California San Francisco [9 items]

To His Honor, Govenor William Spry and the Board of Pardons of the State of Utah Salt Lake City, Utah

Sirs: I hereby respectfully petition your clemency in the case of Joseph Hillstrom now condemned to die on October 1, 1915, for his suposed murder of J. B. Morrison.

The facts of the trial of this case are now traveling far and wide and are such as to call forth protest from every justice-loving man and woman.

From authentic sources I learn that the evidence in Hillstrom's case was flimsy and entirely cicumstantial; the identifications of Hillstrom insufficient and trivial; no motive was shown for his committing the murder; the proceedings of the court in the matter of the dismissal of Hillstrom's attornerys was irregular and prejudicial to the defendant's cause, and the community in which he was tried was prejudiced.

No man should die on such a showing.

For a state, through its officials, to administer the penalty of death where the slightest chance of innocence remains, is a blot upon the reputation of the state. Such brutalities committed by a state undermine the stregth of government and bring contemp upon the law.

It your duty and your privielege to guard the honor of your state. Therefore I petition you for a commutation of Hillstrom's sentence

Signed: Lilly T. La Rose Address: 606 Shotwell St San Francisco Cal

RESOLUTION. WHEREAS: The great mass of evidence gatherered by the National Committee on Industrial Relations, shows the absolute domination of all avenues of justice by the powers of organized wealth; i.e. the Rockefeller or Standard Oil in Colorado, The Copper Barons in Michigan, The Coal Barons in W. Virginia, The Steel Trust and Erector's Syndicates in Indianapolis and Los Angeles. WHEREAS: The evidence so taken, together with actual experience of labor as in the cases of John Lawson in Colorado, Ford and Suhr in California, Structu- ral Iron Workers in Indianapolis, Joe Hill, construction worker to be shot, in Utah, in Los Angeles, Caplan and Schmidt, two more victims of Burns and the Steel Trust. WHEREAS: Labors' experience in all these cases goes to show a well planned conspiracy of organized wealth working through the courts, and using as their weapon the latest legal method of intimidation, namely, the principal of Constructive Murder Charges put into effect through the medium of "Accessory before the Fact," and, "Conspiracy." WHEREAS: By these modern legal tactics the Industrial and Land Barons are able to single out any active spirit either during or after an industrial war, and charge him with murder, and hold him responsible for any act growing out of such dispute, and without proving any actual knowledge or connection with the act whatever; or in shorter terms making him "A Prisoner of War." WHEREAS: Such methods are in reality a new form of the ancient use of the charge of "Treason," whereby all progressive thought was for years stifled. WHEREAS: Powers of wealth through their vast property rights, usurped control and direct the Grand Jury System so that it becomes a new form of the "Inquisition" act.