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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 1, 1922)
TITE SUNDAY OREGON! AX. PORTIAND. OCTOBER 1. 1922 2 1 Ir rv O Is'Th or Beauty yoinq a .sr own J. d WBMmMMSii$ pliK- ,,IIlSlillli r' f BA I mmfiki:mWk t ' AC' . ' ' 'X AsHkrP.AA; AAA ! d - vA "m:. . - 4 -) "The Ugly Woman Holds Her Man' Observes a Di vorce Court Justice, and the Rush of Pretty Maids to File Breach of Promise Suits Seems to Show That Good Looks Aren't Always so Much of an Asset, After All wy '';.. ' ;-- " .. .- 17 Y .1 Tht- classlo features of Inez ord, who wants $25,000 from Bentiy Davis, song writer inset below), because, shesays, he catted ' her "Angel Child" and then W FOR wbat bU it profit a girl to hare melting contoari and unblemished complexion If ha can't get the man ba loves to the Itar? Whit lg the real value of ber hymned and paeaned beauty It It can't be cashed In on the marriage mart? All answers should be referred to Miss Evan Burrows Fontaine. Likewise to Miss Edith Ransom, Miss Ethel Jay French and Miss Inez Ford. Likewise to bait a dozen other beauties who, like those already named, were unable to hold their lovers and are now bringing actions for breach ot promise. All ot their lives these young women bave regafded beauty as their foremost asset. Men would stop to look at them a second time, women bit their lips in envy of them, and the Sunday supplements carried their pictures for an admiring world to gaze upon. They were and are true heiresses of Aphrodite's apple. But what has it got them? That's what they woud like to know. A learned Brooklyn jurist, Justice. John MacCrate, now comes to the fore with a significant statement. It has been his ob servation, he said, that the plaintiff in a breach ot promise action is seldom a homely woman. And this remark sug gests another an axiom of Arthur Stringer, the short story writer. He said: "The beautiful woman wins a man; the ugly woman keeps him." The votaries of beauty in women will be loath. to accept a conclusion as sweep ing as this. But Mr. Stringer has arrived thereat after a close and exhaustive study of women in all their phases. "It is good to be ugly," is his belief. "If I had a small daughter," he contin ued, "whose face was long and narrow, suggesting the horse; or short and broad, suggesting the owl; if her eyes were out of plumb and her nose crooked and her mouth inclined to monopolize ber face; if her figure inclined to the proportions of a cane or a feather bed, I would give her this sincere advice: " 'My daughter, be glad you are ugly, for you will get what you want and keep what you get, and that's life as we all want it to be.' "Woman's life objects are two: t She wants what man wants love and success. Ugliness is an aid to both. Her ugliness causes a woman to be companionable. The ugly woman, man feels, is not too precious for life's everyday uses. "Ugliness wins a woman success in any of the competitive games ot life, for its possession makes ber work harder for that success. She loosens her belt, so to speak. She is a worker. "The ugly woman does not floor a man with a club of attraction as soon as she sees him as the beauty does. Beauty is as instant as a flash of lightning. Tbe ugly woman has to have time, as the sun must bava time to gild and warm the earth. "The ugly women are tbe prize-winner ot tbe earth. Who so great as Bernhardt, and who so ugly and of so complete fasci nation?" Justice MacCrate thinks also that there must be a fascination about ugliness both tor men and for women. "I bava seen men with beautiful wives haled into divorce court tor attentions to women who are the most frightful hags, enough to scare small children or curdle cream." It wasn't a "frightful hag" who took ' young "Sonny" Whitney away from Evan Burrows Fontaine, if Miss Marie Norton, his present fiancee, may be designated as that person. But it certainly wasn't a lack of beauty on Miss Fontaine's part that caused the alleged breach ot promise tpr which she wants $1,000,000. ' According to her story, she met younj Whitney at bal bleu given by Mrs. Wil liam K. Vanderbilt in 1919 at the Ritz Carlton. He bad previously eyed her longingly from box seats at the Follies and the Nine o'clock Revue. He ex pressed a fervent pleasure at meeting her. He apostrophized her beauty in glowing, poetic terms. He was mad about her. "Sonny" was the "big love of her life." As this friendship ripened she paid visits to the Whitney mansion on Fifth avenue and to their country estates. About the middle ot the year 1920 she started proceedings to annul her mar riage to Sidney L. Adair. This action, she said, was taken at Whitney's request. The decree annulling the bonds between Adair and Miss Fontaine was granted in Rockland county. New York, in July, 1920. Her baby was born five months . later. She had expected to marry young Whit ney, she said, but when the time came to. begin preparations he refused. She at tributed this refusal to "family influ ences," for "Sonny," she said, was "easily led." She went back to ber professional dancing. Attempts were made to fix up a settlement between her and the Whlt neys, but all negotiations fell through. She has now sued for J 1,000, 000. Even after the filing of the suit she was still willing to marry Cornelius Vander bilt Whitney, but she confessed that she had small hope ot such an eventuality. The story of Miss Ethel Jay French of Chicago is in the same key. She sued John Brooks-Ladd, ot a well-known Bos ton family, for $50,000 and got.Jl. She bas appealed the verdict. Miss French is an admitted beauty. "I met Mr. Brooks-Ladd on a golf course," she said. "We played a round together then and later were much on the links. After that be took me to suppers and theaters. He was married then and he said that his wife and he were not suit ed to each other and that a divorce would be arranged. Later he