Chicago Woman Lawyer Agnes McHugh Challenges Chivalrous Lenience for Women - 1916

(Article 1 of 7) HEADLINE: Women Say Only Woman Can Stop Women Killing Off Their Husbands - With 20 Chicago Women Acquitted of Slaying Husbands or Lovers, Feminine Lawyers Ask for “Justice Instead of Sympathy” of Men.

FULL TEXT:

SAYS MISS M’HUGH:

* Chicago husbands seem to live merely by courtesy of their wives.

* Idle hands are the hands that usually grasp revolvers. The woman who has responsibilities in life does not hold life lightly.

* To protect MANY women, we must punish SOME women.

* Chivalry is inborn in men. The instinct to protect the woman at the bar leads jurymen to forget it is their duty to protect society.

* If woman, the life giver, takes life wantonly, she should be held responsible for her crime.

BY HONOR FANNING.

Chicago, Sept. 26. – That uniquely Chicagoan pastime—the killing of husbands without the paying of penalty—is going to stop. And it is the women themselves who are going to stop it.

Since 1907 twenty women have been acquitted of the charge of murdering their husbands or lovers.

The “affinity murder” is almost as familiar as burglary or bank robbing.

In almost every case the woman at the bar was young and attractive and she came into court with her bowed head crowned with a halo of romance.

Women lawyers now are demanding that a woman prosecute the latest case – that of Mrs. Iva Barnes, accused of shooting her husband, James R. Barnes wealthy business man twice her use.

They have petitioned the state’s attorney to appoint Miss Agnes McHugh special prosecutor.

“A man jury will not convict a woman murderer in this county,” says Miss McHugh, “if the prosecutor is a man.”

“I think this leniency may be traced to the chivalry latent in every man. The jurors see two or three big strong men sitting at the prosecutors’ table, and subconsciously feel that these fierce prosecutors are attacking the frail, pretty woman in the prisoner’s chair. Their instinct is to defend her.”

“Perhaps their pity would not be stirred so profoundly if a woman was in the prosecutor’s chair.”

“I believe the leniency of juries with feminine slayers is responsible for the wave of ‘affinity crimes’ sweeping Chicago.”

“The woman criminal will receive justice only when there’s a woman in court to prosecute her. We demand justice for women — not maudlin sympathy or leniency.”

Here’s the long list of Chicago women acquitted of killing husbands or lovers:

Mrs. DORA M’DONALD, wife of the ate Michael C. McDonald, the gambler, acquitted of murdering Webster Guerin, a young business man.

LUCILE M’LEOD, acquitted of slaying; man while he was asleep.
MISS ESTELLE STOUT, freed charge of killing Henry Hornberger.
MRS. JAKE QUINN, acquitted of killing husband, John M. Quinn.
MRS. RENE B. MORROW, freed of charge o£ slaying her husband, Charles B. Morrow.
MRS. SADIE BLAHA, acquitted of killing Morris Sturm.
MRS. LOUIS VERMILYA, charged with poisoning Policeman Arthur Bissonette, R. T. Smith and others. Jury disagreed. Charges against her dropped. She will not be tried again.
MRS. HARRIET BURNHAM, acquitted of murdering husband, Herbert B. Burnham.
MRS. FLORENCE BERNSTEIN, freed of charge of killing husband.
MRS. LENA MUSSO, acquitted of killing husband, Peter Musso.
MRS. ALICE DAVIS SING, acquitted of murdering her Chinese husband Charlie Sing.
STELLA CZEMEROWSKA, acquitted of the slaying of Frank Kosczynaki, her fiancé.
MRS. AUGUST DIETZ, State’s Attorney Hoyne dismissed charge against her and George Numbers, accused the murder of her husband, because of lack of evidence.
MRS. MARY KOZICKI, found, not guilty of murdering her husband.
MRS. LOUISE VAN KEUREN, tried on charge of murder of her husband, John B. Keuren; acquitted.
MRS. BLANCHE MURPHY, tried for murdering husband, Patrick Murphy, acquitted.
MRS. NELLIE HIGGS, tried for murder of W. W. Willis, acquitted.
MRS. BELLE BEASLEY, acquitted of murder of her husband, James Bensley.
MAUD OBERG, acquitted of killing Edward Breach.
HELEN KELLOGG, acquitted of killing James Stokes.

[“Women Say Only Woman Can Stop Women Killing Off Their Husbands - With 20 Chicago Women Acquitted of Slaying Husbands or Lovers, Feminine Lawyers Ask for “Justice Instead of Sympathy” of Men.” Sep. 26, 1916, p. 5]

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FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 7): Mrs. Iva Barnes broke down today and confessed killing her husband, Jas. R. Barnes, who was found shot to death at her feet in Washington park last night She said she did it because he refused to live with her.

Barnes’ suit for divorce was to be heard by Judge Gibbons, today. He filed a bill after returning home late in July and finding Roy Schellheimer, a bartender, in their flat at 356 E. 58th st. with Mrs. Barnes. A few days later he moved to the Hotel Warner. Mrs. Barnes said Schellheimer had tried to attack .her. According to the story told by Mrs. Barnes, she met her husband by appointment last evening and he suggested a stroll in the park to talk over the details of the divorce suit Barnes was 49 years old. He was connected with the New York Dry Goods Co.

[“Confesses Killing Husband,” The Day Book (Chicago, Il.), Sep. 6, 1916, p. 2]

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FULL TEXT (Article 3 of 7): Preparations are already being made by attorneys for Mrs. Iva Barnes to put up a stiff court fight in the belief that a woman cannot be convicted of murder in Cook county. Mrs. Barnes shot her husband, Jas. Barnes, four times when she met him in Washington park Tuesday night.

The odd angle is that Mrs. Barnes will use her widow's share of the $40,000 the murdered man left to defend herself against charges of killing him.

The police say she shot him three times after he fell to the ground with a bullet in his spine. She says she shot to save herself; the police think she killed him because he refused to withdraw divorce suit against her.

Barnes sued after he returned home one day to find his wife in the kitchen with a strange man. She said she had invited the man in after he did some work for her and protested, wrongdoing.

[“Mrs. Barnes’ Defense - Money To Come From Spouse's Coin,” The Day Book (Chicago, Il.), Sep. 7, 1916, p. 32]

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FULL TEXT (Article 4 of 7): Chicago, Sept. 10. – While State’s Attorney MacLay Hoyne considered the advisability of appointing a woman prosecutor [Agnes McHugh, who was not in the end appointed] in the case of Mrs. Iva Barnes, indicted for the murder of her husband, Chicago women attorneys rallied today to the support of the accused woman and offered to act as defense attorney.

