The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1877-11-01
Small Potatoes.

A bill has just passed the House at
Olympia prohibiting women from ap-
plying for admis Ion to practice lew
in the courts of this Territory. 1T
makes no difference what woman's
qualifications may be; it matters not
though she may have chosen the law
as profession, and devoted the best
years of her life to it's study; it is of
no consequence whether she be a ,eau-
lar graduate of law school or not:
ALI these things count for nothing. She
may have more brains than any male
attorney in the Territory; she may
hold diploma from the best law col
leye in the world; she may have a
spotless character; she may be an old
resident; but not one, nor all Of the sc
things, can outweigh the objectionable
crime of having been born woman
The amendment. to the bill whereby
women are debaired from procticing
law, was first suggested by fellow
named LaDu, and afterwards moved
by one Ringer. 1t passed by vote
of IA to 13. We are glad to notice
that Mr., Daniels, Of this county, char
acterized the FIST proposition, which
also excluded persons OF color, as So
voring of cold fo2yism and the days of
slavery" and that be also voted against
the last proposition excluding women.
The legislation Of a new country should
always be such rs to attract ,ccpecta-
table immigration. The law referred
to has the effect, on the contrary, to
drive out and exclude people of brains
and respectability because they happen
to be womcr, Such grauu orators as
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Mary
Livermore, if they happen to choose
the legal profession, are prevented by
law from competing with our men of
brains. Any party, creed, profession,
or other occupation or organization, |,
which requires the prop of infamous
and proscriptive laws to secure it
against competition, must be puny, in
deed! No wonder women are clamor-
ing for the ballot! The chief argu-
ment used by the advocates of woman
suffrage heretofore, has been that it is
necessary in order to protect them from
mean and cowardly system of pro-
scriptive and discriminating legislation.
In answer to this argument, many of
the states which have refused the bal
lot to women have yet passed liberal
laws admitting them to compete with
men in many of the professions and oc-
cupations from which they were once
excluded. .
To Washington Territory has been
reserved heexalted distinction of taking
a cowardly step backward at the very
moment when the whole world, under
the banner of equal rights, is marching
,forwaI toward the gosl.of} higher civ
ilization. u, ~..:a.s j. hsinssaSg
The fourteen members who have Just
executed this magnificent about-face
movement, ought to be rewarded with
leather medals by their constituents,
upon which we would suggest might be
stamped the motto "Ne puero glodiuns." +"
We are perfectly willing that those
lawyers who fear the competition of
women should have special enactment
! passed to protect them against their
much dreaded opponents; but in the
name of sense and decency we protest
against general law of this character,
lest it may become standing slur up
on the entire legal profession of the
Territory, by creating the erroneous i'm
preston abroad that our lawyers, as a
class, arc like the fourteeRIlistsaguishcd
members Of the Legislature-not only
.small potatoes, 6ss very .tesc in a AiR"