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The Atlanta Georgian,
Friday, 22nd August 1913.
LEADING COUNSEL FO FRANK IN FULL SWING
Rosser's work on the Frank case has taxed even his remarkable physique. He has lost 25 pounds in weight.
Luther Z. Rosser Closes Arguments For defense.
CLOSING ARGUMENTS MAY TAKE ENTIRE DAY; DORSEY TO END CASE Quietly but impressively, Luther Z. Rosser began the final pick in the defense of Leo M. Frank, accused of the
murder of Mary Phagan, Friday morning. He spoke without heat in the introduction of his speech. He said that but for his profound
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FRANK TRIAL NEARING END; CASE NOT LIKELY TO REACH JURY TO-DAY
Continued from Page 1
conviction that his client was innocent he would not speak at all because the evidence spoke for itself.
Rosser was expected to speak for several hours and will be followed by Solicitor Dorsey, who may finish before evening. It seemed probably, however, that the final arguments would talk up the entire day and the judge make his charge tomorrow morning.
"Gentlemen of the jury," he began in a low voice, as he leaned against the railing of the jury box, "all things come to an end. With the end of this case it was almost the end of the trial. But for that masterly effort of my friend Arnold I almost wish it had ended without any speaking. My physical condition enables me to say but little. My voice is husky and almost useless. But for my intense interest, my profound conviction of the innocence of this man I would say nothing."
"I want to repeat what my friend Arnold so aptly said. This jury is no mob. The attitude of the juror's mind is not the attitude of the man who carelessly walks the streets. My friend Hooper must have brought that doctrine with him when he came to Atlanta."
Public Mind
Always Careless.
"We walk the streets careless, absorbed in our own interests. We pass our friends and do not recognize them. The mind wanders in flights of fancy and fits of revelry. We mean no harm to ourselves nor harm to your friends, but we are careless."
"Men, you are set aside. You came to be a part of that revelry of the streets. In old pagan Rome women walked the streets chatted gally and carelessly, but a few were set aside the vestal virgins. They cared not for the gladiatorial combats or the strife."
"So it is with you set apart, You care not for the chatter or the laughter of the rabble. You are unprejudiced. Yours is the sworn duty to pass on a matter of life and death. You are to decide on the evidence without an echo from any hostile mob. With no fear, no favor, no affect."
"Others may take the brave task of standing up for the weak and oppressed, but it is not for you. You are a still, silent, consecrated band. You are to do your duty without one thought of the past or the future. You are here and now consecrated by justice to do your duty. I do not feel that I can add to anything Mr. Arnold said except to touch the high palaces and probably wander afield Rome place where he did not go."
"No crime could be more frightful than this. That little girl in the sweetest period of her life was cut down by some brute and the public was horrified. We all agree that no punishment would be severe enough. It is nothing but human nature in a crime of this kind that a victim is demanded."
"A cry goes up for vengeance. It is the old law of an eye for an eye and a life for a life. It is the primeval man. The early Indian when his companion fell by his side demanded vengeance. He went out for a victim regardless of who it was. But, thank God, that age is past and in this intelligent twentieth century of ours we no longer say, Give us a victim, a sacrifice, but give us the guilty man.'"
An eloquent four-and-a-half address by Reuben Arnold for the defense marked the first day of the arguments in the Frank trial. Only two addresses were made to the jury, that by Arnold and the opening argument of the State by Attorney Frank A. Hooper, who has been associated with Solicitor Dorsey in the prosecution of the case.
Hooper spoke in the forenoon from 9 o'clock until 11:30. Arnold began his remarkable speech at 11:50 and was interrupted by recess at 12:30 o'clock. He returned at 2 and continued until 5:50 in the evening.
Arnold's speech was remarkable for the minute detail with which it covered practically every important phase of the great murder mystery for its satire, for its flashes of humor and sarcasm, for its impassioned appeal for the life and liberty of a man who was described as the innocent victim of one of the most nefarious plots ever hatched against a man's character.
The lawyer in bitter words charged that if it had not been for Frank's race he never would have been on trial for his life. He charged that the State had been compelled to bring its witnesses from the dregs of humanity, from the jails and from the convict camps, to perfect the terrible conspiracy against Frank.
He asserted that the Solicitor had been forced to warp and scratch the probabilities to the breaking point in order to bring about a suppositious situation in which it would have been possible for Frank to have committed the crime and gone through the disposal of Mary Phagan's body as described by Jim Conley. They built up a structure of testimony. They built up a structure of testimony against Frank by their own witnesses, he charged, and then proceeded to demolish it because it would not fit in with their theories or with the probabilities of the case.
Laughs at State's
Chain of Circumstances.
He held up to ridicule the theory of the State that the attack could have been premeditated on the part of Frank. He laughed at the chain of antecedent circumstances which the Solicitor and Attorney Hooper had endeavored to link together to show that Frank on Friday was contemplating the attack Saturday on the little factory girl.
He did not believe that Frank on Friday at 3 o'clock asked Jim Conley to come back the next morning to work at the factory. But if he did, said Arnold, how was he to know that Mary Phagan was not going to come after her pay envelope Friday night at 5:30 or 6 along with the rest of the employees?
He did not believe that Helen Ferguson asked Frank for the pay envelope of Mary Phagan and was refused. Of course, the Ferguson girl testified on the stand that she did but other testimony developed that Schiff was the man who paid off and not Frank at all. In whose word Arnold was inclined to place as much credence as in that of the State's witness, swore that she was standing by Helen Ferguson at the pay window and that the Ferguson girl got her envelope and never asked For the Phagan girl's pay.
But even granting that this was so argued Arnold, what reason had Frank to believe, accepting the State's theory that he knew all about Mary Phagan not coming for her pay Friday, that Mary would not come on Monday, the next work day, for her money, as was the general outcome in the pencil factory?
Arnold presented it as his positive conviction that the man who wrote the notes found by the body of Mary Phagan was her murderer. He branded Jim Conley as a miserable, lying scoundrel who was busily engaged in concocting stories, with the help of the detectives, with which he might save his own black neck from the hangman's noose. The crime, he said, was the work of a savage negro.
The eloquent lawyer paid his compliments to "Christopher Columbus" Barrett, the "discoverer" of the alleged blood spots and of the strands of hair on the lathing machine. He charged that Barrett was only after the reward money, and called to the attention of the jury that Chief of Detectives Lanford and his sleuths went over the same place on the factory floor Sunday where Barrett discovered the spots on Monday morning.
He further called their attention to the fact that four chips were taken up by the detectives in the place where the supposed blood spots were found and that on only one of them were any blood corpuscles found and then only t
hree or four, when one drop of blood contains thousands of the corpuscles. He referred to the testimony and showed that the chips were covered with grime and dirt and that there was nothing to show that the few blood corpuscles had not been there months or years.
The spots, in as much as they failed to respond to the blood test, he maintained, must have resulted from aniline dyes, exactly as the defense had contended from the very first.
C. B. Dalton, who was one of the spectators in the room, along with "Christopher Columbus" Batrett, heard himself described by the attorney as a "common liar" and heard again his chaingang and court record.
Says Detectives
Coached Negro.
Arnold then turned his attention to the negro Conley's story, as told in his various affidavits and on the stand. He took it from the first and pointed out what he deemed the inconsistencies and the impossibilities.
He pictured the detectives helping the negro in his story. He exhibited a chart and pointed out the time discrepancies in the State's case from the viewpoint of the defense. He concluded with an appeal to the jury not to be swayed by prejudice or by any slander that had been uttered against the prisoner.
Attorney Hooper made a vigorous assault on Frank's morals in the opening argument of the trial He charged that Frank, respected among the people of influence of the city, might very easily carry on his acts of immorality in the factory without its becoming a matter of general knowledge.
He accused the young factory superintendent of having Dalton as one of his associates in the gay parties that the State charges were held in Frank's office and in which several women participated.
Hooper said that his trio Frank, Darley and Schiff practically had the moral lives of the factory girls in their hands. He charged that as result the factory had been the scene of many grossly improper incidents, and that Frank had started an acquaintance with the Phagan girl which later culminated in the tragedy on April 26.
He charged premeditation. He said that the pay of Mary Phagan deliberately was withheld from Helen Ferguson on Friday so that the Phagan girl would come for her envelop Saturday. He was convinced that Conley was told on Friday to come to the factory Saturday so that he might watch against unwelcome interruptions while the Phagan girl was on the second floor.
Attorney Outlines
Plot Against Girl.
The State's attorney outlined a horrible plot against the innocence of the pretty little factory girl, on whom he said Frank's lustful eyes had been for weeks. He stopped just short of charging premeditated murder.
