of wicked, unscrupulous alimony hunters. We uncovered the case of a young woman more beautiful than she was good or virtuous.

“While still on the sunny side of 30 she had inveigled an elderly man into marriage. her husband has comfortable means. Two months from the date of the marriage, she filed suit for separation and alimony.

“Now the things the wifes charged her husband with were – our investigation disclosed, absolutely false. They were all unpleasant sex charges, which had they been made public in a court trial would have ruined the man, professionally and socially.

“His lawyer heard the wife’s accusations. ‘You can fight it, of course,’ he said, ‘but the girl is pretty. If it’s a jury trial – and besides, it will be a public trial. She is not asking for a hearing in chambers –‘

~ He Had to Give Up ~

“The result was that this respectable elderly gentleman whose life had been meticulous before his marriage, made over to this young adventuress more than half of his fortune to save his name and that of his children by a first marriage. a few days after the transfer was effected we found out that this young woman had been divorced by a previous husband who had named five correspondents. We told the husband. ‘It would not have mattered,’ he said. ‘I could not had lived through the public disgrace.’ It was just another instance of easy alimony. And the superior powers of women in domestic litigation.”

But not only in such cases, the “Alimony Club” declares, do innocent husbands suffer because of the system. There’s the question of human happiness and a husband’s right to a home and children – when he pays out his money for a home and children.

~ A Slight, Costly Tiff ~

 “We have a case of a wife her husband because of some slight tiff which most any couple might have had in the early, shaking-down process of marriage. had she met some sensible well-wisher, who would have given her a little sensible old-fashioned advice, she might be a happy wife today.

“She fell into the hands of a specialist in divorce and alimony, who began filling her up with an idea of her wrongs.”

“Then what did he do?”

“The husband had a good business, real estate, money in the bank. The lawyer clapped liens on everything he could lay his hands on. The husband, having money, begged the court to be allowed to use a little of his own funds to defend himself. Litigation dragged, shockingly expensive. After five years the wife had brought 31 actions, of various sorts.

“The husband’s business was quite ruined; his assets poured out to his lawyers, his wife’s lawyers, in alimony and other fees; the wife had collected just $1500, which had cost the husband $250,000 in litigation and business depreciation, first.

 “Today that professional man is working for less than $100 a week – a ruined, unhappy citizen, all because he loved his wife, wanted to convince her of her folly, and trusted to the laws of his country to bring her back to reason. Again and again we see our present system kill the goose that lays the golden egg, without enriching the wife. The only party that often profits is the lawyer.

“But there are some ugly facts we should face. It is because of these facts that our association will be made country-wide, with a New England branch, a Middle Western branch, a Far Western branch and a Southern as well.”

~ Women Joining ~

So the only association of its kind in the world [the writer was unaware of the Austrian Liga für Menschenrechte, founded in 1926], has started to work. And each day it adds to its membership goodly numbers of women. “But women do not pay alimony,” you will say, quickly, “why, then, women?”

Ah, brethren and sistren, these women are the devoted mothers, sisters, maiden aunts and cousins of men who do. These devoted female relatives have now and then mortgaged a piece of real estate or taken money from the savings account to “buy out of jail” a male relative clapped there for alimony troublers. These women, so says Mr. Ecob, have greatly helped the cause already.

[Hazel Canning, “The A. A, P. P. Is Out To Scotch Alimony Evil – And Women Are Joining the Antipolite Blackmail Society, Too – 750 Members and Spreading,” Boston Globe (Ma.), May 15, 1927, Editorial section, p. 8]

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For more revelations of this suppressed history, see The Alimony Racket: Checklist of Posts

►• ►The “Early Men’s Rights Activism” post gives links to other articles on 1910s-1930s men’s rights activism in several countries. ◄•◄

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[622-5/14/21]

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Early Men’s Rights Organization: England 1927

FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 3): London, Dec. 16.—With the “restoration of man’s “lost prestige” and “no votes for flappers” as its aims, the Fifty-Fifty league is the latest of the many anti-feminist movements in England.

