NOTE: This post will be “in progress” for a while since
there is an enormous amount of text to be transcribed before being posted. This
is a particularly important post since its subject, the Alimony Club of
Illinois, represents the first formally established anti-alimony organization
in the US. At this stage in my research, I regard this as the first, if prototypical,
formally established Men's Rights organization in the US.
The story of its founders, Dr. and Mrs. Vernon P. Cooley, is
of particular interest. As Dr. Cooley fought against his gold-digging wife in
Chicago court, he was inspired to organize the men sitting in jail for
non-payment of alimony into a formal lobby for reform. Shortly after announcing
his plan to the newspapers, he received a letter threatening to bomb his home
if he did not drop his court actions against his ex-wife.
It is important to note that anti-alimony was not regarded
as anti-child support (even though many jurisdictions used “alimony” judgments
to cover child support as well as gold-digger support). The Alimony Club of
Illinois did indeed extend assistance to ex-wives who were attempting to
collect child support from ex-husbands.
***
TIMELINE (in progress)
Jun. 13, ’27 – Dr. Cooley’s ex, Margaret, wins alimony suit
despite having been found guilty of immorality and drunkenness.
Jun. 15, ’27 – Dr. Cooley issues a “call to arms” to alimony
payers, especially those incarcerated in debtor’s jail, to get organized to
fight alimony oppression.
Jun. 26, ’27 – Dr. Cooley is quoted in Chicago Tribune
calling for the “formation of an association of disgruntled alimony papers.”
Jun. 28?, ’27 – Dr. Cooley receives a bomb threat in the
mail, demanding he stop court action against his ex-wife. The letter threatens
Cooley’s attorney Frank Johnston as well. Johnston had been an Illinois
Appellate Judge before returning to private practice.
Jul. 7, ’27 – Dr. Cooley’s ex-wife remarries.
Jul. 20, ’27 – meeting held at High Noon Club to begin
formal organization of the Alimony Club of Illinois.
Aug. 2?, ’27 – Office of the Alimony Club of Illinois opens
at 189 West Madison Street.
Aug. 3?, ’27 – Plan for Alimony Club of Illinois are drafted
in “secret session.”
Aug. 15, ’27 – Contempt of court charge against Alimony Club
of Illinois.
***
ARTICLES to be added:
[“Calls Alimony Clubmen To Fight His Gay Ex-Wife – Dr.
Cooley Resents Her Court Victory.” Chicago Tribune (Il.), Jun. 15, 1927, p. 19]
[“Doctor Battling Alimony Gets Bomb Threat,” Chicago Tribune
(Il.), Jun. 28, 1927, p. 1]
[“Courts Blamed For Mixup Over Alimony Digging – Law Gives
Judges Sole Power, Attorney Says.” Chicago Tribune (Il.), Jun. 29, 1927, p. 15]
[“Alimony Club Is Born To War On Gold Digging – Recruits
Report Tales of Fraud.” Chicago Tribune (Il.), Jul. 21, 1927, p. 1]
[Genevieve Forbes Herrick, “Ex-Wife Wed; Foe of Alimony Is
Un-Clubbed,” Chicago Tribune (Il.), Jul. 8, 1927, p. 1]
[“Alimony Club Is Born To War On Gold Digging – Recruits Report
with Tales of Fraud.” Chicago Tribune (Il.), Jul. 21, 1927, p. 1] (very long)
[Cooley Alimony Case Again Aired In Court Today,” Chicago
Tribune (Il.), Aug. 2, 1927, p. 3]
[“Alimony Club Will Draft Plans Tonight In Secret Session,”
Chicago Tribune (Il), Aug. 3, 1927, p. 12]
[“Alimony Club Challenged in Contempt Case – Told Husband to
Disobey Court, Wife Says.” Chicago Tribune (Il.), Aug. 16, 1927, p. 17]
[“Alimony Club
Outlines War on Gold Diggers – Fake Detectives, Crooked Lawyers Also Targets.”
Chicago Tribune (Il.), Aug. 24, 1927, p. 21]
***
FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 5): With the alimony problem
becoming a question of the hour among judges, the clergy, and many citizens, a
new sensation developed yesterday when Dr. Vernon P. Cooley, whose alimony case
started the discussion, received an anonymous letter, printed in a feminine
head, threatening to bomb his home.