The fact that a jury composed of Chicago men has failed to convict a woman of murder in many years caused the suggestion of a woman prosecutor.

Miss Florence King, president of the Woman’s Association of Commerce and prominent members of the Women’s Bar Association, tonight declared that she would gladly assist the defense.

“I will aid the accused woman all I can,” she declared. “Women of Chicago are judging and declaring this woman guilty of murder even before she has been held by the grand jury. They are very unfair.

[“Chicago Portias Go To Wife’s Defense - Women Lawyers Rally to Support of Woman Charge With Murder of Husband.” The Washington Times (D.C.), Sep. 10, 1916, p. 1]

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FULL TEXT (Article 5 of 7): Ray Shelhammer, husky bartender in Righeimer’s saloon, on today told about his share in the tragedy of the Barnes family, which wound up with the murder of Barnes and the trial of his wife, now on.

How he met Mrs. Iva Barnes in Washington park as she was sewing, climbed a tree to catch her parrot, which escaped, and then went to the Barnes home to wash up. Shelhamer testified. When he came from the bathroom after washing up. Mrs. Barnes embraced him, he says then Mr. Barnes came in and Shelhammer went out.

Barnes sued for divorce; Mrs. Barnes tried to get him to annul it; she shot, and killed him in Washington park, Sept 15, when he refused to come back to her, according to the claims of the prosecution.

Shelhammer’s story stood up well under a hot cross-examination. In answer to questions of the defense he admitted he did not have intimate relations with Mrs. Barnes, but said they were on a bed when Mr. Barnes surprised them.

Capt “Paddy” Lavin of the Hyde Park police station introduced a “confession” signed by Mrs. Barnes on the day after the tragedy. A second paper written on the day following was also brought into the case.

In neither did Mrs. Barnes confess killing her husband. But the act is indicated.

She said that Barnes stuck his hand into his pocket in a manner that frightened her.

An attempt by Ass’t State’s Att’y Barnhart to introduce details of the estate left by Barnes was stopped by Judge Fitch. This was supposed to lead up to a contention that the motive for the alleged slaying was to secure Barnes’ money. He was a well-to-do linen salesman...

[“Bartender’s Tale Unshaken In Barnes Murder Trial,” The Day Book (Chicago, Il.), Dec. 19, 1916, p. 32]

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FULL TEXT (Article 6 of 7): Mrs. Iva Barnes took the stand this morning to defend herself against the charge of killing her husband. Jas. R. Barnes, in a broken voice she sketched over her meeting with Barnes, the result of a flirtation in a loop cafe. She was dining with her father Barnes, at a nearby table, smiled. She returned it. He dropped his card on her table as he passed out. She called him up next day. She called him up the next day. They met at Marshall Fiend’s. Rapid courtship. So they were married.

Adjournment interrupted Mrs. Barnes’ story. Before she took the stand Mrs. H. Ingersoll, her sister, testified to seeing Barnes strike his wife on two occasions. Mrs. Louisa Thompson, a friend, said Barnes very often came home drunk.

[“Mrs. Barnes On Stand,” The Day Book (Chicago, Il.), Dec. 20, 1916, p. 32]

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FULL TEXT (Article 6 of 7): Mrs. Iva Barnes, freed of charge of killing husband yesterday, went Xmas shopping today.

[Untitled, The Day Book (Chicago, Il.), Dec. 23, 1916, p. 6]

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For more on this topic, see Chivalry Justice Checklist & Links

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[1458-8/30/18]
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Chivalry Justice Checklist & Links

Lies, damned lies … and CHIVALRY JUSTICE.

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There is nothing new about men preferring to believe lies told by women who have committed crimes and who have made false allegations against others. What is new, however, is the the phenomenon of women tending to prefer to believe lies told by female criminals.

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This post is an evidence resource for the serious myth-buster.

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Reference: Chivalry Justice Quotes from Judges & Prosecutors: 1912 – 1922

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1866 – Chivalry Justice & the Heart Balm Racket in 1866

1895 – “For Protection of Men”: Against Being Murdered –1895

1906 – Wild Wild West & Wives With Sex-Shooters: Chivalry in 1906

1907 – Chivalry Justice in 1907 USA

1908 – French Child Care Provider, Jeanne Weber, Murdered 7 Children – 1908

1911 – Chivalry Justice & the Serial Killer: Louise Vermilya

1911 – Why Are So Many Wives Killing Their Husbands? -Headline from 1911

1912 – Chivalry Justice & the Heart Balm Racket - 1912

1912 – The Grace Case & Chivalry Justice - 1912

1912 – Chicago Murderesses Express Their Preference For All-Male Juries: Much Easier To Manipulate – 1912

1912 – 7 Murderesses Who Expressed Their Preference for All-Male Juries

1912 – He Fears You - 1912

1912 – “A Man Is Killed By A Woman Every Day!” - Petticoats Confer Immunity

1913 – Chicago's "Reign of Terror" in 1913: Husband-Killers

1913 – “Guillotine Rights” for French Women – 1913

1914 – Chivalry Justice in Europe – 1914

1914 – Chivalry Justice in Chicago – 1914

1916 – Chicago Woman Lawyer Agnes McHugh Challenges Chivalrous Lenience for Women – 1916

1918 – Chivalry Justice in 1918

1919 – Making Fun of the Chicago Wife’s License to Kill -1919

1920 – Ending the De Facto “Woman’s License to Kill” in Chicago - 1920

1921 – “Disarmament for Women Demanded”: Congresswoman Alice Robertson – 1921

1921 – Elizabeth Orthwein, “Woman No. 28 to Cheat Law” -1921

1921 – Chivalry Justice in 1921: Anti-Misandry Female Judges

1921 – Chivalry Justice & the Beauty Factor: Dora Waterman - 1921

1921 – Chivalry Justice Explained by New York Sheriff - 1921

1921 – Chivalry Justice: Reversing the Trend - 1921

1922 – Chivalry Justice: Three Expert Opinions – 1922

1922 – Chivalry & the Death Penalty: The Cora Vinson case – 1922

1922 – Chivalry Justice vs. Equal Justice Debated in 1922

1922 – “Woman, and Her Right to Kill" – 1922

1922 – Chivalry Justice: “When Laws Meet Fair Charmers” -1922

1923 – “Can Beauty Be Convicted?” – Chivalry Justice in 1923

1924 – A Woman’s License to Kill: Chicago, 1924

1924 – She Served Only Five Years: Mrs. Myrtle Schaude, Who Poisoned Her Husband and Her Four Children