With a membership roll of already 30,000, the Fifty-Fifty league is out to succeed where others have failed. It views with alarm the growing infiltration of women into public life, and. proposes to combat the “domination” of the weaker sex, and to ensure that in the future control of England men shall play at least as prominent a part as women.

~ Restore Men’s Prestige ~

“We are going to make a determined effort to put a stop to the handing over of the control of .England to women, and we mean to put man back. on his pedestal,” John MacArthur, secretary of the organisation, told International News Service. “The proposed extension of the English franchise to women of twenty-one is absolutely the last straw,” he added.

.

“Women want all the power of government without the responsibility men have to face,” MacArthur continued. ‘‘In other words, they want to dictate what we shall do, and then watch us do it.

“Man, since the beginning of time, has been the dominant sex but in recent years, women have made continual encroachments on his rights. If we can get a strong enough membership we hope to limit their powers on a fifty-fifty basis with men, and to achieve the emancipation of our sex.

~ Fears of War ~

“If women get control of Britain they will lead us, intentionally or unintentionally, into war, and that will mean that the manhood of Britain will fight at the dictation of the woman voter—who does not fight.

“Women are responsible for Prohibition in the United States, where woman-worship is a mania, arid the legislation there is an absolute farce.

“Call us women-haters if you like, but we don’t ask that women be deprived of all their privileges, we want them to pay more attention, to the thing that concern them and to leave the government of the country to men,” MacArthur continued.

[Charles A. Smith, “50-50 League In England Fights ‘Flapper’ Votes – Alarmed At Prestige Of Women In Politics, New Group Organizes – Offer Determined Plan To Prevent ‘Weaker Sex’ Gaining Control, syndicated (International News Services), New Castle News (Pa.), Dec. 16, 1927, p. 21]

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FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 3): London, England, April 10.— The enfranchising of all women at the age of 21 has brought into existence. “The fifty-fifty league” whose members want to do something to offset the placing of men voters in a minority in the United Kingdom.”

The League stands for “the emancipation of men from feminist domination” and it has issued a manifesto headed “The Sex War.”

The leaguers contend that, as women will now be in a position to dictate the country’s policy, they must be prepared to accept the logical consequences.

The manifesto therefore demands that immediately political power in the country is transferred from men to women, and declares:

(1) Women shall be liable to military conscription on exactly the same terms and conditions as men are or may be liable thereto.

(2) All sex privileges, concessions, and immunities presently enjoyed by women shall be withdrawn.

(3) All laws and practices which relieve women of the economic consequences of their acts, shall be annulled.

(4) The marriage laws and all customs and usages which arise therefrom shall be rectified.

[“‘Fifty-Fifty’ League To War For Men’s Rights,” syndicated (AP), Roswell Daily Record (N. M.), Apr. 10, 1928, p. 1]

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FULL TEXT (Article 3 of 3): Such is the cave man aspect of an international congress that is to be held in Vienna at the end of this month that the promoters are finding difficulty in securing British delegates for it. The promoting body is known as the World’s League for the Rights of Men [Aequitas Weltbund für Männerrechte, founded in Vienna early 1927 by Sigurd Hoeberth (Höberth) following schism of the organization he co-founded in March 1926, Bund für Männerrechte], and its primary object is to combat the political influences making for any increase in women’s emancipation in all countries. Anti-feminist societies and tourist agencies here have been approached to take a practical interest in the conference. The agenda submitted to them takes the form of a list of demands, which are to be discussed seriatim in the Old Royal Palace in Vienna Equality is the watchword, but the only Britsh organization that appears to take the movement very seriously is the Fifty-Fifty League, the chief figure in which is a Glasgow man in London – who is a bachelor.

[“Cave Man Congress (“London Correspondence” column), The Glasgow Herald (Scotland), Sep. 7, 1929, p. 11]

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►• ►The “Early Men’s Rights Activism” post gives links to other articles on 1910s-1930s men’s rights activism in several countries. ◄•◄

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Extravagant American Women: The Alimony Racket in 1911

NOTE: According to one source, the average wage in the US in 1910 was 22 cents an hour. In 1911 a Pound Sterling was worth about $3 US. Thus, I offer a rough equivalent of the value of £375 1911 as $67,100 US today.