Dr. Cooley has announced a finish a finish fight in the
courts against “gold-digger” wives, who view marriage simply as an aid to
alimony. Frank Johnston Jr., until recently a judge of the Appellate court, has
promised to present the case for Dr. Cooley to the Illinois Supreme court.
~ Letter Threatens Bombing. ~
“You and Johnston better let well enough alone unless you
and your present wife want to be exposed,” the letter stated. “And what’s more
your home will be bombed when you least expect it. Take warning. One Who Knows.
Johnston will get his share too.” The letter was given to federal authorities.
While Dr. Cooley and his present wife, Mrs. Bessie Cooley,
expressed a determination to proceed with their plans to form an association of
alimony victims, and to present a strong demand for consideration in the
courts. Chief Justice Joseph Sabath of the Superior court, who has heard 25,000
divorce cases – more than any other judge in the world – revealed his knowledge
of the women he labeled the “alimony adventuress.”
“I have known women to come into my court who were receiving
alimony from three husbands, Judge Sabath said. “There have been many cases
where two husbands were paying.”
~ Tells of Deception. ~
“Of course, the laws specifies that when a divorced woman
remarries, her alimony from the former husband ceases at once. But these women
deceived their former mates, and continued to collect – extort would be a
better word – from them. When we learn of such cases, the courts make short
shrift of these adventuresses.
“This same type of woman lures men into marriage often just
for the purpose of making them pay alimony. Bringing all their attractions into
play, the trap the fat and jolly and prospering gentry into marriage, and
immediately their attractions fade into cold disdain. Soon the husband sees his
mistake, and then he’s compelled to pay alimony.
~ Stay Single to Collect. ~
“Unless they set a better prospect, these women – I have had
any number of them before me demanding alimony – stay single, and for years
they live, riotously and often immorality, on this deliberately gotten bounty.
“And our upper courts have held that no matter how depraved
these women become, the alimony must go on, with the ex-husband paying for the
liquor, the gigolos, and the love nest.”
Superior Judge Harry A. Lewis had an alimony seeking women
before him yesterday and urged her to free her husband with a divorce or become
reconciled with him. The wife, Mrs. Belle Glicksman, had sued for separate
maintenance, demanding support from Aaron Glicksman, who owns a leather shop at
2223 Montrose boulevard.
~ Leading Men to Sin. ~
“Why should you hang on this man’s neck the rest of his
life?” the judge demanded. “You want his money, but you don’t want to live with
him. Man’s natural instincts move him to mate, and you are deliberately heading
him to sin by your refusal to free him. Court can’t make a man virtuous.”
[“Doctor Battling Alimony Gets Bomb Threat,” Chicago Tribune
(Il.), Jun. 28, 1927, p. 1]
***
FULL
TEXT (Article 2 of 5): Chicago, July 12—A modern Joan Arc has risen here in the
person of one Mrs. Bessie Cooley, and round her standards are gathering
recruits from Chicago’s pretty badly defeated army of alimony payers.
Her
cry is: “Down with alimony gold-digging.” “Millions for defense, but not one
cent for alimony,” the heartened troops under her command are singing as a
march song. Mrs. Cooley is the wife of Dr. Vernon P. Cooley. Cooley was married
once before and the first wife is still receiving alimony, which makes the
present militant Mrs. Cooley angry.
The
Illinois appellate court recently ruled on Dr. Cooley's petition to have the
alimony to the first Mrs. Cooley stopped. The court supported his contention
that Mrs. Cooley No. 1 was spending the money he was paying her in riotous
living, but that fact, so the court ruled, as a mere moral issue, did not
warrant any order for the discontinuance of payments.
It
was a long legal treatise on morality and alimony. And the upshot of the whole
thing was that Dr. Cooley was ordered to keep paying and probably would have
done so if it hadn't been for Mrs. Cooley No. 2.
“No,
sir,” she said. “Let them put you in jail. But don't pay another cent. No woman
without children, who is able to support herself, is, deserving of alimony.
“If
while she is living with him and is still his wife, a woman, conducts herself
in an improper, manner, a husband can go into court and rid himself of her
completely.”
“But
if after she divorces him and lives riotously, on the alimony he is forced to
pay her, it is irreconcilable that his duty to her should be greater than while
he is married to her.
“The
two theories don’t harmonize. There are too many gold-diggers among divorced
women, and half of them aren't deserving of consideration.”
~ FORMS ANTI-ALIMONY LEAGUE ~
As
the first part of her drive Mrs. Cooley is forming the Society of Disgruntled
Alimony Payers.
