The Oregon daily journal., August 30, 1908, Page 36, Image 36

(THE OREGON SUNDAY JOURNAL. PORTLAND. SUNDAY HORNING. AUGUST 3a 1903
' .
nt . w tt
AN mTTERSONS " FAST
PURJUE5
Though Unconvicted, She Has a
Continuous Fight Against
Unkind Fate
Her, X0
A GAUST and grisly shadow pursues
vnf a young woman a young woman
whose far fact has, won the love, in
'fatuation and admiration of men; whose
beauty has been a blessing and a turse, and
who, today, occupies as tragic and pathetic a
position as that of any woman in this wide
land.
Nan Patterson's career, once glowing
" tdthspromise of success, is tinged with sorrow.
Wherever she goes this shadow of her past
pursues her. In her moments of pleasure it
thervsne of enjoyment from her hps.
'By its malign influence her dreams of
ttmlnsion have been blighted. The plays in
'toMch she appeared have been signal failures.
By its persistent, haunting presence she
h' marked wherever she goes; from city to
titf-it-hounds her, and recently, in Pittsburg,
ferxxfe the-shape of scandals which resulted in
W&evsrxsrtrying ta force her-to- leave the cits.
Ana for the first time since she left the
Courtroom, not -exonerated, after a third trial,
the murder of "Caesar" Young, a man has
Stepped forward to protect her.
Indignant becauseof the hounding of the
Cng woman by the city detectives, who he
ned were private employes, Mayor Guth
fie suspended one of the sleuths who de
manded that the young actress leave the town,
pnd gave her virtually the freedom of the
ttty.
"Spin, spin. Clotho, spin. . '
Lachesls twist and Atropos sever? -In
the shadow, year out, year In.
The silent beadsman walU forever."
V
s
I INCB she walked from the courtroom that mem
orable May day in 1905, the shadow of an alleged
crime stalking: behind her, poor Nan Patterson
has known no peace or rest.
TThen she left the prison cell she hoped to find in
the new life before ber true love, aucoess as the
reward of honest, hard -work and security from the
calumnies of her persecutors. Eut instead of true
lnirft nh A Txran nfPjarArl nnlv Alirh tftwrirv And evil at-
; t teptlon as the gamesters and sports of her old world
.ffaiirnAil.
a
Instead of success she was hooted from the boards,
: and her notoriety as "Nan Patterson, of the Florodora
sextette," "Nan Patterson, accused of the murder of
Caesar Young," has pursued her relentlessly.
In Altoona last April the billboards carried great
flamingr posters announcing that:
"NAN PATTERSON
Late of
The Florodora Sextette,
Appears in
THE ROMANCE OF PANAMA"
At the opera house that evening, when the doors
Opened, only a small crowd gathered. They straggled
Into the house, morbid curiosity written on their
faces. Among the meager gathering were only a few
women. Coarse words were bandied about; there
Were vulgar outbursts of laughter.
Then the curtain rose. The heroine of "The Ro
mance of Panama" appeared. Nan Patterson! The
Actress accused of killing her lover! Once the pride of
he famous sextette, with admirers counted by the
eeores! Now a stout though pale woman, with telltale
lines on her face, nervous, ill at ease. A woman who
upoke haltingly, whose acting was stilted. Her voice
bad become unmusical because, possibly, she was
overcome with nervous confusion.
Before the curtain went down most of the women
, rose and left There had been a rumor that there
were objectionable features to the play. These were
lacking. Also- the play and the actors were lacking
lacking in Interest.
Back in the wings Nan broke down and wept. 'This
was the xnosfe-eignal failure of her career. It meant the
disbanding of the company, her giving up of the stage.
Yes, she would leave it forever. Town after town had
expressed its disapproval of her appearing on the boards,
gainst her using the notoriety which attached to her
name to draw crowds. And Nan gave up. It was alt off.
In vain the painted and peroxide ladies of the cast sur
rounded and offered her sympathy.
"X wanted to do the right thing," she wept. "I
wanted to make a living on the stae. I had done It.
Z don't see why people should have turned against
me. Oh. if they had only been kinder, after my ter
rible experience!"
EVERYWHERE UNDER A BAN
From Altoona Nan Patterson went to 'Washington,
where she stayed a few weeks at her father s Lome.