"I do not have any idea," he said, "that Frank had murder in his heart when he went back to the metal room with the little girl on Saturday."
Hooper believed in the negro. He expressed his opinion that Conley finally had arrived at the truth and would stick there under the severest pressure. He showed how his story dove-tailed in with the other circumstances of the case.
"That girl was killed on the second floor of the factory," he declared. "Either Frank did it or he sat supinely in his office where he could not fail to have heard the scream and the sounds of the struggle, nor could he have failed to see the negro when he sought to dispose of the body. The latter supposition is preposterous and we must return to the belief that Frank was the guilty man."
Hooper said that the incidents Conley related as taking place in Frank's office were the most natural things in the world. He declared that Conley could not have manufactured the conversation out of his own knowledge. Frank must have been there and uttered the words that Conley put into his mouth in his affidavits to the police and his story on the stand.
Hooper closed his address with an inquiry as to the whereabouts of W. H. Mincey, who was expected to swear that Conley made a virtual confession to him.
CHARACTERISTIC POSE OF SOILCITOR
AS HE MAKES A CONVINCING POINT
Hugh M. Dorsey snapped in action at the Frank trial.
Gesticulations aid the prosecutor in his arguments. Mangum to Run for Sheriff Next June
Declaring the rumor that he expected to retire because of ill health is groundless, Sheriff Wheeler C. Mangum announced again Friday that he will be a candidate to succeed himself at the elections next June. Sheriff Mangum states that his health is as good as he wants it to be, and that he expects to be in good shape for many years.
With Sheriff Mangum in the race, it is generally thought that there will be at least four candidates for the office. Friends of Plennie Miner, chief deputy under the present Sheriff, have been urging him to run, and it is said he has consented to become a candidate. John Owens and Drew Lydell are also named as possibilities in the race.
PAGE 3
HOOPER AND ARNOLD IN ARGUMENT MADE MOST OF THEIR OPPORTUNITIES By JAMES B. NEVIN
Frank Hooper's speech in behalf of the prosecution against Leo Frank, charged with the murder of little Mary Phagan, reflected much credit upon him.
It was fair, to the point, well thought out and appealing in tone and delivery.
It went for the defendant, hammer and tongs, but it was devoid of anything that might be construed as below the belt.
Undoubtedly, it was not pleasant to the defendant, sitting there, stolidly, following the words of Hooper but Dorsey and Hooper, in its final aspect, have made out a most dangerous case against Frank, and Hooper was there to explain and sustain it. He performed his duty in a way that hardly can fail to bring him lasting applause and commendation.
If, however, Frank felt to the full the gloom of the case made out against him by Hooper, he was more than abundantly taken care of when Arnold followed.
The case made out in defense of Frank by Arnold was extremely plausible it covered in detail every point developed by Hooper. It, like Hooper's, was a speech evidently carefully considered.
Jury Held In High Esteem.
Now, the thing about these two speeches that made them particularly and uniquely noteworthy, perhaps, is that both were seemingly designed for the consideration of a jury held to be highly intelligent and not apt to rush pell-mell to a verdict either for or against Frank.
And if the opposing counsel entertain the opinion of the jury if they hold it in such compelling esteem and respect and if the jury is such a jury as deserves that opinion, which I think it is, then the chances are that its verdict will be righteous and just, whatever it may be.
And that the finding of this jury SHALL speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth that, in the words of Hamlet, "is a consummation most devoutly to be wished!"
"Try this case, gentlemen, according to the law and the facts!" said Frank Hooper, addressing the jury Thursday.
That is the final and ultimate request any man for or against the defendant could or should make of the "twelve good men and true" there to pass upon the fate of Leo Frank.
Neither the State nor the defense, in justice and right, dare will plead for more or less!
The two opening speeches in murder trials are presumed to outline clearly the trend of the completed arguments both ways.
Concluding attorneys may amplify and enlarge upon points raised by opening attorneys, but they rarely go far beyond the primary outlining of the two main points of view.
And so, while Rosser and Dorsey may go further than Hooper and Arnold in invective, sarcasm, ridicule and passionate outbreak, neither is apt to add anything material to either side, as compared with the things Hooper and Arnold have said.
There is some advantage to the State or, at least, there is supposed to be some advantage to it in that it has the concluding argument before the jury.
No Injustice There.
Some people think this is an injustice and a hardship upon the defense, but when one comes to consider the theory upon which that practice is founded the apparent injus
tice and hardship of it vanishes, and it may be seen readily enough that in this, as in so many things the law has been most carefully thought out
And is just and right.
The law throws about the defendant at bar the presumption of innocent
It places upon the State the burden of proving him guilty, rather than putting upon the defendant the burden of proving himself innocent.
But the law, having done this, permits the final voice to be the voice from the grave.
The dead he or she is not there to speak, and to say as to the truth, and so the law directs that the State's prosecuting counsel shall speak it instead.
Thus does the law, with impartial hand, protect first the defendant and the protect quite as jealously its own majesty, and the rights of the dead!
The law, however, in the event the defendant elects to introduce no witnesses in his behalf, and to rely solely upon his own isolated statement, not under oath, reverses the order of argument and permits the defense to open and close for the law will not permit a defendant even to place himself at a disadvantage without fully compensating him for the same!
What will the Frank jury say?
Will it find the prisoner not guilty, clear his name of all stain and send him forth a free man?
Or will it find him guilty and fasten upon him forever the disgrace of one of the most inhuman and diabolical crimes ever committed in Georgia?
To render the latter verdict, it must believe Frank a monster, lost to every sense of decency and right a man who has meanly and unpardonably deceived his mother, his wife, his friends, his faithful employees and his acquaintances. It must believe him a cruel murderer, for an unspeakable lust the vilest and most evil creature ever known among his kindred and his kind!
Will the jury believe that? It is not easy to think it will.
And yet
The Alternative.
Not to believe it is to believe those girls who swore Frank's character is bad, who cited instances of a suspicious nature to uphold that belief, are wrong that they knew him not, notwithstanding their opportunity and that all the circumstances of the crime seemingly connecting him with it are errors and that Conley's story, no less too big to be true than too big to be untrue, still is untrue, and that all the thins alleged against Frank either are wrong naturally or wrong by design and malicious purpose!
Will the jury look at the matter that way? It is not easy to think it will!
And yet, again, it MUST believe the one or the other or there will be no verdict!
What, then, CAN honest minded mortals, men and women who want to see the right and the right alone prevail, do other than put their faith in the JURY there, and believe that it will speak the TRUTH of this case, no matter what may be anybody's preconceived opinion?
The time for argument has passed. Rosser and Arnold and Hooper and Dorsey have about concluded that.
The general public should now prepare itself to receive the verdict as the final and determining circumstances in the cases.
Individual opinion is interesting at times, but after all, one man's opinion is as good as another's, but not more so.
The Important Thing.
What you think, reader, and what I think, is relatively inconsequential the thing that matters SUPREMELY now, and the thing that alone matters supremely, is what does the JURY think, and what will the jury say!
No one of us has the opportunity to know so well the ins and outs of the case as the jury. The jury does not read what I write nor does it hear what you say. It is there, in the courtroom, aside from the outside world, off to itself, a thing apart there to do justice, to the State and to Frank, though the heavens fall!
There is no responsibility up individuals expressing opinion pro and con. They are not under oath the life of a human being, on the one hand, and the majesty of the law of the land on the other, are no direct legal concerns of theirs.
It is all very well for you to say, "If I were running this thing I would turn Frank loose in a jiffy," or "If I were running this thing I would hang Frank," when there is no legally impose and oath-bound obligation upon you to render a verdict that means something definite in law.
With a juryman, however, the case is different he is there to fashion a finding that means everything!
Within twenty-four hours, perhaps, the public will know what the Frank jury thinks of the case made against him.
The jury may convict him, and it may acquit him.
No man possibly can know, at this time and nothing is so uncertain in the matter of forecasting as the verdict of a jury.
Public Should Accept Verdict.
But whether it be acquittal or conviction, the public should, and the law-abiding public WILLL, prepare itself to accept that verdict as righteous and just.
No man ought to be willing to set his opinion doggedly against that of those "twelve good men and true," whatever their verdict may be.
Leo Frank, the defendant, is entitled to all the protection the law gives defendants he is entitled to an absolutely fair trial, without favor or prejudice, one way or the other. He is entitled to all of that but no more.
The State has rights as sacred as the defendant's they must be considered.
What more can human ingenuity and the forms of law provide by way of finding the truth of a case like the one now on trial, than has been provided in the present hearing?
"Governor Slaton" Is One of the
Most Distinguished Young
Cats in Atlanta.
