| Show i droli droll A MARTYR lelder ELDER C I 1 kempe imprisoned IN DETROIT EXPRESSES THE FEELINGS OP OF AND BRETHREN IN BONDS NINE MONTHS UNJUST jj IM TRISON MENT AND NO PROSPECTS OF RELEASE HOUSE OF 01 cor COU correction 1 detroit mich alich aug 23 editor deseret neuss news As my breth brethren rqn here desire me once more to write and make known to our friends Iri irl ends our conoit condition ion lon and hoewe how we f feel eel I 1 shall try to dobo do so I 1 must say however the prospect before u UH LOOKS VERY DARK bark and we cannot write with much courage over nine months arel tiow past isiace we left home our OUT friends have g greatly encouraged us with the ane hope of a speedy deliver dellver deliverance and even our ene inies nies predicted griat six aix would be the longest we co could ibid d be kept here but week after weekend week nd month mouth after month pass yet seems further off than ever we are in formed now that it is most likely that the court will do nothing before its next session in february when they may take our cases under advisement for another year brothers tenney and ChrIstop christophersen hersen have both ben ben sick quite a while but are better now BOW I 1 have been able to do my work all the time but I 1 am not well the continual worry of mind together with our unfavorable circumstances can scarcely be expected to promote health ve we have now received the counsel to employ an able lawyer in detroit to bring our cases up under A WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS before the circuit court when one ot of the supreme judges of the U US S is here but what can we do we owe yet WO on our trial and have neither means nor chance to do anything and as our brethren have not be been beun enable unable able abie to defray the expense already incurred it would be unjust during the present pressure of ane crusade against the saints to ask for anything more eor tor my own part I 1 am perfectly satisfied if tue lord so desires it to spend the last days ot of my life as a martyr for the gosp gospels els eis sake yet I 1 feel once more to ask y your our indulgence id in ie referring ferring to the cru cruel oruel el inhuman and aud outrageous injustice j that anat has been perpetrated upon us the three victims now here in detroit over twenty years ago I 1 came to this free land of america I 1 then thoroughly believed inthe in the bible and b had a d great esteem for abraham jacob moses david etc who tho were the honored ancestors of our lord fjord and sav lor jesus christ I 1 considered them pure noble and honest men and I 1 took them for a pattern and married two wives since then we have lived as one family trying to support and educate our thirteen children who are now living twenty years after our marriam marrage ge and while I 1 t was living sixty miles apart from my second wife I 1 was indicted on a charge of having married her in 18 and though our oldest child is married and the youngest over four years of oease age i I 1 WAS CONVICTED by a packed jury of our oar bitterest enemies and dragged dragged away at midnight from my lawful wife and seven innocent children ohp are now living in the mogollon dlo Alo gollon mountains alone ana and and unprotected I 1 had removed to that place after three years failure of crops in st johnsl and had bad partly made a home when the frost took my fourth years cro crop i aad judge howard my liberty and robbed robbed my family of the last fast hope of support fromme from me I 1 was wag hurried away like a russian traitor some 2000 miles f from rom my home for the solitary crime of having baying twenty years previously sly siy married my second wife instead 0 of following the modern chris chris tian example and keeping her as my mistress in which case the edmunds edmunda law would not have turned ber her ber and her children into the public street in indis disi honor and disgrace now dear brethren let us just for one momen moment t consider the case from A DIFFERENT POINT OF VIEW VIEW suppose I 1 had beanan been an honored member of that great and fashionable methodist church of prescott and judge howard and the jury mor mons 11 can you imagine language that would be strong strone enough to condemn judge J u dge jury djury and the whole mormon people for allowing an act so outrageous 0 to o be done in ilis ills billsland theland land of relia rella religious ious lous liberty Is there an editor who neho would not nil fill his columns with the strong strongest est pst invectives against the bigoted and fanatical community Is there a minister who would not pronounce the most roost fearful anathemas ana themas and call on heaven and hell to revenge such unheard of cruelty in the century would president cleveland and the leading men of this nation have a minutes peace before the last remnant of the cormons mormons Mor mens mons was destroyed with fire and sword c but as it is myself a and nd my brethren who are the mormons cormons Mor Alor mons the whole nation says down with them prosecute prose cut them persecute them keep them imprisoned let their blood come upon us and our children SOME CLAIM it is not the whole nation then I 1 ask where is the non mormon paper that has ever mentioned a word in iri defense of three innocent men who have in thet ther most inhuman manner been dragged away from their families some 2000 miles and placed in a prison among crimin criminals alst aist who outside of the community e 0 m amar n lito to t 0 which we belong has ever e dared to say one word in our defense f e n or that of other similar victims bore lore iv who 1 are suffering in utah idaho and arizona Ari arl zona zoaa or has ever uttered a word in defense of our innocent suffering f families jiles has ever one minister of amt what is 11 called christianity given onh ona one oae wor word d of counsel in favor of letting a mormon have a fair lair trial Is there one lawyer in this nation that has done anything for our deliverance outside of our own people nove are mormons cormons Mor mons aldno and no injustice DO perversion of law is too cruel for us aito to suffer under 1 well do I 1 remember k 1 I 1 PRESIDENT BRIGHA 51 YOUNGS WORDS uttered some fifteen years ago you will all have trials as hard to bear as those of nauvoo etc but I 1 must conclude with hearty thanks to all who write to us and favor us and our families though my letters are not few I 1 appreciate kind words better than if they were grains of oid gold old may god bless our friends for every aery kind word they send your unworthy suffering brother in the gospel ot of christ christopher I 1 hemre hempe |