Then she left for Pittsburg. Hounded from place to
place while in the musical piay by the protests of the
public; after the Women's Christian Temperance I'nlon
and clergymen had protested against tier appearance
In Connellsville and the people of Wllkes-Barre had
put the ban on the play, now released from the
boards, she hoped to find a refuge In the Smoky City.
But. alas.' "the shadow of a crime," never proven,
stalked In her wake.
Miss Patterson was staying at a downtown hotel in
Pittsburg. It Is said she had been seen quite often with
a steel man, from whom, so his wife alieged. Nan bad
received considerable money.
One day in I ho latter part nf last July City Detectives
Laity and Leff visited Hiss J'atterson.
"Come along with us to the police station!" Left
brusquely commanded
"Why!" exclaimed Nan with consternation; "what
U the matter? 1 have done nothing."
"Oh, you've been doins enough, blustered the sleuth
"Cotne aloof!" "
ln, iTL . i. - an UP feminine
mend, whom she uM to hurry iu ner apartment The
detectives waited. When the woman arrived they called
a cab, and the party were driven to the police station
Ad ushered Into the presence of Acting Chief of rw."
tectivee Jehn Roach. " or "m
"Well, you've got to leave PIMsburs." he declared
Tvs got to leave Pittsburg echoed NaT with a
-weu, iu know that you do - the chief re.noi.
'kl have I done
Msc In lbs world.
she asked, with all the lnno-
"What havs roa done? Wy you're been making
i fre with other women's hcsVar.de" s.klnc
But Vuppoednit I don't Vee Ilttsburg- and W!.
tons Indicated that the wouldn t.
"What tiavs ro
loo
4
; i u wna roa is ire woranoufce
The wrhass d a Sj,r task of crahMfv
ri so sppl U the formsr iWVSil rJorSSra
KVl,. 'sP""1 Patterson was free to go whithersoever she ... jt2Sz!m'
I moo 4 ' A
ill .JW
fescrr-
fa
sextette, and Nan finally declared she would quit the
town.
Instead, however, she went to an attorney. She us
pected, she said, that the detectives were acting on be
half of a woman. Investigation seemed to substantiate
this supposition, and Nan's attorney brought the
matter to the attention of Mayor Outhrle.
The result was that Ietective I,eff was suspended
and Nan was Informed that she could stay In Pittsburg
as long as her behavior was proper As a newi report
had It. Nan Patterson has the police "on the run."
For the first time since her liberation. Nan Patterson,
the focus of morbid curiosity and adverse comment wher
ever she went, nas found protection. She had fjced vul
gar, prying eyes on the stage, hufferwd cat. alia and
sneers; she had been pursued by the protests cf women
and clergymen who denied her (he right of t.iking up her
old life on the stage; from place to place her past pur
sued her until the gallant Mayor of Pirtsfiurg declared
that mere Justice should be shown the unfortunate girl.
And, in this connection. It ls Miie.ilar that J ist as
fervent as was the public's hope of the young woman's
acquittal. Just so strong was Its disapproval of her re
turning to the stage.
When, after the third trial, the twelve men of the
Jury deliberated on ti.e young v.ir,.n s fatr. t.jtslde the
courthouse were massed thousand ' p rsons. And as
the twelve men, with grim-set, nem faces, weighed In
the balance the evidence against her. fru;n without came
the cry, ringing loud and strong, and growing In volume,
until it became a clamor:
"Free Nan Patterson! Free J"n Patterson!"
Early the next morning, at 2 o'clock, the Jury re
turned to the courtroom.
"Foreman cf the jury, what ls the verdict?"
"We are unable to reaeh a decision. "
Nan Patterson, listening, paled. For hrr sultrase was
packed; she expect t-d nothing less than a full arquittaL
Recorder UofT requested the Jury to try sgain. Tbey
retired. Within haif an hour they returned.
Nan Patterson leaned forward eagerly, with tense
fae. But again. In lo. deliberate tones, the foreman
declared the Jury as deadlocked, that a decision was
Impossible.
With a low moan Nan fell forward In a swoon.
But she was freed From the cell she walked into
the sunlight, the open day. Again it was her privilege
to romp the meadows of Virginia as In her Innocent
girlt
her.
prlbood. 1 oe.lectrlc chair no longer loomed before
Outside the prison Nan's friends waited the DSJnfrd
women, the swag serin, plethorically proeperfme men of
the turf; outrtde the prison the cafes of the Great White
War beekoned: outside the prison eager manager, alive
to the adverrlslnr possibilities of the scandal, hut igno
rant of a nghteoua public opinion, were waiting lih
effere.