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FULL TEXT: “The sum of £375 a year for beauty aids, such as face-powder, is not too much for a woman of moderate means,” This statement (says the New York correspondent of the Daily Telegraph) was made in Chicago by Mrs Trude, who, in her application for alimony, specifies certain personal requirements. The lady estimates that the following items are “reasonably necessary” for a lady of fairly good position:—

Perfume and toilet water £120

Face powder 90

Manicure bills 40

Hairdressers’ bills 70

All other cosmetics and miscellaneous 55

Total . ..£375

“There are many women in Chicago,” says Mrs. Trude, “whose bills are much higher. Perfume bills often run into hundreds of dollars, and the special kind I buy costs £1 10s an ounce. If I worried every time I receive a £10 perfume bill I should be busy.”

Mrs Trude says that she practises economy in all her buying. She keeps her silk stocking bill down to £15 a month by buying carefully. She says that her hats don’t cost more than £240 a year. She believes in being well shod, and says that money spent on the best shoes is economy. That item does not exceed £35 yearly. “I never buy clothes or beauty things unless I positively need them. I keep my wants 10 per cent, under my income, regardless of the demands of society.” Every woman should do that. She should save at least that percentage of her income every year, even if she has to go without the best perfumes now and then.”

[“Extravagant American Women.” Hawera & Normandy Star (Hawera, New Zealand), Oct. 14, 1911, p. 10]

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For more revelations of this suppressed history, see The Alimony Racket: Checklist of Posts

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The American Dating Racket in 1938

FULL TEXT:

DEAR MISS DIX – Do you think the girl who is always trying to save a boy’s pocketbook, even though she may not be going to marry him, is appreciated as much as the gold-digger who is out for all she can get? I have always in mind the fact that a great deal of money and try to keep him from spending money upon me, but my friends say I am foolish not to take all I can get, and certainly, as far as I can see, I get no thanks from the boys. So where am I? --- Mabel.

Answer – from the way boys complain about how the girls hold them up, and what it costs to take a Jane out for an evening’s diversion, I should think that all the young men of your neighborhood would fall on your neck with loud cries of gratitude.

For the gold-diggers certainly are heartless robbers. They go on the assumption that every youth is a millionaire, although they work right at the next desk to him and are perfectly aware that his pay envelope has no more in it than theirs.[Note: The “pay gap” theory, a fairly recent concoction, is a fraud. The idea that women could not support themselves before Marxian gender feminists took over universities and promoted government policies based on their fake data is also a hoax.]

They may know that one dinner-dance will send him to a cheap lunch counter for a month; that a taxi takes the shoes off his feet, and a theater strips the coat from his back, but so long as they are given a good time they should worry over what happens to the poor simp who lets them hold him up with a pair of blue eyes and who hasn’t enough backbone to say “No” to a female grafter if she has a peaches-and-cream complexion.

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So one would think that the boys would simply mob the girl for dates who had enough heart and conscience to spare their pocketbooks; who would eat enough at home to stay her stomach until she got back and was willing to dance to a radio instead of demanding to be taken to a club where there was a 20 piece jazz band.

But men are funny things and there is no understanding them when it comes to the question of women and money. Somehow, they always want to make the grand flourish, anyway, as if they had the whole United States treasury be hind them.

The poorest boy is nearly always the one who grabs up the check and pays it, who sends a girl the longest-stemmed roses, who bus the most expensive seats at the theater and who gives a dollar tip when a dime was all that was needed.

There are very few men who ever have the courage to tell a girl they can’t afford a thing, and it offends most of them for a girl to show that she knows that they can’t afford it by suggesting doing something cheaper. So it is difficult for women to know what line to take with men. Perhaps the best way is never to suggest anything yourself but to fall in with the man’s plan. Then if he spends more than he can afford the crime is at least on his own head. Though that won’t save him from blaming the girl. But that is the chief pleasure men get out of women – making scapegoats of them.

