Kingsbury County independent. (DeSmet, Kingsbury County, S.D.) 1894-1929, 1910-05-13

SlillFCH anu SCdlludllZe Ills lpTIltT WIFE,
Ruth Bryan Leavitt, and the Bryan
family as well, has at least accom-
plished one result--it has provoked the
wrath and indignation of the friends
of William j.. Bryan in his home town,
and when this is said, it mean almost
the entire citizenship Of Nebraska's
capital city.
The hint Of the artist, conveyed in
the dispatches from Columbus, o., that
he might come to Lincoln to interfere
with the nuptials yesterday of Mrs.
Leavitt n Lieutenant owen n to
bring suit for the custody of the two
LeaVitt children, inspired the fervent
hope in Lincoln that Leavitt would
make good his threat. So bitter is
popular feeling against the artist that
he would indeed have been fortunate
to escape a public horsewhipping or a
coat of tar and feathers. But he failed
to appear.
Mr.. Bryan has been sternly silent
under the fire of the artists Columbus
utterances and has pointedly refused to
discuss Leavitt or to make answer to
his charges. but relatives and close
friends of the former presidential can
didate are more communicative. One of
the latter said yesterday:
Leavitt Called Intolerable.
"Leavitt has been intolerable ever
since incol people first knew him
and now that he is attempting to scan
daliZe the Bryans. he does not dare to
show his face in the town. In declar-
ing that Mr.. Bryan personally urged
him to marry Ruth; that he (Leayitt)
was fiattered n assented. and that
Mrs. Bryan sought out Lieutenant
Owen and suggested to her daughter
that she should divorce Leavitt and
marry the British officer, the artist adj
v%enturer has stepped beyond the line
where ~forbearance might ave him
from wrath.
1T was in May, 1903, that Leavitt
came TO Lincoln. He brought a letter
of Introduction to Mr.. Bryan and
asked permission TO paint the latter's
picture. The artist was practically
penniless, boarded at a cheap hotel
down town, and had the nerve to run
up a street car bill Of several dollars
on a kind hearted conductor, who car
ried the artist free or the latter's trips
to and from Fairview. The conductor
paid the fare out of his own pocket,
but to this day the money has not been
repaid by Leavitt.
This is the sort Of person who in
vaded Mr.. Bryan's home and took adj
vantage of his hosts hospitality to
court Ruth, the 17-year-old daughter.
1t is true that Ruth became infatuated
with Leavitt and when her parents
discerned the girls head had been
turned by the attentions OF the adj
venturer they pleaded with her to give
him up. Mr.. Bryan even offered TO
reward Leavitt with money If he would
go his way and quit the town.
Accepted Money from Girl.
Nobody in Lincoln knows how
Leavitt managed to subsist without
visible means from May to october
when he married the girl over the pro-
tests of her parents, although SUISSE
quently 1t has developed that he had
accepted money from the girl. All the
while the organs had sternly refused
to consider the proposition of mar
riage, but Ruth was impetuous and
hard headed. and when her 18th birth
day approached, early III October, she
bluntly informed her father and mother
that she would wed the artist at home
with the consent of her parents, or quit
Fairview n marry him anyway when
she had attained her legal majority.
Mr.. Bryan shrank from the scandal
attaching to an elopement n when he
realized the hopelessness OF shaking
the girls determination and of appeal
ing to any sense Of honor existing
within Leavitt, he c%apitulated under
the pressure, and on October 3. the day
Ruth was is, the wedding occurred at
the Bryan home. Mr.. Bryan stood by,
white as death, while the ceremony
was performed. His wife, feeling. that
her daughter IA going to martial per
dition, retired to sob away her grief in
the quiet of her room, where Mr.. Bry-
an found her shortly after almost In q
state of nervous collapse.
Bryan Supported Family.
THE welded life or the Leavitts was
Just as Mr.. Bryan and his friends had
feared. Leavitt was worthless and in
competent to support his family, and
but for frequent gifts of money by Mr..
Bryan, the total of which ran into the
thousands of dollars the girl wife and
her children would have lacked for the
bare necessities of life. These facts
We're sworn TO by Mrs. Bryan and Mrs.
Leavitt at the time of the divorce suit
In Lincoln a year ago last January.
"Leavitt has charged hat he knew
nothing of the divorce until after It
was granted. The truth is that Mrs.
Leavitt wrote him repeatedly during
the year and often while he was alb
senting himself in Paris, and pleaded
with him TO send her money so that she
would not be compelled to accept aid
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