The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1906-11-03
Well. God Bless Herr

Some four or five years ago. John H. ORourke
OF New DIRK was convicted of setting fiie to his
livery stables and burning them for the purpose of
collecting the insurance. He was sentenced to
eight years IN the state prison. The governor of
the state has been petitiOned to pardon him by
many influential persons. but has denied them all
But few days ago this letter came to him:
My Dear Governor-My papa is in the prison
at Sing Sing, and want him to come home SO
bad. My mamma has had to put four of my sis
tiers and brothers in a childrens home at Green
ridge, on Staten Island, and oh! how she cries for
them and papa every night, which makes our
home very unpleasant. | trying to help my
ma by writing to YOU for mamma says you can let
papa come home if you want to; and oh. ! want
to ask YOU to please let him home to u.s. as he
was always a good papa, and he was always kind
to ma and US.
Mamma has five younger children besides me,
and she IS always crying, and | think if some kind
people had not helped her she would have died and
then we would have been left alone. We need pa
so bad and | am not able to go to work vet NV
little brother Frank had his fingers and toes frozen
last winter, and he nearly lost one foot. [ hope
your little girls won't lost their papa like lost
mine. Mamma says some kind people are going
to ask you to let papa come home to us; hope YOU
will, love him so much and then ma won't
cry any more.
Il pray every night for my dear papa and | am
going to pray every night and morning so that
God will let you give our papa again. Please
excuse my writing as am only little girl twelve
years old. Hoping you will answer this and with
love from six helpless children. Jennie, twelve;
Joe, eleven; Frank three; Elsie, eight; Gladys
five; Helen, three. Yours truly
JENNIE O'ROURKE."
The governor has issued an order that ORourke
be released on Christmas Good old boy, But by
all the powers of earth, air. heaven and the hot
place, there's one human being on this earth who,
had he been governor of the Empire state wouldn't
have waited minute. He would have teegraphed
to the warden to turn that man O'Rourke loose
next morning.
Oh you cynic who say the man committed the
crime and ought to be punished don't you see YOU
withering bothering chump, that it isn't ORourke
that is being punished, unless, perchance, the
thought of the destitute condition of his family
gnaws like canker at his heart day and night. as
perhaps it does Don't you know, you man of
morals and of strict ethics, that to err is human
but to forgive Is the God-ke quality What would
you do were you O'Rourke! Put yourself in his
place.
That man Higgins is good fellow He ought
to have been renominated for governor That
man has a heart in him. Although, on second
thought, that letter would have touched almost any
heart. That's a pathetic story, pathetcally old
Dear little girl Poor. sad-eyed sad-hearted moth
er! Poor erring father May the sunlight be
brighter for all III the future; may the grace of
the Infinite rest upon all of them purifying the
soul of the errng and bringing peace to the inner
most being of the family. May fortune smile on
the sire and enable him to provide for them all in
future without recourse to crime and his DAYS be
gladdened in his old age by the loving presence of
the daughter whose appeal is going to secure him
his liberty.-Utah State Journal.