The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-08-03
GOVERNORS REASONS FOR VETOING PRIVATE
 BILL OF DIVORCE

On the future acts Of the General AS- sernbly of this character, and he prac- tically denies the right of the Assem- bly, to grant divorces in the manner 1t has been doing for years. If the veto is sustained, it will mean the throwing out of other petitions of the kind, and the esta blishment of a pre- cedent which will prevent much of this class of legislation in the future. Following is the text of the mes sage:
 To the Honorable Senate:-I return herewith Senate joint resolution No. Schmidt of Norwalk, without my ap- proval. It purports to dissolve the marriage relation between him and Agnes Lisiecki Schmidt. but with a proviso which postpones the taking ef- feet of the divorce to some future time. My objections to this meas ure are the following:
 1. In my judgment all legislative divorces are prohibited by the con- stitution of the United States. There are but few states of the Union in which they have ever been permit forbidden them in the territories of the United States. Prior to the jadoption of the fourteenth amend ment of the cons6tution of the Unit vorce in Connecticut* came before the supreme court of errors, and their validity was sustained by a divided court. The first and main case was so decided on grounds that have since been declared to be untenable by the same courts
 At the dates of the two cases first mentioned the power of a state to grant such a legislative divorce was not limited by any provision in the Constitution of the United States but in 1868 the fourteenth amendmen fn "a of the provisions of which is that no state shall deny to any person, with in it's Jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws; which means in the language of the Supreme Court of the United States. 'the protection of equal laws" The divorce which the resolution under consideration pur- ports to grant seems to me to deny to Agnes Lisiecki Schmidt the equal protection of the laws. General "the superior court shall have exclu- sive Jurisdiction of all complaints for divorce"
 If other married women are divorc- ed at the suits of their husbands, it must be by decree of judicial tri- bunal before which they were sum- moned and may be heard in their own behalf nor can such divorce suit be maintained, except for certain caus- es specified in the General Statutes The status of a married woman is then, by the general laws of Connec- other than one conducted in due course of law before a court of jus tice, and for which good cause is judicially found to exist. It is only to Agnes Lisiecki Schmidt that this conditional immunity from divorce is denied.
 It is obvious that the merits of a. petition for divorce can be better de- termined by court than by a legis- lature. There is no conceiva ble cause be permitted, which could not as we'll or better, be made a grounds for a judicial divorce; nor are there any
 special terms or conditions for 3. divorce which could not with equal justice, be imposed upon a court, act ing under general legislative au- thority.
 Under the Constitution of Connec- ticut, a legislative divorce can only be justif1able as a law regulating, up- on grounds of public policy, the sta
 tus of the parties to. a previous mar riage. If good, it is good as law, and
 not as an adJudication of private rights.*** Under the Constitution of the United States, as it now stands any legislative act depriving a partic-
 ular wife of the status of a married woman for reasons and in mode less favorable to her than those which govern the deprivation of other mar ried women of their status, seems to
 me beyond the power of any state.
 The resolution herewith returned was passed upon the husbands petit tion. General Statutes, Section 2, pro- vide that every petition to the Gen. eral Assembly of an adversary na- ture shall be accompanied by a cita- tiOp to the adverse party, of which leghl service shall be made. A pe- tition for a divorce seems to me nec- essarily of an adversary nature. That now in question was accompanied by no citation; nor does it appear, eith- CT on the face of the resolution or from the accompanying papers, that Agnes Lisiecki Schmidt ever came. or was summoned to come, before the General Assembly of Connecticut,
 or the committee on the judiciary, as representing it, for the purpose; nor
 that she had any opportunity to be heard in opposition to her husband's s
 petitiorA Here again, in a vital point she seems to me not to have l received the equal protection of the laws. If she were incurably insane there was all the more reason for making proper service of the petition, which could hardly have failed to have come to the notice of her rela- tives and friends. These considera- tions seem to me to be decisive against the validity of this divorce when test ed by the Constitution of the United