Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
Senator James B. Eustis (La.) inquired whether, if the right of
suffrage were conferred, women ought to be required to serve on
juries. To this Senator Dolph replied: "I can answer that very
readily. It does not necessarily follow that because a woman is
permitted to vote and thus have a voice in making the laws by which
she is to be governed and by which her property rights are to be
determined, she must perform such duty as service upon a jury. But I
will inform the Senator that in Washington Territory she does serve
upon juries, and with great satisfaction to the judges of the courts
and to all parties who desire to see an honest and efficient
administration of law." The following colloquy then ensued:
MR. EUSTIS: I was aware of the fact that women are required to
serve on juries in Washington Territory because they are allowed
to vote. I understand that under all State laws those duties are
considered correlative. Now, I ask the Senator whether he thinks
it is a decent spectacle to take a mother away from her nursing
infant and lock her up all night to sit on a jury?
MR. DOLPH: I intended to say before I reached this point of being
interrogated that I not only do not believe that there is a
single argument against woman suffrage which is tenable, but also
that there is not a single one which is really worthy of any
serious consideration. The Senator from Louisiana is a lawyer,
and he knows very well that a mother with a nursing infant, that
fact being made known to the court, would be excused. He knows
himself, and he has seen it done a hundred times, that for
trivial excuses compared to that, men have been excused from
service on a jury.
MR. EUSTIS: I will ask the Senator whether he knows that under
the laws of Washington Territory this is a legal excuse from
serving on a jury?
MR. DOLPH: I am not prepared to state that it is; but there is no
question in the world but that any Judge, this fact being made
known, would excuse a woman from attendance upon a jury. No
special authority would be required. I will state further that I
have not learned that there has been any serious objection on the
part of any woman summoned for jury service in that Territory to
performing that duty. I have not learned that it has worked to
the disadvantage of any family, but I do know that the judges of
the courts have taken especial pains to commend the women who
have been called to serve upon juries for the manner in which
they have discharged their duty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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