The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1920-05-04
DIVORCE CAPITAL
IS A QUIET PLACE
BIGGEST TOWN CON-
TAINS 500 CANDIDATES FOR
SHUFLING OFF MARITAL COIL.

RENO, Nevada Where's the di-
vorce colony?" is the first question
asked by every stranger in Reno.
The popular outside impression
seems to be that somewhere in this
widely-advertised city there is a con-
gregation of more or less wild wo-
men in the process of shuffling off
the marital coil, and that the she'd
ding process is accompanied by pecu-
liar and shocking antics.
It's a shame to disillusion you,
friends, but this is highly distorted
picture of Nevada's biggest town
and Americas divorce capital.
In connection with the Pickford
case, which now has the state by the
ears, l looked rather carefully for
divorces here, and | saw just five
women whom l suspected of being
such.
where are they?" l asked an old
timer.
you've got me, stranger" with
tolerant amusement. give lived here
all my life, and I couldn't positively
pick out half dozen with the brand.
Lots of 'em around, but they're hard
to spot. Most of them are just or
binary folks. You can't pick 'em
by their actions or clothes. Very
few of 'em wear horns.
500 WatchfuI Walters.
Those I saw, men and women, were
not wild There are said to be some
800 here now, waiting-and watchful
waiting since the Pickford mix-up.
Perhaps one-tenth that number have
the money and inclination to idle away
the six months which Nevada exacts as
the price for separation. Most of
them work-many as sales girls,
stenographers, in homes, as ushers
in the movie misunderstanding hon.
est bread. Many of the women bring
their families here, living quietly in
rented homes.
It's exceedingly difficult to start a
filtration with the great majority, so
I am reliably informed by the hand
soonest drummer making the town.
Decorously, if not entirely unob-
trusively, the idle candidates gather
in the lobby of the Riverside Hotel,
the Golden and apartment houses,
discussing their symptoms" telling
one another why they simply could
not stand Tom, Dick or Henry any
longer. Occasionally one of the dis
illusioned men finds more than SYM
pathy from a waiter divorcee-and
the new love is well on before the
old is off. But such cases are rare.
They Go to Church.
They go to the movies, they golf
and tennis, they take auto trips out
along the purple sage highways,
they go on Sundays either to church
or to the ball park for dancing and
soft drinks.
No, friends, it's quite a tame
place, this Reno. It'll eat right out
of your hand. No one dances to the
bullets of two-gun man, nor will
the wild divorce stalk you, making
you forget home and family. II
three days / saw a solitary cowboy
lettering slightly, a few Washot
squaws gambling at the city's edge
and one bob-haired Divorce who
went to the same movie show with
three different fellows on the same
night Shocking, but true). AnC
that's about as naughty as Reno gets
Mary's Record Peeves.
From the Riverside Hotel, most
is but step to the courthouse where
the separator grinds swiftly if moi
exceedingly fine.
Mary Pickford's quick-time sepa
ration from Owen Moore and hel
marriage to Fairbanks gave the jad.
ed Divorces quite welcome treat
Some of them were jealousy peeved
There is another fury no less flu.
rious than that imputed to the "wo-
man scorned." 1t is, I have it or
good and handsome authority, the
anger of the woman who feels that
another is getting an undue advan-
tage in the race to cast off husbands
And several of the fair watchful
walters here have been thus enrag.
ed by the Pickford case. Their an
ger cooled visibly, however, when
Attorney General Fowler filed his
action to invalidate the decree on
charges of collusion-and probably
spoiled the get-rid-of- hubby-quick
game in Nevada for all time.
And so they've had to go back to
their knitting and to washing the
children's ears, and such other bless
ings as fall to the lot of the good and
the bad alike in this vale of tears
and partings.
Reno does a lot of other things as
well as grant divorces, and it may
we'll be that divorces as an industry
will shortly be even more of a side
| line than it is now. If soy they're
not going to hold it so very much
against Mary and the people who
critical of ba,. ~ or io1 hnr