Fitzgerald enterprise. (Fitzgerald, Ga.) 1895-1912, 1903-01-09
= Y ~ n Yssss=ssa- cgtsi ~ owl, u
Discourse.
subjects The Divorce Qu estion-Do1nestic
Disorders a Subject of National I'm
portance-Uniformity OF Divorce Laws
In the Various States Suggested.


portance-Uniformity OF Divorce Laws
In the Various States Suggested.
- copyright, Louis Klopsch, 1897 .
WASHINGTON, D. Cdr. Talmage in this
discourse discusses a question of national
Importance, which is cOnfessedly as diff
cult as 1t is urgent. The text is Matthew
XIX, 6, "What therefore God hath Joined
together let not man put asunder''
That there are hundreds and thousands
or lnfelicltous homes in America no one
will doubt. If there were only one skeleton
+ in the closet, that might be locked I'D and
apondoned. but in many home there is a
skeleton In the hallway and skeleton In
all the apartments. gu nhappily N arried"
are two words descriptive of many a home
stead. 1t needs no orthodox minister to
prove to badly mated pair that there is a
nell. They are there now. Sometimes a
grand and gracious woman will be thus in
rarcerated, and her life wilt be cruel
ilXiOn, as was the case with Mrs, Sigour-
ney, the great poetess and the great SOUL
Sometimes consecrated man will be united
to fury, as was John Wesley, or unitedto
vixen, as was John Milton Sometimes
and generally both parties are to blame
and Thomas Carlyle is an into 'erable
grumbler, and his wife has pungcnt re-
tort always ready, and Froude, the hsto-
rian, pledged to tell the plain truth. has to
pull aside the curtain IRON the lifelong
s4uabble at Craigenpu ttock and 5 Cheyne
row.
Some say that for the alienation of all
these domestic disorders of which we hem
easy divorce is a good prescription. God
som ettmes authorizes divorce as certainly
as He authorizes marriage. Ihave Just as
much regard for one la w fully divorced as
have for one lawfully married. But YOU
know and l know that wholesale divorce
is one OF our national scourges. am NOT
surprised at this when I think of the infu-
ences which have been abroad rniitstine
against the marriage relation. For maEy
years the platforms of the country rang
with talk about free love millennium.
There were meetings of this kind held in
the Academy of Music, Brooklyn; Cooper
institute, New York; fremont Temple,
Boston, and all over the land. Some of the
women who were most prominent in that
movement have since been distinguished
for great promiscusity of affection. Popu-
lar themes for such occasions were the tyr-
anny OF man, the oppression of the mar
riage relation, women's rights and the
women with short curs and short
dress and very long tongue, ever
Iastingly at war with God because they
were created women, while on the plat
form sat meek men with soft accent and
coWed demeanor, apologize for mascuIin-
ity and holding the parasols while the
termagant orators went on preaching the
gospel of free love. That campaign of
about twenty years set more devi s~into the
marriage relation than will be exercised i'll
the next fifty. Men and women went home
from such meetings SO permanently con-
fused as to who were their wives and hus
bands that they never got out of The per-
plexity, and the criminal and the civil
courts tried to disentangle the IIiad of
md
one got limited divorce, and this mother
kept the children on condition that the
father could sometime s come and look at
them, and these went into poorhouses.
and those went int an insane asylum and
those went into diss olute public life, and
all went to distinction. The mightiest war
ever made against the marriage institution
was that free love campaign, sometimes
under one name and sometimes under all
other.
Another influence that has warred upon
the marriage relation has been polygamy
in Utah. That is a stereotyped caricature
OF the marriage relation and has poisoned
the whole land. You might as we'll think
that you can have an arm in a state OF NOR
LITIGATION ard yet the whole body not be
sickened as to have any Territories or
States polygamized and yet the BODY of tho
nation not feel the putrefaction. Hear il
good men and women or America, that 5.
long ago as 1862 Il law was passed by Con
gress forbiddiDg polgamy in the Terrorie.
and in all the places where they had iuris-
diction Thirty years have passed
along and nine ad Manifestations, vet not
until the passage Of the Edmunds law il,
1882 was any active policy of polygamic
suppression adopted. Armed with ali th,
power of government and having an army
at their disposal, the FIRST brick had not I'll
then been Knocked from that fortress of lib
ertinism. Every new President in his inaug
ural tickled that m Onster with the straw
condemnation, and every Congress Subtitle
itself in proposing some plan that WoulI
not work. Polygamy stood in Utah and
in other of the Territ cries more inrenched
more brazen, more puissant, more brag-
CART and more internal than at any time
In its history. james Buchanan, much
abused man of his day, did more for the
extirpation of this villainy than all the
subsequent administrations dared to do uU
to 1882. Mr., Buchanan sent out an army
and, althoughit was halted in it's work, still
he accomplished m ore than the subsequent
administrations, which did nothing but
talk, talk, talk. Even at this late dav and
with the Elmunds act in force the evil has
not been wholly extirpated. Polygamy in
Utah, though outlawed, is still pract1ced
in secret. 1t has warred against the mar
rriage relation throu& bout the land 1t is
iniquity sending up its miasma, which is
waited by the winds north, south, east and
west, without the whole land being affected
by it.
Now, say some, eve admit all these
evils, and the only. way to clear them out
or to correct them is by easy divorce;
Well, before we yield to that cry let us find
out how, easy it is now. 1 have looked
over the laws of all the States, and I find
that, while in some States it is easier than
in others, in every State it is easy. The
State of Illinois, through its Legislature,
recites q long list Of proper causes for
divorce and then closes up by giving
to the courts the right to make de-
cree of divorce in any case where they
deem it expedent. After that you are
not surprised at the announcement
that in one year there were 1888 di-
vorces. If you want to know how easy
it is, you have only to look over therecords
OF the States-in Massachusetts, 600 di-
Vorces in one year; in Maine, 47S in
one year, in Connecticut, 4O1 divorces
in one year; in the city OF San
Francisco, 1888 divorces in one year; in