"Governor Slaton" was peeved, and justly so, for a hurrying travelling man had stepped on his tail. He arched his back, dug his claws into the soft rugs at the Hotel Ansley and snarled vengefully. He loved nobody and nobody loved him.
Then Miss Glady's Brinkley came along. Miss Brinkley is one of the prettiest of the young women who worked at the Ansley. Diners unite in saying that the smiles she dispenses as she hands out the hats at the door of the rathskeller are worth more than the dinner.
It was one of those whole-souled, joyful smiles that Miss Brinkley bestowed on the disconsolate "Governor." The "Governor" succumbed to the witchery of the smile and knew right away that he had found a friend. So he sheathed his claws, dropped his back, and leaped straight into Miss Brinkley's arms, where he purred contentedly while she stroked him behind the ears and crooned over him.
For "Governor Slaton" isn't what you might think he is at all!
He's a cat!
And the "Governor" is quite a remarkable cat, too. To begin with, he is snow white; not a blotch of color mars his sleek beauty. He is absolutely alone in the world, having no brothers and sisters, and his mother deserted him when he was quite young. He is further distinguished by the fact that he probably is the only cat in captivity born in a big hotel. For the "Governor" first saw the light of day in a vacant room on the thirteenth floor of Atlanta's newest hostelry.
"Governor Slaton" does not care much for human companionship except Miss Brinkley but once again in a while he will allow Mrs. Morgan, who keeps a shop on the mezzanine floor, to pat him. He has no use for men, unless they come bearing gifts, which he accepts and then sticks a claw into the hand of the giver. He is happy about six hours a day. That is when Miss Brinkley is on duty and he can snuggle up at her feet or purr luxuriously in her lap.
And Miss Brinkley likes the "Governor," too.
"All cats are nice," she said, "but I just dote on Governor.' He is so well behaved, and never tries to scratch me. He always hunts me up when I go to work, and will sit with me for hours at a time. The Governor' has been my friend ever since I first saw him, the day the travelling man stepped on his foot. I felt so sorry for him I couldn't keep from cuddling him."
The hotel attaches tell a rather remarkable tale about the coming of the cat, which shows why he was named "Governor Slaton." It seems
that when the rugs came to the Ansley and workmen took them to the thirteenth floor, a big white cat jumped out when they unrolled one. Kitty ran down the hall, and no attention was paid to her. Two weeks later this hotel opened, and Governor John M. Slaton was the first man to register. The same night one of the hotel employees found a little white cat on the thirteenth floor, crying its little heart out for something to eat. By consulting a few clocks and watches, it was learned that the cat had been born at the exact moment Governor Slaton was inscribing his name on the hotel register hence the name.
PAGE 4
ROSSER RIDICULES STATE'S CASE
Dorsey Prepares for Final Attack on Frank
LEADING COUNSEL FOR FRANK IN FULL SWING
ROSSER A "WIREGRASS" MAN, TOO HOOPER
During his argument Attorney
Rosser referred to Attorney Hooper
Of the prosecution, as "my friend from the wiregrass."
Not long after the jury was ex-
cused for a breathing spell. Hooper
came over to the press table and
said that he wanted us to make an ex-
planation of where he came from after Mr. Rosser's humorous refer-ences to him.
"We both came from Randolph County," Hooper said, "and I guess Mr. Rosser knows about as much about poghers and wiregrass as I do".
Rosser's work on the case has taxed even his remarkable physic. He has lost 25 pounds in weight.
Luther Z. Rosser closes argument for defense.
Rosser possesses none of the graces of the pleasing speaker, but in forcefulness he is hardly surpassed at the Atlanta bar.
SOLICITOR AND CITY DETECTIVES SCORED, FOR TACTICS IN CASE
For three and one-half hours Friday Luther Rosser, making the final plea of the defense, held the State's case against Leo M. Frank, charged with the murder of Mary Phagan, up to the scorn of an intently listening jury in a masterful, analytical and denunciatory closing argument. It was one of the most striking speeches of its kind ever heard in a Georgia court. For the most part Mr. Rosser was cool and decisive but at times he grew bitter in his attack on the methods he attributed to Solicitor Dorsey and the detectives.
Jim Conley he discussed with unsparing epithets. He declared that it was a shame to the city and State that the word of "a filthy, criminal, lying negro" should be taken in an effort to hang a man, and that the State would regret it for many a day.
He analyzed all the so-called suspicious circumstances held against Frank, and asserted that only distorted minds made these circumstances "suspicious."
Has Courtroom on Verge of Tears.
In a moving description of the death of Mary Phagan and the picture her body made as it lay in the morgue, Mr. Rosser had many in the courtroom on the verge of tears, but the motif' of his talk was not pathos but ridicule, denunciation and calm analysis.
When the noon recess was taken Rosser had just launched into his attack on Conley and at the afternoon session was expected to pick the negro's story to pieces.
Solicitor Dorsey will follow with an exhaustive arraignment of Frank, a general denial of the charges that "prejudice" has figured in the case and a review of every damning circumstance against the prisoner. It seemed likely that he will not finish his argument Friday, and the case will probably not go to the jury before Saturday morning.
Rosser's Speech Remarkably Calm.
Rosser's speech was remarkable for its calmness, but its very quietness added to its impressiveness. For the most part he bought to impress upon the jury that "fair play" must be done, and that they were a sacred body set apart to weigh facts and do justice uninfluenced by outside consideration.
However, the speaker was unsparing in discussing Jim Conley, C. B. Dalton and the methods used by the detectives to set evidence that he held up to ridicule. When he had been talking for two hours he launched into an indirect but bitter arraignment of Solicitor Dorsey, referring particularly to the attempt to make Frank's hiring of Rosser look like a damning circumstance.
Calls Dorsey's Insinuations Contemptible.
"My friend Dorsey," he said, "made much of the fact that Frank hired the lawyer. The charges and insinuations that he has made are the most contemptible that have ever occurred in a Georgia court. The things he has done in this trial will never be done in Georgia again. I will stake my life on that.
"You may question Frank in his judgement, he might have hired a better lawyer than I. He might have hired a more decent lawyer, but he couldn't have hired a more devoted lawyer. I will saw that for myself if I drop dead in my tracks."
"Gentlemen of the jury," he began in a low voice, as he leaned against the railing of the jury box, "all things come to an end. With the end of this case it was almost the end of the trial. But for that masterly effort of my friend Arnold, I almost wish it had ended without any speaking. My physical condition enabled me to say but little. My voice is husky and almost useless. But for my intense interest, my profound conviction of the innocence of this man, I would say nothing."
Public Mind
Always Careless.
"I want to repeat what my friend Arnold so aptly said, "This jury is no mob. The attitude of the jurors' mind is not the attitude of the man who carelessly walks the street. My friend Hooper must have brought that doctrine with him when he came to Atlanta."
"We walk the streets carelessly, absorbed in our own interests. We
PAGE 5
ASKS HOW DID FRANK KNOW GIRL WOULD COME FOR HER PAY?'
No Way for Him to Know She Would Call on Holiday, Rosser Asserts
DETECTIVES ARE SCORED
AS ACTIVE GANG' BENT
ON CONVICTING ACCUSED
Continued from Page 1.
pass our friends and do not recognize them. The mind wanders in flights of fancy and fits of revelry. We mean no harm to ourselves nor harm to our friends, but we are careless."
"Men, you are set aside. You came to be a part of that revelry of the streets. In old pagan Rome women walked the streets chatted gally and carelessly, but a few were set aside the vestal virgins. They cared not for the gladiatorial combats or the strife."
"So it is with you set apart, You care not for the chatter or the laughter of the rabble. You are unprejudiced. Yours is the sworn duty to pass on a matter of life and death. You are to decide on the evidence without an echo from any hostile mob. With no fear, no favor, no affect."
"Others may take the brave task of standing up for the weak and oppressed, but it is not for you. You are a still, silent, consecrated band. You are to do your duty without one thought of the past or the future. You are here and now consecrated by justice to do your duty. I do not feel that I can add to anything Mr. Arnold said except to touch the high palaces and probably wander afield Rome place where he did not go."
"No crime could be more frightful than this. That little girl in the sweetest period of her life was cut down by some brute and the public was horrified. We all agree that no punishment would be severe enough. It is nothing but human nature in a crime of this kind that a victim is demanded."
"A cry goes up for vengeance. It is the old law of an eye for an eye and a life for a life. It is the primeval man. The early Indian when his companion fell by his side demanded vengeance. He went out for a victim regardless of who it was. But, thank God, that age is past and in this intelligent twentieth century of ours we no longer say, Give us a victim, a sacrifice, but give us the guilty man.'"
Rosser Analyzes
Dalton's Character.