Nan hrsea!lv was free. But whst Is freedom with,
rut full vindication? In a roeent novel on prtsoa life one
of the Inmates, who had been paroled and returned, says:
"It's a fine thing that parole boslnees. If re've go4 a
had friend la the world, he s got ye Every tnan has vs
foul. Did vow e-rer read the ruies for paroled ront? Te
can't breath the wrrrrg wit or hack ye go. Te're eon
Jwst the eam. And the whle ergtslile Is yer prison. And
very clttten ! a steel ptrka a-watchln' te tell oa ye."
Nan Patterson was free to go whithersoever she
would. But the world was her larger prison. The eyes
of the world were upon her.
She had become a figure a type of the pitiful woman
wrecks of her tawdry, unreal and artificially happy
world; the world oti the calcium and the turf, of men
who ruin women, of women who are bought and sold; a
world destitute of the Joy in the wine of nature, but
whose pleasure la the hectic pleasure of wild nights, of
"extra drys" and cigarette fumes, of ribald songs and
swaggering oaths.
After her release the public, which had pleaded with
the strong voice of public opinion for her acquittal, de
mandud that she forsake t,he old life. It had forgiven
her ln, It would forget the crime of which she had been
accused, but which had not been proved, but it would
expect her to don the penitence of the ancient sinner of
Alagdula.
But no, the call of the calcium was stronger than the
call of the flower-grovpn meadows of her innocent girl
hood. And soon news paragraphs were spread broad
cast apnounelng Nan Patterson's return to the chorus.
Posters flamed her name In glaring colors and her
photographs took a prominent place among theatrics.
And again the cafes witnesssed Nan at the tables after
the theater; she was again seen at the Brighton race-
rick, and again nenple whispered, as they whispered
when a New York woman, shortly after her release.
Our own ftaidt that Our
Girly -Marry Tit!
"S. i ini"V
FOR two ffen&rations, all of us handsome, in
telligent, jrencrous, affectionate Ameri
can men that's what wo are, aren't we ?
have been puzzling- our brains, if not our
hearts, which have managed to pet alonjr fairly
well meanwhile, to 6olve that perennial problem:
"Why why the dioken? lo o many rich
American girls marry titled f oreig-ncrs f"
In spita of the multifarious rejoinders, most
of them distinctly uncomplimentary to the taste
of th girls, there has been a calrrr consensus of
opinion, embodied in the simple explanation:
Bo"au!e they like the titles.
Yet down in their chivalrous hearts the male
American heart ia chronically chivalrous, isn't itf
THE Vleomte G. d'Avenel. who is nne of th"se sa
ruit contributors to the Pevue des Deux
Mendes who analyse eveothing that is worth
analysing anywhere, has Just finished analys
ing the United Mates and the Americans in the solemn
pages of the Revue, and he Is now getting his oh
servstlons out In book form. Close st his heels follows
the equally profound Hushes 1 P.eox. with his por
tentous hoelt on "Lvs In the I'nitefl ot watch
eni br finding that there Isn t sry worth speaking of.
Takes together, the oplrrlons of these two Infalilbie
authorities soak It apparent Osst the America ma
threatened to black Nan's eyes because n liegad too
friendly relations with C. Ralph Ash, a lurnbur broker, of
Duluth, Minn., then staying in New York.
Wherever she went Nan Patterson was the cynosure ,
of public attention; her friends were under espionage.
And at many places, where her show was scheduled to
play, people voiced their indignation, clergymen de
claimed against 'the young woman's appearing on the
boards, and her path from 'own to town was marked
by public resentment, curiosity and reproach.
When, some months ago, weeping and broken-hearted,
Nan Patterson left the stage, did she finally bow to the
grim ghost that followed her and. cowering before the
gaunt, outstretched arm. did she regret leaving the for
ests of the old Virginia plantation?
