The Washington times., 1923-09-25
BY HELEN ELwO0D STOKES.
Copyright. 1879. by Cosmopolitan
News Service.)


CHICAGO, Sept. 25.-Before
me as write are copies of let
tiers written by the father of my
children to a detective whom he
hired to write my name in scarlet
letters across the blacklist back
ground of immoral debauchery.
They have swept away the last
.Sshred of feeling have for w. E.
D. Stokes.
Through the four years Of agony
since he dared to me suit for d.
vorce against me, knowing that he
was accusing an innocent woman,
i have undergone the deepest hui
initiation any human ever suffered.
Scores w. e. ID. Stokes
I have been stricken dumb with
the heartlessness OF the man !
onced loved. But never knew
what the depths Of misery meant
until read the letters that this
man sent to hired enploye, urg-
ing him to get affidavits at any
Immoral woman. There is no de-
generacy too low for him to link
my name .with-no class Of people
too immoral for him to point out
rs my associates.
This, In spite OF the fact that
w. E. d. Stokes knows where /
spent every sminute Of my life un-
I'll married him, and that there
never was q girl more sheltered,
more jealousy guarded by loving
parents than Helen Elwood, who
had only one name, and that a
proud one before she unhappiIy
took the name her innocent babies
now bear.
w. e. d. Stokes knows I never
was an inmate Of the Everleigha
club or of any other immoral insti-
tuition. He knows that I never
lived in Chicago in my iife-that
the longest period Of time / ever
spent here was four days. He
knows could not possibly have
been the Helen Underwood or Nor
wood he tried to make me out and
he knows I am fit mother for
my babies.
No Conscience, She Says.
But w. E. D. Stokes has no con-
science. He knows only one god
money-and for the sake of the
dollars that he begrudges me and
= my two little children, he would
paint me, with the dark lies OF per-
5ured testimony, as the lowest
woman who ever walked the streets.
Because these letters have shown
me exactly the kind of man I
married. 1 am going to show him
TO the world. In these articles,
which my attorney, Charles Il. Erb-
stein, has advised me to write in
order to refute these lies, shall
tell you how Mr.. Stokes knows
the testimony he bought here was
false, what my life has Leeh as
his wife, and why he resorts to
these methods to get rid OF me.
Mr. Stokes wants only one heir
He doesn't want his millions divid
ed. And w. E. d. Stokes, ir., his
twenty-nine-year-ol son, whose per
5ured affidavit against me his faith
er bought with his millions, is the
man he wants to bear his name
and have his money. He doesn't
care about my two babies. He
would take the bread from theil
mouths when he losses aside theil
mother and tries to ruin her name
Mr.. Stokes has tried to make i
appear LnAI IL is the money want
1t is not. I am fighting this di
vorce suit not because / care 70
the money myseh-my life is owe
but because refuse to allow m,
name to be besmirched and m,
children shamed, and to retain m,
dover right in the Stokes million
% that my children will have tfei
share of their fathers money.
To beg1 my story: I was borl
November Is, 1885, in Denver, Colo
20 Emma Elwood and John Dexte
Elwood. who had gone there be
cause Of my fathers Ill health.
When my father died yea
later, mother brought me and m,
older sister, Beatrice, back to Der
YER. Two. years later she marie,
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