tugboatdivorce

THE GATEKEEPERS OF BAD MARRIAGES

Divorces are too easy to get and sought on a whim. A divorce harms the community more than the divorcing couple, so only an elected official can decide whether a bad marriage should be dissolved. The public has a right to know any and all accusations and embarrassing details about a couple seeking divorce. A wife or husband might lie about what happened during their marriage unless they face cross-examination in open court.

That snide little handbasket of equivocation, intimidation and false assumptions didn’t come from clergy nor “til death us do part” true believers; these were arguments made by top California judges in the mid-1910s, who viewed efforts intended to lighten their workload as a threat to their authority.


ENDURING ABUSE IS GOOD FOR SOCIETY

Although almost all divorce filings in 1915 charged the husband with some form of cruelty, Sonoma County Superior Court Judges Thomas Denny and Emmet Seawell made no secret of their bias against granting divorces, which they saw as equally (or more) harmful for the community. Here are some examples of their sanctimonious moralizing:

Judge Denny: “I consider such procedure means the undermining of the morals of society.” Denny also boasted that he changed the way divorce hearings were handled in Sonoma County to make matters tougher. Instead of being quietly presided over in chambers by the court referee, he “…insisted that they be heard in open court, thinking that it might do away with some of the evils of divorce if plaintiff had to face the court.” (Note that the plaintiff was almost always the wife.) In at least one instance, witnesses testifying for the woman were lambasted by Denny for not urging her to reconcile with her husband.

Judge Seawell: “…the parties to an action in divorce proceedings are not the only parties in interest, but that society has an interest equal, if not greater than the wishes or whims of the parties litigant.”

What angered them was that married couples were using a new state law which made divorce less costly – not to mention being faster than waiting months for their date to come up on a Superior Court docket, usually jammed up with criminal and civil proceedings.

This alternative way of obtaining a divorce was decades ahead of its time – the concept of family court simply didn’t exist during the early part of the century (California didn’t get around to serious marriage reforms until the Family Law Act of 1969). And besides deserving a place in our history books for that reason it should be mentioned as a chapter in the struggle for women’s rights, as the conflict starkly pitted the powerful all-male judiciary vs. a class of (almost always) female plaintiffs.

By now Gentle Reader has probably guessed this divorce option wasn’t available for very long, and the whole episode was quickly forgotten – this is the first time it has been discussed since then, as far as I can tell. One reason it vanished from memory was probably because nearly all of the events played out in Sonoma County, then still politically a rural backwater.

Forgotten, too, is this Believe-it-or-Not! nugget: In 1915, a Santa Rosa woman served as a Superior Court judge. It was the first time that had ever happened in the history of the United States.

The law being used to expedite divorces was a 1910 amendment to the State Constitution which seemed to be just an administrative tweak for allowing temporary judges (“Judge pro tempore”) to help “relieve congestion of the Superior Court.” It did not mention marriage or divorce at all.

The amendment made a minor change to the wording in the 1879 version of the Constitution (the full text of the 1879 original is included among the sources below). This section of the law stated a judge pro tempore was a full-fledged Superior Court judge with the authority to hear any sort of case, from murder most foul to someone suing a neighbor over a property line. The temp judge was required to be an attorney and sworn in; both parties in the case had to agree to use that judge, who also had to be approved by the Superior Court judge. The 1910 amendment dropped the requirement that the judge pro tempore must be “approved by the court.”

According to the Press Democrat, it was Santa Rosa lawyer Thomas J. Butts who first realized in 1915 that it was well suited for handling divorces. Those cases were rarely adversarial, as the couple had already decided to break up; as long as they could agree on an attorney to serve as judge pro tem, the proceedings could be over in a few minutes.

1898 butts(LEFT: Attorney Thomas Jefferson Butts as seen in the 1898 Sonoma County Atlas.)

Butts was a well established Santa Rosa lawyer and has been mentioned here often, usually as a defense attorney – although he also represented some pretty odd cases (see “THE LAWSUIT THAT WOULDN’T DIE“). He was involved in every one of these new style divorces and except for one time when he served as the pro tem judge, he was the always the attorney representing the wife.

The pro tempore judge was almost always Lucien E. Fulwider, a former San Francisco policeman who had been a lawyer for only a few years. Although they were never law partners he and Butts appeared together on other cases in Santa Rosa, most notably winning an acquittal for May Thomas in the sensationalized 1910 infanticide trials held here.

By the time Superior Court judges Tom Denny and Emmet Seawell caught wind of what was going on, Butts/Fulwider had filed paperwork for three divorces. To the Honorable Jurists, those divorces were likely invalid, potentially criminal, and would generally end civilization as we know it.

Both Seawell and Denny fumed to the Press Democrat in two lengthy September, 1915 articles. The judge pro tempore could be bribed or otherwise collude with the husband or wife. Perjury would be common since there was no court reporter. A hand-picked judge pro tem would always grant the divorce because that’s what they were paid to do.

Butts replied with a (mostly) good-natured letter in the PD, pointing out the judges were implying that they thought Sonoma County lawyers were unethical sneaks, if not outright crooks and liars. Be careful of that, he snarked; “judges are but attorneys elevated to the bench, and very frequently very inferior attorneys at that.”

But if Superior Court judges really did “possess all the knowledge and all the legal learning and integrity” in the state, perhaps they should be turned into corporations, in order to make sure ‘this knowledge and uprightness should be perpetuated and not be permitted to perish from the earth.'” Oh, snap!

He turned serious when the letter addressed the advantages that pro tem hearings offered wives seeking to quickly escape an abusive relationship: “It does away wilh the laws delays, and cuts down the expenses of the litigation, which in divorce cases where women with just cause frequently have to work twelve hours a day for fifty days to earn sufficient to get released from a drunken, worthless or brutal husband.”

Despite the howlings of the black-robed judges (“the bench is holding up its hands in holy horror at the thought,” Butts quipped) the pro tempore court sessions continued in Santa Rosa during the autumn of 1915, while a court was mentioned to have been convened in San Francisco.

A third lawyer sometimes was added to the Butts/Fulwider team: Mrs. Frances McG. Martin. She acted as the plaintiff’s attorney that time Butts sat as pro tem judge and she was the judge herself on November 16, making history as earlier mentioned.

1915fmcgm(RIGHT: Attorney Frances McG. Martin. San Francisco Call, November 16 1915)

Martin would rank high on any list of the most significant people who ever lived in Santa Rosa. You can read a profile of her in the 1911 county history by Tom Gregory, but I’m compiling a full bio which will appear here someday. She was a leader in the fight for women’s suffrage going back to the 1890s and a fearless speaker and writer.

While she was respected locally as an attorney (Gregory remarked she had “the reputation of looking closely after the interests of widows and orphans”), the male chauvinist press outside of the county thought the idea of a woman serving as a high court judge – or even being a lawyer – was ridiculous. National headlines included “WOMAN JUDGE GRANTS DIVORCES NOW WITHOUT ANY FUSS OR FEATHERS” and “MADAME THE JUDGE GRANTS A DIVORCE.” The wire service story that appeared in many papers nationally called her a “lawyerette,” and The San Francisco Call sent a reporter to ask, “how does it feel to be a judge?” She answered the disdainful question by saying, “Feel? Feel? Why there is no ‘feel’ to it. I am glad to be able to show men that women can really do things. That’s all there is to it, absolutely all.”

The divorce which Martin granted was probably the most abusive of those heard by the pro tempore judges. Mary Hanks testified she was frightened of her husband, William, a Sebastopol farmer. He had repeatedly threatened her and once kept a loaded revolver pointed at her as they drove to town.

Another divorce granted in 1915 on grounds of extreme cruelty was Celia Granziani vs. Emil (really Emilio) Granziani. He was a laborer in Aqua Caliente and they had married in 1907 when she was sixteen; they now had two small children and she was awarded custody. The Press Democrat noted that their entire proceeding before pro tem judge Fulwider took less that fifteen minutes.

Less than six months later, however, Emilio was before Superior Court Denny asking him to overturn the divorce on the grounds that there had been fraud and collusion and anyway, any decree by a pro tempore judge was invalid. There can be little doubt that he was being used as a stalking horse to bring a suit which could be taken up to the State Supreme Court. His arguments were the exact same as those made earlier by judges Denny and Seawell – and although he was a common laborer, he was being represented by ex-congressman Thomas J. Geary, the top lawyer north of San Francisco.

(Fulwider was not accused of judicial impropriety, aside from the notion that a pro tem judge presiding over a divorce hearing was in itself an act of fraud and collusion according to the regular judges. However, if Emilio Granziani brought his suit to Judge Denny’s court at the direction of Judge Denny and others, it certainly seems to me that there was lotsa defrauding and colluding in doing so. I’d welcome any feedback from attorneys versed in this aspect of the Code of Conduct.)

So Graziani v. Denny went off to the State Supreme Court, and everyone waited for what they expected to be a speedy decision. And they waited. And then waited some more. While Denny and others hoped the Supremes would entirely rid them of those troublesome pro tempore judges, the high court clearly saw they had been handed a hornet’s nest.

Obtaining a divorce in California was a two step process at the time. A married couple appeared before a Superior Court judge – either the regular, elected sort or a pro tem – and presented arguments for getting a divorce. If that judge agreed, an “interlocutory decree” was filed. The couple then had to wait a year, presumably time for them to work out details like alimony, property division, or maybe even reconcile. At the end of that time they went back to court and a judge gave them a final judgement which terminated the marriage.

But the 1910 change to the law also added wording that a pro tempore judge was involved in a cause only until the final determination. Thus it would be up to Judge Denny to issue the actual divorce decree – and he had told the Press Democrat that he wouldn’t finalize any divorces where a pro tem judge was involved.

With the Granziani case queued on the court calendar in Sacramento, the pro tempore judge hearings stopped, further obstructed by judges Denny and Seawell ordering the Clerk to not accept any more such filings. The few divorces (the PD stated, “at least a dozen”) that had been granted were now in limbo. And during this waiting period Thomas J. Butts died at age 60. He is buried in the Rural Cemetery.

Finally in January 1917 the California Supreme Court issued its ruling and it was an ultra-narrow decision (Graziani v. Denny, 174 Cal. 176, 162).

The court held that yes, a judge pro tempore was a real Superior Court judge. The court did NOT place any restrictions on a pro tem sitting on the bench and granting interlocutory decrees. Thus what Butts et. al. had done was perfectly fine.

But here’s where the hairsplitting came in: While a Superior Court judge cannot overrule another Superior Court judge, any motion to dismiss an interlocutory decree is presented “not to any individual judge but to the superior court of Sonoma County.” And since regular, elected judges Denny/Seawell represented the county superior court, they now could throw out any and all work produced by the pro tempore judge, including the interlocutory decree. (Please forgive me for the pounding headache you now suffer.)

