The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1909-01-29


ntaDle industry, outside of her mining
output. 1t brings into the State more
money than her granite quarries or any
OF her manufactures. It has made CAPT.
tal1sts out Of her lawyers and wealthy
mel out Of her hotel keepers. 1t has
made of struggling prairie town call
ed Sioux Falls, thriving little city
with big hotels, handsome residences,
stores filed with Paris importations,
and legal emporiums in every nook and
corner. Sioux Falls is city Of fifteen
thousand Inhabitants, situated in Min
nehaha county, in the southeastern
part Of South Dakota. It is the me-
tropolis of the half-grown State and is
the jobbing center of a territory as
large as the State Of New York. 1t has
a hotel that would do credit to a city
three times it's size-built to accommo-
date divorce seekers. From 100 to 500
men and women are always present in
Sioux Falls waiting waiting and
spending. They leave from 100000 to
100000 year in the city and they
furnish its permanent citizens with a
never-failing source Of interest and re-
mark, Go where you will in Sioux
Falls, talk with whom you will, your
eyes will eventually light upon some
handsome, rather subdued looking wom-
an, In garments which proclaim the
fact that she has been transplanted
from somewhere nearer Paris, and your
host, dropping the main subject, will
say eagerly: Been living here since
January. She bought a $4,000 house
last month and you ought to see the
livery her servants wear She's a di-
vorsay."
and foreign lands, the divorsays come.
Rich and poor, some of them bearing
names known all over the world, they
slip quietly into the city to live and
spend money and amuse themselves
and wait. Lovely women who have
never known how the other 999-1OOths
Of the world live, come to Sioux Falls
and try to pretend it is Fifth avenue.
Millionaires whose money has failed to
move eastern justice fret away their
six months of enforced exile in trying
to buy everything from comfort to
haste. Wives bearing famous names
come to town to trade them for names
not so famous, but borne by more at
tractive men.
There is a very popular delusion to
the effect that South Dakota conducts
it's divorce business on the nickel-fn-the-
slot or the Saturday bargain-sale plan;
that signed DEGREES made out in blank
are stacked high on the counters of ev-
cry court house and that train sched-
ules to the county seats are so arrang
ed as to give visitors an hour for din
ner ten minutes for divorce and fif-
teen minutes to get married again and
buy a return ticket. Nothing could be
farther from the truth. 1t takes time
to get a divorce in South Dakota, just
as it does everywhere else except in
Chicago. It takes from six months to
nine months varying with the ability
of the applicant to produce feeling of
haste in the various courts.
When the South Dakota constitution |
was completed in 1889 it was decided
TO encourage immigration as much as
nossible. and with this in view it was
decreed that any one living six months
in the State should be entitled to citf
zenship. Then the divorce laws of the
new State were drawn up-a little
stricter than in most States with the
execution of the fact that proceedings
we're not required to be made public.
Suddenly it was discovered that six
months residence law, a closed court
and an isolated part Of the country,
when fused together, made compound
which would separate hearts. hands and
homes without pain, publicity or scars
Of anv kind. All unwittingly the deed
was done, and when the maritally
messed portion of the country realized
the glorious opportunity, the malcon-
fonts arose as one man and one woman
and took the first train for South Da
kOta.
The divorsays are required during
rho process of separation to swear that
they are permanent residents of the
state. Still, as one lawyer dryly put
it. ..They are their own masters" Di-
vorce evidently renders the health very
susceptible to the rigors of South
Dakota climate, for, while an undivorc-
cd person can flourish in the State al
most indefinitely, the divorsay as rule
begins to develop alarming symptoms
Of nostalgia. ennui and other diseases
which require change Of climate with
in twenty-four hours after the decree
is made out Some of the most careful
or least grateful make point OF main
tanning their legal residence in the
State for some years. however, and oc-
casionally come back to vote at the
school elections
AS a matter Of fact, Sioux Falls Is
getting pretty tired Of the divorce bust
ness anyway. There was time when
it was the pride of the city. and prac-
scally the only money seen in that
lnd-swept section was brought there
divorsays and freckled pasts and |
.pangled futures. They were welcome
r. -