Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 71, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 December 1912 — NEVADA DIVORCE LAW IS UPHELD [ARTICLE]

NEVADA DIVORCE LAW IS UPHELD

Oddie Says Marriage Question of Eugenics, Not Religion. BLEASE RAILS AT JOHNSON Declares Negro Fighter Would Have Been Lynched Without Executive Interference in South Carolina —Governors in Tears. Richmond, Va„ Dec. 6.-Unqualified declaration by Governor Blease of South Carolina that Jack Johnson would long ago have been lynched without executive interference in his state; the statement of Miss Kate Bannard of Oklahoma that 5,000 children annually die in the United States from the effects of the glass factories alone, and Governor Oddie’s discussion of the divorce problem, in which he said that marriage is a question of eugenics, not of sentiment or religion, were some of the sparks which electrified the fifth annual governors' conference here.

Approves Lynch Law. Governor Blease’s dramatic approval of lynch law came during the discussion which followed the reading of Governor Oddie’s (Nevada) paper. “If there is any disgrace to American civilization and to American womanhood,” commenced Governor Blease, 1 it is the sale of our women for foreign titles. Next in order of disgracefulness is the unprecedented number of divorces which have recently been granted in the United States. There is, and can be, no divorce in my state. (Applause.) South Carolina acknowledges the inviolable sanctity of the marriage tie, and had that negro who boasts of his supremacy with his fists made the advances to the white girl in South Carolina that he did in Illinois he would have met that immediate and summary punishment which brutes of his color and stamp deserve. There would have beeh no Interference from higher authority either." Here Governor Carey of Wyoming Interrupted to ask: \ "Did you not, In taking the office, sweat to uphold and protect the constitution of South Carolina?” (Adplause.) Blease Becomes Angered. Red with anger, the South Carolina governor shouted: "I will tell you, as I told the people of my state before I was re-elected, that if the constitution comes between me and my duty as a protector of white women—then to with the

At the mention of the infernal regions half the women present arose and left the hall, signifying their disapproval of the South Carolinian’s language. They returned when, a few moments later, he concluded his remarks.

Governor Oddie, in his paper, which started the trouble, held that the problem of marriage and divorce are purely sociological and that the law of church and state which compels a pure woman to live with a bestial or diseased husband is infamous in the extreme. He also upheld the present divorce laws of Nevada as being the best in the country and predicted that all other states would soon have the same regulations. He caused a ripple of laughter by declaring that the Reno . “divorce colony never had more than a thousand inhabitants every year.” Governors in Tears. Miss Kate Bannard brought tears to the of the governors with a description of conditions which she had found in factories through the country where child labor is allowed. She concluded with a fervent prayer that she might “meet any governor who didn’t take this talk to heart before the heavenly gates and bear witness against him.”