1925 – Bill Against False Rape Accusations & Sexual Blackmail – 1925

1926 – “’If you were a man I would hang you,’ the judge told her.”: Elsie Bible Malinsky, Serial Killer – 1926

1929 – “Frenzied Wails of  Murderesses in the Shadow of the Guillotine”: Chivalry Justice in 1929 France

1930 – Chivalry Justice in 1930 - France

1930 – A Woman’s License to Kill: “La Mode Rouge” – France 1930

1930 – “Divorce By Murder.”Favored By Frenchwomen - Sentimental Juries’ Leniency Menace To Civilisation” -1930

1930 – The Verdict That Shocked Paris: Jeanne Fabre-Bulle - 1930

1932 – A Husband-Killing Epidemic in South Carolina, 1932 – Advice for Husbands

1934 – Chivalry Justice in 1934

1935 – Chicago's Women Who Got Away With Murder – 1935 Report

1937 – “If Women Ask Equality With Men, They Must Face Equal Penalty for Crime, Mrs. Martin Says” – 1937

Current – The Female Sentencing Discount

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[2053-9/4/18]
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Bernice Zalimas: Arsenic & the Ostentatious White Knight Lawyer – 1924

Bernice Zalimas was tried and convicted for the murder of her husband. The conviction was regarded as an extraordinary event in Chicago, where it was almost impossible to get a jury to convict an attractive woman of murder.

On appeal the conviction was overturned and prosecutors chose to try her a second time. This time she was acquitted due to the extraordinary actions of her attorney. See:

Chicago Woman Lawyer Agnes McHugh Challenges Chivalrous Lenience for Women - 1916

Chivalry Justice: “When Laws Meet Fair Charmers” – 1922

On appeal the conviction was overturned and prosecutors chose to try her a second time. This time she was acquitted due to the extraordinary actions of her attorney.

For another case of extraordinary chivalry that save a woman accused of murder, see the legendary Beulah Annan case:

The Definitive “White Knight” Cautionary Tale: The Saga of Beulah Annan - 1928 

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PHOTO CAPTION (Article 1 of 4): The doctor's certificate held the death of Dominick Zalimas, 38, of Chicago, was due to natural causes. But friends insisted upon an autopsy, and the funeral was halted and the post-mortem examination made. It revealed a heavy dose of poison, evidently placed in his food, had killed him. His wife, Mrs. Bernice Zalimas, 23, was arrested for his murder. She protests her innocence.

[“Held for Husband’s Death,” syndicated, The Manitowac Herald-News (Dec. 5, 1924, p. 6]

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FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 4): Chicago, May 11. – The notion that Cook county can produce no beauty-proof juries has been exploded with the sentencing to 14 years in the penitentiary of Mrs. Bernice Zalimas, “the lady with the classic profile and the rose-bud mouth.”

When Mrs. Zalimas appeared in court for trial last week, charged with poisoning her husband, it was apparent that her defense would be the same as that which has proven so successful for “lady killers” in the past. She was in the mode. She had engaged a dressmaker as well as an attorney.

On one side was Mrs. Zalimas and her beauty set off with a complete change of costume daily. On the other side was the prosecutor with a logical sequence of facts. He showed that Bernice had quarreled with her husband; that he had threatened to divorce her for intimacy with another man; that she had threatened to poison him; that she had purchased poison; that her husband had died and that poison was the cause of his death. Motive, opportunity and the fact that crime had been committed were the pillars of the state’s case.

The jury found Mrs. Zalimas guilty in 45 minutes and she was sent back to her boudoir in the county jail, the first murderess in years whose beauty had meant nothing to 11 good men and true.

[“Beauty Fails To Save Woman On Trial For Killing,” syndicated (United News) The Evening Independent (St. Petersburg, Fl.), May 11, 1925, p. 12]

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FULL TEXT (Article 3 of 4): Chicago, May 23. – You seriously wonder whether there can really be a soul stirring in the depths of Mrs. Zalimas here.

That is the impression you get after talking to her in the jail, where she is being held preparatory to going to the penitentiary for 14 years for slaying her husband by poison.

Plump, blond and suave, she is the last of the season’s “arsenic widows” who for one reason or another sought to rid themselves of husbands without due process of law.

Bernice, in her gingham jail garb, is rather mad at the way the law has treated her.

She had rather expected to go free and join the female band of 32 who have killed and escaped during the past five years. Instead she finds herself as No. 14 in the coterie which has been convicted.

They found a pound of arsenic in the loft of the Zalimas home shortly after Dominick, the husband, died.

Bernice was at his bedside when the end came and wept many tears.

There was another man for possible motive and some insurance and money in a strongbox, the State claimed in evidence at the trial.

Bernice affected bewilderment over the charges and shook her strawberry locks to perplex the jurors.

They were scarcely influenced. Instead of the pleaded rope they gave her half a normal lifetime behind bar and key.

If a man had done what Bernice has been found guilty of doing the case would be of but little interest.

But Bernice is interesting because she typifies the order of the day.

When they found her guilty she pretended a few hysterics and then settled back into the shell from which she has since failed to emerge.

In jail she laughs and is voluble in sing-song denials of guilt.

The husband whose life was taken by the arsenic paste intended for rats, never seems to cross her memory.

She thinks, rather of the crowds and smart dresses she wore last year and the society which accepted her, much after fashion of receiving a gladiator or court fool into its midst, because Bernice provided pleasure.

She cannot distinguish that her ambition to become a part of the city’s circles of culture, wealth and refinement was doomed to failure.

She does not know that she was smiled on not as an equal, but as a superb animal.

She only knows that she should say “It is horrible. I did not do it.”

Kipling once wrote about the rag and the bone and the hank of hair – the woman who did not and could not care.

He should have been Bernice, the well-groomed animal, trying to catch a glimpse of her reflected self in the window of a jail – thinking of such things in the midst of dramatic trouble.

[“Beauty in Toils Forgets of Murder,” The Providence News (R.I.), May 28, 1925, p. 3]

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►Why the Lawyer Ate Poison to Save His Lovely Client

►The Desperate and Dramatic Gesture that Startled the Court Room and Won His Case When Every Other Expedient Had Failed

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FULL TEXT: (Article 4 of 4): Freedom, happiness, beautiful gowns, gaiety, luxury and possible romance—

Or fifteen years of hard labor in the penitentiary, coarse clothing, coarse food, sodden drudgery scrubbing floors by days, and hideous, .endless nights locked up alone in an. iron cell.

