The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1905-01-13
APPEAL FOR MRS. ROGERS
Continued from First Page.


ed to death. With Christian humility
he avowed his own unimportance be-
fore the law, but added, Must one be
great to sue for mercy?' In words
that burn through half hundred
years, he cried out for clemency for
this man, for Communication Of his SEN
tence, for the razing of the scaffold
and the rejection of the accused Tall
onic law THE viler the crime, the
longer the time need be forexplanation,
through years of remorse and puriiica
ton in repentant tears, he pleaded,
We are in the 10th century. We are
at the best stage, the best epoch of
progress, of art, of science, of love, Of
hope, of fraternity. instruments OF
death, what have we to do with us?'
Fifty years have passed, and in the
January of another Christian year and
century the gallows rise before us.
And this time it is not miserable man
| but miserable woman to be hanged
thereon. Paraphrasing, slightly the
great Hugo's words; There is today
in our land being who, though for
the rest of us the future is uncertain,
sees clearly approaching her last hour.
There is at this moment, while we
breathe freely and go about talking
and smiling and the heart within US
is CONSTRUCTED at the thought a wretch
who waits with her gaze fast fixed up
on certain day which spectre-like en-
larges and draws near. That day
which for all others OF us wears its
impenetrabe alluring mask, to her
alone reveals the SINISTER countenancs
of Death
"In a certain New England state,
amid the beauty OF the everlasting
hills, one outcast crouches in a prison
and makes her moan for mercy to un-
hearing walls. And even at the same
moment, remote in another state, an
other long immured is told Prepare
10 die' Two creatures are abandoned
by humanity, Each one for the same
revolting-to some OF us unimaginable
crime-the staying of her husband,
must herself be slain!
women OF New England, a hum.
bier voice than that Of half century
since appeals to you, Give me-, 1t ur-
ges, give me each one but a minute OF
your life, little minute OF your busy,
anxious life, your toilsome, patient
life, your noble life Of charitable deeds
yea, even your life of sanctified suffer
ing. Give me but a moment for my
question. Are we, by tacitly consent
ing, ourselves to put TO death fellow
creature? Are we TO make no sign oil
protest? Is it for us to say, in the
words of John Wilson to Anne Hutch
inson, three centuries back, in the
name of Christ, | deliver thee up to
Satanr
''Women OF New England, have We
not time to wonder if We, whose lives
have been easefnl, whose homes
abodes of JOY, whose husbands are up
right, should pretend fathom depths OF
thought of those who have dwelt in
ignorance in grinding poverty, in de-
basiag mental stagnation, until al
soul potentalities were stihed, anc
there remained only the primitive de-
sire and the binding lust of the flesh
; like that of lowest brutes? Have We
not time to confess that we may but
family understand, as one who, jour
neying through lovely wales, climbs
sunlt hills aud queuches thirst al
, crystal springs, may dream OF others
lost, long lost in poisonous swamp:
with hideous thickets and for the
parched throat-mire!
"Have we not time to ask who wa,
this woman-for she was woman
once. What was her childhood, wha
her youth? What we're the fearful ia
luences that beset her? Blacknes'
must have enveloped her soul-thC
blackness that enwraps the savage,
the heather of the far-of lands, tC
whom we send the faithful mission
aries. Have we no time for the whis'
per that stires within u.s. Once she
too, was Innocent Once she cculC
look up at you with the smile Of child
hood--even as your own child's smile!
The insistent whisper that grows loud
err and assails us: "Man-tempted, man
aided, man- betrayed, man-judged
man condemned, and, at the end, man
strangled" A human being, after all,
once dear to those who called her by
the sacred name of Mary.
"Women of New England, American
women in the truest sense: let not a
page be sullied in our time to be gaz-
ed upon with horror by postertiyl lie
not great stain mark the history o.
the second month of the fifth year o
the Twentieth Century The month Of
February, on the fifth day and on tht
| a.; Ja,, Of mitch ,