The easier, pro tem divorces were over, now that the regular judges had veto power. In 1922 the law was changed back to requiring a pro tempore judge be approved by a regular elected Superior Court judge. The new law was drafted by Santa Rosa’s State Senator, Herbert Slater.

As for the Sonoma County divorces granted with interlocutory decrees, Mary Hanks – the loaded-pistol case – started again from scratch, seeking a new decree from a “regular” judge. Judge Denny granted her a new decree in July 1917, about twenty months after the one granted by Mrs. Martin. She paid two lawyers to represent her before the court. Celia Graziani never got her divorce; she was pregnant with her third child when the Supreme Court decision was issued and didn’t have a job outside the home until the mid 1920s, when she worked in a San Francisco laundry. It appears only a single decree written by a pro tem judge was accepted and that was in a divorce sought by a man: George W. Mayfield.

Judges Denny and Seawell believed their black robes gave them a nearly feudal right to dictate the rules of society beyond what appeared in the law books – and part of their unwritten code was that the plaintiff should be punished for seeking a divorce. They were not the only judges who had that view; the Press Democrat quoted a San Francisco judge as saying, “painless divorces… are neither a source of edification to our citizenship nor a source of good to society.”

In truth, these jurists were just exhibiting a show of power – a demand that women bend to their absolute moral authority. Yet making the legal process as painful, expensive and difficult as possible did not deter those wives from seeking divorces (although in the case of Celia Graziani, the cost of hiring lawyers might have been a factor). I’ll yield the last word to Thomas J. Butts:


My observation and experience extending over 25 years, has been, that if you should obliterate all the laws on divorce and say that no divorce should be granted except for the one thing, that one of the spouses threw the other down stairs, in every couple that wanted a divorce one or the other would throw the other spouse down stairs. When people cannot live longer together, and the law provides that upon one single ground divorces would be granted, it would not diminish divorce.

 

sources
ARTICLE VI. SEC. 8. A Judge of any Superior Court may hold a Superior Court in any county, at the request of a Judge of the Superior Court thereof, and upon the request of the Governor it shall be his duty so to do. But a cause in a Superior Court may be tried by a Judge pro tempore, who must be a member of the bar, agreed upon in writing by the parties litigant or their attorneys of record, approved by the Court, and sworn to try the cause.

– California Constitution of 1879

 

Senate Constitutional Amendment Number 36 provides that there may be as many sessions of a Superior Court in any county as there are Judges therefor, or as many as may be called from other counties or appointed pro tempore from the bar.

The design of this amendment is to relieve congestion of the Superior Court arising from the construction placed on the present Constitution, which holds that only the number of Superior Court Judges elected for a given county can sit at one time in that county. In case of a protracted trial, this ruling causes much inconvenience and congestion of the court calendar.

– Official description of 1910 ballot item

 

AMENDMENT PROVIDING FOR ‘JUDGES TEMPORE’ UNDER DISCUSSION AT THIS TIME

Act of the People in November 1910, Is Being Used in the Superior Court and Its Force and Effect Is Reviewed by Superior Judges of Sonoma County

Recently in the Superior Court of Sonoma county three divorce actions have been tried with an attorney-at-law sitting as “Judge Pro Tempore” in place of either of the regular presiding judges of the Superior Court, as provided by the above amendment. Considerable interest has been aroused as well as considerable discussion.

By the amendment to the State Constitution, the sitting of a judge pro tempore is permissible, as will be seen by the language. And what is more, the people gave permission for such courts, the amendment adopted, too, in the regime of Governor Gillett, and cannot be charged by some persons as being one of the suggestions of the present Governor, upon whose head so much “progressiveness” is heaped.

Judges pro tempore can sit in any kind of litigation, their actions not being merely confined to divorce cases, judging from the language of the amendment. It places no restriction on the kind of litigation that can be heard by them.

Despite the fact that the Constitutional Amendment went into effect in November of 1910, it was only a couple of months or so ago that it was used in this county. And probably Sonoma county is the pioneer in its frequent use since. The regular judges of a county apparently have no control over the acts of a judge pro tempore, but his rulings are subject to review by the Appellate and Supreme Courts.

Judge Seawell’s Opinion

Judge Seawell said Wednesday: “The effect of the amendment is subversive of all well-established principles of the laws heretofore enacted, particularly in divorce cases, if given the application which the language of the amendment seemingly justifies.

“All courts have uniformly held that the parties to an action in divorce proceedings are not the only parties in interest, but that society has an interest equal, if not greater than the wishes or whims of the parties litigant.

“The constitutional amendment, if applied in the way sought, would place the question of the dissolution of matrimonial bonds in the hands of an attorney who may be the advocate of either one or the other in the large class of cases in which it is practically agreed between the parties that matrimonial ties may be severed. Of course this would be the foulest kind of connivance between husband and wife and society, for public interest would have absolutely no voice in the matter. This alone would be a heavy stroke at the foundation of domestic institutions. Personally I would willingly withdraw from trials of divorce cases. The entire judiciary of the State is already dissatisfied with what it is compelled to do under the law as it now stands. Connivance and perjury sufficiently tie the hands of the court in favor of unworthy litigants as the matter now stands.

“Judge pro tempore may set aside rules of court which require the testimony of the litigants to be perpetuated by stenographic notes and make the persons giving false testimony feel reasonably secure against criminal prosecution for perjury. They may also be relieved of the asking of embarrassing questions which a court, acting under judicial responsibility would be inclined to ask them.

“The amendment extends to all civil proceedings, and if the construction as intended is to be given to the language the judges tempore may be holding court while the regular judges are unoccupied, and in such cases men have been passing upon matters of vital interest to society who have never been commissioned by the people so to do except by the constitutional provision.

“Both the judge tempore and his acts are beyond the recall,” said the Judge.

Judge Denny’s Opinion

Superior Judge Denny is equally apprehensive concerning the working of the constitutional amendment regarding the powers of judges pro tempore. “I consider this one of the very worst pieces of legislation. You cannot quote me too strongly in my opposition to the amendment,” Judge Denny said.

– Press Democrat, September 23 1915

 

PRO TEMPORE JUDGE MAKES DIVORCE PATH MORE EASY
Press Democrat’s Article on Thursday Morning Creates Widespread Interest—Judge Thomas C. Denny Makes Statement on the Subject

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT’S article relative to the holding of court by judges pro tempore in the Superior Court of this county was read with widespread interest on Thursday morning and occasioned much comment.

Several members of the Sonoma county bar were outspoken in their denunciation of the Constitutional amendment permitting such actions, which, though passed in November, 1910, eliminating the power of the Superior Court for any control over judges pro tempore or their appointment, has not been used in this county until recently.

Additional Statement

In addition to his statement in Thursday mornings’ Press Democrat, Judge T. C. Denny had this to add Thursday night:

“The Constitution originally provided that any attorney agreed upon in writing by the parties to an action, might act as a judge pro tempore in the Superior Court with the same authority as the judge thereof, provided that the selection was approved by the Court. The amendment of 1910 leaves out of the section this very vital clause, and the amendment was probably secured. as are most of our laws, to fit some particular case about to be instituted.

“The original section was proper and probably enacted to be used in one of two events, either where all of the judges of the county were disqualified for some reason, or where the calendar of the court was so crowded that litigants really needed relief. But as far as I have been able to ascertain, the provision was never used in this county. While the Constitution provided that the judge pro tempore may be appointed to act in any action, I am convinced that it will, in all probability, be used only in actions for divorce. At least that is the experience of this county. I can see no reason for its being used in other cases as judges who are disqualified are always willing to call in outside judges.

“As to using judges pro tempore in divorce actions, it looks to me as if under the present method of securing a divorce it would never be used unless the parties thought they had no chance to secure a decree before the court; in other words, the plaintiff who has meritorious grounds for securing his divorce will never ask for a judge pro tempore; so that the court and the public are not to be blamed if they believe that any action brought in this manner is fraudulent on its face. My reasons for saying this are two:

“First, each county of the State is provided with a court of one or more departments, each department having its judge and full quota of officers free to litigants. Why then should these litigants hire an attorney to hear their case and add this uncalled-for expense to their ordinary costs?

“Second, no attorney will be asked to sit as a judge pro tempore in whom all the parties interested have the slightest doubt as to what his decision will be. To expect otherwise would be to expect the divine in the human. No one will pay an attorney to hear a divorce action if there is any question as to his decision.

“I feel a little strongly in this matter because one of my first acts as judge was to set aside the former court rule by which most divorces in this court were referred to the court referee, and insisted that they be heard in open court, thinking that it might do away with some of the evils of divorce if plaintiff had to face the court. I do not say that, my hopes have been fulfilled to any great extent. But if it was any improvement over the old system, whatever of good was accomplished is now lost, because they are now trying these cases without a court reporter and witnesses can commit perjury without any thought of punishment.”

VIEWS OF THREE OTHER JUDGES

Here are the views of three San Francisco Superior judges on the “Judge pro tempore” matter:

OUTRAGEOUS SITUATION Judge Thomas F. Graham: “If use is made of the new position in the law,” declared Judge Graham, “the divorce lawyers of San Francisco will be rushed to death and will become wealthy in a comparatively short time. It’s easy enough to get a divorce now, but painless divorces, in the private offices of divorce lawyers, are neither a source of edification to our citizenship nor a source of good to society. There has been some blundering, from all appearances, in the preparation of the new legislation, and the quicker this is remedied the better for everybody—excepting the divorce lawyers.”

OPENS DOOR TO COLLUSION Judge Mogan said: “The selection of an attorney by the parties to a litigation to act as judge instead of the duly elected judicial officer while authorized by the law should be confined to cases of emergency and its extension indiscriminately to divorce cases should not only be deplored, but prevented.

“The only time when an attorney should be selected in place of a judge is where the attorney was the judge who originally presided over some aspect of a case which was left uncompleted when his term of office expired. The law which permits an attorney selected by the parties to act as a judge in a divorce suit opens the door to collusion and cannot but result in increasing the number of divorces.”

AN ABSURDITY Judge John J. Van Nostrand said: “The absurdity of permitting any attorney to preside over the trial of a suit through arrangements of the parties to the litigation was illustrated in my department recently in the quiet title suit of Vandal against All Persons. In that case the attorney for the defendant started proceedings to have a judge pro tempore appointed. The purported appointment was made and the judge pro tempore began to cite half a dozen attorneys and witnesses for contempt and enjoined nearly everybody under the sun from interfering in any way with the defendant.