Eligibility
to membership will be based on experience only.
A big
mass meeting of members is being planned and will take place here just as soon
as the society can whip its battle plans into shape. Many Chicago judges agree
with Mrs. Cooley that there is need for a movement such as she has set in
motion.
They concur that alimony, to healthy and able-bodied
ex-wives without children is as out of date in the changed order of social
conditions as a horse and buggy.
[Gibbons, Roy J., “Militant Wife Launches War
Against Alimony in Chicago,” syndicated (NEA), Freeport Journal-Standard (Il.),
Jul. 8, 1927, p. 13]
***
FULL TEXT (Article 3
of 5): Chicago, July 20 – The alimony club, refuge of the solace-seeking male,
meets tonight and portends ill for the gold-digging ertswhile wife.
Statistics of women
putting poison in their husband’s coffee and then running away or filing suit
for divorce, while the victim is in the hospital, will be related at the dinner
for those daring enough to appear.
Letters written by men
who are shy about hanging their family troubles on a public line will be heard,
says Dr. Vernon P. Cooley was relieved of paying alimony when his wife revealed
she had married an older man months ago.
“One of our members,
who will be at the dinner,” said the doctor, “is paying alimony under a court
order to a bigamous woman who already has had him thrown in jail once when he
fell behind in his contributions.
[“Alimony Payers to
Seek Refuge at Club Dinner,” syndicated (AP), Jul. 21, 1927, p. 1]
***
FULL TEXT (Article 4 of 5): Chicago – Married women who are
gold-diggers rather than wives, are facing bitter opposition from the newly
formed Chicago Alimony club, founded by Vernon P. Cooley, a Chicago dentist,
who has been through the alimony mill himself. His organization is actively
engaged on a campaign to amend divorce laws in such a manner as to afford
proper protection to wives who are victims of circumstances, while at the same
time clipping the wings of those matrimonial birds of passage who go through
the marriage ceremony with one eye on the divorce court and an income for which
they will not have to work.
It will be a fight, too. Cooley Alimony club was emblazoned
across the front pages a year ago when he announced his determination to oppose
alimony graft. Recently, as his organization began its active campaign, he
received an anonymous letter.
“Cooley, you lay off, or you will suffer,” the letter read.
As a reply the militant anti-alimonist called a meeting of
the Chicago Alimony club, at which he said plans will be completed for a final
drive for a revision of existing divorce laws, and the exposure of scores of
outstanding cases of ex-husbands who had been bankrupted by their efforts to
appease the voracious appetites of gold-digging women, backed by the power of a
court order.
Cooley was divorced from his first wife a year ago. Heavy
alimony was charged against him. Ever since that time he has been waging his
fight, in which he is supported by his second wife, Mrs. Besse Cooley.
[Hargis Earlywine, “Threaten Leader in Warfare Against
Alimony Graft,” The Shamokin Dispatch (Pa.), Jul. 9, 1927, p. 2]
***
FULL TEXT (Article 5 of 5): Chicago, Aug. 12. – Why the
alimony club?
To stop the indiscriminate awarding of alimony to
gold-digging parasitic women.
The Alimony club of Illinois was created for the purpose of
preserving the American home from disintegration, the abolition of legalized
white slavery, the prevention of fraud and perjury and to eliminate forever the
imprisonment of men for non-payment of alimony to conscienceless, vindictive
wives who apparently delight in the prosecution an humiliation of “The goose
that laid the golden egg.”
Because there apparently exists in Chicago no organization
founded for humanitarian purposes, to which those wishing help and advice might
turn with some assurance of immediate and concrete help, the creation of such
an organization as this was imperative.
Primarily the intent of the law with reference to alimony
was to reward a faithful, loving wife who had done her duty to her home and
family.
How far we have retrograded from the original purpose of
this beneficent law may be gleaned from the fact that today the securing of
alimony is a highly specialized, vicious industry, made possible by an alliance
between perjurers, unscrupulous attorneys and politicians.
Does a man, after divorce, owe his wife a greater duty than
while the marital relations existed, in that she may commit with impunity low
and degraded, be guilty of improper friendship with other men, and still
receive alimony? You cannot reconcile these two ideas.
This club is to save ex-husbands from the persecution of
such women.
[Dr. Vernon P. Cooley, “Purpose of Alimony Club Is Outlined
by Dr. Cooley,” St. Petersburg (Fl.), Aug. 13, 1927, p. 9]
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