The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1877-01-26
REQUIRED, GOOD MORAL CHA R.
A0TER."
A dispateh Of the leth lnst., saws:


The House Judiciary Committee to-day re-
ported bill providing that any woman VIII |
shall have been member Of the bar OF the |
highest State or Territorial Court or Supreme |
Court of the District OF Columbia for three |
years, maintaining good standing, and have |
good moral character, shall, on motion and |
production OF such record, be permitted to |
practice before the Supreme Court.
And, no doubt, the members of the |
committee who reported the above bill
imagined they were dealing very mag
unanimously, indeed, with women and
standing the doors of the legal profess
sion very wide open for women to enter
in. To illuminate such doctrines and
pass such laws as this under the idea
that equal rights are thereby being
granted to women is the sheerest nom
sense, the most bare-faced fraud. Since
when, pray, has that very desirable
thing "a good moral character and a
certificate thereof duly sworn out and
attested, been considered a necessary
qualification for an applicant who de-
sires to practice before the Supreme or
any other Court Not that we find fault
with the clause, for the fact that many
lawyers, and judges as well, are fire.
quently sadly wanting in many of the
cardinal virtues is an apparent and la
mentable one, but the place where the
pharisaical injustice comes in is in not
requiring the same conditions of men
who desire to practice before the Su-
preme Court; and inasmuch as a man
enters a profession without allusion to
his "moral character" common decency
should forbid men to say a word about
women in this respect. The shameless
indecencies of criminal lawyers, the vile,
irrelevant questions which they so fire.
quently put to women, who, victims to
their own folly or the lusts of men, are
arranged by men, tried by men, and
by men found guilty Of social sins, has
long been disgrace to the records of
so-called courts of justice, and yet, for
sooth, to practice law before the same
bench with these libels upon decent
manhood, 1Oonldn must possess and
bring a certificate of "good moral char
acter."
Common sense is outraged by such
glaring inconsistencies, and justice,
ashamed, if not appalled,, at the farce
enacted in her name, starts back in con-
fusion and dismay.
Laying, however, the inconsistencies
in these requirements aside, inconsist-
eneies that at first thought make every
woman who is friend to her sex justly
indignant, we discern even in this the
purifying effect so long foretold, that
the presence of women in the Court
room, as feed attorneys or responsible
jurors, would have upon the atmosphere
that surrounds these places. Bqud
rights must prevail. If a Woman's pri-
vate character must be subject to scru-
tiny before she is allowed to enter al
honorable and lucrative profession, vel
and good. Very few women, indeed
who have so honored themselves as tt
mark out an independent future in {
chosen profession and devoted years o
study to prepare themselves for it, will
be found deficient in moral require
ments, so that this provisO will keel
none from the practice of law; and whel
women grow to be, and are an acknowl
edged power in the jurisprudence of tn
land, men must come up to the stand
ard they themselves have raised; what
rustling around there will be for certifi
Gates of ''good moral character anon
would-be lawyers then, to be sure; an
what respite from needless indecen
cies of foul-mouthed attorneys courts
clients, and spectators will have. So
may be after all, that these men-albei
all uuwittingIy-have raised standar
which all who plead for justice in th
name of law will be compelled to react
and reaching, will purify the hithert
immoral atmosphere that has so Ion
and so often hovered over and about th
nations court-rooms.