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vi PREFACE TO VOLUME TEN

lost that gift of public speaking in the court-room
which so attracted the public a generation ago? It
might be worth while for some student in our newly-
founded schools of journalism to make a study of this
question and to give us the reason why the oratory of
the court-room is today practically ignored by the
press of the United States.

When John Hodges (p. 163) was indicted for trea-
son in the year 1815, he found that in the opinion of the
presiding judge, Mr. Justice Duvall, of the Supreme
Court of the United States, ‘Giving aid and comfort
to the enemy’? was a very comprehensive phrase.
But the jury understood that he was no traitor and
fortunately the jury had the last word.

The last act of the case of Leo M. Frank (p. 182)
was the final scene in a Tragedy of Errors in which
Justice was the real victim. The murder of a young
factory girl caused a great sensation in the community
and the people and newspapers jumped to the conelu-
sion that Frank—a northern Jew and college graduate
and the last person who had seen her alive—was the
murderer and demanded that he should be hanged.
But Frank had his friends, too, and soon what looked
like an organized campaign in his behalf, was started
in the Eastern States and kept up with unceasing
vigor after his conviction and while his case was pend-
ing before the Appellate Courts and the Governor of
Georgia. People thousands of miles away wrote let-
ters to the newspapers and signed petitions in which
they maintained that Frank was not guilty—men and
women who had not seen or heard a single witness and
who had nothing but hearsay on which to found their
opinions. Very naturally the people of Georgia re-
sented this interference with their courta and this out-

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