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Save Joe Hill

"I have lived like an artist and
I shall died like an artist."

These are the soul-stirring words
of Joe Hill, facing death in a prison
cell in Utah.

Joe Hill was railroaded to prison
by an unfair trial, convicted of the
murder of a man whom he did not
know and whom he could not have
possessed the slightest motive for
killing. Joe Hill protested his innocence,
but he was not allowed to
prove his innocence. He had no
money to employ legal aid, so the
court appointed two lawyers to defend
him: these lawyers displayed
no interest in the case and did not
try to defend him, so Hill
dismissed these shyster parasites
and would have pleaded his own
case but the court told him he must
put up with the services of men
whom he knew were betraying him.

Joe Hill had no chance in that
prejudiced court. He was a
friendless stranger in a strange
land, and had neither money nor
influence. Moreover, he was known
to be an obnoxious labor agitator
and had participated in a number
of prominent strikes in the west.
The court was against him, the witnesses
(whom Hill charges with
committing perjury) were against
him, the prejudiced sentiment of
the community was against him and
the whole machinery of injustice
was oiled to move smoothly on its
murderous way.

Put yourself in Joe Hill's place;
let the thought of his unjust treatment
sink deep into your justice-loving
soul and then write to the
Governor of Utah, Salt Lake City,
telling him that as an American
who advocates fair play and believes
in a square deal you demand
a new trial and a fair hearing for
Joe Hill, or Joseph Hillstrom,
which is his real name.

Write now. Unless something is
done before October 1 Joe Hill will
be shot and an innocent man will die.

This is a most important fact to
bear in mind, as the whole case
against Hill is based on his discovery
with a bullet wound in his chest on
the night of the murder. The failure
to prove that the unknown murderer
was shot entirely frees Hill from any
suspision on account of his wound and
leaves the case against him practically
without foundation.

A lot of expert testimony (which
is generally about as far from being
expert as the most ignorant testimony
that could be found) was introduced
to show what position Hill
might have been standing in when he
was shot, what place in his body the
wound shoud have been, etc., without
proving a solitary thing. The only
genuine evidence introduced against
Hill during the entire trial of the
case, both in the lower and higher
courts, was the fact that he had been
shot on the night of the murder.

THAT HILL DID NOT receive a
fair and complete trial seems to be
suggested by the facts. He did not
have the chance to defend himself
that a man should have who is accused
of such a grave crime. At the preliminary
hearing in the lower court
Hill acted as his own attorney, being
unable to hire a lawyer and not yet
realizing the seriousness of the case.
In the higher court he was defended
by two lawyers, but during the trial
he became convinced that they were
not trying to defend him as they
should and immediatley discharged
them. However the court told Hill
that he would have to keep these same
lawyers, regardless of his inclination
in the matter. It is the opinion of
Hill that he would have gained a much
fairer and more favorable trial had
he been granted the aid of different
attorneys.

We believe, in view of the doubts
and irregularities surrounding the
case, that Joe Hill should be given another
trial. He should be given every
legal and moral advantage in defending
himself and should be given the
benefit of several doubts. The deliberate
taking of the life of a human
being is a sufficiently serious matter
to inspire the keenest inquiry into the
circumstances of the case, that it may
be discovered whether an innocent man
is about to die or whether a human
life is on the point of being taken
under the shadow of incomplete evidence
that leaves the question of guilt
in a measure doubtful.

We believe that the life of Joe Hill,
for no other reason than that he is a
human being possessing the divine
gift of life of which no man or human
law has the right to lightly deprive
him, is important enough to justify
and make imperative a fair and
careful consideration of his case. If
Joe Hill is innocent, or if there is the
faintest reasonable possibility of
doubt as to the question of his guilt,
Joe Hill out not to die and his legal
execution by the state of Utah will
be plain murder and a crime against
humanity that will cry to heaven.

The Joe Hill Case

JOE HILL has again been sentenced,
this time to die on Novemebr 19.
We protest against the execution
of Joe Hill until he is given another,
a complete and fair trial and the
fact of his guilt proved beyond doubt.

Let us review Hill's case. We have
read the statements of Hill and the
statements of the authorities who
prosecuted and sentenced him. The
case against Hill seems to rest solely
on the fact that he was shot by some
one in or near Salt Lake City, Utah,
on the same night that some one else
was murdered in Salt Lake City.
Hill denies that he killed any one, but
refuses to tell where and by whom he
was shot. The authorities of Utah
insist that Hill must be considered
guilty and made to pay the penalty
of his crime unless he proves an
alibi by revealing the circumstances
under which he was shot.

The story given by Hill, and which
so far as we know has not been denied,
is that he was arrested on a
night in January, 1914, in a small
town near Salt Lake City, and accused
of murder. He was accused of
having killed a Salt Lake City merchant
named Morrison, and the latter's
son, while attempting to rob the
store owned by Morrison. At the
time of his arrest Hill was suffering
from a bullet wound in the chest, but
he was taken to jail and an attempt
made to sweat a confession out of
him. Hill said he knew nothing about
any murder, but was held in jail and
finally given a perliminary hearing.

AT THE PRELIMINARY hearing
there was no evidence introduced except
the most meager and even
ridiculous circumstantial evidence. No
one could be secured to positively
identify Hill and connect him in any
way with the Morrison murder, save
one witness who swore he saw Hill
in the Morrison store on the afternoon
of the day the murder occurred. This
witness, however, failed to appear
again in the trial in the higher court
and his testimony was not included in
the records of the preliminary hearing,
so his testimony counts for nothing.

It was not conclusively proved that
any one was shot in the Morrison
store but the murdered man and his
son. The records of the preliminary
hearing were changed, according to
Hill's statement, in order to prove
the mere charge that the man who
murdered the Morrisons was himself
shot. One woman testified at the
preliminary hearing that she saw two
or three men outside the Morrison
store a short while after the murder,
and that she heard one of them
say, "Bob," or "Oh, Bob." In the
records the witness was made to testify
that she heard a man say, "Oh
Bob; I'm shot." This false record
was accepted in the higher court as
good evidence and effectively used
against Hill.

Notes and Questions

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jancrane

I transcribed only the column on the left, but it appears that all three columns are about Joe Hill. What would you like me to do?

Gina Strack (Utah State Archives)

I would start with "Save Joe Hill" on the top left and move down each column in turn across the different clippings. There is not a need to create dividers or anything, we are only transcribing to provide easier access including searching, so just separate each paragraph with double-Enter and type the words as-is.