Walter Clark

Chief Justice Walter Clark's response to the North Carolina Supreme Court's decision regarding women as notary publics. The General Assembly had, in 1915, authorized the Governor to hire women as notaries public defining this position as "a place of trust and profit" and not an "office." The Governor had then appointed Mrs. Noland Knight to the position, but this was soon contested on the grounds that the postion was an "office" and should be held by a voter, disqualifying women. Clark argued for the right of women to hold the position of notary public, that they were able to perform the task as well as any man, and that this had been intended as a humane gesture towards women who, in changing economic times, were being forced to seek new and wider employment.