“Against the Order of Nature” Creating a Gay Identity Under the Law in Colorado, 1880-1914 by Jackson Springer A Senior Thesis Submitted to the History Department of Princeton University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts Princeton, New Jersey This paper represents my own work in accordance with University regulations. _______________________________________ i Acknowledgements I feel like I am at the Oscars and they are playing me off the stage because I am writing this at the very last second. In a way, however, this is the most important section. There are so many people without whom this project would simply have not been possible. First and foremost, my advisor, Professor Marni Sandweiss, who assisted me in every way possible through the research, planning, and writing phase of this project. You could not have been more helpful in providing research ideas, posing difficult questions, and telling me “you just have to start writing.” It has been an honor getting to work with you and know you through this process. Not only is your professional work impressive and inspiring, but you are the one person on this campus who truly understands the beauty of green chile. Thank you so much for your help in this project and just our general conversations in your office. I also must thank the other professors here in the Princeton History Department that guided me through this process. Professor Hendrik Hartog, your advice both on the project and in life has been invaluable. If you happen to be my second reader, you will certainly see how much your class and your teaching has inspired me. Professor Margot Canaday, thank you for talking me through difficult questions in this process. Most of all, however, thank you for opening my eyes freshman year to the world of LGBT history. Your class changed the way I view the world. Next, thank you so much to David Duffield and the GLBT Center of Colorado, not only for the services you guys provide everyday to the people of Colorado, but also for your help on this project. David, you know this research better than anyone and I cannot wait to see what you find in the future. Thank you for granting me access to the GLBT History Project’s notes—they and you helped me to form early questions that guided me through this process. Thank you to my friends and family who provided assistance either by reading my entire thesis to check for all the times I use “that” instead of “who” or just by letting me talk through my ideas with you out loud. Thank you for being patient when I ask the word for being “full of doubt” and always laughing with me and at me. Mom, Dad, Cyd, Sam, and Harry: you guys are the absolute best family I could ever ask for. Jake, I could not have done any of this without you. Thank you for making me smile at every moment. Alexa, Molly, Alice, Katie, Abby, Brett, Ellie, Goodies, Magda, Stew, thank you for being there for me through this entire Princeton experience. Also, sorry if there are any typos I literally had no time to read this over. ii Table of Contents Introduction: Gay Under the Law ..................................................................... 1 A New Identity ........................................................................................................... 23 Part 1: “A Queer Case, This," 1880-1900 .......................................................... 28 Chapter 1: A Public Life ............................................................................................. 31 Chapter 2: Leniency in the Law ................................................................................. 41 Applying the Law ....................................................................................................... 43 A Crime Against Nature ............................................................................................ 51 Part 2: Gay vs The Law, 1900-1914 ................................................................... 65 Chapter 3: A Private Life ............................................................................................ 71 Chapter 4: Uniform Application ................................................................................. 83 Chapter 5: Prosecuting Gay ...................................................................................... 105 Chapter 6: Fighting the Law .................................................................................... 115 The Informal Fight ................................................................................................... 116 Representing Gay Offenders .................................................................................... 119 Conclusion: Gay Through History .................................................................. 138 Appendix ............................................................................................................. 145 Bibliography ..................................................................................................... 152 iii Introduction Gay Under the Law In the heart of downtown Denver, Colorado, four months’ time and three city blocks separated the 1885 arrests of John Ryan and Charles Howard. Both Ryan and Howard were charged under the sodomy statute for relationships they had with younger males, two of the earliest known applications of the law to same- sex relationships in the state’s history.1 While these two cases appear similar on the surface, they diverged sharply after the initial arrests. Found in a notorious saloon, John Ryan had been detained twice in the prior two weeks, and newspapers disparagingly labelled him a “tramp.”2 With the public against him and no money or community behind him, Ryan pled guilty to the crime in court. The public wanted more, however, and the Denver Rocky Mountain News advocated for his death in a headline.3 Unlike in Ryan’s case, however, the police arrested Charles Howard in a pleasant hotel. Howard, who the newspaper labeled a “painter,” escaped further public scrutiny; the newspapers never mentioned his crime again.4 Many sources depicting gay life in Colorado from before World War I share stories such as these—stories that reveal little about gay life but much about its regulation. Accounts that depict the policing of gay life, however, undoubtedly reveal facts 1 “Deserves to Be Hanged,” Denver Rocky Mountain News, June 23, 1885, Colorado Historical Newspapers, Colorado Historical Society; “Buckien’s Arnica Salve,” Denver Rocky Mountain News, October 25, 1885, Colorado Historical Newspapers, Colorado Historical Society. 2 “Police Court Points,” Denver Rocky Mountain News, June 9, 1885, Colorado Historical Newspapers, Colorado Historical Society; “Held For Highway Robbery,” Denver Rocky Mountain News, June 18, 1885, Colorado Historical Newspapers, Colorado Historical Society; “Deserves to Be Hanged.” 3 “Deserves to Be Hanged.” 4 “Buckien’s Arnica Salve.” 1 about the life itself, especially through analysis of targeted people’s actions when faced with regulation. With this in mind, it is important to consider what the cases of Ryan and Howard reveal about gay life at the time: why was Howard able to escape the scrutiny faced by Ryan? What are the implications of the increased targeting directed at Ryan? How did these two men respond to the policing they faced? In his groundbreaking 1897 lecture, “The Path of the Law,” Oliver Wendell Holmes reframed society’s understanding of the role of the law. In the piece, Holmes pushes back against the idea of the law as a reasoned deduction from “principles of ethics or admitted axioms or what not,” instead finding the law to be comprised simply of “the prophecies of what the court will do in fact, and nothing more pretentious.” Actors, in response, seek to anticipate to what extent and under what circumstances they can perform an act without coming into contact with the law. Holmes urges the audience to understand the law from the perspective of these actors: “If you want to know the law and nothing else, you must look at it as a bad man, who cares only for the material consequences which such knowledge enables him to predict.”5 Holmes thus defines the law as the exact point at which the interests of the state supersede the interests of the “bad man”—a constantly contested equilibrium of sorts. In this model, the law is determined simply by what it lets the “bad man” get away with—how it changes its policing of him. But if, according to Holmes, the law should be understood through the way in which it interacts with the “bad man,” conceivably the “bad man” should be understood through the way in which he interacts with the law. In other words, if the law and 5 Oliver Wendell Holmes, “The Path of the Law,” 10 Harvard Law Review 457 (1897), in The Canon of American Legal Thought, edited by David Kennedy and William W. Fisher III (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), 31; Ibid., 29; Ibid., 30. 2 the “bad man” are in a constant struggle at a point of equilibrium (taking the form of arrests, court cases, appeals, etc.), one can understand the “bad man” through the ways in which he pushes back against the law at that point of equilibrium. In order to analyze the contention at this equilibrium point, I refer to the combination of specific laws, courts, police, and political bodies generally as “the law.” I also describe the act of combating “the law” in any way such as through the formation of defense strategies, the hiring of lawyers, the tampering of witnesses, etc., as “interacting