Show THE LADIES APPEAL APPEAL MEMORIAL FROM THE WOMEN OF UTAH TO THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS the cow co monttee appointed at the ladies mass meeting on march ath to memorialize the president anacon and congress of the united states in relation to the treatment received by the people of utah have completed their work and the following is the MEMORIAL to the honorable president and the senate and souse house of representatives of the united states in congress assembled sem bled GENTLEMEN we your memorial ests respectfully represent that at a mass meeting me etine or of the women of utah held inthe in the theatre salt lake city march 6 1886 attended by over two thousand ladies representing the wives mothers sisters and daughters of the whole territory the following resolutions were unanimously adopted PREAMBLE AND resolutions OF THE WOMEN OF CS UTAH IN MASS MEETING ASSEMBLED whereas the tights rights and liberties of women are placed in jeopardy by the present Pree ht cruel and inhuman proceedings in the utah courts and in the contemplated measure in congress to deprive the women voters in A utah of the elective franchise and whereas womanhood is outraged by the compulsion used in the courts of utah td to force mothers on pain of imprisonment to disclose their personal persona condition and that of their friends in relation to anticipated maternity and to give information as to the fathers of their children and whereas these violations of de bency have now reached the length of compelling legal wives to testify against their husbands without their consent in violation of written statutes and ana the provisions r ov of the common law therefore fore be it Bol Ke solved ved by the women of utah in mass meeting assembled that the suffrage originally conferred upon us as a political privilege has become a vested right by possession and usage for fifteen years and that we protest against being deprived of that right without process of law and for no other reason than that we do not vote to suit our political opponents resolved Se Be solved that we emphatically deny the charge that we vote otherwise than according to our awn own free choice and point int to the fact that the ballot is absolutely f secret in utah as proof that we are protected in voting for whom and what we choose with perfect liberty resolved Be solved chatas no wife of a polygamist legal or plural is t to 0 vote under the 01 laws aws of bf tho United estates to deprive non polygamous women of the suffrage is highhanded high handed oppression for which novalia no valid excuse can be offered resolved Be lU solved that the questions concerning berning their personal condition the relationship they bear to men marked down as victims to special law and the paternity of their born and unborn children which have been put to women before grand juries and in open courts in utah are an insult to pure pare womanhood an outrage upon tire the sensitive feelings of our sex and a dis graneto gr aceto officers and judges who have propounded and enforced them resolved Se Be solved that we honor those noble women who standing upon their rights and refusing to raly to improper and insulting questions such as no true man nor any court with any regard for propriety would compel them to answer have gone to prison and suffered without crime rather than punishment betray y the most sacred confidence and yield beld to the brutal mandates of a little brief authority B Ue esol solved ved that the action of the district attorney and the chief justice of utah in compelling a lawful wife to testify for the prosecution in a criminal case involving the liberty of her husband and in face of her own earnest protest is a violation of laws which those officials have sworn to uphold is contrary to precedent and usage for many centuries and is an invasion of family tights rights and of that union between husband and wife which both law and religion have heldi sacred from tint tim 2 immemorial resolved Be solved that we express our profound found appreciation of tae moral courage exhibited by senators call morgan teller brown and others and also by mrs belva H lockwood who in the face of almost overwhelming brej prejudice adice have defended the constitutional rights of the people of utah Be resolved solved that we extend our heartfelt thanks to the ladies of the woman suffrage association assembled in boton boston and unite in praying that god ma the day when both men and women shall shake from their shoulders theyone ot tyranny Pe resolved jRe solved that Tha twe we WI call upon the wivis wives and mothers of the united states to come to our help in resisting these encroachments encroach ments upon our liberties and these outrages upon our peaceful homes and family relations and that a committee be appointed at this meet ing to memorialize the president and congress of the united states in relation to our wrongs and to take all necessary measures to present our views and feelings to the country the following ladies were selected as a committee to draft sud and present a mi memorial morial to the president and anacon coh gress mrs S M kimball mrs E S laylor dr B R B pratt mrs M 1 I horne home salt lake city mrs mary john provo mrs mary nephi fechi mrs H C brown ogden miss ida ida f I 1 cook logan