The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-09-21

that as an attorneys position was not @ public office there was nothing to ex- clude women. Tennessee however, now holds the contrary, claiming that an attorney is public officer. The Connecticut court held that under statute providing that the superior court might admit as attorneys such persons" as are qualified, women could be admitted. If 1t had not been for that decision Connecticut women would not have been considered persons. For time Pennsylvania would not admit women under statute admitting per sons." The court of Indiana, in face of a constitutional provision that every person of a good moral character, be ing a voter" should, on prescribed con- ditions, be admitted to the bar, held this did not exclude women, even if they did not vote. What an excellent dinner these judges must have enjoyed!
 While some courts have held that be- cause there was no special mention of women being authorized to practice, their exclusion must have been intend ed, progressive Colorado held that in the absence of inhibition women must be admitted. But then Colorado has now gone so far as to let women vote.
 Even conservative Pennsylvania, after a ten-year contesa in the vari- ous courts, finally did admit women under a statute using only the pro- nouns The, his and him." But conser- vative Massachusetts would not admit women under a statute authorizing the admission of "citizen." Women were not citizens. That must have been case of bad dinner. This was fol- lowed by New York, whose code only provided for the admission of "male citizens" New York could not agree to hold that a woman was included within the term "a male citizen," even though the courts of Iowa had held that she was, fifteen years before, and Indiana has decided that she was in- cluded within the term "a voter," even though she had no right to vote.
 Some courts have refused to admit women on the ground that the common law prohibited it. others have admitted them claiming the common law had never forbidden it.
 Among the states which have admit ted women to the bar without the pas sage of statutes authorizing their ad- mission are first, Iowa, then Missouri, Michigan, North Carolina, Maine, 1n- diana, Kansas, Connecticut, Nebraska, Colorado, Washington, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, District of Columbia, Montana, Utah and Ohio.
 In the following cases special statutes have been found necessary: Illinois, California, Mississippi Massachusetts, Oregon, Wisconsin, New York, Minne- sota, and in the United States supreme court and court of claims.
 To the credit of the legislators and congressman who passed these pro- gressive laws it must be stated that less opposition was displayed than was exhibited a few years before at the at tempt to give women a right to their own property and earnings after mar riage.
 But these statutes and favorable de- cisions in the United States, except the one in the case of Margaret Brent, have all come in the last generation, during the last thirty years, when the public mind has become more accustomed to the idea of a woman being thinking accountable re sensible individual
 An ancient synod happily decided that women had souls. Our modern courts and legislatures are being con vinced that women have minds. When the present generation becomes con vinced that women also have bodies strong enough to endure fatigue Of casting a ballot, the condition Of wo- men, religiously, mentally, industrially and politically. will be nearer to that required by strict justice.
 The states of Tennessee and Mary land will be all right soon, when they see their error. The bright women of those states will not be willing to re- main in medieval conditions, but will insist on laws admitting women to the bar, and will get them.-Catharine Waugh McCulloch of the Chicago Bar, in the Woman's Journal.