[Dorothy Dix, “Gold Diggers Classed As Heartless Robbers – Girl Who Tries to Keep Boy From Spending Money These Days Is Exception,” syndicated, Milwaukee Sentinel (Wi.), Sep. 24, 1938, p. 11]

Note: The original text has an additional letter/reply on a different topic which we have excluded here.

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[1173-3/2/21]

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“Alimony Brides Make Business Of Collecting” – Cleveland 1928

FULL TEXT: Cleveland, Feb. 3 — Marrying for alimony as a profession, has reached enormous proportions in the United States, if nearly $1,000,000 paid divorcees last year, in Cuyahoga-co, in which Cleveland is located, is any indication, Arthur J. Eyring, alimony clerk, recently remarked.

The women who make a business of collecting alimony here have increased 340 percent in the past 10 years, Eyring revealed. In 1917 only 81 women drew checks from their former spouses. Today the number is so great that the divorced women are often obliged to stand in line.

Local alimonees received $222,923.05 in cash in 1927 and nearly $750,000 in property and money settlements were made, Eyring showed in his annual report.

~ SOME ARE DESERVING ~

Eyring who has paid out alimony for many years declared that although many women are deserving in being supported by their former husbands, it is unbelievable the number of women who are receiving checks from two or maybe three misguided former husbands

He said these divorcees have developed a highly skillful technique of marrying, divorcing and suing for alimony, then remarry some wealthier man, divorcing and suing again for alimony.

Where there are children, Eyring believes it is no more than light for the former married man should aid in supporting his former wife and “kiddies.” It is contended, however, that the familiar “gold-diggers” far outnumber all other alimony receivers.

~ LIFE CONTRACTS ~

Most judges, Eyring declared regard marriage as a life contract and thick that if the contract is broken thru the fault of the husband or not, the wife is fully justified in taking alimony as a fair return for her investment.

However, it is said, that more modern justices feel it a great injustice for a right-minded woman to accept support from a man she has ceased to love and live with.

[“Alimony Brides Make Business Of Collecting - Nearly $1,000,000 Paid Out in Cuyahoga-co Last Year, Report Shows - Pay Off Lines Common – Majority of Judges of Opinion That Women Entitled to Compensation,” syndicated (INS), The Lima News (Oh.), Feb. 23, 1928, p. 8]

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For more revelations of this suppressed history, see The Alimony Racket: Checklist of Posts

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"A Dictatorship of the Eternal Woman Has Been Declared": The Soviet Alimony Racket - 1927

FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 3): Moscow, Feb. 12: — Frenzied feminists find the soviet marriage situation much to their liking. It is the male of the species that all new marriage laws attack. Once upon a time it was the woman who cried when she was deserted. Now the case is reversed. A dictatorship of the eternal woman has been declared and it is the man who weeps.

He weeps because a now law just passed in the Ukraine permits him to be married without knowing about it: He can simply be notified through the post that a certain lady says she has married him. That is enough, no other ceremony is necessary. The lady “announces” the marriage, and he is a benedict, whether he wishes it or not.

The law provides that either party may deal thus summarily with the other. But it is usually the man who finds himself married without knowing it. Then upon refusing to continue with the marriage, he can be made to pay alimony in case there is offspring.

~ ANOTHER CAUSE. ~

Another cause for weeping is the fact that all over Russia a law now exists that will hold the man responsible for all matrimonial ventures, whether registered or simply do facto. He must pay alimony to any and all fair ladies who can prove that at one time, they lived in a state of de facto matrimony with him.

Cases that come to court show that this is easily proved. There is always some woman ready to swear that the defenseless man was the recognized “de facto husband” of her “girl friend.” A third person as a witness that the couple has a joint household, even if only for a few days, is all that is needed.

Should there be children, the question is settled without further ado. The woman collects. Should there be two women and two sets of children, they also collect and so on ad infinitum. So the new legislation insures a second thought on the part of the man before he goes in for a new and casual attachment.