Mrs. Bernice Zalimas, beautiful blonde cloak model, sat trembling a few weeks ago in a Chicago courtroom, wondering which of these two alternatives would be her fate.

She had already been once convicted of poisoning her husband, but had protested her complete innocence to the last, and had persuaded her attorney, Eugene McGarry that she really was being made the martyr to another woman’s jealousy.

His faith in her had caused him to move heaven and earth for a new trial—and at last he had obtained it.

But now the second trial seemed on the verge of going against her, as the first had.

The State had ruled up circumstantial evidence that seemed overwhelming, and the prosecuting attorney had depicted her as a beautiful fiend, a cruel, calculating, deliberate murderess, who deserved neither pity nor mercy.

 

The faces of the jurymen were hard and cold. After the death of her husband, an autopsy had revealed traces of arsenic in his stomach. The State contended that she had killed him by putting a poisonous cleaning powder, containing arsenic, in his food.

The defense insisted that Dominic Zalimas had died from natural causes, and that tin arsenic found in his stomach was nothing more than the traces of a medicine he had been taking of his own volition, pills containing small quantities of arsenic, frequently prescribed as a tonic.

But the case seemed to be going against her. Vainly Attorney McGarry argued that the amount of arsenic discovered in Zalimas’ body could not have killed anybody.

To convince the jury, he took up a little bottle containing the pills which the defense contended had been found in the vest pocket of the dead man, and said that he proposed to swallow some of them then and there, as proof of his sincerity in saying they were not dangerous.

Harold Levy, Assistant State’s Attorney, leaped to his feet and stopped him. “That’s no good,” he cried, appealing to both judge and jury. “We do not contend that those pills killed him, or could hurt anybody. We contend that he was poisoned by this box of powder. We have it here, and we know it is a deadly poison. Let Mr. McGarry eat some of that, if he dares!”

The prosecuting lawyer had no idea that Attorney McGarry would “take” the dare. It was just his way of clinching an argument. But McGarry’s “Irish” was up, as the saying goes. In addition, lie had absolute faith in the innocence of his beautiful client.

 

And in addition to that, he had been making a careful scientific study of the affects of arsenic.

He had learned that it was a deadly poison, but that it did not kill except when taken in a larger quantity than even the prosecution alleged Mrs. Zalimas had put in her husband’s food.

“Why don’t you eat some of the powder that killed him?” taunted the lawyer for the State. McGarry glanced at his fair client, who was sobbing.

He looked at the jury, and saw from their faces that they felt the prosecution had scored a point.

His offer to take the pills from the bottle had been a boomerang that the prosecution had cleverly turned against him.

Suddenly, before the judge or bailiffs could stop him, he seized the paper box of powder from the table, poured out a large spoonful into the palm of his hand, and gulped it down!

The judge had risen in his seat with astonishment. The prosecution was thunderstruck. Some of the jurors laughed hysterically – and others turned pale.

Mrs. Zalimas, whose bend had been bent forward in her hands, screamed and seemed to be about to faint, when she realized what had happened. McGarry, after swallowing the poison, stood with beads of perspiration breaking out on his forehead, and said, quietly:

“I am sorry I had to do that. This powder was intended for cleaning purposes. I think it is possible that it may make me very sick, but I insisted to you, gentlemen of the jury, that it would not produce death. I sincerely believe that. And there was no other way to prove to you that I had the courage of my convictions.”

The attorneys for the prosecution, pale and startled, but busily whispering, were soon on their feet, claiming that Mr. McGarry’s gesture was “improper pleading,” but the judge let matters proceed.

And McGarry, after drinking half a glass of water, took his stand before the jury, and began his final argument to save his client. It was a long, impassioned plea. He became so eloquent that judge, jury and spectators almost forgot that they were listening to a man who had just voluntarily taken poison, and who stood before them even with the poison working in his veins.

At the end of about twenty minutes, in the midst of a long, emotional sentence, the lawyer’s knees suddenly sagged and his face turned deadly pale. He clutched at the railing of the jury box, to prevent himself from falling to the floor.

The courtroom was in a hubbub of excitement. Physicians rushed forward. “He’s going to die,” exclaimed a juror. “It’s horrible.”

The doctors were all for stopping the proceedings and carrying the attorney into an anteroom and using a stomach pump on him immediately to save his life. But he was still able to speak, and forbade it.

“My client’s future is at stake,” he said. “I still insist that I was right, and I insist on going on. I do not feel any pain. I think I collapsed merely from nervousness and exhaustion.”

The whole thing was so unusual, and so much hung in the balance, that the judge still allowed matters to proceed. A man who had taken such a dramatic risk to prove himself right, should have the privilege of going through with it if he could.

McGarry recovered his self-possession presently, and began the continuation of his final plea. When it was over, he refused to leave the courtroom, for fear it would give the prosecution a chance to suggest that he had rid himself of the poison with an emetic. He sat through it to the bitter end.

“I am certainly not comfortable,” he said, “but I am sure that it won’t kill me.”

The judge’s charge was brief, and the jury’s deliberation was even briefer. In a very, short time they were back in the courtroom with a unanimous verdict of “not guilty!”

Mrs. Zalimas broke down completely from joy.

“I owe my life and freedom to you,” she cried, and covered the lawyer’s hand with kisses. It was one of the most dramatic moments that had ever occurred in a modern courtroom.

McGarry didn’t wait for many congratulations.

Accompanied by two physicians, he hurried from the courthouse – and what they did afterward was nobody’s business.

The sensational acquittal was the culmination of one of the most dramatic criminal cases the Middle West has known in years.

The beautiful defendant had known the shame and misery of actual imprisonment, for following her conviction in the first trial, she was locked up for weeks in the Cook County jail. She had escaped being sent immediately to the penitentiary and hard labor, because of the appeal which was pending.

 

“I knew God would take care of me,” she exclaimed in her cell, on the night when news was brought to her that a new trial had been granted, and that she would be temporarily released on heavy bail.

“I knew that this would happen, for I am innocent, and I felt the Lord would hear my “prayers. I shall be so happy to be out of prison,” she continued at that time, “but I shall be sorry just the same to leave the babies.”

“What babies?” the reporters demanded, “We didn’t know you had any babies.”

