Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-11-04
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
The Woman Jury
BY DOROTHY DIX
The Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.
Copyright 1920, by the Wheeler Syndicate

~ beating and was out on BAIL fled the
country when he found he was ,<eing
to be tried by jury of women.
Evidently he thought that what they
would do to him would be something with
boiling oil in it, and without doubt his fears
were well founded. One can readily believe
that there are certain crimes, such as wife
beating, and desertion, and failure to support
and so on, from which women have suffered
so long, in which the culprit would be given
the limit of the law, and then some. every
time by feminine jury.
Perhaps the woman jury will break up
these misdemeanOrs Surely a british hus-
band will hardly consider that the pleasure
of backing his wifes eyes is worth the stiff
sentence in the workhouse that a woman
jury would l. I'D him. Surely the man who
has the habit of fading away from home
when new baby appears the scene and
leaving his wife to support the family will
think twice and then stick to his job, if he
knows that when the long arm of the law
hauls him ba k, feminine jury is going to
make a warning of him to other husbands
with wandering feet.
Surely the man who was born too tired
to work, and who lets his wife take in wash
ing to support him, will decide that it is
better to get busy and hand over most of
his pay envelope to the "missus' than to put
up with the punishment that woman jury
has decided fits the crime of loafng
OF course there are those who have long
prophesied that women jurors would be over
lenient to who we're trial, but this
undue clemency would never apply to the
crimes committed against the peace and hap
piness of the home The man who sins
against that can count on getting his with
out fail when twelve good women and true
pass judgment on his delinquencies.
In all good truth, the woman jury is one
of the greatest blessings we are going to get
from the granting of suffrage to woman, and
it will make for intelligent justice in thou
sand different ways.
1t has always been absurd that under q
system that makes the jury system the pal
ladium of our liberty, and that guarantees to
every accused individual trial by jury of
his peers, women have been tried by men
juries exclusively.
For no one will contend that a man is q
woman's peer any more than woman Is q
mans peer. No woman understands a man,
nor she trace his mental processes, or
divine what impulses would urge him to GER
tain courses Of action. Still less can any
man read the workings of a womans mind,
or fathom her motives, or guess which par
ticular way the cat would jump on any given
occasion.
Doubtless men understand men. OF
surety women understand women. They
know the grips and the passwords and the
high signs of their secret lodges, and it is
a practical impossibility for a woman to fool
another woman. She may be an artful
dodger that can pull the wool over the eyes
of the most clear-sighted men, but all her
sister women.
Therefore, when the woman criminal Of the
future demands mans jury or a Woman's
jury to try her, it will settle her innocence
or guilt before ever she faces the bar OF
justice. If she is guilty she will want men
who will be swayed by her youth and good
looks, who will melt down into sodden
mush Of sentimentality under the rain OF
her tears, wlo will not be able to tell whether
she is speaking the truth perjuring her.
self, and who will let any female under forty.
with good complexion and large ox-like
eyes, and a willowy figure get away with
any crime from murder to arson.
But if the woman Is innocent she vii
want a woman jury who will know that she
is telling the truth, even when she ADJ
to some act that is improbable, because they
know that under the same circumstances they
would have done the same thing; more, she
will want to be tried by other women who
know that the law is an ass. and that it has
got lot of crimes and misdemeanors IN the
wrong catalogue, anyway, and they will
know how to show mercy accordingly to one
who has never been more right than when
she wrong
No case in which the welfare of a child
is involved should be tried without women
on the jury, for the instinct Of the mother
heart gives to women a wisdom like unto
that Of Solomon in dealing with such prob
lens.
1t goes without saying that all cases in
volving romantic and sex relationship be-
tween men and women should be tried by
mixed jury. In that way only can we get at
the proper amount that should be fixed as
the balm for wounded heart in a breach of
promise case, for the six lady jurors could
tell at glance whether the fair plaintiff was
the chaser or the chasee and they could also
diagnose with an accuracy possible to no mere
man the actual damage inflicted, on her more
or less tender affections.
And they would know, too, how to deal
with the wolves in sleeps clothing who prey
upon silly little lambs, and what alimony to
hand out to, forsaken and neglected wives
whose only crime has been in getting old and
ugly, and how to pity the poor deserted, tor
mented creatures who in a mad moment have
avenged years Of wrong with red crime:
Oh, the findings of woman jury Will be
interesting And just.