“The matter was so complicated before the judge pro tempore was through that the Supreme Court had to step in with a writ of prohibition to straighten out the matter. I haven’t had any experience with the appointment of judges pro tempore in divorce suits, but if self-constituted judges can do so much damage as in the quiet title suit of Vandal versus All Persons, I should say that the law authorising such judges is one fraught with grave possibilities of mischief.”

– Press Democrat, September 24 1915

 

“TEMPEST IN TEAPOT” SAYS BUTTS; ‘JUDGE PRO TEMPORE’
Santa Rosa Lawyer Upholds the Much-Discussed Constitutional Amendment and Fires Lots of Questions at the Gentlemen Who Have Been Elected to the Bench

Thomas J. Butts, well known lawyer, ridicules the controversy over the Constitutional amendment regarding the “judges pro tempore” as being a “tempest in a teapot,” and says the said amendment is one of the best ever passed by the people. He challenges any implication that an attorney, in Sonoma county, at least, would be guilty of collusion or subornation of perjury. But there, let his letter to the Press Democrat explain his views:

(By Thomas J. Butts)

Editor Press Democrat: From your article published in the issue of your paper of September 23rd, and also the article entitled “Pro Tempore Judge Makes Divorce More Easy,” in the issue of your paper of September 24th, I see that the matter of judge pro tempore sitting in divorce cases has created a tempest in a teapot, and the bench is holding up its hands in holy horror at the thought. But it seems strange to me that judges of the State of California who have taken the oath to support the Constitution when they took their oath of office, should be the first to throw down the Constitution when its provisions seem to run contrary to what they deemed was their prerogatives.

UPRIGHTNESS OF ATTORNEYS

Why should an attorney be any better qualified or any more upright and honest because he has been elected to the judgeship, than one who has been appointed, or one who has been stipulated by the parties to try the case? Does the election of an attorney to office make him any more just or upright than he was before, or does he by reason of that fact become more learned or more just and upright than attorneys at the bar? Attorneys are all officers of the court, and are sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the State of California, and when they are appointed judge pro tempore by the stipulation of the parties they are sworn to try the cause the same as the Superior Court judges are sworn.

And I repel the implication that any attorney in this county, at least, would become party to collusion and subornation of perjury in order to obtain a divorce for anybody, or that any member of the bar of Sonoma county, if selected judge pro tempore would not try a case as fairly and uprightly as the gentlemen upon the bench.

INCORPORATE ‘INDIVIDUALS DIE’

If the legal gentlemen upon bench of the State of California possess all the knowledge and all the legal learning and integrity, and none is left to the bar, then the State of California should incorporate the members of its bench, for individuals die, and this knowledge and uprightness should be perpetuated and not be permitted to perish from the earth, when the members of the bar – the only source from which their successors may be chosen, are woefully deficient. Judges are but attorneys elevated to the bench, and very frequently very inferior attorneys at that. And I say without hesitation that Charlie Wheeler, Gavin McNab, Garret McInerney and hundreds of others that I might mention, are at least the equivalent in honesty and integrity and in the knowledge and learning of the law of Judge Van Nostrand and Thos. Graham, who criticize the Constitutional amendment adopted by the people.

It has been the law for thirty years that the litigants, or their attorneys could appoint an attorney to try their cause with the acquiescence of the judge of he Superior Court. That provision of the Constitution of 1879 was a nullity. Why? Because of the words “approved by the court.”

AND WHY NOT?

If there should be any reason why a judge should not try a cause, by what force of reason or logic can it be maintained that he should appoint someone to try it? It is a good deal like permitting a detective who has worked up a case against a defendant to appoint the judge to try it. Of course, there could be no collusion among the gentlemen of the bench. A judge when he is called in to another county to try a case never talks it over with the judge who called him and gets his view of what ought to be done in this case, and of course, the judge who called him in to take the case has nothing to do with the decision! But such things might happen, just as attorneys might collude in a case.

IT SAVES EXPENSE

The section of the Constitution is one of the best that has ever been passed by the people. It does away wilh the laws delays, and cuts down the expenses of the litigation, which in divorce cases where women with just cause frequently have to work twelve hours a day for fifty days to earn sufficient to get released from a drunken, worthless or brutal husband.

Then again, what interest is it to the bench who tries causes that are not brought before them. It is true that people may need guardians but they are not quite ready to submit their guardianship unqualifiedly to the judiciary, albeit I believe that the bench of Sonoma county and of the State of California in general is made up of honest, able and upright men. But I see no reason why these gentlemen occupying a high and exalted situation should be making an assault the Constitution passed by the people. In the language of Shakespeare, “Alas, what secret motives they have, I know not, that made them do it!”

I conceive it to be the law that when litigants come before the court in a divorce case, or in any other, and the party proves his case according to law, then he is entitled to have judgment his way.

SHOULD BE NO BIAS

And I will go further and say that any judge who has a bias or prejudice against litigants, or against the cause of action pending before him, should not, in honor, preside at the hearing. If the judge does not believe in divorce and is not willing to abide by the law, then he should refuse to hear a divorce case.

However, it might be in San Francisco, I submit that the new law is in no danger of being abused so long as an attorney in Sonoma county acts as judge pro tempore. Thomas Graham to the contrary notwithstanding.

It is said strenuously that it opens the door to collusion. If there is collusion in a case, the case is prepared before they commence the divorce, and can as well be in the Superior Court before a judge as before a judge pro tempore. My observation and experience extending over 25 years, has been, that if you should obliterate all the laws on divorce and say that no divorce should be granted except for the one thing, that one of the spouses threw the other down stairs, in every couple that wanted a divorce one or the other would throw the other spouse down stairs. When people cannot live longer together, and the law provides that upon one single ground divorces would be granted, it would not diminish divorce. Such a law would increase perjury and rascality, but would not diminish separations, and that, too, whether the cases are brought in the Superior Court or before a judge pro tempore. It seems to be the opinion on the part of some of the bench that thev are entitled as a matter of right to try all the cases of the people in their respective counties, but the people think if they try well and truly the cases brought before them, they are filling the full measure of their office; otherwise they would not have enacted such an amendment to the Constitution.

Very truly, T. J. BUTTS.

– Press Democrat, September 25 1915

 

PRO-TEMPORE IS ON BENCH AGAIN
Mrs. Celia Graziani Is Granted a Divorce From Her Husband at the Sonoma County Courthouse Yesterday

Judge pro tempore again.

He occupied the bench in Judge Denny’s department of the Superior Court, even while Superior Judges T. C. Denny and Emmet Seawell were in their chambers a few feet away. He sat with the California Constitution giving him a legal right so to do and their Honors could not say “Nay.”

With Judge Pro Tempore L. E. Fulwider on the bench, Mrs. Celia Graziani was granted a divorce from her husband, Emil Graziani, on the ground of extreme cruelty. Graziani did not appear to oppose the suit, having agreed in writing to the selection of Fulwider as judge pro tempore. Thomas J. Butts represented the plaintiff.

The complaint and answer was filed and the trial had within a quarter of an hour [sic]. The evidence given undoubtedly indicated, those present say, that the woman was entitled to a divorce.

– Press Democrat, September 29 1915

 

Judge Pro Tempore L. E. Fulwider sat on the bench in the Superior court here again Wednesday and granted another divorce. The plaintiff was Mrs. Mary E. Harris and the decree from her husband was given her on account of his failure to provide. Mrs. Harris, Ivy Keichum and Ruth Zimmerman were the witnesses called and Attorney Thomas Jefferson Butts appeared for the plaintiff.

– Press Democrat, November 4 1915

 

JUDGE BUTTS ON THE BENCH AS PRO TEMPORE
“Discoverer” of the Constitutional Provision Which Allows the Selection of Temporary Judges in Superior Court

Thomas Jefferson Butts, the well known lawyer and poet, who might practically be termed the “discoverer” of the Constitutional provision that allows the the appointment of Superior Judges pro tempore in the trial of divorce actions and other litigation, where both parties to the action agree, was himself elevated to the bench temporarily on Saturday morning and presided as judge pro tempore at the trial of the divorce suit brought by Mrs. Rebecca Patton against her husband, John Patton.

Mrs. Patton charged her husband with wilful desertion, and it was intimated that Patton had only worked for three months out of three years. Attorney Frances McG Martin appeared for the plaintiff.

Judge Butts handed down his oral opinion from the bench at the conclusion of the evidence which was evidently sufficient for the granting of Mrs. Patton’s prayer, and in giving the interlocutory decree took occasion to refer to an opinion given by the late Supreme Justice Jackson Temple involving a similar point to that standing out prominently in the Patton suit.

Judge Butts amply filled the judicial seat, and did so with considerable dignity, too.

– Press Democrat, November 14 1915

 

JUDGE FRANCES M’G. MARTIN GRANTS WOMAN DIVORCE
First Woman in the United States to Occupy a Higher Court Bench Than Justice of Peace — Unique Scene in Sonoma County Superior Court on Tuesday

ATTORNEY FRANCES McG. MARTIN, Santa Rosa’s well known woman lawyer, occupied the bench in Judge Denny’s department of the Superior Court yesterday end granted Mrs. Mary A. Hanks an interlocutory decree of divorce from her husband, William A. Hanks, a Sebastopol farmer.

This is the first time a woman jurist in the United States has granted a divorce decree or has ever ascended the bench in a Superior Court in the country. Therefore the position occupied by Judge Martin yesterday was a unique one and a decided compliment for her.

Judge [sic] Thomas Jefferson Butts was counsel for the plaintiff, and interrogated the witnesses, and the presiding judge had a number of questions to propound to each witness.

Mrs. Hanks testified that her husband had deserted her and had also been cruel to her. She narrated how on more than one occasion he had told her “to get out,” and at one time drove her to town ahead of him, he following her with a loaded revolver pointed at her. She testified that she was afraid of her husband and would not return to him in consequence. She further testified that her husband had used vile language toward her.

Two other women witnesses corroborated Mrs. Hanks’ testimony, and at the conclusion of the evidence Judge Martin granted the decree on the ground of willful desertion and extreme cruelty.

A number of spectators were present in the courtroom to witness the interesting proceedings, which, as intimated, marked the first time a woman had occupied the bench in a high court in this country.

– Press Democrat, November 17 1915

 

WOMAN LAWYER OCCUPIES BENCH
SONOMA COUNTY PORTIA SITS AS SUPERIOR JUDGE AND GRANTS DIVORCE
Frances McG. Martin Presides In Department of Superior Court and Grants Divorce to Mrs. William A. Hanks, wife of Sebastopol Man.

Wm. A. Hanks, well known in Sebastopol, having formerly resided here, alternating ranching with bartending, has been handed notoriety and divorce all in a day. So far as known Hanks is the first man in the United States to be divorced from his one-time lady love by a lady lawyer, occupying the bench as superior judge.