The jail matron explained that Mrs. Zalimas had assumed the role of foster-mother to two little babies whose mothers were in the same jail, and ill. One of the babies was three months old, and the other only five weeks.

That the action of Attorney McGarry was unparalleled in dramatic courage, is conceded by his fellow members of the bar. He himself is inclined to make light of it, declaring that he had made a careful study of the effects of arsenic, and was convinced that no matter how ill the poison made him, he was in no actual danger of succumbing. Had he become violently ill, as in apparent danger, the court would have insisted on an emetic or stomach pump, and the demonstration would have injured rather helped his fair client, but he took that chance.

[“Why the Lawyer Ate Poison to Save His Lovely Client – The Desperate and Dramatic Gesture that Startled the Court Room and Won His Case When Every Other Expedient Had Failed.” The Salt Lake Tribune (Ut.), Jun. 13, 1926, p. 2]

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For more on this topic, see Chivalry Justice Checklist & Links

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[900-11/11/21]

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A Woman’s Voice

All the quotations found below date from before the rise of cultural Marxism and related feminist ideologies in the 1960s. This is significant because the now-orthodox narrative of the history between the sexes ("herstory") is a false one. It is fake history. The quotations given here are valuable evidence useful in demonstrating not only that the “official story” is a hoax, but also in assisting us in beginning to rewrite the history of the relations between the sexes – this time truthfully.

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►1904 – Anonymous Gentlewoman (USA)

As society is made, it is almost impossible for a man to go the right way about his relations with woman. The system prescribes a certain attitude. It is the attitude of crawl, salaam, obsequiousness and second fiddle. If you depart from it by a hair’s breadth your woman become suspicious of you. If you advise other men to depart from it you get a bad name. Women stand up for women’s rights and are made the subject of applause, bouquets and  illuminated addresses. The man who dares come out strong for men’s rights does not breathe. Men do not want him. They are like canaries in cages, afraid to go out lest the cat get them. Peace at any price is man’s rule of life. Abroad he will swagger and bluster, and bully. “Nemo me impune lacessit!” he roars. At home his watchword is ‘‘Blessed are the meek.” Abroad he frowns and breathes fire; at home he is plain, unvarnished “him.” Abroad he struts, at home he slinks. Abroad he is very wise, at home he is a little child.— Gentlewoman.”

[“Poor, Abused Man! What Male Is There Who Will Stand Up for Man’s Rights?” Boston Globe (Ma.), May 1, 1904, p. 32; Illustration from fashion article on preceding page (31)]

►1912 – Mrs. C. H. Hughston – Suffrage leader

Many an American husband turns over every penny he makes to the woman he marries, receiving back from her a meager allowance for carfare and lunches. Perhaps she runs up extra bills; if she does, he struggles meekly to pay them, and consoles himself with the fact that Mary and the girls look ‘better’n any body in town.’ He breaks down from overwork in his early maturity, and nobody has anything but pity for his family.

[Marguerite Mooers Marshall, “Give Men Rights, Is the Doctrine of Suffragists – No Wife Should Take All of Her Husband’s Wages, Says Mrs. C. A. Hughston. - Wives Ought to Help. – They Should Not Keep Their Earnings Out of the Family Fund.” The World, Evening Edition (N.Y.), Jul. 6,1912, p. 10]

►1916 – Agnes McHugh – Chicago attorney

"A man jury will not convict a woman murderer in this county, if the prosecutor is a man. I think this leniency may be traced to the chivalry latent in every man. The jurors see two or three big strong men sitting at the prosecutors’ table, and subconsciously feel that these fierce prosecutors are attacking the frail, pretty woman in the prisoner’s chair. Their instinct is to defend her. Perhaps their pity would not be stirred so profoundly if a woman was in the prosecutor’s chair. I believe the leniency of juries with feminine slayers is responsible for the wave of ‘affinity crimes’ sweeping Chicago. The woman criminal will receive justice only when there’s a woman in court to prosecute her. We demand justice for women — not maudlin sympathy or leniency."

[“Women Say Only Woman Can Stop Women Killing Off Their Husbands - With 20 Chicago Women Acquitted of Slaying Husbands or Lovers, Feminine Lawyers Ask for “Justice Instead of Sympathy” of Men.” Sep. 26, 1916,p. 5]

►1919 – Dorothy Dix  – journalist, “the world’s most highly paid woman writer”

"Among my acquaintances is a piteous old man, who is dying of a broken heart because his wife has alienated the affections of his only child from him.

This father belongs in the ranks of those who earn their bread by the sweat of their brows. Life has been hard to him, but the one rose that has bloomed along his arid pathway has seen his little daughter, and he has found no toil too hard to keep her soft and safe, no sacrifices too great to make to give her a fine education.

While the girl was little she was a joy to him as she cuddled in his arms and pressed her rosy little cheek to his worn one, but as she has grown older her mother has weaned her away from her father and taught her to look with contempt upon him, so that now she treats him with coldness and neglect, and pays him not so much attention as she would to a faithful old workhorse.

And it has turned the father’s world to dust and ashes.

One would think that a woman who turns her children against their father and robs him of their love must be a fiend incarnate. She would be if she committed the crime deliberately, but she does it without realizing what a terrible thing she is doing, or how far-reaching and disastrous are its consequences.
For many other women are guilty of this same offense. Occasionally a mother weans her children away from their father through a morbid jealousy. She wants to be all in all to them. She cannot bear for them to love anyone else, not even their father, as well as they love her. She is filled with torturing fear that they may even prefer their father to her, as children often do if left to follow unhampered their own impulses."

[Dorothy Dix, “Teaching Children to Despise Father.” syndicated (Wheeler Syndicate, Inc.), Sep. 14, 1919, part III, p. 28]

►1919 – Hattie Barnett – Atlanta, Georgia’s first female detective

“Women must be barred from criminal trials in Fulton county. … The courtroom of the average murder trial is merely the training school where wives learn the tricks used by other women in killing their husbands, and then go home, talk them over with their neighbors and then use said tricks in ridding themselves of their husbands. … Women of this class brought heir launches and spent the day, often bringing their lunches and spent the day, often bringing their children of various ages with them. If I have to go to the legislature, I shall get morbid women barred from such trials,” she completed.”

[“Murder Case Trials Called Schools For Women Slayers – Mrs. Hattie Barnett,Female Detective, Asks the Judge to Bar Members of Her Sex From the Courtroom.”The Atlanta Constitution (Ga.), Mar. 8, 1919, p. 1]

►1921 – Judge Rhea M Whitehead – Presiding member of the Superior Court of Seattle

“A husband is going to get a square deal in my court. Too many men are convicted on sobby tales of wives!”

