Fort Dodge's Mock Marriage Act a National Joke

Document Which Terrorized Bachelors and Spinsters Credited to Mayor -Best Ad. for Town Since Cardiff Giant.

Fort Dodge, Ia. - Not since the days of the Cardiff giant has Fort Dodge had such signal distinction heaped upon it as has been conferred through the introduction of the marriage ordinance in the city council recently. Not long ago people who did not know that there was such a place as Fort Dodge, Ia., are to-day talking about it. From almost every state in the union letters have poured in, either condemning the ordinance or upholding its originator in his purposes. The past few days the mayor's mail has been burdened with an unusually large number of letters from girls, who have asked him to put them in correspondence with some of the more eligible bachelors of the city, whom the mayor declares are growing entirely too numerous.

As is commonly the case with the unheard of, some small incident can be traced to the beginning as the prime mover that suggested the idea, and the marriage ordinance in this case is in no wise an exception. It all came from a small matter originating with the police force. On the force are two bachelors, Peter McCabe and John Qualey, who have had to endure the expense of all "layoff" on account of the other members being married, and the mayor favored them. Both of these men protested at the discrimination, and at last the mayor suggested that the only way in which they could be placed on an even footing with the other members of the department was for them to get married. They again protested that it was not reasonable that they should be singled out for compulsory marriage and no one else, whereupon the mayor declared that he would make the thing general.

No one who looks at Mayor Bennett's picture would pick him out as a joker, but there is not a man in all Iowa who enjoys a joke more than he. It was not intended that the ordinance should have any further attention, and while the local papers used it as a feature of the council proceedings, there was nothing more thought of it until outside papers copied it and letters of inquiry began to arrive. From that on the joke grew to such proportions that marked copies of papers and letters from all over the United States were addressed to the mayor. Probably no one person has enjoyed this huge fiasco more than he, and many are the hearty laughs he has had over letters addressed to him.

For years there has been a deadly strife between Fort Dodge and Waterloo for supremacy. Just recently Waterloo has enjoyed the distinction of a street car strike which has won for it a larger portion of metropolitan distinction. Fort Dodge could not stand idly by and permit her hated rival to acquire these newly achieved honors and make no effort to outdistance her. The outside papers asked for more news regarding the marriage ordinance, and here was the opportunity for which the reputation builders of the city were looking. Miss Jenny Cameron, principal of the Castlewood private schools for children, was created a leader of the spinsters in opposition to the ordinance. Jennie was made to hold mass meetings, boycott a mythical department store with a mythical manager, and Charles Swift, another fictitious personage, was made to take up the opposition in behalf of the bachelors. And thus the story of the ordinance and its effect, resulting in the agitation and scenes, was fostered and added to until every daily paper from coast to coast has given space to more or less of the reports sent out.

--Suburbanite Economist, Chicago, May 10, 1907, page 3.

May Have to Marry, Move or Be Fined

Proposed Ordinances in Fort Dodge to Stimulate the Spinsters to Say Yes

And to Prod Bachelors to Pop the Question -- Penalties of $10 to $100 Each to Be Visited on Those Who Don't Wed Within a Year.

FORT DODGE, Ia., March 23. - Fort Dodge and even all Iowa is deeply-interested in the introduction of the celebrated "marriage ordinance" by the city council of this city. The ordinance was received at the regular session and read to the body by Mayor S. J. Bennett, who is an exponent of the marriage theory, and the necessity of a widespread move toward wedlock, hardly less ardent than Roosevelt himself. Its measures provide that all able-bodied persons between the ages of twenty-five and forty-five years whose mental and physical capabilities are normal and who are not married shall be required to obtain a license and procure a bride within one year under penalty of a fine of not less than $10 nor more than $100.

The fine may be relevied every year thereafter for non-compliance with the ordinance.

Mayor Bennett to-day said: "We found a condition here that was considered by the authorities detrimental to the best interests of the community. Large numbers of wealthy bachelors and spinsters refuse to marry, and for the purpose of stimulating a move toward marriage, which is fast becoming a necessity here, the ordinance was prepared. I assure you it will be enforced if passed.

"Fort Dodge is a growing and prosperous city of upward of 16,000 population. It should be larger and would be larger and better from the standpoint of morals and happiness if everybody did his duty. Inasmuch as the bachelors and spinsters seem inclined to shirk responsibility in the one direction this move by the city council was for the purpose of bringing the matter home to the people and compelling them to do their duty as good citizens.

"Probably the fault is more with the men than the women. In my opinion a woman who refuses a worthy man after he has scraped up sufficient nerve to ask her should be fined a double amount, for she may give him a setback that will preclude all future thought of marrying."

Mayor Bennett has long been almost a crank on the marriage question. "Drunks" and vagrants who have been before him in police court have time and again been urged by him to marry and settle down, become men of family and thus have some incentive to stay at home nights and not drink. No fees have ever been charged by him in exercising his prerogative as mayor to perform the marriage ceremony.

The bill has been referred to a special committee consisting of Aldermen C. J. Crawford, from the First ward; H. E. Busby, from the Second ward, and L. E. Gagnon, from the Fourth ward. All are married men. This committee will report on the measure March 25.

C. J. Crawford, the chairman of the committee, said to-day: "Frankly I am in favor of it. No man of good health has a right to shirk the responsibility of married life. No woman of good health has a right to refuse offers of marriage unless the suitor is extremely distasteful to her. I am in doubt about the wisdom of the measure owing to the difficulty of enforcing it."

Mr. Crawford would say nothing to the likelihood of a favorable or unfavorable report.

--Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, Fort Wayne, Indiana, March 24, 1907, page 8.
--Picture of Mayor from The Newark Advocate, Newark, Ohio, April 9, 1907, page. 1

Comment: About the mayor, there is this item online, to which I made some edits:

"In politics, Mr. Bennett was a Republican. He served four years in the city council in 1885-6 and 1895-6, and was four times elected mayor in 1889, 1901, 1905, 1909. He was a member of the Webster county board of supervisors in 1878, serving until April, 1884, when he resigned to go west. Again in 1898 he was appointed to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Mr. Julius and served until 1901. During this period he was chairman of the board and most instrumental in the president court house. The great executive ability of the officer and the geniality of the man are well marked by two acts closing his term as mayor, that of the consummation of the plans for the Farley street viaduct (named the Bennett Viaduct), and the passage of the joke marriage ordinance." [My emphasis]

"In 1909 Mr Bennett was again elected mayor, serving for a term of two years; at the close of the term he was talked of for reelection, but on account of ill health it was not deemed advisable for his to again enter the race. Mr. Bennett died at his home in Fort Dodge, May 24, 1911" (original source: History of Webster County, 1913, by H.M. Pratt, 1977.7, pp. 161-162).

I have another post on this topic, following this one, posted March 24, 2007.

To Sell No Freezo

L.B. Stoner, formerly of Fort Dodge, has opened a service station at 207 West Second street for the manufacture and sale of No Freezo, a solution to prevent frozen radiators.

Mr. Stoner states that his solution does not evaporate and that it will not destroy rubber or metal or injure the car in any way. It is said to be nonfreezing at 40 below zero, and nonboiling at 240 above.

Mr. Stoner has placed No Freezo in the radiators of many Fort Dodge cars with perfect success, and he is confident that Des Moines' car owners will be interested in it because of the present cost of alcohol.

--Des Moines Register, Nov. 4, 1917