"I believe this jury is a courageous jury. I know they are not like primeval men. I know they are not lime primeval men, who sought to find a victim whether he was guilty or not. Let us see who is the man most likely to have committed the crime. You want to ask what surroundings such a crime was likely to have come from, and to look at the man who was most likely to have done it."< /p>
"My friend Hooper understood that. He said that the conditions at the factory were likely to produce such a crime, but as a matter of fact the conditions are no better and no worse than in any other factory. You find good men and bad man, good women and bad women. What man raises one word against the moral atmosphere of that factory? Conley? Yes. I'll come to him later, not now. Dalton? Yes. I'll take up his case right now.
"God Almighty when He writes upon a human face does not always write a beautiful hand, but He writes a legible one. If you were in the dark with that man Dalton, wouldn't you put your hand on your pocketbook? If you wouldn't, you are braver men than I. The word "thief" is written all over his face. My friend Rube Arnold said when Dalton came to the stand, "That's a thief or I don't know one." I smelled the odor of the chaingang upon him; I reached' for him; I felt' for him; I asked him if he had ever been long away from home. He evaded me. When he left the stand, I said, Rube, that man's been in the chaingang as sure as there's a God in heaven.' And, sure enough, we looked him up, and he had been. Then he came to Atlanta, and they said he had reformed. But there are two things in this world I do not believe in. One is a reformed thief and the other is a reformed woman of the streets."
"Joining the Church Is
Old Trick of Thieves."
"One the cross the thief prayed, and the Master recognized him. He gave him forgiveness. He saw the thief and before the thief spoke He recognized him as a thief. But the Lord is all-forgiving, and He said to the thief, This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.' Now, I have no faith in these reformed thieves. I have no faith in a reformed prostitute. Tell me you can reform a thief? I mean a thief at heart, and the man who has thievery in his heart will carry it there all his life. He may steal with secrecy, and be safe, but the thievery is still within him. You may reform other criminals, but the thief never."
"Has Dalton reformed? Oh, he has done the beastly thing. He has done the low, with a sanctimonious expression on his face. He slinks down upon a congregation of godly people and deceives them. He joins them in hypocritical carrying on of their work. He deceives them. Why, gentlemen of the jury, joining the church is an old trick of thieves, and here before us we have had the real illustration, that of a thief who stinks in two counties and goes into another to get away from the odor of his past existence."
"Here is this man Dalton, of the Anglo-Saxon race. Yes, gentlemen of the jury, he had a white face, but that was all. He was black within. What did he do, this thief who joined the church? Look how brazenly he advertised his immorality. When he was placed upon the stand and questioned as to his acts, he could have declined to answer; he could at least have hung his head in shame. But was he ashamed? No; he was as proud of his dirty immorality was a young boy with a new red top. He smiled over it. He gloated over it. It was the first time in his existence that a group of respectable men and women had listened to him, and he fairly gloated."
"Did you hear what he said when asked as to what Frank was doing in his office? He said: I had such a peach myself that I had no time to give attention to anyone else.' Gentlemen, he said he had Daisy, and you saw Daisy. She was the peach!' Poor Daisy! She is not to blame. If she has fallen, which I pray to God she has not, let us forgive her, like the Saviour forgave the Magdalene."
"Gentlemen of the jury, I don't say all of us have been free of passion's lust, but I do say that most of humanity guilty of the crime hold it private. A gentleman wants decent surroundings when committing such an act. He wants cleanliness. No decent man ever stood on the stand and bragged about the peace' that he had. Why, even the beasts of the field hide that."
"Burns had it right when he said in that poem about be gentle with your brother man, be gentler with your sister woman.' That ends with the line, Tis human to step aside.'"
Dalton went and got that peace' and carried her to his scuttlehole like a gopher. Did you ever see a gopher? My friend Hooper used them for chains down in South Georgia all his life. The gopher has a hole, with usually a rattlesnake for his companion. Ain't that a fine combination? In that dirty, filthy old hole of the pencil factory, an old goods boxes, with an odor which if put to the nose of a skunk would be offensive, where a dog would not step aside, where an old lascivious cat would not crouch that's Dalton. Yet only he and Jim Conley have brought charges of immorality against this factory.
"I am going to be fair with you, gentlemen, if I can. I am not going to tell you the truth. I thought this case was to be tried by a Solicitor General. God save the mark! I've never seen such partisan feelings before."
Says State Witness
Left Serpent's Trail.
"This arm of the State is to protect the weak, yet I've heard something I've never heard before, and I never expect to hear as long as God lets me live. The Solicitor said, I'll go as far as the court will allow me. That's the crux of this whole case. When the Solicitor General said that, God only knows how far the detectives want. Dalton said he went to the factory some time last year, between the hours of 1 and 2 o'clock. Did he go into the Woodenware Company's part of the building or into the pencil factory? There's nothing to show, except that wherever he went he left the trail of a serpent behind him. Frank didn't know he was there. It was Frank's lunch hour. If Dalton went, he was taking advantage of the factory authorities."
"When we come to consider it, what is there about this factory to make it so bad as the State has tried to paint it? It was searched by my friend Starnes, who wouldn't stop at anything to get evidence. It was searched by that delightful man John Black. Do you know when I think of him I just want to take him in my arms and caress him. And it was searched by Patrick Campbell, that noble detective who wouldn't go on the stand for fear I might ask him about his tutorage of Jim Conley."
"The entire police department, in all its pride, went over the record of that factory with a fine-toothed comb. What have they found?"
"Let's see. In the first place we have had a mighty upheaval in the last two years. It is wrong to commit adultery, but with segregation, the proper surroundings, and a decent amount of secrecy, the world tolerates it. But Chief beavers doesn't.
CHARACTERISTIC POSE OF SOILCITOR
AS HE MAKES A CONVINCING POINT
Hugh M.
Dorsey
snapped in
action at the
Frank trial.
Gesticulations
aid the
prosecutor
in his
arguments.
He has combed the town with a fine-toothed comb. Young women have had to fly to cover, and young men are down the middle of the road. That immoral squad; what do they call it, Brother Arnold? Oh, yes; the vice squad, has swept the town with a broom until there is not one lascivious louse left in the head of the body politic. And now they try to tell us this pencil factory was an immoral resort."
"Who has one word to say against that boy Schiff? Who has a word to say against young Wade Campbell?"
Rosser turned toward Attorney Hooper at this point, and continued: "You were willing, without one line of testimony, to attack the characters of these young men, so that you may carry your case. You are willing to clasp this Bertus Dalton to your breast as though he were a 16-year-old. If I know a single thing on this earth I know the ordinary working man and working woman of Georgia. I have an ancestry of working people behind me. My parents were working people. With 100 of Atlanta's working girls, with about the same number of Atlanta's hardy working men, in that factory on Forsyth street. I assert they could not have been there eight long years if the factory had been an immoral house. Those girls would have fled. The outraged citizens would have torn down
that old building, stone by stone. You may assert that those girls wouldn't have fled, but I tell you I have a higher conception of the Georgian working girl than to believe for one minute that she would have remained."
"If I am mistaken, and 100 willing females stayed there, and 100 thin-blooded males stood by and let conditions continue. I assert the factory could not have lasted 48 hours. NO man in charge of a business of that magnitude ever yet attempted to be on terms of criminal intimacy with the scores of women in his employ but that they didn't rule him with stronger reins than the Queen of Sheba."
"Frank's Statement
Had Ring of Truth.'"
"What do you think would become of a factory superintendent who got on intimate terms with his women employees? This would be bad enough for a native born American, but what would you think full-blooded Americans would do or say about a foreigner who came here and attempted such a thing, and especially considering the antipathy which has always been borne to the Jewish race?"
"Now, I have shown you that the factory has been prosperous, and we know well enough that it could not have been prosperous if immorality had been allowed to exist there."
"Now, let's take up the man. I don't have to tell you that he is smart. Every one of us knows that. When he got upon the stand and talked to you, he gave illustration of being one the most remarkable men I have ever met. His talk to you was, indeed, remarkable, and as I sat and listened to it for the first time. I wondered and marveled at the brain of the man. I could never have made up a speech like that, even if I had had the brains. And it wasn't a written speech, either. It was the truth, gushing out naturally as does the water from the flowing spring. There was no force behind it. There was no electricity there. It was the plain, simple flowing truth as mother Nature furnished it."
"Gentlemen of the jury, if Frank's tank to you had been forced, it would not have had that ring of truth to it. You may make a silver dollar that in appearance would fool the Secretary of the Treasury. But drop that dollar and the ring will tell. The real dollar has the real ring, the silver ankle that can not be mistaken. And the real truth, like the real ring, has the ring that shows that it is nothing but the truth."