[“The Woman Judge Who Gives Husbands A Square Deal – She Is Introducing a Novel Procedure In Seattle Where Tears and Sentiment Carry No Weight and Women Are Not Regarded Today as ‘Helpless and Dependent Children,’”syndicated, Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette (In.), Jun. 26, 1921, sec. 4, p. 1]

►1921 – Alice Robertson – U. S. House of Representatives (Oklahoma)

“Women who murder get off too easy. They’re not judged according to the same standards as men who murder, but you don’t hear the suffragists demanding equal rights for the men, do you? No the suffragists want equal rights for women with special privileges.”

[Mildred Morris, (International News Service Staff Correspondent), “Oklahoma Congress Woman Declares Move As Necessary As For Nations Comments On Murders - She Declares Women Who Commit CrimesAre Let Off Too Easy.” Syndicated (INS), Logansport Pharos-Tribune (In.), Aug.10, 1921, p. 1]

►1922 – Judge Florence E. Allen – First Criminal Court Judge, in 1922 Elected to Ohio Supreme Court

“Men have always sit on juries and men instinctively shrink from holding women strictly accountable for their misdeeds. Now that women sit on juries I expect the percentage of convictions in cases of women to be greater. Women are more clever than men in arousing sympathy. I had on a woman, a hardened criminal, stage a terrific fainting spell in my courtroom after the jury found her guilty. It took four men to carry her to jail. She continued having these spells, so long that I had to defer pronouncing sentence. Finally I sent her word that the longer she acted so, the longer she would be in jail. Within a few moments she sent up word that, she would be good and received her sentence meekly, with no trace of feeling”

[NEA, “Why Do Juries Acquit Women – Judge, Prosecutor and Defender Tell Reason,” syndicated (NEA), Freeport Journal-Standard (Il.), Nov.25, 1922, p. 7]

►1927 – Helen Rowland – journalist

“All that the modern girl asks of man is that he treat her with tenderness and chivalry – and the same time permit her to drive the car, run the house, swim the Channel and beat him at golf and tennis.

That he acknowledge her as his economic equal – and then marry her and pay all her bills for the rest of his life.

That he join her in petting parties and take her to night-club orgies – and, at the same time, respect her, love her truly, and regard her kisses as a romantic adventure or a 'sacred' privilege.

… That he permit her to go around almost as barely clothed as a savage and as gaudily decked out as a Hottentot – and at the same time reverently keep on his coat and take off his hat in her presence, as though she were a civilized woman.

That he allow her to make his social rules, choose his friends and censor his clothes – and at the same time think of her as a cute, lovable, little thing to be 'taken care of' – God’s greatest Gift to Man!

That’s positively ALL! And yet, men are becoming so woman-shy, that it is getting harder to lure a man into marriage than it is to get a golfer into church!”

[Helen Rowland, “Why Men Don’t Marry” (“Meditations of A Married Woman,” (column), syndicated, Miami Daily News (Fl.), Jan. 25, 1927, p. 4]

►1927 – Fannie Hurst – writer

Married women “have become parasites and consumers instead of producers, taking no share in their husbands’ burdens, and are worse chattels than their grandmothers,” Miss Hurst said. “The vast army of women seeking divorce are mainly after easy alimony from men they have ceased to love – surely one of the most despicable forms of barter that can exchange human hands.”

[“Two Prominent Women Differ Over Present-Day Wives -  Fannie Hurst and Mrs. J.Borden Harriman Take Opposite Views in Magazine War.” syndicated (UP), Dunkirk Evening Observer (N.Y.), Jul. 12, 1927, p. 7]

►1927 – Elsie Marlowe – journalist

Sally thinks she’s a dear, sweet home girl. She’s not. She’s the meanest kind of a slacker and cheat. She let a man build his faith on her. She went with him into a Going Business. She tied up all he had to give of youth and ambition and love. And then, because she was too stingy of soul to do her share, she took her children and left him bankrupt of faith or hope. Some day Sally is going to hear how Ed is “carrying on” and she’s going to be perfectly furious and divorce him and feel frightfully abused if he won’t give her alimony. Would you give an absconding cashier heavy alimony? For that’s what Sally is!

[Elsie Marlowe, “Wives Who Bankrupt Husbands Of Hope - NoOne Ever Thinks of Paying Alimony to Absconding Cashier, So Why Pay a Defaulting Woman,” Premier Syndicate, Inc.), Jan. 11, 1927, p. 11]

►1927 – Bessie Cooley – anti-alimony activist, Chicago (Alimony Club of Illinois)

“Down with alimony gold-digging. Millions for defense, but not one cent for alimony.”

[Gibbons,Roy J., “Militant Wife Launches War Against Alimony in Chicago,” syndicated (NEA), Freeport Journal-Standard (Il.), Jul. 8, 1927, p. 13]

►1928 – Faith Baldwin – novelist

“The rising tide of divorce has brought us a new industry, the ultimate refinement of golddigging, the perfection of blackmail within the law—marriage for alimony,” said Faith Baldwin, the well-known writer. “Women who do not want husbands or children have found a joker in our marriage laws by which they can establish themselves comfortably for life; free, respectable, rich, safe—without personal cost or sacrifice.

There are thousands and thousands of women who are being supported by men to whom they are no longer wives. There is no doubt that this business of alimony is getting to be a serious menace, it may be ail right when a man has plenty of money. To pay a former wife a few thousand dollars in alimony may mean nothing to him. But, on the other hand, just consider how many men are forced to pay alimony who cannot afford it. You will find in the majority of cases that there is no good reason why they should pay it, either. The women are well able to take care of themselves. If they did not lack pride and self-respect, they would not accept money from men who no longer mean anything to them.”

[Genn, Lillian G, “Marriage for Alimony Only a Public Menace Says Faith Baldwin,” syndicated (Public Register), Modesto Bee (Ca.), Sep. 25, 1928]

►1929 – Dorothy Dix – journalist, “the world’s most highly paid woman writer”

I often wonder that the modern woman does not perceive that she is killing the goose that lays the golden egg by her attitude toward men. By which I mean to say that it is women themselves who are destroying the things that they value most in life. It is women’s hands that are tearing to tatters the chiffons of romance and sentiment and idealism in which men have always clothed them. It is women who are stifling tenderness and slaying chivalry in the hearts of men. It is women who are doing away with all the graces and sweetnesses that made charm in the relationship between men and women and that incidentally lured men into matrimony.