miss ida coombs payson in pursuance of this appointment we present the tol following lowing in behalf of the women of utah on the sand of march 1882 an act of congress was passed which is now commonly known as the edmunds law it was generally understood to have been framed for the purpose of settling what is called the utah question by condoning plural marriages up to that date and preventing their occurrence in the f future and also to protect the home maintain the integrity of the family and shield innocent women and children from the troubles that might arise from its enforcement but instead of being administered and executed in this spirit it has been made the means of inflicting upon the women of utah sorrow and unprecedented indignities of disrupting families of destroying homes and ot of outraging the kenderest ten derest and finest feelings of human nature the law has been so construed by the courts as to bring its penalties to bear upon the innocent T men ea who had honestly arranged with their families so as to keep within the limits of the law have been punished with the greatest possible severity and their wives and children have aen been forced before courts and grand juries and compelled to disclose the most secret and private relations which in all countries are held sacred to the parties the meaning of the law has been changed so many times that no one can say definitely what is its signification those who have lived by the law as interpreted in one case find as soon as they are entrapped that a new rendering is constructed to make it applicable to their own under the latest ruling a man who has contracted plural marriages no matter at how remote a date must not only repudiate his families and cease all connection with them but if he Is known to associate with them in the most distant manner support them and show any regard whatever for their welfare the offense of unlawful cohabitation is considered to have been fully established and he is liable to exorbitant lines fines and imprisonment for an indefinite period one district judge holding that a separate indictment may be found for each day dav of such association and recognition in the pase case of solomon edwards recently acau accused ed of this offense it was proven by the evidence for the prosecution rose cution that the defendant bax bad lived with one wife only since the passage of the edmunds act but after having separated from his former plural wife he called with his legal wife at the formers residence to obtain a child an agreement having been made that each party should have one of the two children and the court ruled that this was unlawful awful cohabitation in the meaning of the law and defendant was convicted in the case of lorenzo snow now on appeal to the supreme court of the united states the evidence for the prosecution showed that the defendant had bad lived with aly only one wife since the passage of the edmunds law that he had not even visited other portions of his family except to call for a few fe moments to speak to one of his bis sons but because he supported h bis is wives and children and did not utterly and entirely cast them off under instructions of judge orlando orlando W powers he was convicted three times for the alleged offense and sentenced in each case to the full penalties of the law aggregation DW fine besides costs and eighteen months imprisonment the judge stating in his instruction to the ejary jury itis it is not necessary that the ev evidence de nee should show that the defendant and these women or either of them occupied the same bed slept in the same room or dwelt under the same roof the offense of cohabitation is complete when a man to all outward appearances is living or associating W with ith two or more women as his wives 6 u thus women who are dependent upon themen the men whom they regard as their husbands with whom they have lived as they have regarded it in honorable wedlock must not only be separated from their society and protection but must be treated as outcasts and be driven forth with their children to shame and distress for the bare association of friendship is counted a crime and punished with all the severity inflicted upon those who have not in any way severed their plural family relations in order to fasten the semblance of guilt upon men accused ot of th this Is offense women are arrested and forcibly taken before sixteen men and plied with questions that no decent woman can hear without a blush alush little children are examined upon the secret relations of their parents and wives in regard to their own condition and the doings doing gs of their hus husbands banus it they decline to ans werthey answer they are imprisoned in the penitentiary as though they were criminals A few instances we will cite for your consideration in the third district court nov 14 1882 annie gallifant having beer been asked by the grand jury a number of questions which she declined to answer one of them being as to the name of the man to whom she was married I 1 she was brought into court and still declining was sent to the penitentiary where although daily expecting to become a mother she was kept till the grand jury was discharged on the trial of john connelly she was again brought luto court and asted asked when lid did you au first