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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.