explained that his wife had agreed to sue for divorce so that be could marry me. I bad grown to love bim dearly- and believed every word he . & r-"--'-":;-', . ' . - ; "tnkJ :kkskk --ikf fW i i? ? V ""V and the next morning in his apartment he told me: " 'Darling, we' are man and wife in the eyes ot God and heaven, and as soon as possible we will be man and wife in the eyes ot the world.' "So we laid plans for our wedding. Then he went into, the army. When he came out be told me be couldn't marry me. He went to Boston to live." Whether rightly or wrongly Mr. Brooks-Ladd evidently didn't think that beauty was everything in a wife. For the reason he gave on the witness stand for not marrying Miss French was that she was not bis "social equal." In the case of Inez Ford she not only, according to her statement, gave her love and her beauty to Benny Davis, the song writer, but her money as well. Miss Ford is a beauty, of the cornflower type. She combines delicacy of color with lovely, fluffy hair and regular features. She declares that she traveled with Da vis as his wife and was given to under stand that he would marry her. He would compose songs to her, she said, and one of those songs, "Angel Child," with the Charming Ethel Jay French of Chicago, suing John Brooks' Ladd for breach of promise, -avers that he went to war and forgot all about her, assistance of the money she lent him, en abled Davis to make a young fortune. Now Davis, for all of her love and all of her beauty, refuses to marry Ines and so she is suing him for $25,000. And Miss Edith Ransom, who declared that John B. Woodward, a New York newspaper man, publicly introduced ber as bis fiancee, might have been the pretty heroine of a mid-Victorian romance. But Mr. Woodward thought better of his promises, she declared, and tried to "kid her out of it." So she is suing bim for $26,000. A significant commentary on the love troubles of these beautiful women is the story of Queen Margaret of Tyrol, the ugtiest woman in history. Known among her familiars as "Pocketmouth Meg" and having a face that scarcely looked human, she was always considered good company. This hideous woman had to drive lovers away by force. At 12 she married for the first time and soon was sorry for her bargain. She drove out ber Prince John and then took up with Louis Marcgreave of Branden burg, who had been hanging about per sistently. So tar as fidelity went Meg could hardly be cited as a shining exam ple. But that didn't keep men from lov ing. Nobles would hammer at her gates during the night. She would bave to send down ber servants to drive them away. And she had her pick of the handsome peasants in her neighborhood. They were proud to serve her as men-at-arms or as lovers. Divorced and the Very Unexpected Results (Continue From First Page.) told me. Then came a New Year's dance not over. For the very next evening he was sbserved calling on her, and th next evening, and the next, until quite a bit of scandalous gossip was bruited about. Then it was that the statement was issued that she had merely divorced her husband to place him on trial. Inspired, perhaps, by the action of Miss Shaw and Mrs. Watling, Flora Louise Nel son of Union Hills, N. J., has instituted a "week-end wife" system. Her husband is Count Edmund Alfonso de Jimlnez. The bride lives with her mother and he lives in New York city. But at the week's end be calls just as he did when he courted her. And they have all the fun of wooing Strong rumor has it that Katherine El kins and William F. R. Hitt are going to rewed. If that occurs it will set this coun try and Europe talking. For their court ship was featured by an act that endeared this American beauty to the hearts ot the native sons. She jilted the Duke d'Abruz zi, who met her at a ball in Washington and made a special trip to this country to propose to her. She married Billy Hltt, popular clubman. Their happy married life was suddenly disturbed by talk and a divorce resulted. Now it is known in Washington society, where they both are prominent figures, that "Billy" is super intending the building ot a new house for Miss Elkins at Middleburg, Va. She is the daughter of Senator Stephen B. El kins of West Virginia. f if S ' ; 7 r a 1 -v. A -7 d ' ' X tdr . t Hl . .-d- dd d i M - i d- v 1 , I A (ft , '. dd. ! v't ) "..-4 d - d t . A S . - : . ( a !''-. y ' Miss Evan Burrows Fontaine, & . ; - .'; famed beauty and dancer, who A i7 makes record claim of 1 1,000 00 f -r- -J' 1 against Cornelius Vanderbilt Si? Whitney (at left), .charging I paternity of her son. V j: ' -- ( j ' d, , . V ; ' . V'- ' d ' .: I' d - d - I Hdk:.:;; . -J j - , v - " ' 'rf ' ' I feUv? rd d I Butler Privileged Character . in Scotch Home. rrHE butler in a Scotch family," X says an American of that extrac tion, "occupies a privileged and unique position. He sometimes assumes a free dom of speech that seems to American ears to border on impertinence; but to those who know him his frank speech is only one ot the many evidences ot his in terest in the family welfare. "A young American woman was the guest ot a bouse where a butler ct that sort reigns. She submitted to bis patron age with much amusement; but one day there were unexpected and important guests for dinner, and a little while be- Ths very attractive 23 -year old Edith Ransom, who asks $25fi00 of John B. Woodward, New York and Chicago newspaper man (shown below), claiming that he threw her over after introducing her to his friends as his , "fiancee." fore tbe meal was served tbe butler way laid tbe young American In the ball. " 'I'm fearin' there'll no be quite enough soup,' be whispered, 'so when it's . offered ye maun decline It, lass.' " "Decline soup. James ?' she said, -laughing, "why, that would not be po lite.' " 'Well not. precisely,' said Jimn, with , a benignant smile, 'but they'll a' make excuse for ye, thlnkln' ye ken nae bet ter.' " :