The scions said the recognition of the de facto marriage as equally binding as the registered one would automatically quash any polygamous tendencies on the part of the man.

~ MUST DIVIDE WITH ALL. ~

If he must divide his property with all the ladles of his heart, then he will take care that there is just one with a real claim upon him, reasoned the lawmakers. Perhaps there is logic in that.

The situation which the latest legislation strives to remedy is certainly bad enough. For the last few years there had been a new profession arising in the land of the Soviets. It is that of the “alimony widow.”

The “alimony widow” it is who lives in several short de facto marriages, and raises a brood of de facto children. For the support of her offspring she is legally entitled to collect a certain percentage of the wages of the men she names as the fathers of her brood. In this way she rakes in a much larger income than she could ever make working in a soviet factory or institution—and lives comfortably and happily ever after.

[“New Soviet Marriage Laws Find Favor Among Women,” syndicated (Universal), The Salt Lake Tribune (Ut.), Feb. 13, 1927, p. 7]

FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 3): Moscow. – Commissar Health Semashko condemned the superficial attitude toward matrimonial relations which exists among modem Russian boys and girls, in a lecture which drew a full house and enthusiastic applause.

As one method of control the Health Commissar suggested that Freud’s theory of converting sexual energy into more sublimated channels should be taught youths. Yet, he said, despite the lax living which is prevalent, university students of today are three times healthier than those of pre-revolutionary times.

These prematurely mated youngsters live “more intensely than common sense should permit,” he said. Semashko has just published a new book on the morals of the young in Soviet Russia entitled, “Rely on Alimony but learn to provide for yourself.”

This title is a parody on an old Russian proverb where the word ‘Alimony” has been substituted for “the Lord.”

Alimony has proved a stumbling block in the new order of matrimony. Young women who married for a week at various times were tar too clever in collecting a permanent income from the fathers of their assemblage of children.

“With alimony from one man,” they argued. “I can just manage to exist. But if I can collect from three or four at a time then I’ve a settled income tor life.”

Chiefly against these “alimony widows” Semashko directed the complaints in his book.

[“‘Alimony Widow’ Is Soviet Problem - Women Who Wed Several and Insist on Collecting From All Rapped by Russian Commisar of Health.” Syndicated, The Charleston Gazette (W. Va.), Mar. 27, 1927, p. 9]

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FULL TEXT (Article 3 of 3): Moscow, Dec. 17. – In soviet Russia a couple can be married one minute and divorced the next. The marriage need not cost anything; the divorce requires about 30 cents for the blank form and the official stamp dissolving the union. A marriage requires only the consent of both parties [not true; see articles above]; a divorce the consent of only one.

That is the explanation for the fact that during the first nine months of 1927 there were 9,681 marriages and 7,255 divorces. Many a citizen of the soviet has been married seven or eight times in a single year. Immediately upon issuance of the divorce decree each party is free to take another mate. And a woman may marry as many times as she pleases and still retain her family name.

[“One Marriage In Four Successful,” syndicated (N.E.A.), Pittsburgh Press (Pa.), Dec.18, 1927, Theatricals and Photoplays section, p. 2]

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For a related article see: Alimony Racketeering in the Social Justice Paradise of the Soviet Union - 1926

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EXCERPT: Thinking of “free love” may evoke images of Woodstock rather than early 20th-century Soviet Russia, but it was in fact the early communist regime that undertook perhaps the most ambitious attempt at unleashing human sexuality in history—with predictable results.

As soon as the communists took power in 1917 in Russia, they began to systematically enact policies that followed the doctrines of Karl Marx. Their dream of a materialistic utopia could be attained “only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions,” as Marx had written in the “Communist Manifesto.”

[Petr Svab, “The Failed Soviet Experiment With ‘Free Love’: Communists made a disastrous attempt at replacing family with the state,” The Epoch Times (New York, NY), April 14, 2017 Updated: June 4, 2018]

https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-failed-communist-experiment-with-free-love_2242535.html

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For more revelations of this suppressed history, see The Alimony Racket: Checklist of Posts

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[1358-2/19/22]

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