For women are making men afraid of them and what they will do to them and that makes men cold and cautious in dealing with the fair sex. Even Romeo watches his step and counts the calories in his sweet talk when he keeps a date with Juliet nowadays.

Women don’t like this. They complain bitterly that there are no impassioned lovers. They say that young men are so afraid they may compromise themselves by their attentions to a girl that ten minutes alter meeting her they serve notice on her that they have no intention of marrying and that even one’s fiance’s letters read like a communication about the state of the stock market instead of being an outpouring of burning affection. …

Worse still, women are keeping men from marrying by demanding so much alimony that it makes matrimony not only a gamble in happiness but the most risky financial speculation they can engage in.

Under the present laws a man can marry a girl who makes no effort in any way to be a good wife. She can refuse to keep house, refuse to bear children She can be lazy, extravagant, high-tempered, nagging and make his life a torment to him, yet she can force him to support her as long as he lives. And, such being the case, it is not strange that prudent men are shying of more and more from the altar.

[Dorothy Dix, “Why Can’t The Modern Woman See That She Is Killing the Goose That Laysthe Golden Eggs When She Places a Commercial Value on Every Endearment a Man Utters, Cries Dorothy Dix,” syndicated, The Bee (Danville, W. Va.), Dec. 6,1929, p. 12]

►1931 – Dorothy Dix  - journalist, “the world’s most highly paid woman writer”

Still another reason why men do not marry is because of their fear of alimony. Certainly the gold-digging ladles, who make a man pay and pay and pay as long as he lives for the mistake he made in marrying one of them, are doing a lot to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. For they have made marriage a hazardous adventure that causes men to get cold feet even to think about and that causes the prudent to avoid the altar.

[Dorothy Dix, “High Cost of Keeping a Family and Fear of Alimony Keep Men from Altar – Bachelor Life looks Easier – Boys Too Poor, MenToo Wise To Take A Chance,” syndicated, Spokane Daily Chronicle (Wa.), Jul. 10,1931, p. 5]

►1931 – Ruth Brown Reed – writer

“The alimony racket has become the great woman’s industry. A sobbing pretty woman before the court — and what chance has the husband? In many cases the amount of alimony is so large in proportion to the man’s earnings that it completely nullifies any chance of happiness or of another marriage. And why – one cannot help but ask – should a divorced man be denied the right to a normal family life?”

[“Men’s Rights.” The Titusville Herald (Pa.), Jun. 4, 1931, p. 4]

►1933 – Dorothy Dix –  journalist, “the world’s most highly paid woman writer”

There is nothing in our alleged modern civilization that is so disgraceful as the fact that divorce has become just as much a racket among unprincipled women as bootlegging has among men. A large class of women as bootlegging has among them. A large class of women as bootlegging has among them. A large class of women have made a gift wrecking homes and breaking up men’s lives. They enter into the most binding of all human contracts with no intention whatever of fulfilling it. They perjure their souls without even a qualm of conscience by taking upon their lips the most solemn of all oaths that they do not even mean to keep.

[Dix, Dorothy, “Kill the Graft in Alimony and You Will See a Decline in Divorce – Matrimonial Graftersand Fair-Weather Wives Would Then Hold On to Hubby With Both Hands,” The Hartford Courant (Ct.), Mar. 31, 1933, p. 12]

►1934 – Mrs. Rose Fox – activist, New York Alimony Club

I joined this club primarily because I wanted to see justice done, and I feel that that very often a woman can attack her own sex with more effect than can a man. I am intensely against the ‘woman chiseler’ who marries not for a home and a husband, but for alimony and a good time at some decent man’s expense.

[Church, Douglas, "Open New War on the Alimony Racket:Woman Joins Club and Will Lead Fight for Change in Laws Which Now Send Men to Jail Because They Cannot Pay Allowances to Separated Wives,”

►1936 – Dorothy Dix – journalist, “the world’s most highly paid woman writer”

One of the most monstrously unfair thing in the world is the way women treat their husbands about their children. They demand that their husbands shall slave to support their children and deny themselves ease and luxury in order that their children may go to high-priced colleges, and have expensive cars and clothes, but that ends their conception of a father’s relationship to his children. He is just a biological and financial necessity and, having served his purpose, he goes into the scrapheap like any other useless piece of junk. They don’t even think of his having any right to a part of the children, or any feeling about them.

How women ever got the idea that mothers alone love their children and that fathers have no more affection for their offspring than an alley cat has for his, no one knows, but that they do hold to this theory is amply proven by the ruthlessness with which they separate their children from their fathers when they happen to want to divorce their husbands.

[Dorothy Dix, “Fathers Have Right to Love of Children; Dorothy Dix Says That Jealousy Endangers Home Life,” syndicated, The Fresno Bee (Ca.), Feb. 20, 1936, 7-A]

►1936 – Doris Blake – journalist, advice columnist

Once in a while one meets a mother with sufficient sense of fairness to realize that because she can’t get along with her child’s father, this constitutes no reason why there should not be devotion between the father and child. Ordinarily, however, one finds the feminine parent doing everything in her power to poison the child’s mind against the other parent. The mind poisoning goes on at a vicious rate when father and mother have come to the parting of ways.

And it goes on in ratio to the mother’s own fault in the domestic upheaval. Women have a remarkable penchant for absolving themselves from every particle of blame in the event of domestic strife. Regrettably, when the man has taken all he can stand and departs, sympathy is on the woman’s side, no matter what her status as a wife and parent.

[Doris Blake, “Mother Is Unfair to Poison Child’s Mind Against Dad,” Chicago Daily Tribune (Il.), Mar. 9, 1936, p. 17]

►1937 – Kathleen Norris – novelist, journalist

The alimony racket is a definite livelihood for thousands of women. And until men do something about it it will flourish like a green bay tree.

[Norris, Kathleen (advice column), “The Alimony Racket,”syndicated (Bell Syndicate), Sunday Journal and Star (Lincoln,  Ne.), Dec. 5, 1937]

►1937 – Maxine Garrison – journalist

Women who marry that they may divorce for money are high-class chiselers who have so far got off scot-free. It’s an old con game with streamline trimmings, and even if the men are dumb enough to fall for it, the women are still responsible for it as they who put over the idealistic and romanticized picture of womanhood which still makes a man believe that the little woman really does want a vine-covered cottage when she says, “Yes.” It’s all too easy these days for a woman to reason along these lines when she is momentarily bored or angry, “Why should I go on putting up with this guy? A divorce, with alimony to take care of the money problem, and I can live my own life as I please.”

