F: Aug. 1914; Apr.-Sept. 15, 1915

CRAWFORDSVILLE PHONOGRAPH COMPANY DEALERS IN Edison Phonographs, Records and Supplies Corner Washington and Market Streets K. of P. Bldg. Basement CRAWFORDSVILLE , IND. Sept 15-15

Governor of utah

Dear Sir in Regard to Joe Hill Would be glad if you could save him from being shot would think it a favor to the working class.

Will close Hoping you will consiter My Request

Fraternily yours Wm. A. Francis

7 West 8th street, New York, N.Y., September 15, 1915.

Sir:

Unless you, sir, Chief Executive of the State of Utah, interfere there will be shot to death in Salt Lake City on October 1st one Joseph Hillstrom (Joe Hill). This man has been convicted of murdering J. S. Morrison and Arling Morrison, at Salt Lake City, January 10th 1914.

I have gone carefully over the evidence offered by the District Attorney who prosecuted this case and I am familiar with the policy of the defense. From years of experience I arrive at the conclusion, after carefully pondering this testimony, that Joe Hill has not been regularly convicted. That is: I believe I see where Justice has miscarried in his case.

I believe it is a fundamental of American jurisprudence that a citizen is innocent until proven guilty. The burden of the conviction rests in all cases upon the prosecution. The District Attorney must not only show why the defendent is the only person who could have committed the crime in question but he must also show why the defendent is not innocent of the charge upon which he is before the court.

I believe that the District Attorney who prosecuted Joe Hill has failed to show that Joe Hill actually committed the crime for which what was admittedly a biased jury found him guilty,

I also believe that Joe Hill's defense was poorly managed, and that the defendent should have been permitted to select his own attorney; you will recall that the presiding magistrate refused to permit him this Constitutional privilege.

I believe Joe Hill is innocent of the murder of these two men. I believe he has no evidence against him but that he was shot in some manner upon the same night on which the murder was committed. To my mind this is very flimsy evidence to send a man to death.

Sir, to me Life is so sacred a thing that I would not dare to even think of taking a life. I have seen men die, - many of them, - and God knows it is the most terrible thing in the world to die. We all love life so much, - its associations, its poetry, its dreams.

2.

It is so hard to go. There are so many kindly hands to hold one back, so many happy memories, so much that is good and strong and pure. It must be the most fearful torture to take a life. And yet that is what the State says must be done when a murderer is caught. The State is wrong in this, I think. And if ever I rise to a place in the politics of this nation I shall toil from sunrise to sunset that this stain shall be wiped away from the fair name of this Republic. We must treat our criminals as we trreat sick men. We must make them well. Here in New York state we are doing this, st Sing Sing prison. So well does this plan work there that all the world is marveling at it. For the first time in the East we are treating prisoners like human beings.

These men in prison are our brothers. They are the toys of Fate, just as we are. Tomorrow or the next day we may be in the same position, innocent or guilty, for it is easy, as the poet Burns says, to go a little astray and many innocent men go to prison and prison deaths.

To you men who sit in judgement, you governors and magistrates, this phase of your duty must be a most trying one. I know you mean to do right and I know that you do do right. I sympathize with you as few less informed men can or will. I believe in you. I trust you.

In this case, then, you must do this thing again: you must sit in judgment on a brother. You must say "Take him out to his death!" or you must say "This man should have a new trial."

Joe Hil has not been found not innocent. He is innocent, in the eyes of the Law, in the eyes of God and Man.

I ask you to give him a new trial, - a fair trial - and I ask it, sir, in the name of American Justice.

Very respectfully yours, James Waldo Fawcett Formerly of the Pittburg Dispatch, The Academy of Science and Art of Pittsburgh, and the Wilkinsburg Discussion Lyceum of Pittsburgh.

To Hon. William Spry, Governor of The State of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.