reforms. Of this sort, in my judgment, is the recent Act providing that a memorandum specifying the defects relied on shall be filed with a demurrer to a complaint, if the demurrer is for the fifth statutory reason. Lawyers and courts, after careful study of its provisions, cannot agree as to what change this statute makes in court procedure. It mentions only demurrers to complaints, but some judges say it applies equally when demurrers are filed to answers, though they are not mentioned, and some insist on a memorandum when a reply is demurred to. Opinions are hopelessly at variance as to whether the specific reasons must be set out in the body of the demurrer, or whether filing a memorandum in the form of a brief is sufficient. Nobody is certain whether the statement of a conclusion is allowed in "stating wherein such pleading is insufficient for want of facts," or whether there must be a literal recital, in the memorandum, of facts which the complaint ought to aver, but does not. So far from promoting simplicity, this statute revives in a measure the special demurrer, which was regarded as one of the worst features of the old system of pleading, swept away by the adoption of our code sixty years ago. And instead of promoting uniformity in the practice, it prescribes an obscure rule, scarcely to be understood until the highest court shall have explained its meaning, to apply only to demurrers for one of the six statutory causes, addressed to pleadings of one kind (the complaint), but subject to construction by which it may or may not be made to embrace other pleadings, as the Supreme Court shall declare years after the event.

It has been well said that a law, however illogical, which expresses the daily life and practice of a people, so that disobedience of the law will only result when established customs and habits are departed from, is far better than the most

perfect system of laws prescribing penalties for habitual and customary practices not harmful in themselves, but contrary to logic and to a proposed system of good order. And this truth, recognized by all countries that have undertaken the government of subject peoples, is as true when applied to new court rules as in other cases. A reform of procedure which excuses some technical inaccuracy or permits the same act to be done in the same way in different cases, is a real reform. Thus the statute which abolished special demurrers and provided that in all kinds of cases the complaint should only be required to state the facts constituting the cause of action in plain and concise language effected two real reforms. The Act passed in 1911, which abolished the writ of mandate and provided that actions of mandamus shall be brought like civil suits, effected another, and statutes which may hereafter make the manner of excepting to instructions the same in civil and criminal actions, or the rules as to the causes for which a new trial may be asked and the time of filing the motion alike in all cases, will enact genuine reforms. There is no good reason why an attorney who has successfully conducted one suit should unlearn all the rules of law and procedure he followed in its trial, when he comes to conduct another, even though one is civil and the other is criminal, or one is a suit on a note, the maker of which is alive and defending, and another is brought on the note of a deceased maker, which is presented as a claim against his estate. The same act done for the same purpose ought to be sufficient in both cases if done at the same time in the same way. That it often is not we all know from sad experience.

But so-called reforms which do not promote uniformity nor remove stumbling blocks from the way of the practitioner, but arbitrarily command something which five thousand lawyers

and judges must learn, and which will thrust error into proceedings conducted by old and careful attorneys if they merely go on in the way they have done for a lifetime, are mischievous and indefensible. What we need is not more law of procedure, but less of it; not more interference by the Legislature with court practice, but greater latitude for judicial control; not a separate method of drawing demurrers when they are addressed to one class of pleadings for one of six statutory causes; not a different allowance of time for taking an appeal in each kind of proceeding, nor a different manner of preparing a motion for a new trial and a different time within which to file it in different cases; but simplicity and uniformity of rules, the guidance of a firm judicial hand, and the exercise of a sound judicial discretion, with the single purpose to reach a just and fair result.

Political Recognition of Women, the Next Step in the Development of Democracy

CRYSTAL EASTMAN BENEDICT.

When I chose this title, "Political Recognition of Women, the Next Step in the Development of Democracy," it was sev eral months ago, before the splendid constitutional convention in Ohio recommended a woman suffrage amendment to the voters of that State, before the new Republic of China granted to its women the right to vote on the same terms as men. If I were framing the title today, I think I should say, "Political Recognition of Women, an Immediate Phase in the Development of Democracy."

In Norway, Iceland, China, Australia, New Zealand, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Washington and California, women have full political rights today; that is, they vote on the same terms as men. In Sweden, Denmark, Great Britain and twenty-five States of America, women have some voting privilege, either school suffrage, municipal suffrage or tax-paying suffrage. A woman suffrage amendment will be submitted to the voters of Ohio on September 3rd. In Kansas, Oregon, Wisconsin and Michigan, woman suffrage amendments have passed the Legislature and will go before the voters for ratification on November 5th.

There are over a million women voters in the United States today. On November 6th, 1912, there will surely be two million. "Votes for Women" then, in democratic countries the world over, is no longer a joke, no longer a mere possibility

it is a rapidly approaching reality, and for that reason, if for no other, I think is of interest to the legal profession.

Now, why has this question become an immediate political issue? Why are there a thousand women asking the right to vote today where there was one fifty years ago? As usual, economics is at the bottom of it. Political changes almost always follow economic changes, and the economic position of women has undergone a tremendous change in the last century. Men used to say: "Woman's place is in the home. Politics is none of her business." Or, if they were more polite, perhaps they put it this way: "Government is not concerned with the interests of women. Why should women burden themselves with the concerns of government?" One hundred and fifty years ago perhaps that was a reasonable remark— a fair argument against granting women the right to vote, but I need not tell you that today it is ridiculous. Under modern conditions the concerns of women are not only in politics— all mixed up with politics-but they are the very material of politics. I don't suppose there is one law in ten considered by a State Legislature which does not directly concern the interests of women in some way. Therefore, it is that women cannot "mind their own business" in the modern world, they cannot look after their own interests, without the right to vote, any more than men can.

Consider first the position of the housekeeper, the mother, the home-maker, and her relation to the ballot. You say to her: "My dear woman, you need all your time and strength and thought and energy for the proper care of your family." True. Why not? But that is the best of arguments for giving women the right to vote; for the proper care of her family, if for no other reason on earth, the modern woman needs the vote.

What does the health and happiness of her family de