"Frank's words had the ring that come from old Mother Nature's breast when telling the truth. The old saying is that the idle brain, is the devil's workshop. No one knowns this better than I do. When I am busy, I am one of the nicest men you ever met. I eat regularly and get plenty of sleep, and I behave myself. I mean I am fairly good. But let me stop work for a couple of days and there is no telling where I will light. It is the man with nothing to do who gets into mischief."
Why Frank's Character
Was Put in Evidence.
"Who do you catch stealing and doing mischief all around? It is the idle folks. An old bank retired from active business in New York was once given a banquet, and this is what he said when his faithful employees gathered around him: In my 40 years in this bank, it has been an unfortunate coincidence that nearly every man connected with the bank has been under suspicion at one time or the other. But there is one thing I wish to say. There was never a hard-working, thrifty man among you who was ever found guilty in the slightest way.'"
"Now, gentlemen of the jury, that is the way it is in every walk of life. When you watch a great river flowing on to the sea, you don't take a spyglass and pick out the little eddies. No. You look at the heavy flow of the waters as they move majestically along."
"So it is with human life. It is this way with the hard-working man who follows the straight course and goes on in a majestic flow on the even tenor of his way. It is not for the jury, trying him, to take the spy-glasses and search out the small eddies. In his character, but let them take his full character, the broad and majestic flow of it."
"If we hadn't said a word about his character, the court would have instructed you to assume a good character. Under the law, we could have remained mute, and his character would have been good to you. But we didn't wish to do that. We wanted you to know what manner of man he was. I say to you with all the sincerity of my soul that no man within the sound of my voice could show as good character as he has, fi put to such a test. I am not dealing with the infamous lies of Dalton and Conley."
"But you say, Wait a minute. Some people said he had a bad character. That's correct. I am not going to try to fool you. I am going to deal with the facts."
"I couldn't fool you if I tried. Let's see who they are who say he has a bad character. You know you can find some people to swear against anyone. Suppose my friend Arnold had occasion and so far forgot himself as to put my character up. Don't you suppose you could find a hundred men in Atlanta to swear that I am vicious? I am not not extraordinarily so, but in my long practice of law, perhaps I have wronged someone. Perhaps sometimes in my zeal I have been too sever, and some people may think they have a just grievance against me."
"Now, what did this young man do? Here are the young ladies, and I haven't a word to say against them. The older I get the gentler I become, if anything. Oh, why would I abuse and vilify anyone? With our lives a moment bright, then dark forever, why should I?"
"Here is Miss Myrtice Cato. She worked there three and a half years. If she was a sweet, pure girl, and I take it for granted she was, would she have stayed there that long, constantly associated with Frank, if he was a vile man? She would have fled from him long ago. Oh, she has felt the bitterness of the rabble since this crime occurred. She was under the tense heated atmosphere of this trial."
"Then Miss Maggie Griffin. She worked there two months two years ago. What does she know about Frank compared with these women who have been there for years?"
Miss Estelle Winkle had an extensive acquaintance with Frank. She worked there're one week in 2010. Miss Carrie Smith, like Miss Cato, worked there three and a half years, and the other few worked there very brief periods.
"That's all, gentlemen, of the hundreds of women who worked there during the last five years."
Scores Detectives
As "Active Gang."
"Why, I could find more people to swear against the Bishop of Atlanta. They have searched every corner. They have spyglassed every nook. Starnes and Black and Campbell and Rosser, generated by that mighty detective, Chief Lanford."
Attorney Rosser turned and addressed the detectives grouped around the prosecution's table.
"You are an active gang," he said to them. "Not only that, but how much of the Minola McKnight methods you have used nobody knows. How they have wheedled and turned and twisted the minds of these little girls no one but God Almighty knows. Hundreds of men have worked in that factory, and they are the larger vessels, but notions of them appeared here to testify against Frank's character.
"Has no man who ever worked their brains enough to accent the corruption and depravity that existed around the factory? Here is that long-legged fellow Gantt. My friend Hooper here tried to explain why he left but you know why he was fired. He was there for three months. Don't you know that if Frank's character had been what they said it was, if he had been the lascivious fiend, the brute, and moral Mary, and this Gantt said Frank told him he seemed to know Mary Phagan very well. Gantt did not tell that before the coroner's inquest and that other young fellow had to be wheedled and led by my friend Dorsey, only to get tangled up and prove that knew nothing.
"Then what was next? The next was a little boy named Turner. I am not here to say anything against Turner, but look at the detectives with their claws about him. Remember what they did to Minola McKnight, and then you will realize what happened to the boy.
"Turner testif
ied that he went into the metal room and saw Frank speak to Mary Phagan. Under the leading questioning of the Solicitor, under his wheedling and coaxing, Turner said that the girl backed off two or three steps, but he admitted that it all took place in broad daylight, and in full sight of Lemmie Quinn's office.
"Is it to be believed that a man in sight of a whole factory, handicapped by his race, would have gone into the metal room and attempted those advances with that little girl? Is it to be conceived that this innocent little girl would not have fled like a frightened deer and would not have run home and told that good stepfather and the good old mother who reared her?"
"That little girl, Dewey Hewell, testified that Frank put his hand on Mary's shoulder, but there were Grace Hix, Magnolia Kennedy, and Helen Ferguson. Do you believe that he would have done this in their sight, and that they would have said nothing about it when they were on the stand?"
Gantt Knows Nothing
Wrong About Frank.
"My friend from the wiregrass (meaning Hooper) said that this was the beginning of his diabolical scheme. Then Gantt was turned on as a part of the plot. Gantt being the only one who knew of Frank's intentions toward the girl."
"Don't you suppose that if this plot had existed, Gantt would have been the one who in clarion tones would have proclaimed it from the witness stand? Yet they had this long-legged fellow twice on the stand, and both time he said he knew nothing wrong about Frank."
"Conley says that Frank told him at 2 o'clock Friday afternoon to come back Saturday. Now, gentlemen, do you believe that? Don't you know that Frank had every reason in the world to believe she would not be there Saturday? Placards had been posted all around the factory, telling that it would be a holiday. All of the employees knew of it, and there was nothing to show that she did not know of it. They paid off Friday afternoon, and there were some envelopes left over, but Frank did not know whose they were. Schiff had paid off, and had put the envelopes up. Frank had not even seen them. Now, little Helen Ferguson said she went to the office Friday afternoon and got her envelope, and that, she asked them to give her Mary Phagan's. She said Frank declined to give it to her, and that when he did this, she turned and walked away."
"Now, we have Magnolia Kennedy, who says she was right there with the little Ferguson girl, and that she did not ask for Mary Phagan's pay. Now one of them is mistaken, but this is not of much importance, so we will pass it on."
"How did Frank know that Mary Phagan would come back to the factory at all on Saturday. The custom had been that when employees failed to get their envelopes on regular pay days before holidays, that they passed over the holiday and waited until the next regular working day to draw their pay. So we see from that there was absolutely no reason why Frank would have expected her there on Saturday."
"Now, what else? They say Frank was nervous. He was, and we admit it. A young boy went there, said he saw Frank, and that he was nervous. Black said he was nervous. Darley said he was nervous. Mr. Montag, his wife, Isaac Haas, and a number of others, all said he was nervous. Of course, he was nervous, and there were lots of others around there that were nervous. Why don't they hang Jake Montag? Why don't they hang old Isaac Haas? They were nervous. Why don't they hang all those pretty little girls who became nervous and hysterical when they heard of this terrible crime? Wouldn't the sight of this little girl's body , dragged in the dirt and crushed into the cinders, have made you nervous too?
Only Manhunter Not
Moved By Child's Death.
"Man is a cruel monster. He is hard-hearted. They say he is a little below the angles, but he has fallen mighty low in ages past. If the angels haven't descended with him. Yet I have never seen a man who when he looked upon a little girl crushed that some of the divinity that shapes his head did not arouse him and cause tears to flow down his cheeks.
"I am not chicken-hearted. I could see one of you badly hurt without going into hysterics. But I never hear the cry of a woman or a child but that manhood and tenderness I got from my sainted mother does not arise to rebellion within me, and I pray God if it ever should cease that my end may come. No one but the manhunter with blood in his heart would want to hang a man because he was nervous from the death of a little child."
"Then we come to that telephone call. They say he did not hear it and that that is cause for suspicion. Some people sleep lightly, others are hard to awake. The wife of old man Selig had to arouse him. They called old Uncle Ike Haas and he did not hear. His wife had to awaken him. Why not hang old Uncle Isaac Haas? He did not hear the telephone. Hang him because he slept a peaceful sleep, evidence of a good conscience."
"They have another suspicion. He hired a lawyer. I had known the National Pencil Company, but I don't know that I ever saw Frank until I met him at the police station. Frank had been down there on Sunday and told them all that he could. I don't know what was in the minds of the detectives; I don't know what is the head of old John Black. God Almighty only knows. That's one reason I love John so I can't tell what's in his head."
