Show MKBANlilEE NEWMAN The Lady Claims to Have Been Misquoted THE VOICE OF MOTHERHOOD c The Mormon 1eople Never Had a Truer Filerid Attacking the System Sys-tem NOt Its Adherents To the Editors of THE HERALD Today in running over a list of clippings clip-pings sent me by the National Press Intelligence Company of New York City I find one from the SALT LAKE HERALD of October 27 1888 containing a criticism upon my work in Wah ington It has been a fixed principle with me never to answer reportorial statements or editorial criticisms choosing rather to trust both words and acts to Him who honoreth all things spirit intent word act sequence In this instant there is an apparent perversion of fact which since the criticism appears in the columns of THE HERALD I trust you will alloy me there to correct First the testimony of Marshal Djer Warden Pratt and others concerning con-cerning the inmates of the Penitentiary at the time of my visit March 11 1888 In answer Warden Pratt invited me to visit the cells and converse with the women who were incarcerated He accompanied me For twelve years I have served as State superintendent of jails and prison works in Nebraska visiting the Penitentiary and jails throughout the States to secure improved im-proved sanitary conditions and furnish appliances for mental and moral training To qualify myself to do this I have personally inspected the jails and prisons in many of the States Accustomed therefore as I am to cell visitation my eyes have never looked upon such a scene as presented itself in the Utah Penitentiary that Sabbath afternoon Entering cell No 11 asked Co For what crimes are these women incarcerated 1 Warden Pratt answered For contempt con-tempt of court in refusing to acknowledge acknowl-edge their plural relations and the paternity of their children Then added I wish you would talk with these women Mrs Newman and try to pnrsuade them to answer the court and be liberated This place is totally unfit for women and children but it is all we have I wish moreover you would use the facts before the appropriation appro-priation committee in Washington as evidence of need of a womans department depart-ment I answered If you will give me the dimensions of the cell and all the facts so that I shall maKe no error in reporting report-ing to the committee I will gladly comply with your wishes Warden Pratt then measured the cell and wrote on a slip of paper from which I now quote six women and three babes cell 10x133 Mr Pratt further on my request agreed to furnish me all the details of the cases before I left Salt Lake Twice thereafter I telephoned to the Penitentiary for the items promised but received nothing But to return to the cell Mr Pratt introduced me to the women administered adminis-tered himself some wholesome advice saying in substance No man is worthy to call a woman wife who will allow her or her child to stay in a place like this to shield himself from the law Do j oi suppose I would allow my wife to remain here twenty minutes to saTe me from the Pen for a life time No nor no other honorable man In turn I plead with the women not to sutler the brand of the Penitentiary to be placed upon their sweet babes which would follow them through life Their answer gave me reverence for the i mistaken devotion to what I would designate a false faith which is rarely I found in the true To those who know the tactsit will not be a brand but a crown Then I conversed freely and the lady who accompanied me with these women for a half hour or more Neither the warden nor the women suggested other cause for the incarceration incarcera-tion than the one specified Contempt Con-tempt Nevertheless a careful reading read-ing of my report in Washington and the statement of the warden in the columns of THE HERALD will show that my report conforms to his viz my report six women three of whom were incarcerated for contempt etc The affidavit of the clerk of the court as given in your columns towit One of these cases that of Sarah Tong April 27 1888 indictment dismiss aud defendant discharged does not change the factthat she was in the Pen on the day in question March 11th The second point at issue Cell No2 In one cell were two girls one 14 the other 16 each married to her own father etc This form of the statement appears in the Congressional Record of October 3d and is an error no one could regret more than myself It came about in this wise In the month of June in response to a request of the Congressional committee to be furnished fur-nished all available data concerning the Home I fiod with the committee for their personal use a series of papers compiled from the Record as furnished me by the Industrial Christian Chris-tian Home Association adding thereto some items concerning the condition of the Pea on the day in question Duplicates Du-plicates of the series were struck off on typewriter for several members of both the House and Senate committees commit-tees I was very ill at the time My secretary prepared from the mass of material at hand the final transcript and it was sent out of the house to the typewriter I did not examjne this paper and did not know the error had been made The bill appropriating 80000 to the Home in Utah passed the Senate without with-out dissent or debate The chairman of the House committee pledged me his unequivocal support of the enterprise enter-prise all through the session and with especial emptasia the day before the bill as passed by the Senate went to the committee went to the committee of conferees Nevertheless he went into the committee com-mittee on the following day as chairman chair-man of the House section of the committee com-mittee of conferees and opposed the bill most vehemently This threw the matter back into the Senate for discussion discus-sion Not till I on the following day October 3d from the palory saw Sena tor Hale introduce the papers I had filed with the committee in June asa j as-a framework tohis speech did I know II they