Incidentally, however, the honor in connection with the case falls upon Frances McG. Martin, Sonoma county’s Portia, who has the distinction of being, so far as known, the first woman in the country to occupy the bench of a superior court.

The case of Hanks vs. Hanks was heard in Judge Denny’s department Thursday, and an interlocutory decree was granted Mrs. Mary Hanks.

Mrs. Hanks testified that her husband had deserted her and had also been cruel to her. She narrated how on more than one occasion he had told her “to get out,” and at one time drove her to town ahead of him, he following with a loaded revolver pointed at her. She testified that she was afraid of her husband and would not return to him in consequence. She further testified that her husband used vile language toward her.

Other witnesses corroborated the testimony of Mrs. Hanks and Judgess Martin granted the decree on the ground of wilful desertion and extreme cruelty.

– Sebastopol Times, November 20 1915

 

WOMAN, ON BENCH, DESCRIBES HER LIFE TO ELUDE QUESTIONS
“How Does It Feel to Be First Judge?” Dodged by Santa Rosa Fair Lawyer

“How does it feel to be a judge?” was the question put to Attorney Frances McGaughey Martin of Santa Rosa, the first woman in the United States to occupy the bench of a civil court higher in rank than that of justice court. She smiled as she replied:

“Well, you see this new law, making it possible for two contesting parties to appoint a regular practicing attorney to sit as judge protempore in the case is being taken advantage of in this instance. Of course, it’s a regular court and I am vested with all the prerogatives of a judge; in fact, I am a judge while sitting in the case.”

HOW DO YOU LIKE PIONEERING?

“And so, Mrs. Martin, how does it seem to be a ‘first,’ a pioneer?” was asked again.

“Well, of course, you must understand that I have been practicing for nineteen years. There are probably only two other women in the state that have been longer before the bar than I have. One of these is Samuel Shortrldge’s sister, Mrs. Clara Foltz, and the other is Mrs. S. T. Coffey, formerly Mrs. Luda V. Barham.

“That was peculiar about Mrs. Barham. When her father in law, J. A. Barham, was in Congress he induced his son, Ed and his daughter in law to practice in the United States Supreme court, and it was the first time that this had been done by a congressman. Mrs. Barham was the second woman attorney that California ever had.”

“BUT, HOW DOES IT—”

“Now, let me see, Mrs. Martin, how does it—”

“As I was saying, nineteen years ago I began the study of law. I had been eight years county superintendent of schools in Sonoma County, and. I went into the office of the late Allison B. Ware, that grand old man of the California bar. I entered his office in January of one year and took my examinations before the Supreme Court in the next December.”

“And about this case in hand. How—-”

“I have handled many cases in those nineteen years. I believe I am third in the number of divorces in the county. Then my estate business is a big one. But criminal cases, no. I don’t handle them unless appointed by the court.

AGAIN WE ASK YOU, MRS. MARTIN

“Mrs. Martin, how”—

“Now if you must know about this case, it is a divorce action. It is entitled Mary E. Hanks against William Hanks. The ground in the complaint is willful desertion. The case was a clear cut one, plenty of evidence, and I granted the decree.”

“Yes, Mrs. Martin, but how does it feel to be a real truly live judge, the first woman judge in the United States?”

“Feel? Feel? Why there is no ‘feel’ to it. I am glad to be able to show men that women can really do things. That’s all there is to it, absolutely all.”

– San Francisco Call, November 16 1915

 

Judge Pro Tempore Again on the Bench

Judge Pro Tempore L. E. Fulwider was again on the bench in the Superior Court yesterday. He presided In the suit of Mrs. Mary E. Davis against J. L. Davis. Thomas J. Butts was the attorney for the plaintiff. The evidence being conclusive to support the grounds upon which the action was brought, the interlocutory decree of divorce was granted.

– Press Democrat, December 15 1915

 

FIVE JUDGES SITTING IN COURTHOUSE WEDNESDAY

Five Judges sat in various capacities in the courthouse Wednesday.

Superior Judge Zook was presiding at the trial of a murder case.

Superior Judge Tom Denny had an examination in progress.

Judge Pro Tempore Lucien E. Fulwider tried a divorce case.

Justice of the Peace Marvin Vaughan presided in his court.

County Clerk W. W. Felt sat as judge in a land proving case.

– Press Democrat, January 27 1916

 

JUDGE PRO TEM’S RIGHT TO DON ERMINE IS ATTACKED
Fraud and Collusion Urged in Granziani Suit,the Decree in Which Judge Denny Is Asked to Set Aside—Able Arguments Are Being Presented

When the suit of Celia Granziani vs. Emil Granziani was called in Judge Tom Denny’s department of the Superior Court on Monday afternoon there started a legal battle which will either oust Judge Pro Tempore from judicial function on the woolsack in the Superior Court of the County of Sonoma and the State of California, or will retain him with the power seemingly vested in him by the People of the State of California in their Constitution. The latter right, when taken into consideration and viewed with other constitutional provisions, has aroused doubt in the minds of the regular judges and also many lawyers. It is intended that the suit of Granziani vs. Granziani — that is, its bearing upon the pro tempore judge phase, shall go to the highest tribunal in the State if necessary.

Emil Granziani asked the Superior Court to set aside or modify the divorce decree granted in the suit on the ground of fraud and collusion and attacking specifically the validity of the decree as it was granted by a pro tempore judge.

OBJECTION IS RAISED

William F. Cowan, who was called into the controversy on the point attacking the validity of judges pro tempore and who was not of counsel in the trial or bringing of the suit, objected to Judge Denny hearing the motion in the Granziani suit, questioning his jurisdiction on the ground that the Constitution vested in the power of the judge pro tempore the right to hear and determine matters pertaining to the divorce action, in which a pro tempore had presided that might occur during the twelve months that must elapse between the granting of an interlocutory decree and its becoming final. At the same time counsel had something to say upholding the rights of pro tempore judges under the Constitution. With Mr. Cowan was Thomas J. Butts, whom former Congressman T. J. Geary dubbed “creator of the judge pro tem.”

Former Congressman Geary and Leslie E. Johnston of Napa were counsel for Emil Granziani and they attacked the judge pro tempore’s supposed Constitution bulwark. Geary cited many authorities and held that the jurisdiction of a court cannot be stipulated away. “You can create another judge,” he said, “but you cannot create another judicial tribunal. There is one Superior Court of the county of Sonoma, and there are two judges of that Superior Court, each vested with jurisdiction.”

Mr. Geary said he thought the Court was not only justified in setting aside the decree on the ground that it was obtained by collusion, but that the whole idea of judge pro tempore in the construction given his authority by counsel on the other side should be swept aside and that the clerk should be enjoined from filing “any more such papers.”

Attorney Cowan will reply to the argument of counsel when court resumes at half-past ten o’clock this morning.

– Press Democrat, March 28 1916

 

‘PRO TEMPORE JUDGE’ GOES TO THE SUPREME COURT
Judge Denny Says He “Does Not Believe Decrees Are Worth Paper They Are Written On” — Court Rules at Close of Argument Yesterday Afternoon — Holds Decision Temporarily in Abeyance — Motion to Set Aside Decree Is Granted

The Supreme Court of California will now have a chance to pass upon the validity of the acts of an attorney sitting as a judge pro tempore in divorce suits and granting decrees just as a regular judge of the Superior Court. Sonoma county will furnish the nut for the men wearing the ermine in the State’s highest tribunal to crack.

At the conclusion of the arguments in the motion made by Emil Granziani, through his attorneys, former Congressman Thomas J. Geary and Lester E. Johnston, asking the Court to set aside or modify the interlocutory decree granted Mrs. Celia Granziani by Judge Pro Tempore Lucien E. Fulwider, Judge Denny announced his determination to set aside the decree entered by the Pro Tempore and send the matter to the Supreme Court for final determination, realizing the importance of the matters involved.

SPEEDY HEARING WANTED

After Judge Denny had announced his determination of the suit and his unseating of the Judge Pro Tem as far as he was concerned, William F. Cowan of counsel in the validity proceedings and Mr. Geary both agreed that the matter should be taken to the higher court just as speedily as possible to have the constitutional provision regarding the judge pro tempore settled once and for nil. There was some demur as to the method of procedure.

Geary suggested that inasmuch as the plaintiff had filed an answer the suit could be immediately set down for trial before Judge Denny, and then Cowan could apply for a writ of prohibition to the Supreme Court to prevent the Court proceeding with the trial and that would bring the matter up squarely to the tribunal on its merits.

Cowan did not agree that this was the best method of procedure.

When Judge Denny agreed to temporarily hold his decision to set aside the decree in abeyance until counsel had which would be the most expeditious manner in which to present the constitutional provision to the Supreme Court for its construing of a much vexed question.

In view of this, Judge Denny had the matter submitted, but it was definitely stated, and reiterated to a Press Democrat representative by the Court himself after adjournment, that he had stated what his judgment would be and his decision of the case, and that it was absolutely against the sitting of judges pro tempore in divorce proceedings.

ARGUMENT IS ENDED

After Attorney Cowan had completed his able argument and the citing authorities on the constitutional provision for judges pro tempore holding that the sitting of such judges was legal and provided for in the constitution, even without the approval of the regular judges of the Superior Court, and that the people of the State had meant exactly what the constitution says, counsel was followed by Mr. Geary in closing for the defendant, who asked that the decree be set aside. As on the previous day, counsel urged that while a judge might be created there was no provision for another tribunal. He also quoted more authorities.

JUDGE DENNY RULES

When Geary had completed his argument, Judge Denny said he had studied the constitutional provision and had determined to let the Supreme Court pass upon the matter. This had been his decision, he said, since the very first time the matter was called to his attention after the first interlocutory decree had been granted by a judge pro tempore. Therefore now the opportunity he had waited for had been afforded, he meant to pass it right up to the Supreme Court.

“From the start I have expressed myself, and I don’t think the judgments in such cases are worth the paper they are written on. I have never thought anything else,” said the referring to the decrees granted by pro tempores.

“And when it comes to the standpoint of morality, well, I probably had not better state what I really think, other than I consider such procedure means the undermining of the morals of society. In divorce proceeding it opens up all the grounds for all kinds of corruption md collusion.

“It is very plain to me that when papers are properly filed in this court I immediately acquire jurisdiction, and that jurisdiction cannot be taken away from me except by well-defined rules of court or by the statues. If such procedures as this is allowed all jurisdiction would be destroyed. It is too revolutionary,” said Judge Denny.

When the matter is properly presented to the Supreme Court the decision of that tribunal will be awaited with much interest, especially by the persons most interested, those who have been granted their decrees by pro tempore judges. There have been at least a dozen of such decrees given in this county and should the highest tribunal sustain Judge Denny’s opinion there be a rather unique state of affairs, to say the least of it, as to what standing the divorced ones would have.