"Then on Monday the police did not have the same attitude to Frank."
Hooper Saysa Rosser Is
"Wire-grass" Man, Too.
At this point the jury was executed for a breathing spell. Attorney Frank Hooper, of the prosecution, came over
Continued on Page 5, Column 1.
PAGE 6
DORSEY'S TACTICS ARE FLAYED BY ROSSER
They Will Never Be Repeated in Georgia Courts, He Says
FRANK WOULD HAVE HAD
2 LAWYERS HAD HE BEEN
ON TO CURVES OF POLICE'
Continued From Page 2.
to the press table and said that he wanted to make an explanation of where h came from, after Mr. Rosser's humorous references to him.
"We both came from Randolph County," Hooper said, "and I guess Mr. Rosser knows about as much about gophers and wire grass as I do."
"The only suspicion against this man is that he employed me and he employed Herbert Haas. I felt a little bad about it because my friend Dorsey didn't say anything about Rube Arnold. Frank didn't employ a lawyer Sunday, but on Monday the police employed different tactics. They went after him with two detectives. He wasn't arrested oh, no. But my friend Black said he was released. When I asked him what that meant, if he wasn't arrested, he had to admit that to all intents and purposes Frank was under arrest.
"Chief Lanford walked about with his accustomed dignity, and Chief Beavers, the beautiful one, scudded around, and they left Frank to soak."
Here Rosser turned to Frank.
"That's the only time in this whole thing," he said, "you didn't show good sense. If you had known what I know about that bunch, you wouldn't have gotten one lawyer, but would have gotten two good ones, and you wouldn't have been satisfied then."
"But old man Sig Montag was a little wiser than Frank. He knew that bunch. He was onto their curves. I am going to be mighty careful, though, about what I say about that police bunch, because if they take a notion they would get me for white slavery before to-night."
"At any rate, Sig Montag called Herbert Haas and told him to go down there and see what is the matter with Leo Frank. Haas could not go. I will give a house and lot worth $20,000 to be in the same position he was that day. His wife was preparing to have a baby."
Not Arrested, But
Had To Be "Released."
"Sig took the automobile and wept down to Haas' house and said you must go. They went to the police station, and what happened? That throws a whole flood of light on the matter."
"No, Frank was not arrested, but he had to be released. I said to John Black, John, what do you mean by released?' He stammered and stuttered, and said, Why, I just mean released.'
"These me
n went down to see a man who was not under arrest. He was a free citizen sitting there, and yet they wouldn't let his friends see him. They wouldn't let his lawyer Haas see him."
"This man Haas is not of my age or of my flesh, or of my experience. He called me up. If there is any crime in that he is the guilty man. My friend Dorsey with his eyes close together, snapping like snakes, made much of the fact that Frank had hired the lawyer. The charges and insinuations that he has made are the most contemptible that ever have occurred in a Georgia court. The things that he has done in this trial will never be done a gain in Georgia. I will stake my life on that."
Could Not Hire
More Devoted Lawyer.
"Dorsey's eyes got as green as beads on a woman's dress as he hissed his charges against Frank of dirty dog and brutal murderer. You may question Frank in his judgement; he might have hired a better lawyer than I. He might have hired a more decent lawyer, but he couldn't have hired a more devoted lawyer. I will say that for myself if I drop dead in my tracks."
Could Not Hire
More Devoted Lawyer.
"Dorsey's eyes got as green as beads on a woman's dress as he hissed his charges against Frank of dirty dog and brutal murderer. You may question Frank in his judgement; he might have hired a better lawyer than I. He might have hired a more decent lawyer, but he couldn't have hired a more devoted lawyer. I will say that for myself if I drop dead in my tracks."
"Under what circumstances did Frank hire the detectives? He had been to the station house and was asked to make a statement. I went down there, not at Frank's invitation, for he didn't know I was coming. Mr. Haas had asked me to go down there, and I wasn't a welcome visitor at the police station that morning. They don't take my hate; they didn't give my hat; they didn't give me a warm welcome. I guess they would have arrested me long ago, but they just don't want me down there. I can't blame them for that."
"And when I reached there I saw Frank for the first time in my life. I walked in and said, What's the matter here, boys?' You know, I just used plain old common English. I don't put on any fancy frills."
"Someone said, They've got Mr. Frank under arrest here for murder.' One of the detectives got up and said, No, we haven't.' Yet they talked about him not being under arrest at that time."
Why Didn't They
Want Me There?
"Someone said, They want him to make a statement.' I said, Let him go ahead and make it.' Right away Lanford and the others hustled him over to a room. They didn't want me to go with him."
"Now, I have always been a little bit impudent, and when I started in, they said, We don't want you in here,' and I said, kind of impudent-like, I'm coming in, anyway, I won't interrupt him but I'm coming in.'"
"And why didn't they want me in there? I don't know. Wasn't I as reputable a citizen as Lanford? Wasn't I as capable of protecting the law as he was? Gentlemen, while we were there a peculiar thing happened. I said a man could not have committed that crime and not have scars upon him. Frank showed them that he had no marks upon himself."
"Why didn't Lanford get upon the stand. Was it because he dreaded to get in converse with me? No, he didn't want to recall that dark Conley chapter; that hideous Minola McKnight incident."
"And after they had released Frank, what did they do? They went out to his house and looked at his soiled linen, and what evidence did they find? Not a thing."
"If Frank had been a guilty man, do you know what he would have done? Gentlemen of the jury, he would have kept quiet. He would have kept his silence to himself. But he was not guilty and he did not do that. But he went home with the thought of this horrible murder in his mind. He thought of how a beast had committed the crime; of how God's laws had been outraged; of how there was a stain upon the fair nannie of this city."
Says Frank Wanted
To Find Slayer.
"Then he sat down and di what? He telephoned Sig Montag that he wanted to hire detectives; that he wanted to ferret out and punish the murderer of Mary Phagan."
"I have not had too high an estimate of the detective department. I don't mean they are not good, clever fellows, but no man can spy on folks, come in constant contact with crime and elevate his character. God Almighty couldn't do it."
"You," and here Rosser turned again to the detectives, "may not be made worse men, but you won't be made better men. Nor Scott; I am sorry he has gone and will not hear what I have got to say. He crept into this case in the most remarkable situation I ever heard of. He got up on the stand and said, We worked hand and glove with the city detectives. Ain't that a fine gang? Do nothing outside of what the city police do."
"Hiring Detective
A Courageous Deed."
"Some good man will hire him again. But I don't care anything about that. I will let it go. The point is that Frank knew that Scott was going to work with the police. I will give Scott credit for being that honest. He told Frank he was going to lock arms with John Black and walk down the disgraceful avenue of this case."
"This young Jew, just down from the North, ignorant of Southern customs, hired a Pinkerton detective to ferret out the crime. The detective told him he was going to trail with the police. Frank told him, Find the murderer.' He knew Scott was going to trail with the police, even Frank himself was trailed."
"Ah, gentlemen, his race has present many a heroic scene, but never one greater than this. Yet they want to hang him because he employed a detective."
"My friend Hooper charged that he tried to point suspicion on Newt Lee. I don't believe Hooper meant what he said. Frank first said there was no error in the time slips. The next day here said there was. Darley made the same mistake. Why not hang Darley?"
"Then do you remember what he said about the time being rubbed off of that slip? Dorsey had to admit that he erased it. I don't mean that Dorsey meant any harm."
Denounces Bloody
Shirt Evidence.
"Then the bloody shirt. Gentlemen, that is the most unfair thing in this whole case to charge that that young man had that shirt planted. Black and Scott went out and found that shirt in the bottom of an old barrel at Newt Lee's house. They found it Tuesday morning, brought it in and Newt said it was his shirt."
Dorsey jumped to his feet at this moment and exclaimed that such was
Luther Rosser's Tribute to the Jury
"We walk in the streets carelessly, absorbed in our own interests. We pass our friends, and do not recognize them. The mind wanders in flights of fancy and fits of revelry. We mean no harm to ourselves nor harm to our friends, but we are careless."
"Men of the jury, you are set aside. You cease to be a part of that revelry of the streets. In old pagan Rome women walked the streets, chatted gayly and carelessly, but a few were set aside the vestal virgins. They cared not for the gladiatorial combats or the strife."
"So it is with you set apart. You care not for the chatter or the laughter of the rabble. You are unprejudiced. Yours is the sworn duty to pass on a matter of life and death. You are to decide on the evidence, with no fear, no favor, no affection."
