Bismarck weekly tribune., 1889-12-27
BAD LITERATURE AND DIVORCE.

There has been considerable writing ot
high order on the subject of divorce re.
Gently. Cardinal Gibbons, Bishop Pot
ter and Col. Robert g. Ingersoll, tie all.
around free-thinker and speaker. con.
tributed articles to the November of the
North American Review on this compli.
Gated subject, which as John g. SAKE
once facetously wrote
gives an equivocAl force
To that beautiful word forever"
and ex-Minister Phelps, law professor OF
Harvard college, makes some very sensi-
BILE remarks on this increasing social con-
tagion in the December number of the
Forum. The latter article has already
been referred to in the columns of the
TRIBUNE. Mr.. Phelps takes the ground
that national and uniform law of di-
vorce cannot be enacted by congress, as
under the constitution of the United
States no power exists in the federal gov
ernment to legislate upon the subject ex-
cept for the territories. State laws pro-
hibiting the re-marriage of either di-
vorced party during the life time of the
other he thinks would have restraining
influence. But there was another object
in view in starting this article, which is
germaine to some proposed.le Legislation in
regard to the circulation of a certain
class Of literature so eagerly devoured
and so mischievous in its influence upon
the minds of young readers. The writer
last referred to contributes to the De-
cember number of Scribner's Magazine,
''The Age of Words" an article which
for solid, common sense is library in
itself. Mr.. Phelps speaks of a class of
writer's who produce cheap literature, as
more prolific than Australian rabbits,
and of their maudling sentences as the
eminations of "oat meal" brains. For
elegant sarcasm and sledge hammer fiat
tening the cheap novel writer's and the
cheaper reader will look in vain for any
thing more effective and heroic in it's
treatment outside this article. One lib
eral extract nearest the subject of divorce
will suffice as sample of the whole:
Probably the most numerous readers
OF novels are to be found among the
women, perhaps because they have more
time and fewer other diversions than men.
IN the large class Of them who derive their
source, the result is seen in the enormous
and increasing business of the divorce
courts, of which they and their husbands
are the principal patrons. Aside from the
loose and vague notions of morality
that became familiar to them uncon
sciously, from the books they. read, they
enter upon married life with ideas and eX-
pectations so false, and theories so absurd.
that nothing but disappointment and un-
happiness can follow. Instead of the i'm
possible and self-sacrifcing heroes of their
dreams they awake to find themselves
married only to men with the imperfec-
tions common to humanity. They per-
ceive that the perfection they are in search
of is to be found in other wo.
mems husbands, not their own; on which
point they would be speedily undeceived
it they could exchange situations with
their apparently more fortunate sisters. 1t
is not long before both parties to a union
that has proved a disappointment are
ready to escape from it, or, if not, one or
Inc oIueI Is determined TO Dreak away. 1t
is probable that all other causes put to-
gether are not SO prolific of divorce among
the class in which it commonly takes
place.. as the fact that Its women are
brou ght up on novels of low grade as
their habitual and almost only reading"
This may not be exactly the class of
literature aimed at by the Williams bill,
but the only difference is it is designed
for more advanced readers, leaving the
imagination to supply the illustrations,
which are intensely visible "between the
linas -