It is likely that today or tomorrow counsel will, for Mrs. Granziani, decide as to what course to pursue to get the matter the quickest up to the Supreme Court for final determination.

– Press Democrat, March 29 1916

 

JUDGES DENNY AND SEAWELL FORBID THE FILING OF PRO TEMPORE JUDGE DECREES

[..]

DEAN BUTTS’ REMARKS

Thomas Jefferson Butts, dean of the use of the constitutional amendment providing for Judges pro tempore, said, with a bland smile, after he had learned of the court order:

“An officer who arrives at a point when he cannot consistently support the Constitution of the State of California should resign.

“The duties of the clerk are prescribed by law, and the filing of instruments in the clerk’s office, the place where they are entitled to be filed, the Superior Court has no right to stop.”

– Press Democrat, April 29 1916

 

It is about time somebody gave this Judge Pro Tempore business a good swift jab in the solar plexus. Any law is a poor law that pretends to make it possible for three attorneys — or two attorneys and a hired man — to get together and without giving notice to anybody by mutual consent set aside a legal decision that has been handed down in due form by a regular elected Judge of the Court. No more absurd proposition has ever been heard of.

– Press Democrat editorial, April 29 1916

 

DEATH OF THOMAS J. BUTTS HERE ON SATURDAY NIGHT

[..]

– Press Democrat, June 25 1916

 

Wants ‘Regular’ Judge To Grant Her Decree

Mrs. Mary Hanks does not want the interlocutory decree which was granted by a pro tempore superior judge over a year ago made a final decree. Instead, she has had the old suit against her husband, William W. Hanks, dismissed, and has commenced a new action for a divorce in the Superior Court, and she wants it heard by a “regular” judge. C. E. Davis is her attorney.

For many moons now the Supreme Court has had the matter of the determination of the pro tempore judge validity under advisement. It was appealed from Sonoma county. The decision is awaited.

– Press Democrat, December 30 1916

 

PRO TEMPORE JUDGE DIVORCE DEGREES STILL IN THE AIR
Supreme Court Affirms Judge Denny’s Contention That He Still Has Jurisdiction Now the Legality of the Pro Tempore Must Be Settled as Final Decrees May Not Be Signed

The Supreme Court has held that Judge Thomas C. Denny has jurisdiction to hear a motion to set aside a decree of divorce granted by a judge pro tempore in the suit of Graziani vs Graziani, and thus affirms the Sonoma county jurist’s opinion. But in passing upon the matter the highest tribunal in the State does not attempt to settle the question as to the legality of the judge pro tempore, as the direct question as to this had not been presented.

[..]

– Press Democrat, January 6 1917

 

PRO TEM JUDGE USE SET ASIDE
Judge Denny Grants Order Setting Aside the Decree of Divorce Granted to Mrs. Cecile Graziani

…In this case the defendant, owing to the uncertainly of the provision of the constitution allowing pro tempore judges, asked the court to set the decree aside so that the matter might he heard before one of the regular Superior Court judges.

The matter will now he squarely presented to the Superior Court.

– Press Democrat, February 11 1917

 

MARY ANN HANKS IS GIVEN HER DIVORCE

In Judge Denny’s department of the Superior Court on Wednesday morning the suit of Mary Ann Hanks, against her husband, William W. Hanks came to trial. After listening to the evidence Judge Denny granted the interlocutory decree. Emmet I. Donohoe was the attorney for the plaintiff.

– Press Democrat, July 19 1917

 

WINNER OF PRO TEM DIVORCE IS MARRIED AGAIN
George W. Mayfield, Local Real Estate Dealer. Waits Three Years and Then Claims Mrs. Minnie Manwell as Wife.

The signing of a final divorce decree for George W. Mayfield yesterday by Superior Judge Emmet Seawell enabled Mr. Mayfield to claim Mrs. Minnie E. Manwell as his wife in a ceremony performed last night by Rev. Charles W. DeVol, and ended a three-year controversy as to the validity of divorce decrees issued by pro tempore judges.

Mr. Mayfield was divorced three years ago, with Pro Tempore Judge L. E. Fulwider presiding, as provided by the constitutional amendment which was voted by the people a short time previously. His interlocutory decree of divorce was signed by Fulwider as Judge.

At the same time a controversy which became somewhat bitter arose between various lawyers who had been sitting as pro tempore judges and the regularly elected judges of the county. The regular judges charged that pro tempore judges made divorce too easy, and to make a test of the matter refused to sign any final decrees. The matter was taken into the higher courts before it was settled, and before persons in the situation of Mr. Mayfield were able to gain their final freedom under the law.

[..]

– Press Democrat, September 6 1919

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ONWARD, PROHIBITION SOLDIERS

On January 17, 1920, Prohibition came to Sonoma county, as it did the rest of the land. While San Francisco marked the event by carousing and debauchery excessive even by Barbary Coast standards, the milestone passed with little notice up here. At midnight some bozo on Western avenue in Petaluma began shooting in the air and managed to knock out a PG&E powerline, likely pitching that side of town into darkness. With church bells clanging in celebration, residents suddenly without lights probably wondered if the end of the world had come – and many in wine-making, wine-loving Sonoma county were nervous that it had.

This article is part of a series on the 1920s culture wars, an era with numerous parallels to America today – particularly now that the nation is as divided as it was during the ignoble experiment which was Prohibition.

Much has been written about Prohibition; there’s a substantial number of books and internet resources on the topic although all seem to share the same flaw – events before it started are given short shrift and then it’s quickly on to Chicago gangsters, bathtub gin and the jazz age. You know: The fun stuff.

But take a step further back and a bigger picture emerges: Fear and loathing of alcohol was the moralistic glue holding together the various threads in America’s culture wars. Many preachers howled liquor must be scourged from the earth via a rigorous crackdown by law enforcement, which was a militant stance shared with the revived Ku Klux Klan – and while you were at their lecture, the boyz in the hoods also had a few other things to tell you about immigrants and white nationalism. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union didn’t just demonize demon rum; the group had a “purity lecturer” who addressed their 1913 convention in Santa Rosa, where she spoke about “social immorality” and “race betterment” (eugenics, in other words).

Here I’ve written dozens of articles about doings regarding alcohol both trivial and notable, such as the anti-suffrage propaganda that women would vote as a bloc to ban alcohol and that the first speakeasy in the county was the Electric Hotel in Forestville. Below the main stories are arranged to show how the prohibition movement gained steam in Sonoma county; the article following this one takes us from 1918 to the start of Prohibition and shows the early impact it had here. Spoiler alert: Prohibition generally turned out to be a good thing for Sonoma county.

As everyone probably knows, the “dry” prohibitionists saw themselves as crusaders fighting to save the nation; in Sonoma county and elsewhere there were Protestant activists eager to reform the bejesus out of drinkers. But until I began assembling this article I didn’t grasp how much of their clout leaned on intimidation; their bullying tactics were shockingly similar to the incivility found in today’s politics.

The Santa Rosa papers of the day seemed taken aback by church leaders mobilizing their flocks to pack City Council chambers (although that would hardly seem unusual now) and were unsettled that they would use children to disrupt public meetings with demonstrations. But it truly crossed a line when ministers did not shy from making threats – that they had better get their way or they would direct their congregation to inflict pain on their foes in the community with economic boycotts, blacklists and recall petitions. As noted below, when one of the most respected men in town simply remarked at a City Council meeting that history showed prohibition laws never succeed, he was attacked personally and shamed by a preacher.

There was no equivalent “wet” crowd in Sonoma county pushing back against them. Part of the reason was likely fear, but until 1918 most people here did not have to choose sides; there’s no evidence the public body was worked up about banning alcohol, either pro or con. When drinking holes were shut down it was because of specific vice complaints such as the place abetting prostitution or being a public nuisance. Roadhouses were closed after an uptick in drunken driving and because they were sometimes close enough to town to put constrains on development.

Before Prohibition Santa Rosa was always a saloon town – during the peak years of the early 1910s there were over forty places downtown where a fellow could belly up to the bar as early as 6am. Sure, some of the barroom traffic was driven by this being the county seat, but there also had to be lots of hometown support to have so many bartenders going to work even before roosters were up in winter.

The interior of Senate Saloon as shown in the Santa Rosa Republican, November 20, 1913.  TOP: The Buckhorn Saloon in Sebastopol, c. 1902 (Sonoma County Library)

 

Following the 1906 earthquake saloons were ordered closed for about a month and then allowed to reopen during daylight hours, soon after stretching the times to 6am – 8pm. When the saloon ordinance was considered again the following year, the City Council was surprised to find their meeting room mobbed with churchfolk demanding limited hours and Sunday closures. Two ministers there were spotted making a list of everyone attending (“to keep a record of the names of the people we saw” and was definitely not gonna be used as a blacklist, no sir) and at the followup Council meeting a few days later a preacher boomed their anti-saloon crusade “is a fight to the death!” He then insulted former Judge Barham by sneering that his son “…was now in an insane asylum, sent there by drink.” The Press Democrat commented, “As the last words were uttered, one could have heard a pin drop, so tense was the feeling.” The old man stood and walked out of the room in tears.

The dry crusaders lost that round in 1907, but three years later had better luck in Sebastopol, where they hectored the town into raising the annual liquor license from $200 to $1,000. Five saloons immediately shut their doors, not counting the three Chinese and Japanese places where liquor was served – those were closed automatically by another proviso in the new law which ruled no license should be granted to “Oriental residents.” (Liquor was already outlawed in Sonoma County for Native Americans; since 1908 you could be fined $500 and sent to jail for six months for selling alcohol to anyone with just one-fourth Indian blood.)

That was followed by mixed temperance success in 1912, starting with a portion of West County voting for prohibition (more of an issue about farm workers and real estate values) followed by a countywide ban on the sale of alcohol anywhere outside of major towns. That might seem like a moral victory for the drys because it closed 110 roadhouses, but as mentioned above there were public safety and economic reasons. Country hotels could still get a liquor license and a Grand Jury the next year found barkeeps trying to qualify by claiming tents, sheds and stables as hotel rooms. (The winner in this game of chutzpah was Guerneville’s main drinking spot, the Louvre, which insisted every guest room in town was part of their “hotel.”) Still, the prohibitionists chalked up the roadhouse ban as a big win for Team Sobriety.

That was also the first year women could vote in California, and about twenty towns had ballot items in 1912 to decide if their community would go dry. Cloverdale voted for leaders who promised to clean up the saloons – particularly gambling and serving liquor to minors – but rejected outright prohibition by an almost 2:1 majority. Overall, about half of the towns voting on alcohol went dry; in the Bay Area, only Los Gatos and Mountain View closed their saloons. That election showed women did not vote as an anti-alcohol bloc after all; “FEMALE OF SPECIES AS THIRSTY AS THE MALE,” quipped the Santa Rosa Republican in a headline.