"Others may take the brave task of standing up for the weak and oppressed, but it is not for you. You are a still, silent, consecrated band. You are to do your duty without one thought of the past or the future. You are here and now consecrated by justice to do your duty."
not the testimony, Rosser said:
"Newt Lee did. I got it out of one of those boys on the stand."
"No he didn't," replied Dorsey. "Lee said it looked like a shirt of his."
"Well, we'll admit it then," Rosser continued; "we will just put it that way. We will suppose they went out and got a bloody shirt just like the one old Newt Lee wore and hid it in that barrel."
"Frank didn't even know where old man Lee lived. He certa
inly didn't know he had a shirt that looked like that one. I never heard of going to such extremities to try to hang an innocent man."
"But old man Lee I don't believe he had anything to do with the crime, itself. I never will believe anything but that he found that corpse earlier than he said he did. I can't understand how he knew it was while when it took the detectives so long to find cut. I can't understand how he saw the body from where the detectives themselves and it was impossible to see it."
"And he said the face was turned up and the police found it different. I am mighty afraid the old man know it was a white girl, but I still don't believe he had anything to do with the crime itself. If he did, he is the most remarkable old negro that ever lived."
"Shame the Way They
Treated Newt Lee."
"If I had his endurance. I would talk forever. It will be ashamed to the dying day of every member of that detective department the way they treated that poor old man. They talked to him until he got weary and his head hung low, and then they sent in a fresh relay, and when it looked like he couldn't endure it any longer, they would come in with a battery of pistols and poke them in his face."
"I am afraid Newt Lee saw the body before he said he did. But he is a wonderful negro. Oh, the dirty trick that you played on him will be a shame to you as long as you live. (Rosser looked at the detectives). You hammered away at that old negro all hours of the night. But Newt wore the detectives out in relays. They fired pistols near him."
"I am afraid he knows more about this than he ever has told. Let us listen to the story that he told. He told of coming to the factory that night and that Gantt and he stood out in front of the factory. He said that Frank appeared alarmed when he came out and ran into Gantt."
"But the explanation that the negro gave was the very best that could be given. He said, I knew they had had some trouble, and I thought Gantt was there to do Mr. Frank dirt.' Lee and Gantt both say now that Frank jumped back, but neither said it before the Coroner's inquest."
No Wonder Frank
Jumped at Seeing Gantt.
"Is it to be wondered at that Frank jumped, if he actually did jump, which I doubt? Why, you could take him and put him on the top floor of the factory with a girl the size of Mary Phagan and she could make him jump out of the window. He is not a strong man. He is a physical weakling, comparatively, I am not saying this unkindly, but the Jewish people, once the bravest on earth, are not the fighters now that they used to be."
"As he came out of the factory he was confronted by this giant, Gantt. He might have jumped back. If little Dorsey had come out suddenly like that in the night he would have bent his back into a bow jumping back. It is little groveling, snakelike suspicions like this that have marked Dorsey's whole case against the defendant."
"They said also that Frank had thrown suspicion on Gantt. Scott gets up now and says that Frank told him Gantt was familiar with the little Phagan girl, not in a bad way, as there has been no reflection upon this little girl's character, but that they were friends in a good way. But, gentlemen of the jury, Scott didn't say that in his reports to us. He didn't say that in his reports to his agency, and now, in this connection, the understanding was that the Pinkertons were to furnish he police their reports 24 hours before they gave them to us. And this was done all the way through."
"Now for old Newt Lee, and then I am through with the suspicious circumstances. Frank had told old Newt to come early Saturday, as that was a holiday, and having in his mind at the time that he was going to the ball game."
"The suspicion has been cast because he was afraid that he might discover something, that he might make the gruesome find of that cruelly mutilated body in the basement."
"Is it conceivable that by a trick he would get old Newt away for two hour and then leave him the whole night alone in the building where he was sure to discover the body? Then we know that Frank went home and calmy ate his supper, that he read, that he was light-hearted and told a joke. And my brother gets up and charges that Frank was so callous that he laughed."
"Oh, gentlemen of the jury, can you imagine that laugh? If Frank had been guilty of murder, it would have been the laugh of a maniac. Now, Frank is smart. Is there a man here who is such a fool that he believes that Frank would have sent the watchman away by a trick for two hours and would have then left the body with no one but Newt in the building? And Newt there all night?"
"Gentlemen, that would have weighted on his mind. He would have been raving like a maniac, waiting to be called by old Newt to be told of the gruesome find. Can you believe it? Oh, such a stigma; oh, such a hideous plot."
No Chance for Him
To Commit Crime.
"There is one other suspicion. They say he was in the factory the time Mary Phagan was. But, gentlemen, you know this only because Frank says it. You didn't have to fish it out. He was not the only man there. If the corpse had been found there and he was the only man in the building, it might have been some proof; but there were others. He was in an open room. He had company every hour. Unless he was some magician there was no chance for him to commit the crime. Up on the fourth floor were two young men."
"If there is one thing indelibly fixed in this case, it is that this young boy could not see ingoers and outgoers of that factory. "Conley or some other negro was seen in the hall on the first floor. Yesterday there came out like a ray of sunlight on a wicked world another negro, a lighter one. They had the same opportunity to commit this murder that Frank had. Who knows what white-faced scoundrel might have lurked around among those machines."
"Gentlemen, these facts drive out any suspicion that he did the deed simply because he was there. Father of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, father of us all, may no such mean prejudices rankle in the hearts of this consecrated jury, to the undoing of this unfortunate young boy."
"I know you will not blame if I fail in my feeble steps to walk over this same ground that this legal giant (referring to Arnold) did yesterday. So I will touch briefly on some of these points."
"I come to Conley. That part of the case fatigues may indignation. That white men should believe this infamous character is a shame on this great city and this great Siste, and will be to the end of time. Who is this Conley? Let's see who he used to be. A plain, dirty, filthy, drunken, lying, and I expect, lousy, negro.
Scores Scott,
Pinkerton Detective.
"Have I overstated that? Starnes knows I have not. Black knows I have not. I don't know whether Chief Beavers' dignity has ever got down low enough for him to see him, but if it has, he knows it. Now Black, he of the doubtful memory, he would remember one thing one time and the next time he wouldn't there was a good deal of fun made over Black, but I say he was trying to tell the truth and got mixed. But he is in a heap better fix than Scott. Scott well, I've seen a heap of men heavier up here (pointing to his forehead). He might detect a louse with a spyglass; I don't think he could do more."
"I said, Scott, what about that negro? Does he look like he did when you got him here?' He said No!' I said, They have slicked him up a little bit, haven't they?' And he had to admit it. And shame to them. Who was it that took this dirty, filthy negro, gave him warm baths and good clothes, and brought him out here to make his dirty, lying testimony before detectives? I don't charge that to anybody, because I don't know who it was, but it is as dirty and contemptible a piece of work as was ever done. They shaved that dirty-wool and his bestial face; and if I knew who was responsible for it I'd call his name."
"I've had that joke played on me, nearly, once before. Some hallroad lawyer dreaded up a brakeman who was suing the
railroad and brought him into court, but I never heard of it being done in a case of life and death."
"It is very hard to find a man that somebody won't believe. There's Dalton; some few believed him. But who was there. In all that crowd, who would say they would believe Jim Conley?"
Black Hypocrisy
Charged to Dalton.
"What a contempt Black has for this man Dalton. What a contempt that son of Erin (pointing out Pat Campbell) has for him."
"Yet they found people who would testify to his good character and to his reputation for truth and veracity. One man said that Dalton had joined the church and so far as he knew, he was a good church member now. Thus was the blackest hypocrisy added to his other evil characteristics. But they found sponsors for him."
"But who was Conley? Who would stand up and may his character was good? Who would be sponsor for him?"
"Do you, Black? Stand up."
"Do you, Campbell?"
"Do you, Rosser? Rosser is one whose ancestors trod the earth in the same places as mine, and I know he wouldn't hang a suck-egg dog on the testimony of this lying nigger Conley."
"They have swept every back alley in Atlanta to get someone who would stand up and say that he was an honest nigger. But they found not a soul. Who is there that will stand up and marry the nigger Conley to the truth? Not a person."
Failed to Prove
Frank a Pervert.
"My friends on the other side have attempted to make this young man before you a pervert. They tried to do it on the lying testimony of this nigger, unsupported by a single other person. But they didn't do it."
"But even if they had proved it beyond doubt, it could not enter into this case. This boy is being tried for murder, and if he is a thousand times a pervert, that can not be allowed to sway your verdict."
"The vilest thing in this case is the dragging of this issue into the trial on the unsupported word of the lying nigger who is trying to save his own neck by any foul lies which he can shape."
