The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-01-10
DOROTEY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer
Women on Juries.


One of the unexpected by-products
of the war will be women jurors. With
SO many men gone to the war there
is a shortage of masculine talesmen.
and in New York, where women have
recently been granted the franchise,
many of the judges are advocating the
amendment of the law to permit the
selection of women for jury duty.
Thus shall justice be done in the
east as in the west, where the women
in the older suffrage states have long
served acceptably as jurors.
1t has always been one of life's lit
tie ironies that the conventional
statue of justice should be represented
by the figure of a woman holding in
steady hands the scale of justice, and
yet no woman be allowed to sit in
jury box. Also that our common law
holds as its fundamental principle the
right of an accused person to be tried
by a jury of his peers, yet the accused
woman was denied the right of a trial
by her own sex.
Men juries have tried women in
spite of the fact that it is a matter
of common knowledge that no man
understands a woman, or can even
Nguess what she probably will do I'M
der any given circumstances. or form
any idea of the motives that prompt
her to certain acts, or tell whether she
is lying or speaking the truth.
Any TOOL of a woman can deceive
the cleyerest man, but no woman IS
clever enough to fool another woman.
The silliesta little girl that ever lived
knows more about the psychology of
women than Professor Munsterberg
knew after studying it for forty years.
This has made it a>travesty of JUS
tice for men juries to try women Grim
| inals, and it explains why 1T is per-
| feetly safe for any woman under forty
| VOC of
| and peaches and cream complexion
| and who can weep without her nose
| getting red, to commit any crime from
arson to murder.
graphing with a problem beyond its
ken. and SO it brings in a verdict OF
| mot guilty. on the woman's looks, II
she is young and pretty ana on tne
| grounds of pity if she is old and ugly
| There is many a murderess roaming
about at large who would be behipd
| prison bars if she had been tried by
| a woman Jury instead of a man jury
because the woman jury would nave
| looked the facts of the case In the
| face instead of looking the woman IN
the face.
| The woman's beauty would have
made no appeal to them, nor would
any hardened old vampire have hood
winked them into believing that she
] was a young and innocent girl because
Nshe had painted a sixteen year oio
| complexion on her countenance, DYED
| her hair and dressed herself up like
| flapper.
| Nor would they have dissolved like
| mush in a rain in the accused one
tears because they also had wept to
| gain a point, and were therefore quail
| flied as experts to distinguish be-
tween the tears that are Wrung out
of a broken heart and those that are
turned on like water from tap Tor
I'M 6tntf hr N
infection of a woman's voice in tell
ing her story that the women Jurors
| couldn't assay for truth or falsehood.
Between them would be the free
masonry of sex. Their own natures
so they would know how to judge
her.
| Undoubtedly murder will be a far
less safe pastine than 1t is now Tor
high tempered, Jealous ladies' wnem
there be so many breach of promise
cases as at present clutter up our
courts, for the fair plaintiff will hest
tate a long time before she asks
| done to her young affections at twen-
| ty or thirty thousand dollars. She
! knows that they know all the ms and
outs of the devious paths by which
men are stalked and the traps that
| are laid for them, and it will take
! pretty convincing evidence to make
i twelve good women. and true, believe
that a woman isn't accessory before
| the crime of a proposal of marriage
Their judgment, based on exper-
| fence and observation, is that there
are mighty few women who cannot
hold a hand with man in the love
game No. Blackmail isn't going to
be a bit profitable as an occupation
when we get women jurors
/ OF course, it goes without saying
that in all cases involving relations
! between the sexes there should be
mixed juries. for women are as utter
ly unable to understand the psychol-
ogy of men as men are to understand
| that of women.
/ The objection to women jurors Is
that it is claimed that women are
emotional and sympathetic and that
they decide questions with their
hearts instead of with their heads. ]
do not think this is true. Deep down
at bottom women have a passion for
justice, and they have ingrowing con-
sciences that would make them take
jury duty very seriously and try very
hard to reach a right decision in
every case committed to them.
Besides, there are times when mer-
cy is a higher justice than that OF
the statute books. 1t is the realiza-
ton of this that has given us what
we call the unwritten law and caused
one of our greatest judges to declare
that the province of the jury is to
humanize the cold abstraction of the
law.
| Another qualification that WON en-
have for being jurors is that the
feminine mind has a curious faculty
of divesting itself of externals and go
ing straight to the heart of a matter
If you've ever argued a matter with
a woman you will recall the dog-like
tenacity with which she came back to
the original point and refused to be
sid etra cked by anything that you
could say or do on the outside. This
| faculty will enable the woman jury
to slough off all the subtleties and
technicalities with which lawyers
often purposely obscure the real issue
in a case and to deal with 1t with a