The credit for this victory belongs to Mrs. Belva Lockwood, of this city, who, having been refused admission to the bar of the United States Supreme Court, appealed to congress, and by dint of hard work has finally succeeded in having her bill passed by both houses. She called on Mrs. Hayes last evening, who complimented her upon her achievement, and informed her that she had sent a bouquet to Senator Hoar, in token of his efforts in behalf of the bill.—[Washington Star, February 8.
The bill was carried through merely by the energetic advocacy of Senators McDonald, Sargent and Hoar, whose oratorical efforts were reënforced by the presence of Mrs. Lockwood. After the struggle was over, all the senators who advocated the bill were made the recipients of bouquets, while the three senators whose names we have given received large baskets of flowers. This is a pleasing omen of that purification of legal business which it is hoped will flow from the introduction of women to the courts. It was not flowers that used to be distributed at Washington and Albany in the old corrupt times, among legislators, in testimony of gratitude for their votes. Let us hope that venal legislation at Washington will be extirpated by the rise of this beautiful custom.—[New York Nation.
It was noticeable that all the presidential candidates dodged the issue except Senator Blaine, who voted for the bill.—[Chicago Inter-Ocean.
How humiliated poor old Judge Magruder must feel, since the congress of the United States paid the woman whom he forbade to open her mouth in his august presence, in his little court, so much consideration as to pass an act opening to her the doors of the Supreme Court of the United States. All honor to the brave woman, who by her own unaided efforts thus achieved honor, fortune and fame—the just rewards of her own true worth.—[Havre Republican, Havre de Grace, Maryland.
Enter Portia.—An act of congress was not necessary to authorize women to be lawyers, if their legal acquirements fitted them for that vocation; nor was it necessary to state, as an expression of opinion by the national legislature, that some women are so fully qualified for the legal profession that no barriers should be permitted to stand in their way. It was needed simply as a key whereby the hitherto locked door of the Supreme Court of the United States may be opened if a woman lawyer, with the usual credentials, should knock thereon. That is all; and there is no new question opened for profitless debate. The ability of some women to be lawyers is like the ability of others to make bread—it rests upon the facts. There is no room for elaborate argument to prove either their fitness or unfitness for legal studies, so long as in Missouri, Wisconsin, Michigan, the District of Columbia, Iowa and North Carolina there are women in more or less successful practice and repute. *** Nowhere are these great attributes of civilization and regulated liberty—law, conservatism, justice, equity and mercy in the administration of human affairs put in broader light or truer, than they are by the words that Shakespeare puts in the mouth of this woman jurist.—[Public Ledger, Philadelphia, February 12.
When congress recently passed a law allowing women to practice in the Supreme Court, it was not a subject of any special or eager comment. A woman who is a lawyer sent flowers to the desks of the members who voted for the bill, and before they had faded, comment was at an end. The home was still safe and the country was not in peril. It was one of the questions which had settled itself and was a foregone conclusion. *** United States Senator Edmunds of Vermont, has fallen into disfavor with the ladies for voting against the above bill.—[From John W. Forney's Progress, February 22.
On March 3, by motion of Hon. A. G. Riddle, Mrs. Lockwood was admitted to the bar of the United States Supreme Court,[1]
- ↑ Conspicuous in the large and distinguished audience present were Senator M'Donald, Attorney-general Williams, Hon. Jeremiah Wilson, Judge Shellabarger, Hon. George W. Julian, who with many others extended hearty congratulations to Mrs. Lockwood.
