“LEGALISED FREE LOVE.”

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3306, 26 August 1911, Page 3

“LEGALISED FREE LOVE.”

DIVORCED MILLIONAIRE TO WED YOUNG GIRL.

“A CRIME AGAINST NATURE AND SOCIETY.”

Fashionable society in America has been stirred to its depths by the no a.icemen c of the engagement of Mr. John Jacob Astor to Miss Medeleme Force. Not only society, but religious circles also are greatly agitated by the reported betrothal of this 18-yeaivdd girl to the well-known millionaire, and the hostility with wlhd'cli the alliance is regarded is perhaps more pronounced than anything ever seen in this country. . l'he fact that Mr. Astor was divorced from his first wife on the ground of unfaithfulness, and was prohibited from re-marrying in New York State, has aroused a storm of protest among the churches from New York to San Francisco, and l the whole business may yet cause a serious schism in the Episcopal Church. The engagement lias been condemned in unmeasured terms by the Rev. Dr. Richmond, of. Philadelphia, whose denunciation the bishops are inclined to regard as intemperate yet fairly expressive of the churches’ attitude. Mrs. Brown, president of the Federated Women’s Clubs, declares that the New York idea of changing wives every few months is utterly subversive of morality and common decency, and that it is even more abominable than the unions of old men and young girls. The Rev. Father Evans has branded the match as a crime against nature, as well as against society. The Astor case he considered would be n.-thu g more than legalised free love, ard a flagrant disregard of social and human decencies.

Dean Kelly, of San Francisco, says that Dr. Richmond’s statements are a plain, manly outline of church law. “If the girl is innocent and decent,” added the Dean, “I call the marriage abominable.” • The Rev. M'Farlane, in the course of some strictures on the proposed nuptials, declared that the time had arrived for the Church to make known the canon on divorce and re-marriage. “As Dr. Richmond says,” remarked M;'. F'Farlane, “plutocrats must learn that with all their millions they cannot buy the Episcopal Church.” Mr. Astor, who is in his 47tli year, is one of the best known of American millionaires. In 1891 he married Miss Ava Willing, of Philadelphia, by whom he was divorced in March of last year. A few weeks later he gave a grand ball to celebrate the granting of the decree., He built, in 1897, the Astoria Hotel, New York, adjoining the Waldorf Hotel, which was put up by his cousin, Mr. William Waldorf . Astor, and the two now form one building under the name of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, one of the largest and most costly places of the kind in the world. In more recent years he has erected two other New York hotels.

Upon the outbreak of hostilities between America and Spain, in 1898, he presented a mountain battery to the United States Government, and served in the war himself. *