DOLPH. I intended to say before I reached this point of being
interrogated that I not only do not believe that there is a single
argument against woman suffrage that is tenable, and I may be
prejudiced in the matter, but that there is not a single one that is
really worthy of any serious consideration. The Senator from Louisiana
is a lawyer, and he knows very well that under such circumstances, a
mother with a nursing infant, that fact being made known to the court
would be excused; that would be a sufficient excuse. He knows himself,
and he has seen it done a hundred times, that for trivial excuses
compared to that men have been excused from service on a jury.
Mr. EUSTIS. I will ask the Senator whether he knows that under the
laws of Washington Territory that is a legal excuse from serving on a
jury?
Mr. DOLPH. I am not prepared to state that it is; but there is no
question in the world but that any judge, that fact being made known,
would excuse a woman from attendance upon a jury. No special authority
would be required. I will state further that I have not learned that
there has been any serious objection on the part of any woman summoned
for jury service in that Territory to perform that duty. I have not
learned that it has worked to the disadvantage of any family in the
Territory; but I do know that the judges of the courts have taken
especial pains to commend the women who have been called to serve upon
juries for the manner in which they have discharged their duty.
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