[Maxine Garrison, “Blame The Alimony Racket For Marriage Fear In Men – Too Many Girls Enter Matrimony With An Attitude Of  “Quick Divorce, Easy Money’,” The Pittsburgh Press (Pa.), Apr. 8, 1937, p. 30]

►1937 – Lois Maddox Miller – journalist

Few people realize how easy it is to have a man thrown into jail for non-payment of money owed. A person who owes as little as $5 may be put behind the bars in New York City even before being tried and found guilty of not paying a debt. …

But let me tell you there’s nothing funny ahead for the man who is escorted to a county jail to serve three months or so just because he is unable to beg, borrow or steal enough money, to satisfy (temporarily, at least) some hysterical or vindictive woman who is his former spouse. If he has a job, he’ll probably lose it; if he has a business, it will probably go to pieces in his absence. He can’t earn any money while he is in jail, so when he is released three months later he will be broke” and jobless, and that Ol’ Debbil Alimony will catch up with him so fast that it is almost a sure-thing bet that his ex-wife will have him back behind the bars in no time.

[Miller, Lois Maddox, “I’m a Slave of His First Wife – Laments This Distracted Woman in a True-Life Drama that Bares One Side of New York’s ‘Alimony Racket,’ in Which Vengeful Wife No. 1 Can, and Often Does, Jail the Man She Loved, Until He is Down and Completely Out,” Billings GazetteMagazine (Montana), Jul. 25, 1937, Magazine Section]

►1937 – Spring Byington – actress, anti-alimony activist

“Alimony has become a racket. …After all, the theory of alimony is to protect a woman who has relinquished her ability to support herself. She deserves this protection. But like many other laws that were well conceived, the alimony law is being abused. It not only is providing thousands of undeserving ex-wives with a comfortable living, but it has been twisted into a weapon by which women vent their hatred on the men they once loved.”

[“Picture Star Who Is Unmarried Proposes New Plan for Alimony,” syndicated (AP), TheEvening Independent (St. Petersburg, Fl.), Feb. 22, 1937, p. 10-A]

►1939 – Dorothy Dix – journalist, “the world’s most highly paid woman writer”

As for alimony, one of the profound mysteries of the world is why men, who make the laws, have not long ago done away with the cruel and unjust and medieval status that govern the whole subject of divorce and under which they suffer, whenever they find it impossible to live with their wives, or their wives get tired of living with them.

That many women marry for the sole purpose of getting divorces a matter of common knowledge. The women who practice this hold-up game marry men they don’t love. They  don’t make an effort to get along with them, or do their duty as wives in any respect, and in the course of a year or two they pick a quarrel and fly to Reno.

Then their poor dupes have to pay them enough money to live on luxuriously ever after Why should this be possible? Why should a man have to spend the remainder of his life supporting a woman who has made his life a hell on earth? Why should a first husband have to go on supporting his former wife and her second husband? Why should a poor fellow who can't pay his alimony be put in jail where he can't make any money? My own idea is that no young and able-bodied woman without children should ever be given a nickel of alimony. She took her chances on marriage just as the man did, and she should be enough of a sport to be a good loser.

[Dorothy Dix, “When Alimony Is Banned There Will Be Fewer Divorces In America – Too Many Women Rush Into Marriage For The Sole Purpose of Getting Money, syndicated, The Bee (Danville, Va.), Jun. 27, 1939, p. 2]

►1944 – Dorothy Dix – journalist, “the world’s most highly paid woman writer”

And another, and a bitter and a shameful reason, why women ask for divorces oftener than men is because they have found out how profitable is the alimony racket and how easily it can be worked by any pretty woman. Thousands of women marry men for whom they have no affection, and with whom they have no intention of living, just because a marriage license delivers their husbands into their hands as the victims of the lowest holdup game ever practiced.

[“Dorothy Dix Says:” (column), syndicated (Bell Syndicate Inc.), The News (Frederick, Md.), Jul. 6, 1944, p. 4]

►1946 – Kathleen Norris – novelist, journalist

It made me consider afresh what I often have thought of alimony; that alimony is essentially unfair, and that men who make and change laws so easily, are rather stupid that they don’t regularize this one. The childless woman I quote above was about 28. It is possible that “he,” whoever he is, will be paying her $6,000 a year for more than 40 years. A quarter of a million dollars for the 24 months she spent in disillusioning him and breaking his heart. Such a woman, if I judged her rightly, will not re-marry while this golden river is rolling in. She will have her love affairs and her freedom; she will feel herself infinitely superior to the quiet girl who sticks to her bargain, keeps her man happy and secure, and raises children.

[Kathleen Norris, “The Alimony Racket,” syndicated (Bell Syndicate / WNU Features), Le Mars Semi-Weekly Sentinel (Io.), Oct. 11, 1946, p. 13]

►1951 – Mrs. Walter Ferguson – journalist

After World War I, which opened up new business horizons to multitudes of women, these laws became a legal device for picking husbands’ pockets. Something must be worked out from the present hodge-podge of laws to protect children, and at the same time prevent the hard-boiled sisterhood from using marriage as a high-jacking scheme. … Men and women must be equally responsible for the support of their children – as they have always been. Any effort on the part of either to shun that duty should be punished severely. But certainly, society can no longer tolerate the parasitic woman.

[Mrs. Walter Ferguson, “The Alimony Racket (“A Woman’s View”column), The Pittsburgh Press (Pa.), Jul. 12, 1951, p. 18]

►1953 – Doris Blake – journalist, advice columnist

From a letter to Doris Blake: “It is painful to watch what she is doing to her children in their relationship with their dad. It is obvious to everyone that he is crazy about his boy and girl. He tries to visit them on every possible occasion. But if she keeps on telling them what a heel their dad is and relaying to the young innocents what a horror he was to live with, she may succeed in alienating them from him entirely. That isn’t all.

“The little girl has been saying things about men being big brutes, etc., which never should be heard out of a child’s mouth. I call it poisoning the youngster’s mind.”

From Doris Blake’s reply: “It is a monstrous mother, indeed, who would corrupt a girl-child with horror tales in general. After all, where marriage fails, the mother has a share in the responsibility.”

[Doris Blake, “Mother Poisons Minds of Her Tots,” Los Angeles Times (Ca.), Jun. 28, 1953, part III, p. 10]

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