I have lived like an artist and I shall die like an artist.
-Joe Hill
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Saturday September 25, 1915
Salt Lake City, Utah - Hilton Releases Statement to Press on Utah Board of Pardons
Judge O. N. Hilton has release a statement to the press regarding his opinion as to the decision reached by the Utah Board of Pardons on September 18th which denied the petition of Fellow Worker Joe Hill:
This result, the denial of Hill's petition, is only an exemplification of the iniquitous system of having a pardoning board constituted of four members, all but one of whom have already prejudged the case and solemnly announced that the accused was guilty.
Judges are only human, after all, and having once made up their minds it is but natural that they should not only be tenacious of their opinions but insistent in their defense of such preconceived judgments. I found them all unusually so except, perhaps, the governor, and I had not spoken five minutes before they were all after me in violent and frequently raucous disputation and dissent. At one time three of them were talking all at once. What else could be expected than they should find against Hillstrom?
...As to the merits of Hillstrom's contention, I can only say that his complaint has always been earnest and consistent-that he was deprived of an honest and fair trial, and in that contention I most heartily concur.
I say without the slightest hesitation that the trial which resulted in Hillstrom's conviction was the most unjust, wicked and farcical travesty on justice that has ever occurred in the west.
...I was much impressed by Hillstrom's attitude and what he said before the board. His language was classic. The board offered to pardon him if he would state all the facts which might be later verified as the truth, but Hillstrom refused because, as he reasoned, a pardon presupposed a crime committed and he was innocent of all crime and so demanded a new trial when his vindication, as he believed, would be sure to come.
[Photograph and paragraph breaks added.]
Efforts to Save the Life of Joe Hill Continue
With the execution date now only five days away, all hope to save the life of the I. W. W. songwriter now seems to rest upon the intervention of W. A. F. Ekengren, Swedish Minister to the United States. The Salt Lake Tribune reports that two prominent Salt Lake City women, Virginia Snow Stephen and Sigrid Bolin, are in contact with the Swedish Minister and are urging him to take prompt action through appeals to the U. S. Department of State.
From The Salt Lake Tribune of September 23, 1915:
CHANCE SLIGHT FOR A REPRIEVE
FOR HILLSTROM
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Nothing Found to Warrant Stay of Execution,
Word Sent by Vice Consul Here.
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WOMEN TELEGRAPH SWEDISH MINISTER
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Mrs. Virginia Stephen and Miss Sigrid Bolin
Urge Him to Take Prompt Action.
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"Nothing has been found to warrant a stay of execution for Hillstrom," said in part a special dispatch to The Tribune from Bar Harbor, Me., received at an early hour this morning. The statement embodied the conclusion reached in this city yesterday by Oscar W. Carlson, former county commissioner and Swedish vice-consul for Utah and southern Idaho. Mr. Carlson yesterday telegraphed to the Swedish minister to the United States, who is at his summer home in Maine, following a request from that official for an investigation locally.
The representative of the Swedish government, said the dispatch, telegraphed to Mr. Carlson as the result of a telegram he had received from Mrs. Virginia Snow Stephen and Miss Sigrid Bolin, both of Salt lake, who sought a reprieve for Hillstrom that an investigation of his trial might be made.
Petition of Women.
Mrs. Stephen, when called on the telephone, admitted that she and Miss Bolin had telegraphed to the Swedish minister.
"We asked him to use his efforts with Secretary of State Lansing to secure a reprieve for Hillstrom so that a more extended investigation of the case might be made. Hillstrom is a subject of Sweden."
Mrs. Stephen will be remembered as the teacher in the art department of the University of Utah, who, while on a trip to the east about a year ago called upon Attorney O. N. Hilton in Denver and enlisted his support in the defense of Hillstrom. Miss Bolin is a sister of the late Professor Jakob Bolin, who was member of the University of Utah faculty. Mrs. Stephen is at present a teacher at the university.
Declines to Talk.
Mr. Carlson refused to discuss the telegram which he had sent to his superior officer in the case. He did say, however, that his investigation did not necessarily mean that the minister would take no action.
The telegram received from Bar Harbor read as follows:
His Excellency, W. A. F. Ekengren
Swedish Minister to the United States
The Swedish minister to the United States tonight received a telegram from the representative of that government in Salt Lake. While the exact wording of the telegram, which related to the Joseph Hillstrom case in Utah, could not be learned, it was ascertained from a reliable source that the minister's informant declared that "nothing has been found to warrant a stay of execution for Hillstrom."
The vice counsel in Utah is said to have made an independent investigation as the result of a request from the minister. He reported that Hillstrom had had a lawful trial and had been given an opportunity by the board of pardons to present reasons why a commutation of sentence should be granted him.
Wire From Minister.
The Swedish minister telegraphed to Salt Lake, following the receipt of a telegraphic appeal received by him from Virginia Snow Stephen and Sigrid Bolin, both of Salt Lake. They declared that Hillstrom had not had a fair trial, and that as he is a subject of Sweden a reprieve should be demanded by that government until an investigation could be made.
The desk of John Hardy, the governor's secretary, was piled high again yesterday with letters on the Hillstrom case. No threats of violence against the governor were contained in them, though some of them were exceedingly bitter in their denunciation of the governor. Others were ridiculous as regarded the amount of misinformation on the Hillstrom case reflected in them.
Among the mail was a letter from Theodore Debs, brother of Eugene V. Debs, acknowledging receipt on behalf of Eugene Debs, of a copy of the supreme court decision in the Hillstrom case. In the Appeal to Reason, the official organ of the National Socialist party, the Hillstrom case has been reviewed and a personal request for information on the case was received from Mr. Debs some time ago.
A Mrs. Emily Lewis of Fresno, Cal, in acknowledging receipt of a copy of he decision, sent to her in reply to a petition for Hillstrom's release, signed by hundreds of Fresno women, declares she had not had time to read the decision, but is convinced, nevertheless, of Hillstorm's innocence.
Another letter warns the governor that the execution of Hillstrom would be nothing but the murder of a patriot and that his soul, like that of John Brown, will go marching on through the ages.
In another letter Hillstrom is compared to the Christ and the governor to Pilate.
Another letter asks the governor to pay no attention to the thousands of letters written to him, clamoring for Hillstrom's life.
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SOURCES
Joe Hill
-by Gibbs M. Smith
Gibbs M Smith Inc, 1984
(copyright 1969)
https://books.google.com/...
The Salt Lake Tribune
(Salt Lake City, Utah)
-Sept 23, 1915
http://newspaperarchive.com/...
IMAGES
Orrin N Hilton
http://darrow.law.umn.edu/...
Virginia Snow Stephen
http://troydwilliams.com/...
His Excellency, W. A. F. Ekengren,
Minister to the United States
http://books.google.com/...
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Joe Hill - The Dubliners
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