The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-09-12
A DISCIPLE OF CHARLOTTE.

Mr.. Hiler, the gentleman now in Jail in
this city owing to a misunderstanding with
the authorities concerning his matrimonial
condition. should find friend in Charlotte
Smith, the Boston reformer, who wants a
law passed compelling all men to marry.
Mr.. Hitler anticipated Charlotte; he did not
wait for nor need a law, but of his own free
will and accord proceeded to do his part
toward freeing womankind from the disad-
vantages Of spinsterhood. He began this
work of benevolence in $780, presumably as
soon as his attention was called to the
service that was in his power to render to
unattached women. He found that many
women were wasting their young lives
either in lucrative business positions or in
domestic toll in their own homes without
a husband to work for, and his heart
yearned over their desolate state. He had
seemingly imbibed the notion also that the
chief end of marriage to woman is the
privilege of having Mrs" on her visiting
cards and the legend "relict of on her
tombstone. Most men would consider it
enough to confer these favors upon one
woman, but not so Hitler. His phianthropc
nature could not be confined within narrow,
selfish limits. He married first in 1890, max
ing Mrs Jennie Graham Mrs. Hitler. In his
own account of his career there is modest
lack of information as to the method
adopted OF freeing himself from temporarily
assumed letters for the sake of going on
with his noble work; it must have been
through a course of self-abnegation, for
it seems that not he but the lady concerned
got the divorce. Perhaps he began to court
afford number one the opportunity he de-
sired her to have. OF course in thus dis
tributing himself around he was depriving
the first Mrs. Hitler of man to work for,
but the divorce did not take away the name
he had given her, and that gift he evidently
felt was all that any woman had the right
to expect. Perhaps owing to the sweet sug-
gestiveness of his name he found no trouble
in inducing women to take it, for in 1894 he
was married again, this time to Grace
Washburne. and was divorced the next
year. thus leaving two Mrs. Hlers as proofs
of his benevolence. He then married Miss
McClelland and turned her loose, after
which he sought out Miss Henley and made
her wife No. H. There were others during
the intervals between these marriages, he
says, with whom he discussed matrimony
but there is reason to suspect that this adj
mission is too modest and that a man of
such enterprise, destinations and liberal
purpose did not spend seven years in mar
rying four women when he might as easily
have bestowed his valuable name upon
seven and so lifted them out of what Char
lotte Smith considers the slough of single
life Charlotte, it is true. did not directly
advocate divorce. but divorce of course is
an inevitable consequence of the marriage
boom she plans and she must adjust herself
TO it. When the idea once prevails among
men-persons that they are engaged in
work of charity and are bestowing an in
estimable social benefit upon women by
marrying them It can hardly be expected
that each will limit his charity to one men,
Der of the sex that needs benefiting They
will emulate Hitler ana go about marrying
wheresoever their beneficent fancy takes
them and as often as the courts can turn
eat divorce. 1t is development OF the