Now the teetotalers were on a roll; in 1913 the Board of Supervisors amended the liquor ordinance so there could be no booze sold within fifty feet of place where dances were held. I’m confident their vote was not at all affected by what happened two weeks earlier, when a recall effort was launched against the Sonoma Valley supervisor charging he was “guilty of misconduct in office” for not demonstrating enough anti-roadhouse enthusiasm. The temperance side got locals to sign their recall petition by spreading lies that the supervisor was a drunk who had accepted “a sack of money” from Fetters Springs to obtain a liquor license.

And finally the league of morals and piety managed to get their Sunday closures. All major towns in the county tried it on a voluntary basis starting in 1916, with Santa Rosa being the only place where every saloon was shut down for the full day – saloons elsewhere in the county chose to close for the day, open late and close early, or keep their usual hours.

When Santa Rosa saloon owners made noises about Sunday reopening the PD reported several preachers met with the mayor. A “leading Santa Rosa minister” did not hesitate to threaten they would bring their well-funded state organization to town and make this place as dry as Death Valley. “If a move is started to reopen Sundays we will call an election and will bring all of the state forces of the Anti-Saloon League to this city and put up the strongest fight that has ever been waged in this city against the liquor interests. We have no doubt whatever as to the results of the election.” (Nice little town you got here. It would be a shame.) The saloons remained closed on Sundays and the next year the City Council passed an ordinance requiring it.

This brings us to the chaotic year of 1918. With the country now fully involved in the Great War, the federal government had given itself broad powers to ration and restrict goods, as well as creating new police powers to enforce those rules. Schools, military camps and any factories involved with war production were now surrounded by a five-mile radius “moral zone” where alcohol was banned. Propaganda from the Committee on Public Information not only made hate and fear of all things German into a patriotic duty, but also borrowed old tropes from the temperance movement to demonize everything to do with drinking.

With drys controlling the legislatures in most states as well as Congress, Prohibition was fast becoming America’s de facto policy even before the Eighteenth Amendment was ratified. Over the following two years it became like a runaway train; many tried to stop it (including President Woodrow Wilson) and failed to even slow it down. And during that time the nation became increasingly polarized as Americans found themselves being forced to choose a tribe as Prohibition became more of a certainty.

In the glum final days before Prohibition began, Sonoma county and other places in wine country pondered what kind of future awaited, with every option looking risky – and some certainly illegal. But then on Christmas Eve 1919, the Press Democrat published a remarkable letter from Charles E. Bundschu, which showed there was indeed a path forward.

NEXT: WINTER IS COMING: THE YEAR BEFORE PROHIBITION

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THE DELINQUENT WOMEN OF SONOMA

Dear Valley of the Mooners: The state will soon build a lockup there for morons who are outcast women, which is to say they are really prostitutes. P.S. Most of them will probably have chronic cases of venereal disease. P.P.S. It will be your patriotic duty to cooperate fully to show your support for our troops.

This odd proposition came up during the winter of 1917-1918, as California fully ramped up home front efforts for fighting World War I. Under the so-called “American Plan,” it was decided our draftee soldiers in training camps needed to be protected against booze and sex workers, so the Navy established “dry zones” around Mare Island and other military bases. Liquor could not be sold within this five-mile radius and brothels were likewise closed under military order. President Wilson expanded this further by declaring areas around shipyards, munition factories, and schools with military prep programs to likewise be temptation-free.

As explained in part one, this led to tens of thousands of women accused of prostitution nationwide being swept up in vice raids and held under “quarantine” without due process. For such women of Northern California, the state was proposing to build a secured building at the Sonoma State Home at Eldridge big enough to imprison 300.

Why they pitched the “moron” angle is less clear. In the early 20th century “moron,” “imbecile” and “idiot” were accepted quasi-medical terms (although the methods used to classify people as such were complete and utter bullshit). As the institution near Glen Ellen was still widely known by its old name as the California Home for Feeble-Minded Children, maybe it was thought there would be fewer objections from locals if the women supposedly were of lower than average intelligence.1

There was plenty of local pushback against establishing such a “moron colony” at Eldridge even after the projected number of inmates was reduced by two-thirds. Nonetheless, by the summer of 1918, there were 110 “weak-minded girls and young women” from San Francisco quartered there.2

When the federal government abolished liquor in the Dry Zones, it helped pave the way for passage of Prohibition after the war ended. Similarly, the interest in keeping prostitutes locked up continued unabated – although the excuse was no longer protecting the troops from disease in order to keep men “fit to fight.” As also explained in part one, the new call was to abolish prostitution in California by reforming the women – even if it was against their will (and likely unconstitutional).

The loudest voices calling for enforced reform were the women’s clubs. In April, 1919, they succeeded in having the legislature pass an act establishing the “California Industrial Farm for Women” which was “to establish an institution for the confinement, care, and reformation of delinquent women.” Any court in the state could now commit a women there for six months to five years. But where would this “Industrial Farm” be located? The state only considered two locations – both in the Sonoma Valley.

One possibility was the big chicken ranch of J. K. Bigelow between Glen Ellen and Sonoma (today it’s the Sonoma Golf Club, and the sprawling clubhouse is the “cottage” the Bigelows built in 1910). The other option was the old Buena Vista winery, where Kate Johnson, a philanthropist and noted art collector, had built a 40-room mansion in the 1880s. The state chose Buena Vista and began bringing in women after winning a 1922 test court challenge over a single inmate.

A slightly different version of the colorized postcard shown in “THE MAKING OF A CRAZY CAT LADY.”
From the Bartholomew Park Winery

Battle lines formed. Women-based organizations – the clubs, League of Women Voters, the W. C. T. U. and other temperance groups – enthusiastically supported the “Industrial Farm” (it was also called the “Delinquent Women Home” and every variation in between; here I’ll simply refer to it as the “Home”). On the other side were politicians and bureaucrats (all male, of course) who thought the property could be put to better use, or just objected to the idea of spending taxpayer dollars trying to rehabilitate women of ill repute.

The attack on the Home locally was led by the Sonoma Index-Tribune, grasping at every opportunity to bash the place as a misguided experiment by do-gooders who foolishly believed they could domesticate feral humans. A scrapbook of clippings from the I-T during the 1920s can be found in the museum for the Bartholomew Park Winery (which traces its history back to Haraszthy’s original Buena Vista vineyards) and I am indebted to the winery – as well as the anonymous soul who originally assembled the scrapbook – for sharing that invaluable resource with me.3

The Index-Tribune’s bias was so unfettered we can never be certain how much of what they reported as fact was true – and alas, it was the only newspaper regularly covering doings at the Home. Sometimes the fake news is obvious; the I-T once claimed the monthly cost was $509.59 per inmate, but from later testimony and articles elsewhere we learn it was really in the $80-90 range, and was only that high because of building construction and other start-up costs.

A popular theme in the Sonoma paper was that the women were dangerous, depraved criminals. When the W. C. T. U. proposed incorporating some of the inmates from the women’s ward at San Quentin (almost all women at the prison were in for non-violent crimes, mainly check kiting and forgery), the Index-Tribune played up the “unthinkable” threat they would bring to the community:

…We have had ample opportunity to judge the farm already, and do not hesitate to say that as a penal institution it is a failure, because it is a menace to the community and a nuisance to local officers…to bring 50 San Quentin inmates here, unconfined, without guards and a prison wall, is unthinkable. Surely the people of the surrounding country are to be thought of, despite theorists of the W.C.T.U. Perhaps if these good women knew how the handful already at the farm have acted, they would hesitate to pass their sob-sister resolutions. Perhaps if they were informed that there has been leaks, escapades and communication with companions on the outside, they might understand something of the danger such an institution is in our midst…

That editorial appeared in September 1922, when the Home had been accepting women only about four months and had thirty inmates. The I-T rushed to declare it already a failure, although the only reported trouble had occurred the week before. The paper would still scream about that incident years later, and as with all other damning news from the Index-Tribune, their version should be presumed slanted.

Two women escaped, were caught and returned. They became belligerent and started a riot. The ringleader was arrested, handcuffed (a later rehash would say she was “hog tied”) and taken to the county jail in Santa Rosa. While enroute, “the prisoner, who is a drug fiend, hurled the vilest epithets at the officer.” Deputy Joe Ryan was immediately called back to the Home to arrest another riotous inmate, and the two women were sentenced to 40 days in the Sonoma county jail.

Six months later the Sonoma paper reprinted a Sacramento Bee report about another escape under the headline, “THREE WOMEN’S PRISON MILK MAIDS FLEE”:

…[the] aesthetic atmosphere, created to comfort the women jailed because of commission of the sin that has come down the ages, now includes “lowing herds winding slowly o’er the lea.” At least, a herd of milk cows recently was installed at the home, there to replace a herd of milk goats. Perhaps the break for liberty taken from them was actuated by resentment over the transfer of the lowly but picturesque milk goat for the more impressive bossy. Or mayhaps the duty of parking a cow on the farm and relieving her of her fluid treasure proved more arduous to the three “sisters of sin” than being maid to the goats. This is not officially explained. It is officially admitted, however, that the maids three have gone…Anyway, the first big break has been staged at the prison farm. As far as is known, this is the first break from jail in California by three women.

The Index-Tribune felt compelled to append an editor’s note: “The Bee was misinformed as to this being the first break. There is such a gap between the honor system and discipline at the prison farm that there is a jail break every week.”

As the I-T had not been reporting all those weekly “jail breaks,” the editor was either admitting such events weren’t newsworthy or didn’t happen. Either way, it opens the question: What was really going on at the Home?

Rarely mentioned was that a small hospital was built next door when the Home opened. The original 1919 Act specified that women only could be released “with reasonable safety and benefit to herself and the public at large,” which meant treating – and hopefully, curing – any venereal diseases. As discussed in part one, the best medical protocols in that era involved weeks of painful shots using solutions which had to be prepared under very precise conditions. Thus it’s safe to assume that the hospital’s (20? 30?) beds were filled at any given time.

The Act also called for the inmates to be given “industrial and other training and reformatory help,” but aside from milking those cows – and before that, goats – there was no mention of other work, aside from a later comment in the I-T about them “painting flower boxes and pots,” which could be just gratuitous snark from the editor. Nor was any formal education or training ever mentioned.

