the territory of Wyoming. Much has of late
been said in regard to women not making use of the ballot there.
I care little about that statement one way or the other, as long
as her right to vote is not interfered with. It will be time to
require all women to vote when we have such a law for men; until
then let each voter refrain from voting at his or her own option;
it is not the vital question. But there is a point connected with
woman's voting in Wyoming that is well worthy of our
consideration. That is, the interference of the United States
with the concomitants of this right. For a time the women of
Wyoming sat upon juries, and the fact was heralded over the
country that thieves, gamblers, murderers fled the territory
rather than fall into the hands of these women jurors. The first
conviction for a murder in that territory, not committed in
self-defense, came from a mixed jury.

But of late we have ceased hearing of women jurors. And why?
Because that sacred right has been interfered with by the United
States. The Marshal of the Territory, an officer appointed by
the United States Government, has absolutely refused to place the
names of women on the jury lists. Consequently the women of
Wyoming are denied the exercise of this right by United States
power. Whether the Marshal has been ordered by the National
Government to omit the names of women, we do not know, and it
does not signify. The duty of the United States is none the less
clear; the Territories are in an especial way the wards of the
nation, and should be protected in all territorial rights. The
Territory of Wyoming having secured to women the exercise of
their right to vote, it is the duty of the General Government to
protect them in the exercise of all concomitant rights, of which
the jury is one.

This deprivation of jury rights in Wyoming is not only an United
States interference with woman's political rights, but also an
interference with her industrial rights. It is a well-known fact
that some women earned their first independent dollar by sitting
in the jury box. And whatever interferes with woman's industrial
rights helps to send her down to those depths where want of bread
has forced so many women: into the gutters of shame. This is a
question of morality as well a