132 Slide – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

4100 X. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

“the blood of Gordon on his soul’’ he could sit in a theater,
finding an interest in ita mimie scenes. He is horrified that
Gordon’s specter had not power to drive him from the ball-
room. Let him look to the records of insanity found in these
books, and the marvel will cease, These facts which so startle
him are the very marks of that insanity, which shows no ap-
preciable lesion of the mental faculties in which the victim
of the disease ‘‘never says 8 foolish thing, but exhibits his
insanity only in his actions and his sentiments.”

Thus, what fires the prosecutor with indignation, happens
to be precisely what onght to excite his commiseration. I
believe that if Gordon’s form appeared stark and atiff before
us now, the prisoner would be unmoved at the sight. Is it
because he is a desperate villain made callous by a life of
crime? Is it because a long career of wickedness has eradi-
cated humanity from his nature? We shall see; we shall see;
we have his life before us from youth to manhood, and can
answer the question. It comes to us in no ‘‘questionable
shape.” By the witnesses of the State, officers, non-commis-
sioned officers and privates, by civilians, by men of all avoca-
tions in life, and in all places withersocever an unhappy des-
tiny has carried the prisoner, so as to be seen and known of
men, the life is written the same way, the same story is told.
‘Whatever else in this cause may be uncertain, it is certain
that we have a correct view of the nature and character of
the prisoner, a fact of the last importance in determining the
question of his responsibility to law. But if we were igno-
rant of his past, if we knew nothing of the man but what has
been disclosed of his conduct from the death of Gordon to
his confinement in the St. Louisa jail, is there not something
in that narrative which perplexes you by its strangeness?
Do the annals of crime or your own experience furnish any-
thing like it? Is there not that in it which makes us pause,
which demands explanation, something that should press upon
the solicitude of jurors clothed with the power of life and
death?

The circuit attorney finds that the murder was determined
‘apon at Hutchinson's the previous night. He thinks the con-