Before the place had a single inmate, Superintendent Blanche Morse was interviewed by the Press Democrat. “We are going to give the inmates work to do,” she said, “but we are not going to apply the institutional idea and make them do it to bells and march-time. Each woman will help around the house in some way.” To her and other women’s advocates at the time, the inmates would be transformed once they were lifted out of their abnormal environment. That meant placing these women – who came from San Francisco and other big cities –  in the countryside to learn farm chores along with traditional domestic skills like sewing, laundry and housecleaning in a communal women-only setting.

(RIGHT:) Blanche Morse portrait used in the San Francisco Call 1911-1912

Blanche Morse was the guiding force of the Home from the beginning. When the Home opened she was 52 years old, a former Berkeley librarian, middle school principal, and feminist with a decade of positions in several East Bay and state women’s groups. In 1911 she was a speaker and organizer on the historic suffrage campaign tour to gain the right to vote in California. Her complete lack of any background in penology or social work or administration might seem to make her unqualified to handle the unique problems of the women sentenced to the Home, but she still probably looked like the ideal person to many in 1920 – because of her activism with the Mobilized Women.

The “Mobilized Women’s Army” was a coalition of Bay Area women’s groups that organized in Berkeley just after the U.S. entered WWI in 1917. Its objective was to locally enforce “Americanization,” which was another creepy project of the Wilson Administration akin to the American Plan – but instead of unconstitutionally locking up women accused of moral crimes, Americanization sought to encourage citizens to spy on their foreign-born neighbors and intimidate them into behaving more like “real Americans.”

It was Blanche Morse who organized efforts to compile a list of every single immigrant in the Bay Area via a house-to-house survey – a list which would have been invaluable to the government and industrialists after the war during the “Red Scare” years, when both sought to crush Bolshevism and labor activism dominated by first-generation immigrants.

And just as the American Plan gained more steam once the war was over, the Mobilized Women’s mission became a well-funded program to push cultural assimilation. It was the Mobilized Women’s “American House” in Berkeley that clearly became the model for the learn-by-osmosis rehabilitation efforts at the Delinquent Woman Home at Buena Vista. There foreign-born women were shown American-style houswifery, which, as one scholar put it, meant “in order to be better citizens, immigrant women should learn to dress, shop, cook and clean in new, better, and more ‘American’ ways.”4

It’s unknown whether Morse’s delinquent women similarly adopted “American ways” and became prostitutes no more. That is, if they were prostitutes to begin with; according to the Sacramento Bee, of the 54 inmates there at the end of 1922, only 17 were prostitutes and the rest were addicts/alcoholics. The law gave courts broad leeway to sentence any woman to the Home for having any connection at all with prostitution or merely being considered a “common drunkard.” One woman was reportedly 67 years old, and all were charged with simply vagrancy.5

Much was later made by critics about the 67 year-old; “When do ‘wild women’ cease being wild?” taunted the Index-Tribune, although she could well have been a bordello’s madam – and the law specifically mentioned, “any women…keeping a house of ill fame.” Others would accuse Morse of padding the rolls. A member of the State Board of Control shared with the I-T a letter where he made the unlikely charge that federal prisons were in cahoots with Morse, and wardens were lending her convicts in order to polish up her budget:

…The institution never had many of the class of women for which it was intended, namely prostitutes or street walkers. When criticism arose because the institution was costing about $1100 per capital per year, the superintendent ‘borrowed’ a number of narcotic addicts who were under federal conviction, thinking that by increasing the inmates the per capita rate would be decreased…

Hammered by critics, by the end of 1922 – when the Home had been active only about seven months – a bitter fight was already underway to keep it open for even another year.

The Sacramento Bee came out strongly against it, as did bureaucrats and politicians with influence and oversight responsibilities. Themes emerged: The women should be treated in regular state hospitals or imprisoned; the property should be used for a more deserving cause; if the women’s clubs wanted the Home so badly they should pay for it and make it their charity. On the other side, the state League of Women Voters vowed to fight closure and many women’s clubs demanded the project even needed to be expanded. Some clubs pledged to raise money.

Governor Richardson’s recommendations for its 1923 budget was chopped down to about twenty percent of what he asked, which clearly wasn’t enough to continue operations. Morse went to Sacramento ready to surrender. Then this happened:

Just after Miss Blanche Morse, superintendent of the Sonoma prison farm for Delinquent Women, had finished telling the joint legislative committee holding hearing upon the Richardson budget that she was about to recommend temporary suspension of the institution, word was flashed over the wires telling of the total destruction of the home by fire.

“Sonoma Valley’s beautiful landmark, The Castle, for 40 years nestled against the Buena Vista hills, is today a blackened ruins, for the building, since 1921 used to house women delinquents of the state of California, suddenly broke into flames Monday night at 6:15 and burned to the ground…” read the lede in the Sonoma Index-Tribune on March 17, 1923.

The fire began while the 65 inmates were starting supper and was well underway before a member of the Sebastiani family saw it from their house and called the fire department.

All managers were away that evening with Blanche Morse and the Home’s business manager in Sacramento and the farm manager off duty, leaving only a groundskeeper and attendants to cope with a life-threatening emergency. Everyone sought shelter in the hospital; even though it was made of brick, there must have been fear and panic as the immense building next to them blazed away for three hours. All of their clothing and personal items in their top floor dormitory were lost.

The Sonoma and Boyes Springs fire departments responded. The Index-Tribune wrote, “…When the fire departments arrived they found the farm water supply of little value owing to repairs which were being made to the reservoir, so the Sonoma engine therefore pulled water from a nearby creek. Despite four streams playing on the building it burned like tinder.”

A later view of the mansion at Buena Vista, probably c. 1920. Photo courtesy Sonoma County Library

The I-T rushed to suggest inmates had set the fire. A few years later the paper fleshed out the rumor in more detail: “It was common talk in Sonoma that an inmate boasted she had set the fire — the last of three conflagrations in the building — had locked the door where the flames were started and thrown the key out of the window…” Today it seems commonly believed that it was indeed arson.

But less than three weeks earlier there had been a major fire because of a “defective flue” (no details were ever provided). So serious was the incident that the Sonoma firemen had to chop several holes in the roof to get it under control. Repairs were ordered and the very day of the big fire, a local contractor was working on the problem flue. It seems far more likely the building was destroyed because a workman accidentally did something (knocked loose creosote buildup?) which caused a chimney fire the next time the fireplace was used.

Although the old mansion was destroyed, the state still owned the land and its valuable hospital. Led by indomitable Mrs. Aaron Schloss – the feminist who almost singlehanded turned California clubwomen into a formidable political bloc – the women’s club organizations immediately began to lobby hard for a new building so the Home could resume its purpose.

The pushback was fierce, critical of not only rebuilding any facility for women at Buena Vista but continuing the project at all. Gilbert B. Daniels, State Board of Control chairman said, “If it is the last thing I do, I’ll oppose that farm. It is a fad.” The director of the State Department of Institutions called it a boondoggle and a failed experiment. And as always, from the Index-Tribune’s columns plentiful sexism oozed: The law only passed originally because legislators were “stampeded by the petticoat brigade” and the only people who wanted the Home to reopen were “women theorists and job chasers.”

But even though the governor wanted to give it funding for another year at least, the California Industrial Farm for Women ceased to exist on June 30, 1923.

Over the next two years many ideas of what to do with the hospital were floated. The Sonoma County Federation of Women’s Clubs wanted it to be a children’s TB sanitarium. A veteran’s home was suggested as well as an orphanage for children of WWI vets run by the American Legion, which was proposed by Jack London’s sister Mrs. Eliza Shepard, state president of the women’s auxiliary. In 1924 it unofficially became sort of an annex of the nearby Sonoma State Home at Eldridge, when they housed 35 epileptic boys at the hospital.

The women’s club movement was split; some moved on to lobby for new female quarters at San Quentin (it was built in 1927).6 But in 1925, there was a last push by some clubwomen to revive a woman-only institution at Buena Vista.

A bill was introduced to construct an actual prison building for a “California Women’s Reformatory.” Housed there would be women felons, drug addicts, and “women committed under the provision of the act establishing the California Industrial Farm for Women.” A group from Sonoma county went to the capitol to lobby against it; some, like Eliza Shepard, thought such a place was a good idea, but just didn’t want it in our county. The party rehashed all the old horror stories about inmates escaping and causing havoc – until a legislator produced a letter from Sonoma City Marshal Albertson “denying that wild women had ever given anyone trouble.”

A test vote easily passed in the Assembly and according to the I-T, “Senators had apparently pledged support to not antagonize ‘the army of women lobbying for this bill’ and hoped the governor would veto it.” He obliged, and that was that.

Whatever anyone’s opinion of the Home’s purpose, its ending was tragic, particularly the terrible loss of that building, which was the largest and most palatial home ever built in Sonoma county. It’s also a shame we don’t know what really went on there, except through the spittle-flecked pages of the Sonoma Index-Tribune. Blanche Morse was required to keep detailed reports on all the inmates, so there are probably reams of data in the state archives. Maybe there’s a grad student out there looking for an interesting thesis topic.

Morse certainly thought it was successful; during her testimony on the day of the fire she said, “so far 60 per cent of those who had been freed had made good in the occupations to which they were sent.”

“…I believe that if a 15 per cent average of those who make good can be maintained in the future we will be doing extremely well…I do not think it reasonable to expect a woman who has lived the life of the streets for twenty years to completely reform in one year.”

For the 65 women who were at the Home following the big fire, however, there would be only incarceration – and worse. Before winding up this dismal coda to our story, remember the women were sent there for up to five years only on the fuzzy charge of vagrancy after having been denied their basic constitutional rights. Nor had a county “lunacy commission” been convened to determine whether any of them were mentally unfit.

As they couldn’t remain confined in the small hospital for long, the plan was to gradually resettle them at Eldridge. Two days after the disaster, four of the inmates sent there escaped and had to be recaptured by long-suffering Deputy Ryan. The same day he was called to the hospital, where the women were said (by the Index-Tribune) to be rioting. Five of them were carted to the Napa State Hospital. A five year commitment to an asylum would be no fun, but it was the women taken to Eldridge who most deserve pity.

By 1923, the Sonoma State Home had become virtually a factory operation of forced sterilization under superintendent Dr. Fred O. Butler, a firm believer in eugenics (see, “SONOMA COUNTY AND EUGENICS“). Between 1919 and 1949 about 5,400 were sterilized there – “We are not sterilizing, in my opinion, fast enough,” Butler said. And in his early years there was also a marked shift in the types of patients arriving at Eldridge: Instead of the “feeble-minded children” of the old days, a large proportion of the inmates were now female “sexual delinquents.”7

Just as the legislature in 1919 gave the state broad powers over delinquent women, they also authorized forced sterilization of inmates, including any “recidivist has been twice convicted for sexual offenses, or three times for any other crime in any state or country” (emphasis mine). A later amendment extended it to include, “…those suffering from perversion or marked departures from normal mentality, or from diseases of a syphilitic nature.” In other words, there can be no doubt that all of the Buena Vista women were sterilized – the only question is whether Butler also performed some of the other horrific experimental genital surgeries which were described in part one.