cohabit with your hus and how long lone after you on commenced co la biting with your husband was it that your jour child was born miss B harris was sentenced to fine ind and imprisonment in the second district court at beaver by judge twiss because she declined to answer whether she was a married woman and if so who was her husband she was taken to the penitentiary a building used for the confinement of criminals of the most hideous types with tier her babain her arms and leaving one behind with her mother mother when asked the questions mentioned by the grand we jury ury she answered I 1 gentlemen you have no legal right to ask this question and F I 1 decline to answer it the question was an insult anda vile insinuation of departed virtue and yet were she a public prostitute no such question would ever be acied asked she was fined 25 and imprisoned three and a half months when she was released b by judge twiss alss she is a lady wa with strength of caracter shar har acter who was defending fei iding a principle her right as a witness was as a sacred as any right rec in courts she was a martyr to personal right and in defense of a vital principle of freedom the question was not directed to her knowledge of any crime but to her social relation to another she not being charged with any crime on may 22 1884 in the same court nellie white for refusing to answer personal questions in re regard ard to her relations lations with jared was sent to the penitentiary under the same roof with murderers burglars and other convicts and confined there until antil july ath the gand jury being kept over and not discharged for the purpose of protract ing her imprisonment until the beginning of a new term in the court of U S commissioner McKay ck ay june 20 1885 elizabeth ann st starkey akey was brought in as ae a witness against charles S white on refusing to answer the question have you vou ever in this county within the last two years occupied the same bedkwith bed with defendant she was sentenced to one ds days imprisonment and a fine of 50 50 an and placed in the custody of the U S marshal until payment on june she again declined to answer and was fined and committed until payment on june she refused to answer similar personal questions to the grand jury and was committed to the penitentiary tent iary until august but was again imprisoned and kept till october ath while in prison she was approached pro ached and grossly insulted by an employed ot of the Mar marshals of september 1885 eliza shafer was sent to the penitentiary tor refusing to answer the question have you within three years last past lived and cohabited with J JW W snell as his wife the court ordered her imprisonment until the question was answered on february loth 1886 mrs martha T cannon was brought into the third district court and the grand jury complained that she would not answer certain questions among them the following are you not now a pregnant woman agare are you not now with child b by your husband george Q cannon an on still declining to answer the court adjudged her guilty of contempt and pending sentence she was placed under bonds of 2500 which were subsequently raised to on march ad 1886 miss huldah winters was arrested by deputy marshal vandercook at her home in pleasant grove forty miles distant no charge being preferred against her but it was suspected that she was a plural wife of george Q cannon she was brought to salt lake city and conducted to the court house where she was required to furnish bonds for for her appearance from time to time as she might be wanted under the ifie suspicion that any woman or young lady is some mans plural wife she is liable at any time to be arrested not merely subpoenaed but taken by force by deputy marshals mar marshals and brought before a grand jury ary and examined alad browbeaten brow beaten baten and insulted by the prosecuting attorney or his minions but this Is not all in defiance of law and the usages of courts for ages the legal wife is now compelled to submit to the same indignities on feb 20 1886 in the third district court in tile the second trial of isaac lan lanton langton ton upon whom the prosecution hadl had tailed ailed to fasten the slightest evidence of guilt prosecuting attorney dickson exclaimed if the co court art will allow me I 1 would like to call mrs langton defendants legal wife after a strong protest from the attorneys for the defendant the court permitted the outrage and against her and her husbands coL consent sent she was compelled to testify for the prosecution the evidence however completely exonerating one due rating the husband who was discharged but this has now been set up as a precedent and within the past few days a legal wife has been taken before the grand jurgas many have been be fore who refused to give evidence but this time was compelled to answer the questions propounded by the public prosecutor against the lawful husband we also direct your attention to the 0 outrages g es perpetrated by rough and brutal bl deputy marshals who watch around our dooryards door yards peer into our bedroom windows ply little children with questions about their parents and when hunting their human prey burst into peoples domiciles domiciled domi ciles an anater teri ter i the innocent 1 on jan U early in the liae mor |