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Show A PLEA FOR JUSTICE. To Joseph F. Smith: Will you deem that you are being persecuted per-secuted and slandered anew If Tho Tribune suggests to you a good opportunity oppor-tunity for one act of decency, not to say generosity, in your station as president pres-ident and trustee-in-trust of the Mormon Mor-mon church? There Is in this city an old lady, Emily P. Raleigh, who during fifty years was a good and loyal plural wlfo to Bishop Alonzo H. Raleigh. Sho bore children unto his name, and she boro all the othor burdens under which sho was compelled to bow during a long and weary period of nearly half a century. cen-tury. Her home was cruelly willed away from her; and your church, under un-der the last testament of Alonzo II. Raleigh, Is to come into possession of that property, whero she has spent nearly all of her lifetime, and she Is to be left homeless unless you shall Intervene In-tervene and, from your plentltude of possessions as president and trustee-intrust for the church, shall relcaso this property to the woman who la its moral owner. Make a deed to Emily P. Raleigh of the Interest of the church in this property. prop-erty. Assist her to hold Its possession. For once bo a Httlo less hard and greedy toward suffering humanity. Alonzo H. Raleigh had no, more right to give this property to the church than he had to strip the clothing from his wife's back and deliver her raiment in rags to your tithing office. If your church shall take the property It will be morally a robber. rob-ber. You have good ground upon which to stand In accepting this recommendation. recommenda-tion. Bishop Christopher Layton's legal le-gal wife and her children were entitled under tho law to his property. The church Intervened and by Its authority compelled an equitable division of his estate between all the wives and children chil-dren of Bishop Layton. As It was then esteemed to be the duty of tho church to establish equity In preference to mere legal right, where the church Itself was not a legatee, nothing but rank selfishness selfish-ness can prevent you from asserting the same principle In this Instance, where the church Is the beneficiary. Be decent in this case, Joseph F. Smith, and give to Emily P. Raleigh the property which Alonzo H. Raleigh sought to cruelly and vengcfully take from her by his last will and testament. If yon decline this act of simple Justice, If you prefer to take this homestead of the old widow Into your unhallowed keeping, may you and the cruel husbandwith hus-bandwith whose hateful disposition toward this woman you havo conspired may you both receive tho measuro which you will have meted out to suffering suf-fering Innocence. |
