American Queen

[Gencor]

(11-01-2014 08:38 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Good assessment of their personalities. I am now curious as to whether you have every read more details about the second wife of Sprague. And what about his longtime mistress, Mary Vaill, whom he rubbed in Kate's face as well as the public's?

I answered this on page 2. But I think that it is important to note that when Kate reburied her father about three years after Sprague had married the other woman, Inez, he made a strong statement that was printed in the newspapers about Kate. I think that Sprague couldn't stand the fact that this big news story, with so many celebrated officials in attendance didn't include him, nor was he even mentioned. Kate was written about and complemented in every article, however. Sprague had to find a way to have his part in it so he made this very public statement Quoted in "Kate Chase For The Defense" which I highly recommend by Alice Sokoloff, she quotes Sprague. At the time, it was astonishing! "Mrs. Katherine Chase is a woman of rare attainments." "She has a brilliant mind and many accomplishments, she is a woman of ardent affections, and nature has been munificent in bestowing upon her rare charms of person and manner. She will bring up her daughters well, and they will make fine women." And much like a self appointed guardian, Sprague went to her defense in a fantastic illustration of the whims and changes that could take place in his attitudes. "The world has been very inconsiderate in its treatment of her," he remarked smugly. "She is devoting herself to her children, to bring them up to be good and noble women, in honor to their blood and parentage, and she should be permitted to follow these instincts of maternity without intrusion of public comment or scandal. Every word uttered she may endure, but chan the children live it down? Mrs. Chase was always a high spirited woman accustomed to exercising her own will, and she will always do that." He goes on to say that he believes that she is well off having inherited some property from her mother and also her father. (This was a complete untruth) He says that he, himself gave her $50,000 at one time. "Judging from her usual conservatism in money matters and her business tact, she must have sufficient to make her comfortable if used with discretion. (He had no idea what he was talking about) That she will do. I learn that her style of living near Paris is very plain, but respectable and comfortable."

This amazing statement was published in the Philadelphia newspapers and promptly picked up by several other papers, including the Providence Journal. Needless to say, Inez was thrown into a state of fury at Sprague's tender and protective mood of the moment toward his ex-wife. I am betting that Sprague must have really paid a price because Inez has a violent temper and she went to the newspapers and asked them to retract the statement and they refused. She demanded that Sprague write another statement and he refused. So, she took to the print herself. In her overreaction, jealousy and hatred for Kate was full of vitriol. In her open letter to the Narragansett Herald, she declared:

"Since Katherine Chase has been agitating the removal of her father's body she has beguiled the interim by entertaining reporters with reminiscences, and shadowing forth her charms, assuring the public she married Governor Sprague to further her father's political interests, thus martyring herself on the alter of Mammon. A recent article in the Philadelphia Times has been extensively quoted, purporting to have been an interview with Mr. Sprague, but which emanating from the same source as the rest, has demanded in justic to truth and decency a denial in detail. "By her own confession, purity, refinement, and all the other instincts of womanhood were warped and blighted when she sold herself to Governor Sprague. Treachery and deceit were the parents of disloyalty and disunion, from which naturally issues treason and continued spite. I have ever felt kindly towards her- for her actions have given me the love of the noblest and grandest of men, and would only ask her to hesitate ere she bring into connection with her a name that belongs wholly and entirely to another. "I do not object to her regaling her friends by expatiating on her personal attractions (if she permits her fondness for the antique to carry her to such length) neither do I object to her reveling in past conquests, if she can find listeners, but I demand that she does not refer to my husband in any form whatever. We extend to her our united pity, which she ever and always will command."

It is amazing how Sprague could incite his women to the frenzies of jealousy that both Viall and Dora seem to have to take to the public forum to express. This was uncalled for and while Kate was already back in Paris when this jealous idiot wrote this, her friends read it. It defined Dora for the rest of her marriage to Sprague and while Kate was gone to Paris, she still had powerful friends who didn't take kindly to this. It also made Sprague look like a hen pecked idiot who might be rethinking not only this marriage but the fact that maybe Kate wasn't so bad afterall. The woman clearly had no idea that by taking out publicly after Kate, when Kate had nothing to do with any of this, made her look like the most jealous female fool of the century, not to mention a woman who was very unsure of her husband.