would be so used or thatthey contained the report of Cell No 2 I as hre quoted T had not seen the papers it this interval of four months I imme iately went to the committees and so far as possible corrected the statement to read In another cell was a girl 16 years of age the wile of hr own father Her twomonths aid babe bad a divided upper up-per lip etc This last is the statement In my memorial to the Senate as prepared by my own hands and introduced into the Senate by Senator Sen-ator Edmunds Sptember 21st ten davs prior to the debate on the House bill which contained the > rror Hence to any fair thinker this is proof that the later publication in the Record wasH was-H mistake It occurred in this wise In the mass of material from which n y secretary prepared he papers for the committee was a sketch of two Mormon Mor-mon girls one IS the other 16 each of whom nad married her own father ills history had been furnished me by parties thoroughly familiar with all the facts Ac identally this crept into the copy instead of my penitentiary notes and I had no knowledge of the fact nntil October 3d it having been filed in June As to the truthfulness of the second statement Warden Pratt went with us also to this cell and introduced us to the f irl and I certainly understood from M > Pratt thejirl was married to her own father and that the father was then in the Pen on the charge of incest as a marriage ceremony did not justify the relation Left alone with the girl motaer I held a long conversation with her as did also the lady who accompanied me II and I took notes of the girls confession which was that she was 16 years old was married to her own father and that the child was hers by her own father Together we fully discussed the fatality ofsuch a union resulting in the physical deformity of the child We tried to arouse the moral sensibilities of the girl to the sin she had committed not only against God and her own soul but against her innocent offsprin She protested with tears she could not help it her father required it If herein THE HERALD sees a reason as per editorial of November 18 also furnished me by the Intelligence Company of New York to denominate denom-inate my report of the girls confession as Mrs Newmans nastiness wnut of the fact 1 Again as to astrocious falsehoods false-hoods with which THE HERALD charges me I have never in public or private made a single representation touching plural marriages for which I have not the most ample proof as furnished me bv Mormon witnesses Be it known I have testimony sufficient suf-ficient fill volumes which has been given me by the Mormon sufferers themselves which out of regard for the witnesses 1 have never used to substantiate every word 1 utter Be it further known no one could regret re-gret more than I any inadvertence which would lead to color of misrepresentation misrepre-sentation No one would go further to correct an unintentional wrong To all the articles which have appeared ap-peared editorially or otherwise in the Mormon pressimpunging both my notices and my actions I have been silent and yet Mr Editor as God and the angels are my witnesses I have been moved to action by as pure a philanthropy as ever stirred a womans heart The impulse to that action has been the voles of Utah motherhood Howsoever polygamy and its attendant evils may appear to those environed thereby to one reared in the Puritan atmosphere of N < w England and coming com-ing year by year to the Territory it is inexpressibly loathsome What else Mr Editor but a divine impulse could have moved me to surrender sur-render a lucrative profession and to work through all these years without the compensation of a penny i moreover to invest money time strength myself as it were to bring as I fondly hoped to the women of Utah higher facilities for education of their children 7 To receive therefor the bitterest reproach from those for whom 1 had toiled at sacrifice so costlyit has only been possible by divine suppo t Think of it as you will the Mormon people never had a tru r friend I worked as I firmly believed for their emancipation from a delusion which involved soul and body Believing that in that day which is sure to come to Utah when a clearer moral sunlight shall break over the mountains crest they who shall then comprehend as they willhow dark has been the night shall see with me eye to eye shall know it was the system I attacked not its adherents and in that day it not now shall know it was the voice of motherhood which plead for thema higher civilization plead even at the shrine of the Infinite as a mother for her wayward child with tenderness and tear Mr Editor it is I who have been misunderstood mis-understood thwarted My brain evolved a plan for an institution for the whole puople of Utah which executed on that plan would be to the Territory to the nation a lasting home To the recipients of its benefits an avenue for preparation of life on a high plane and by a method which has in it no quality of compromise of the truest womanhood That it has not long ago fulfilled its promise is no fault of mine In the hope which to me was a holy dream that out of the chaos of adverse conditions there might yet by some supernal power be evolved an adjustment adjust-ment which would vindicate my hope and the faithful fw who have stayedmy hands I havetoiled If I pats to the beyond ere ache cement ce-ment or a converted sentiment concerning concern-ing this enterprise obtains know you Gads work never fails It may like some weakling though dashing stream in the canyon disappear beneath some threatening boulder but further on it will some day reappear and with increased in-creased volume and momentum move to its aestiny If in that glad day of victory some gratefnl hand shall cast the flowers upon my grave which were denied me as I tread the path of thorns it will be enough to know even in my spirit home that Gods hour came at last Very respectfully AROSE F NEWMAN LINCOLN Neb January 26 1889 |