New Freedom

WOMEN

Pleased and proud was many a Reno divorcee to learn that the judge who had freed her--George A. Bartlett of the Washoe County District Court--had last week been renominated for another four-year term. In the Nevada primary Judge Bartlett had led Benjamin J. Curler, one-time judge, by a majority so large as to assure his re-election in November. Well did each divorcee recall Judge Bartlett's warm friendly chambers on the second floor of the ornate courthouse where her decree had been granted--the pictures of the judge's family and dogs, the worn leather chairs, the old leather couch on which she, as a wife, sat and told her troubles to the judge behind his disordered desk. At that same desk sat Judge Bartlett last week reading stacks of congratulatory telegrams from women he had separated from husbands.

Two judges make Reno famed for its divorces. Most petitioners prefer Judge Bartlett to Judge Thomas F. Moran, who is reputed to dig too deep into marital conditions, to quibble over the custody of children. Over 60, Judge Bartlett is happily married, the father of three daughters and a son. Short, benign, he wears his long white hair bobbed across the back, bald in front. He smokes a pipe, carries a light cane, affects black string neckties and Quakerish felt hat. He lives three blocks from the courthouse in a big rambling house, open to all, keeps no servant, is familiarly called "Judgie". He attends Reno's endless round of cocktail parties, socializes with the city's smart divorce-seekers, declares: "I'm Wet, damned Wet. One can't develop strength of character by restriction." His divorce doctrine is equally simple: "I regard happiness as a fundamental cornerstone for a union. When experience shows a mistake has been made, it must be corrected and the union dissolved." Judge Bartlett doubts if legal evidence can be adduced in any case to prove a marriage made in heaven. From the bench he has dissolved more than 7,000.*

On March 17, 1927, five minutes before it adjourned its midnight session the Nevada Legislature passed Assembly Bill No. 195 which reduced state residence for divorce from six to three months. Last year Judges Bartlett & Moran together granted 2,071 divorces, of which only 700 went to husbands. Grounds and decrees on each: cruelty (mental) 1,268; desertion 388; non-support 376; insanity 284; adultery 54; drunkenness 24; felony conviction 3; impotency 1. Under the U. S. Constitution's faith-and-credit, Nevada divorces are recognized as legal in all states except South Carolina (no divorce law), New Jersey and Massachusetts. The actual court costs of a divorce are about $40. Lawyers' fees average from $250 to $10,000 in uncontested cases, depending on the wealth of each client. Exclusive of railroad fare, a woman if she is careful, can legally rid herself of an objectionable husband at Reno for about $1,000.

A wife arrives at Reno for a divorce generally under instructions from her personal attorney at home who refers her to his "correspondent" in the city. Reno's biggest law firm: (William) Woodburn & (George B.) Thatcher. Residence is immediately established in a housekeeping apartment or at the smart comfortable Riverside Hotel. Excessively exclusive folk go to the TH dude ranch 30 miles away, or to Mounte Crese ranch 18 miles away. Loneliness soon vanishes in the colony's common purpose. Di versions are plentiful. Fashionable gam bling, dancing, drinking are wide-open. Such roadhouses as the Willows are in easy reach. Calneva Lodge on the border attracts many who play golf and tennis in California, sleep in Nevada. Time passes quickly, enjoyably.

At the end of three months the wife's attorney files her complaint at the court house. If her husband cooperates with her--and most of them do--he has al ready accepted service of the complaint, arranged for another lawyer to represent him, to plead nolo contendere. On hearing day the wife, her lawyer, the hus band's lawyer and the wife's witness who swears to her three months' state residence march up the 13 steps of the court house, climb to the second floor, enter the judge's chambers. The average hearing does not take more than 15 minutes. Judge Bartlett has a quick comprehension of marital troubles, needs few details. Children and property cause no hitch, providing the husband and wife have agreed on these matters in advance. If a defendant refuses to accept service or to appoint a Reno attorney to represent him, the plaintiff must wait an additional 40 days (not necessarily in Nevada) when a decree can be granted by default. If a defendant comes to Reno, vigorously contests a case, divorces can be obtained in Nevada with no more ease than elsewhere.

Monday at Reno is known as "graduation day" because on that day divorces are handed. Some women pay an extra $2 to have their decrees certified and tied up with an official ribbon. Only mythical is the tradition that a divorced woman on leaving the Washoe County courthouse gratefully kisses a pillar of its colonnade. Monday night the Reno station is crowded with happy ladies catching the Union Pacific's Limited east to Chicago and a new freedom.

* Famed persons divorced by Judge Bartlett in the last four years: Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr., Irving T. Bush (terminal), Mrs. Bainbridge Colby (diplomacy), Janet Flagg Harlan Trubee (judiciary), Claire Brokaw (Vanity Fair), Eugenia Bankhead Hoyt Butt Lee (Actress Tallulah's sister), Jessica Sargeant (now Mrs. Richard Barthelmess), Evelyn Marshall Field (department store), Walker Inman (tobacco), Delphine Dodge Cromwell Baker (automobile), Edward Delafield (finance), Louise Annette Thompson (railroad), John Bellinger Bellinger (Army), Lora I. Knight (aviation), Beryl Curtis Ward (bread), Dorothy Cochrane Karageorgevitch (Serbian royalty), Peter Arthur Drury Jr. (Washington, D. C.), Sidi Wirt Spreckels (sugar), Adelaide Rhinelander Chaqueneau (Kip's sister).

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