There’s never been a book written about the Home, or even an article (well, until now). Was it was successful rehab program far ahead of its time or just a misguided social experiment by do-gooders? Or something in between?

What’s certain, however, is it ended up badly for almost all of the women. Picked off the streets on some misdemeanor – soliciting, drunkenness, homelessness – they expected a fine and a few days in county jail. Instead they were sent to state prison (albeit a beautiful prison) indefinitely. And then after a few weeks or months a few found themselves confined to the madhouse, while most of them discovered the punishment for their minor crimes would be going under Dr. Butler’s eager knives.

 

1 This era was the start of America’s faith that an “IQ test” objectively measured intelligence with scientific precision, although we now recognize the exam was filled with cultural and racial bias – see my discussion here. Using such quack methodology, a 1917 study by the San Francisco Dept. of Health claimed about 2 out of 3 prostitutes examined were “feeble-minded” or “borderline.”

2 Building a Better Race: Gender, Sexuality, and Eugenics from the Turn of the Century to the Baby Boom by Wendy Kline; University of California Press 2005, pg. 47. Although I could find no newspaper articles mentioning the 110 women arrived, Kline is the authority on Eldridge for that era and had access to the institution’s records.

3 Sonoma Index-Tribune clippings in the scrapbook sometimes were reprints of articles from the Sacramento Bee and Bay Area newspapers, but all clips are consistently negative about the Home. An op/ed in the January 13, 1923 I-T suggests the other regional newspaper, the Sonoma Valley Expositor, was in support of the Home, but nothing from that paper was included in the scrapbook. Scattered issues of the Expositor from the early 1920s only can be found at the state library in Sacramento.

4 Gender and the Business of Americanization: A Study of the Mobilized Women of Berkeley by Rana Razek; Ex Post Facto/SFSU; 2013 (PDF)

5 From the March 17, 1923 Sonoma Index-Tribune: “Senator Walter McDonald of San Francisco declared that he did not believe the women were being treated fairly in that they can be sentence to the home for a term not to exceed five years, while men charged with vagrancy, the charge under which all commitments have been made to the home, can receive only six months in the county jails of the state.”

6 A Germ of Goodness: The California State Prison System, 1851-1944 by Shelley Bookspan, University of Nebraska Press, 1991; pg. 81

7 op. cit. Building a Better Race, pg. 54

Collage of Sonoma Index-Tribune headlines, 1922-1925

 

 

MANAGERS ASKED TO COOPERATE
Would Establish an Institution for High Grade Morons at the Estate of the Sonoma State Home.

Representatives of the Probation Committee of San Francisco appeared before the board of managers of the Sonoma State Home at their meeting at Eldridge on Wednesday and asked the board for co-operation in the providing of cottages and a place for about three hundred delinquent women from the bay cities. They belong to a class designated as morons.

This step is said to be in the nature of an emergency measure on account of the unusual conditions that have arisen incident to the health protection of soldiers in camp in and around San Francisco. But long before the recent conditions that have arisen this matters was discussed at Eldridge.

The board of managers took no definite action in the premises other than promising whatever co-operation th«y could give. The delegation appearing before the board of managers wanted cottages built on the home grounds in some suitable location. There is no fund available for such buildings in the hands of the state at the present time and even though there was an available fund it is doubtful if the home estate is the proper place for an additional institution as that suggested.

– Press Democrat, November 16 1917

 

MUCH BUILDING AT STATE HOME
New Cottages for Female Delinquents to Be Rushed to Completion at an Early Date: New Laundry Building and Bakeshop Are Also to Be Built Right Away.

The Sonoma State Home at Eldridge will be the scene of much building for several months for there are a large cottage and the new laundry and the bake shop to he erected.

Work on the new cottage, which will house one hundred, has been commenced and it will be rushed to completion. As stated it will be used, for the present at any rate, as a moron colony, to which young women delinquents, will be committed from San Francisco and the other big centers. The matter was explained in these columns several days ago. From Manager Rolfe L. Thompson it was learned Wednesday that the work ot this building is to be rushed to completion right away.

The board of managers on Wednesday selected the sites for the laundry building and the bake shop. The two latter buildings will supply a long felt need at the home. They are very necessary buildings.

The State Board of Control has placed Business Manager William T Suttenfleld in charge of the construction work on the buildings. He is a splendidly capable man and is always so busy working for the interests of the institution and the state that one more little burden makes little difference to him. “Bill” has been at the Sonoma State Home for almost a score of years.

– Press Democrat, March 14 1918


OPPOSITION TO MORON COLONY
Many People in Sonoma Valley and the Town Object to Having the Colony Located With the Sonoma State Home for the Feeble Minded.

The people of the Sonoma valley and the old Mission Town of Sonoma are not taking very kindly to the idea of locating the “Moron Colony” at the Sonoma State Home for the Feeble Minded. Many protests are being heard and it is likely that a largely signed petition will be presented to the authorities, asking that the plan be not carried out.

In last Saturday’s Sonoma “Index-Tribune,” editorially, there was a strong protest against the additional institution being located in the Sonoma valley.

As stated in the Press Democrat some days ago the board of managers literally had the location of the colony at the home thrust upon them is an emergency measure, backed by the state and national administration, it was said.

There is considerable objection to having the moron colony established in connection with the feeble minded home, in addition to having it in the valley at all. The late medical superintendent. Dr. William J. G. Dawson, was bitterly opposed to having an institution for the care of socially outcast young women at Eldridge and shortly before his death again expressed his views.

There is said to be one ray of hope for the objectors and that is the one cottage that is to be built will only provide temporary relief for a very few of the young women who are to be removed from the big centres, particularly from the borders of army cantonments, as one building will afford only little room for conditions that are said to exist. It is knowm that the board of managers were reluctant to take in the new institution the grounds of the home, even as an emergency measure, but the showing made by the state authorities was so strong as a necessary war emergency measure that they withdrew their opposition.

– Press Democrat, March 19 1918

 

OBJECT TO LOCATION OF STATE HOME

The Sonoma Valley is still seething in protest against the establishment of the home for moron women and girls at Eldridge. Dr. A. M. Thompson, president of the commerce chamber, voices his protest in the following words:

“My protest not only goes against the location of the new institution in the Sonoma Valley, but particularly having it at the home for the feeble-minded. The late Dr. Dawson, the medical superintendent for many years, held the same views as I do–that the feeble-minded home had its problems to take care of without having any new ones.”

– Petaluma Courier, March 22, 1918

 

MAKES PLEA FOR FEEBLEMINDED
Senator Slater Leads Opposition to Proposed New Penal Institution or Farm For Delinquent Women and Urges More Room for Unfortunates

“Before we take on a horde of other dependents I believe the State should take care of those who are already dependent and must and should have attention first.” said Senator Slater before the Finance and Ways and Means Committee last night, when the proposed new penal institution or farm for delinquent women was discussed.

“At the Sonoma State Home for the Feeble Minded we have a waiting list of 447, and many of these cases are deserving in the fullest sense. In fact many of them heart-breaking in their need right now. Take the $250,000 you are asking for this women’s farm vision and build more cottages to house the dependents waiting, and who have been waiting for years to get the help and protection the State should offer.

“If the finances were available the new project, over which I have no quarrel as to its probable good, might be considered. But the State must stop somewhere when we are at our wits ends over taxes and finances, and particularly when we have hundreds of feeble-minded and other dependents who are crying for aid. Let’s care for these first. That is my idea, and I am sincere in my expression on this subject,” said Slater. Senators Ingram. Sharkey and others, and Assemblymen Salahnn. Stanley Brown, Stevens,. Madison and others agreed with Slater.

– Press Democrat, March 2 1919

 

Club Women From Various Parts Of County Assemble At Interesting Petaluma Session

The other speakers from abroad were Miss Blanche Morse of Berkeley, former corresponding secretary of the State Federation, and at present executive secretary of the State Industrial Farm Commission…Miss Morse, who will be the superintendent of the Industrial Farm which is to be situated in this county at “The Castle” the Kate Johnson estate near Sonoma, told of the needs for the home and the plans of the commission in reference to it. She met the objections raised in connection with the project and asked the cooperation or at least the interest of the Sonoma county women in the scheme when once it is under way.

– Press Democrat, October 3, 1920

 

S. F. POLICE HEAD AT NEW STATE HOME
Industrial Farm For Women, Near Sonoma, Not to Be Like a Prison; There Will Be No Bars.

The following article about the new industrial farm for women located near Sonoma appeared in Monday’s San Francisco Bulletin. It was written by Dolores Waldorf:

A prison that is not a prison, a jail without bars, an institution that spurns the stigma of the name, stands in the hills of Sonoma county today, waiting for its first inmate. It is to be known as the California industrial farm for women, a place where delinquent women over 18 years of age may make a fight to regain a normal view of life and where they may prepare themselves to face the world after their term ha* been served. The sentences will vary from six months to five years.

The house and surroundings were inspected Saturday hy Police Judges Sylvain Lazarus and Lile T. Jacks, Chief of Police Daniel O’Brlen and Captain of Detectives Duncan Matheson. They expressed their approval in emphatic terms and seemed to think that it offered the solution to one of the greatest problems before the criminal courts today.

In 1919 the legislature passed a bill providing for such a place and appropriated $150,000 to start work. Nothing could be done until the board was chosen, however. and in 1920 the governor appointed…

680 ACRES IN FARM

Since then men have been steady at work carrying out the plans. The Kate Johnson home, two miles east of Sonoma was purchased for $50,000. This included 680 acres of land mostly under cultivation. The house itself is a huge, rambling mansion with spacious rooms and great hallways. Though the whole place has been completely renovated new plumbing installed and modern conveniences added in the laundry, there is an air of ancient and settled serenity about it. The house will accommodate about seventy women.

Captain of Detectives Duncan Matheson, who attended to the purchasing and remodeling of the home, said of it during the inspection Saturday: “In choosing, a place, we had to think of two things Isolation and cheerfulness. Who couldn’t he cheerful with these hills around them?”

Miss Blanche Morse, recently ot Berkeley, and an active worker in all suffrage and reform movements, has been appointed superintendent of the farm.

SANS THE LOCKSTEP

“We are going to give the inmates work to do,” she said, “but we are not going to apply the institutional idea and make them do it to bells and march-time. Each woman will help around the house in some way.” Miss Jessie Wheelan of the Southern California hospital for the insane, is to have charge ot the indoor work.

– Press Democrat, December 20, 1921

 

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