Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 96, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1911 — TWO JUDGES IN COURT. [ARTICLE]

TWO JUDGES IN COURT.

“A man has been passing judgment on women for centuries. It is high time that a woman be permitted to judge men. And I am perfectly sure that a handsome man could not get away with it at a woman’s tribunal, as handsome women are doing every day in courts presided over by men.” That’s what Miss Mary Coleman, lawyer and suffragette, remarked when I called on her with the new proposal, backed by a number of women’s clubs, that all the officers of the women’s rights court, from the magistrate down, be women. “I don’t think an all woman’s court would be a good thing. “I don’t think an all man’s court is any better. ‘The ideal court will exist only when justice has gone into partnership. * In "this court there -will be two judges—one a man and one a woman. Each will learn from the other. And they will sit jointly and pass judgment on both men and women.” "I have heard two criticisms of women as judges, especially of their own sex,’’ I remarked. ‘One person says they would be too sentimental. Another writes essays on woman’s inhumanity to women.’ ” “Well, we can’t be both things," Miss Coleman replied, briefly. “As a matter of fact. I don’t think we’re either. I believe that the best justice prevails when head and heart works together, and I think this excellent combination is more often in women than in men. “Either a man is absolutely inflexible and cold-blooded, or he is wishy-washily emotional. A judge and jury of men rarely fail to be influenced by a handsome, attractive woman. But 1 am equally positive that fascinating men criminals could wield no such influence over women on the bench.”