Nan was born in Washington, but most of her girl
hood was Epent In Virginia. There she romped over the
fields. There she wandered In the woods, played amid
the sunshot leaves, and, like Rosettl's "Jenny." won
dered. In a vague way, what the far-off city must be
like. And like the unhappy girl of the wonderful poem,
knew In these her girlhood days nothing of the din and
sin of the cltv' awful ways
When 17 years of age Nan Patterson met in Wash
ington, where her father had secured a government
the forsaken ones have been loath to believe their
fair compatriots are so eaten up with the base am
bition of the tuft-hunter. The explanation has
not fully satisfied.
Now, at last, comes the expert analysis of the
disheartening mystery. The experts a-j French
men, and any Frenchman who does not know the
feminine soul, from ostrich plume to silk-atocking
heel, ia unworthy to tread the boulevards of Paris.
Our rich girls marry the titled foreigners, not
because they love the titles, but because they love
the foreigners. , t
It is alas, and also ouch! all our owti darned
fault.
be all right as a worker perhaps as a husband and
father; but the foreign brand of lover, in the fond
eyas of his womankind, has him faded to the fare-you-well
which she hastens to hand him the minute
a morphine-mummied duka tells her ha needs her.
and politely refrains from adding that be needs her
money.
The vicemte. who Is earning an honest living by
honest work, deals especially with the American peo-
fde In the type, without the attentive regard for their
ove affairs that la accorded them by his contempo
rary . Le Bens. He finds much te adaiire.
position, Leon J. Martin, whom x'.k- Marr ed and v
whom she went to New York. T!ie man iagtf wa
unhappy. A divorce was secured after a year. AnJ
then Nan, fired with ambitions for the stage, Joined
the original Florodora sextette.
Nan was pretty, with a full face, red Hps. soft
brown hair and gray eyes. In the courtroom lady
impressionists described her eyes as cold, her nosu
as heavy-nostrllcd, pleasure-loving, and her lips as
sensuous, selfish and pouting.
But she wjis brave. All said she was brave. As
the story of her life and her infatuation for Caesar
Young, as the shameful narrative of her life with
mm was 101a. sue preservea an unaaunieu aemeuiiui.
The people observed it and cheered-
Since then she has been brave. The shadow of her
foriner life .she challenged, until, defeated, she left
the chorus, it was the sign of vunquishment. Am
bition left her. She tried to earn a living, she said,
and the people prevented her.
Then she went to i'ltisbuig. They tried to run her
from the city. The shadow afar off haunted her But
there are still chivalrous men, and .such Is the Mayor
of Pittsburg. Nan Patterson at lust found security In
his protection. Hhe remained in the cltv where,
again, scandal was associated with her name.
And the shadow? H.-.x it been exorcised? Or. Ilka
tbo curse which compels Herodias to wander the
earth eternnllv nrri-Hlnu- In ti-rHiHfin wit! tti
shadow still drive Nan Patterson over th country,
a wanderer, the unhappy victim of an unhappy love
affair? And this ghost of tragedy, it will drive her
where?
"In obeying the impulse to work.'' he observes,
"Americans wish only tu make money. They tiank
that they merely make money; but from it Uiey have
made their greatness. By work llieii w.ia are sharp
ened, their rnorai level raised. AOove eveiytutu.
their ernnuslisiic acceptance of Hie struggle be
comes the pride and the strength of the nation, oy
honoring the holy law of work more tiian any other
people. America Keeps U strength and moral healtu "
Hlghl at that stage of the social syllogism ti.e
merciless Le Koux takes up toe terrible tale of our
romantic disaster;
"The American father has made of, his daughter
an aristocrat without a court, a goddess without an
Olympus, an exquisite without an atmosphere for the
realization of her ideals.
"fche knows precisely whst she wants: she turns
her gaze beyond the sea. She demands. In the first
place, a man of leisure created by an old civilisa
tion, who has time to do her bidding, to listen to
her, to answer her. to understand her. Before the
man who brings to her tke atmosphere of ancient
glory, the American's mere commercial success pales
as the moon before the sun."
There it Is. laW ot as nearly as any surgeon dis
closes the secret seat of weakness.
Americans have qualified themselves to be geod
enough for fathers; but only foreigners-preferably
titled are good enough for lovers and hufbanda
All the girls who are planning marriages serosa
the seas will unite In thanking the vtcomte ard M.
Le Roux. Po will numerous European gen'.'.emen who
prefer love-making to work.
As for the American men weTl. If ther don't fc,
it, they can quit working, and take t love-maklnf
Many ef them have been practicing this susnmer.