Judge Plays Racy Society - Thorkildsen Case

1920

Judge Plays Racy Society

Decree In Borax King Divorce Case Excoriates Social Conditions Among Wealthy

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 24.-—The decision of Judge Works in the famous Thorkildsen divorce case, read from the bench at the conclusion of a sensational trial lasting twenty days, mercilessly flayed not only both principals in the case but as well most of those who figured in the case as members of the fast society set to which the Thorkildsens belong. He awarded Mrs. Thorkildsen the degree, $30,000 as her share of community property, $15,000 alimony payable in sixty monthly installments and $10,000 attorney's fees, roughly one-tenth of what she asked in a money way.

"The court's opinion embodied a terrific excoriation of social conditions such as were described in the case and which he declared were largely the fruits of alcohol and of great wealth in the hands of persons who do not know how to use it. Aside from the financial findings the court's rulings on the disputed points were as follows:

There were no acts of cruelty such as were mutually charged, except the one involving the transmission of diseases, as both principals were inordinate consumers of alcohol and "wallowed in the same trough."

He was the "donor" of the ailment which figured so extensively in the case.

Mrs. Thorkildsen's suit was filed in Good faith and she was not guilty of desertion.

He was guilty of misconduct with Mrs. Agnes Smith.

Both sides expressed themselves as satisfied with the findings.

Following is Judge Works' opinion:

In an experience of twenty-eight years at the bar and on the bench, I have never known the air of a courtroom to be burdened with the recital of such a mass o£ shocking and unprintable testimony. The columns of the newspapers of the city have been filled daily with startling stories of facts brought out at the trial, but the genius of newspaper management notwithstanding the frankness of the press of today, has balked at a reproduction of the real details of the evidence.

A faithful report of the trial would have made the vulgarities of Rabelais and Laurence Sterne seem, by comparison, like the pruderies of Jane Austen or the prosiness of Henry James. The personification of vice and licentiousness stalks through the pages of the record that has been made here. We who have worked together for these four weeks have heard from the witness stand, in a crowded courtroom, things of which one would hardly think, in the secret recesses of his own soul, without turning out his lights and locking his doors.

—The Evening State Journal and Lincoln Daily News, Lincoln, Nebraska, February 24, 1920, page 2.