Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/840

deputy clerk of the United States District Court. The latter frequently opens the court. Women serve as notaries public.

For thirty years women have filled the office of State Librarian, the present incumbent being Mary C. Spencer.

Dr. Harriet M. C. Stone has been for several years assistant physician in the Michigan Asylum for the Insane at Kalamazoo.

The State Industrial School for Girls has two women on the Board of Guardians, one of whom, Allaseba M. Bliss, is the president and is serving her second term of four years, having been reappointed by Gov. Hazen S. Pingree.^[1] Since 1899 the law requires women physicians in asylums for the insane and other State institutions where women and children are cared for.

In the autumn of 1898 Mrs. Merrie Hoover Abbott, law-partner in the firm of Abbott & Abbott of West Branch, was nominated on the Democratic ticket as prosecuting attorney of Ogemaw County. She was elected and entered upon her duties Jan. 1, 1899. Quo warranto proceedings were instituted by Attorney-General Horace M. Oren to test her right to the office, and October 17 the Supreme Court filed its opinion and entered judgment of ouster. In the meantime Mrs. Abbott had discharged successfully the duties of the position. The opinion was as follows: "Where the constitution in creating a public office is silent in regard to qualification to office, electors only are qualified to fill the same, and since under the constitution women are not electors, they are not eligible to hold such offices. The office of prosecuting attorney is a constitutional office which came only be held by one possessing the qualification of an elector."

From this opinion Justice Joseph B. Moore dissented, making an able argument. In closing he said:

The statutes of this State confer upon woman the right to practice law. She may represent her client in the most important litigation in all the courts, and no one can dispute her right. She may defend a person charged with murder. Can she not prosecute one charged with the larceny of a whip? To say she can not seems illogical, ... Individuals may employ her and the courts must recognize her employment. If the people see fit, by electing her to an office the duties of which pertain almost wholly to the practice of the law, to employ her to represent them in their litiga-

1. Mrs. May Stocking Knaggs has been appointed (1901) a member of the Board of Control of the State Industrial School for Girls, by Gov. Aaron T. Bliss. (Eds.