"Yet the Solicitor made the charges here in open court." He made them before the jury, before everyone in the courtroom. He made them before the young wife of the defendant. He made them uselessly and purposelessly. They could serve only one purpose. The sole explanation is that the Solicitor made them to add a little strength to his case, to serve his leaping ambition to win his case and send a man to the gallows. It is impossible that it was done in the interests of justice."
"A dirty thief and liar was brought into the courtroom to destroy a man's character. My indignation can not be put in words."
Court adjourned at this point, for the noon recess, Attorney Rosser saying that as it was near the recess hour he would prefer to stop his address at that time, as he did not want to be interrupted in his closing at the afternoon session.
Woman Early
To Get Seats.
Attorney Rosser resumed his address at 2 o'clock. He said that he would probably consume about half or three-quarters of an hour longer. Many women were in courtroom during the afternoon, having been allowed to come in early and get seats. Several hundred men were on the outside trying to get admission when the court opened.
Attorney Rosser said:
"Gentlemen of the jury, when recess came I was just saying how horrible it was that this charge of perversion had been made against the defendant. Dorsey made the charge through his lying witness Conley. No other witness in this case has made such a suggestion as that made by the negro."
"It was a horrible thing a thing inconceivable that such an accusation should be brought in here. Conley had no one to support him except Dalton, and Dalton did not say that he ever had seen Frank in any wrong conduct. Dalton merely said that he had seen women in Frank's office. When questioned, he was unable to say that he ever saw Frank do a wrong act.
"Dalton in his story said that he was with Daisy Hopkins in the factory."
"But Conley says that it was Frank who had Daisy Hopkins. This is the important point on which these two liars differ. Conley said that Dalton was with some peace,' some lesser beauty, living between Haines and Hunter streets."
Says Conley Has
"Butted In" for Life.
He went to that Butt Inn saloon and Lord bless my soul, he has butted in for life. He gave a detailed statement of seeing those negroes and taking drinks with them. Did anyone of them come here to say he did? Did that negro come here that Conley said he shot dice with the negro with the whip around his neck"? Did that bartender come here who mixed his wins and beer?"
"Now, these police know those negroes on Peters street lots better than they do you and I. It is their business to know them. They know those dicemen around there like a book. If Conley had given a single correct name, time, place or incident, they would have had that whole horde of negroes lined up here."
"Another thing, he said dice: He would have said craps, until those policemen got him and talked to him. He said his name was James Conley; he certainly would have said Jim. If they hadn't have been after him. He said "Snowball" heard Frank tell him to come back and watch for him, but Snowball said he didn't! Snowball is just a plain, ordinary, African negro. He didn't know how to tell a lie."
"And then they talk about Frank try to make the police suspect somebody if he could. Why, it is just like an English sparrow suspecting a horse and then following him a mile."
An eloquent four-and-a-half address by Reuben Arnold for the defense marked the first day of the arguments in the Frank trial. Only, two addresses were made to the jury, that by Arnold and the opening argument of the State by Attorney Frank A. Hooper, who has been associated with Solicitor Dorsey in the prosecution of the case.
Hooper spoke in the forenoon from 9 o'clock until 11:30. Arnold began his remarkable speech at 11:50 and was interrupted by recess at 12:30 o'clock. He resumed at 2 and continued until 5:50 in the evening.
Arnold's speech was remarkable for the minute detail with which it covered practically every important phase of the great murder mystery, for its satire, for its flashes of humor and sarcasm, for its impassioned appeal for the life and liberty of a man who was described as the innocent victim of one of the most nefarious plots ever hatched against a man's character."
The lawyer in bitter words charged that if it had not been for Frank's race he never would have been on trial for his life. He charged that the State had been compelled to bring its witnesses from the dregs of humanity, from the jails and from the convict camps, to perfect the terrible conspiracy against Frank.
He asserted that the Solicitor had been forced to warp and stretch the probabilities to the breaking point in order to bring about a suppositious situation in which it would have been possible for Frank to have committed the crime and gone through the disposal of Mary Phagan's body as described by Jim Conley. They built up a structure of testimony against Frank by their own witnesses, he charged, and then proceeded to demolish it because it would not fit in with their theories or with the probabilities of the case."
Laughs at State's
Chain of Circumstances.
He held up to ridicule the theory of the State that the attack could have been premeditated on the part of Frank. He laughed at the chain of antecedent circumstances which the Solicitor and Attorney Hooper had endeavored to link together to show that Frank on Friday was contemplating the attack Saturday on the little factory girl.
He did not believe that Frank on Friday at 3 o'clock asked Jim Con-
Continued on Page 5, Column 1.
PAGE 8
WOMEN THRONG
TO COURT TO
HEAR CLOSE
Many Unable to Secure Admit-
tance on Account of the
Immense Crowd.
Continued from Page 3.
ley to come back the next morning to work at the factory. "But if he did," said Arnold, "how was he to kn
ow that Mary Phagan was not going to come after her pay envelope Friday night at 5:50 or 6, along with the rest of the employees?"
He did not believe that Helen Ferguson asked Frank for the pay envelope of Mary Phagan and was refused. Of course, the Ferguson girl testified on the stand that she did, but other testimony developed that Schiff was the man who paid off and not Frank at all. And Magnolia Kennedy, in whose word Arnold was included to place as much credence as in that of the State's witness, swore that she was standing by Helen Ferguson at the pay window and that the Ferguson girl got her envelope and never asked for the Phagan girl's pay.
But even granting that this was so, argued Arnold, what reason had Frank to believe, accepting the State's theory that he knew all about Mary Phagan not coming for her pay Friday, that Mary would not come on Monday, the next work day, for her money, as was the general outcome in the pencil factory?
Arnold presented it as his positive conviction that the man who wrote the notes found by the body of Mary Phagan was her murderer. He branded Jim Conley as a miserable, lying scoundrel, who was busily engaged in concocting stories, with the help of the detectives, with which he might save his own black neck from the hangman's noose. The crime, he said, was the work of a savage negro.
The eloquent lawyer paid his compliments to "Christopher Columbus" Barrett, the "discoverer" of the alleged blood spots and of the strands of hair on the lathing machine. He charged that Barret was only after the reward money, and called to the attention of the jury that Chief of Detectives Lanford and his sleuths went over the same place on the factory floor Sunday where Barrett discovered the spots on Monday morning.
He further called their attention to the fact that four chips were taken up by the detectives in the place where the supposed blood spots were found and that on only one of them were any blood corpuscles found and then only three or four, when one droop of blood contains thousands of the corpuscles. He referred to the testimony and showed that the chips were covered with grime and dirt and that there was nothing to show that the few blood corpuscles had not been there months or years.
The spots, inasmuch as they failed to respond to the blood test, he maintained, must have resulted from aniline dyes, exactly as the defense had contended from the very first.
C. B. Dalton, who was one of the spectators in the room, along with "Christoopher Columbus" Barrett, heard himself described by the attorney as a "common liar" and heard again his chaingang and court record.
Says Detectives
Coached Negro.
Arnold then turned his attention to the negro Conley's story, as told in his various affidavits and so on the stand. He took it from the first and pointed out what he deemed the inconsistencies and the impossibilities.
He pictured the detectives helping the negro in his story. He exhibited a chart and pointed out the time discrepancies in the State's case from the viewpoint of the defense. He concluded with an appeal to the jury not to be swayed by prejudice or by any slander that had been uttered against the prisoner.
Attorney Hooper made a vigorous assault on Frank's morals in the opening argument of the trial. He charged that Frank, respected among the people of influences of the city, might very easily carry on his acts of immorality in the factory without its becoming a matter of general knowledge.
He accused the young factory superintendent of having Dalton as one of his associates in the gay parties that the State charges were held in Frank's office and in which several women participated.
Hooper said that his trio Frank, Darley, and Schiff practically had the moral lives of the factory girls in their hands. He charged that as a result the factory had been the scene of many grossly improper incidents, and that Frank had started an acquaintance with the Phagan girl which later culminated in the tragedy of April 25.
He charged premeditation. He said that the pay of Mary Phagan deliberately was withheld from Helen Ferguson on Friday so that the Phagan girl would come for her envelope Saturday. He was convinced that Conley was told on Friday to come to the factory Saturday so that he might watch against unwelcome interruptions while the Phagan girl was on the second floor.
Attorney Outlines
Plot Against Girl.
The State's attorney outlined a horrible plot against the innocence of the pretty little factory girl, on whom he said Frank's lustful eyes had been for weeks. He stopped just short of charging premeditated murder.
"I do not have any idea," he said, "that Frank had murder in his heart when he went back to the metal with the little girl on Saturday."
Hooper believed in the negro. He expressed his opinion that Conley finally had arrived at the truth and would stick there under the severest pressure. He showed how his story dove-tailed in with the other circumstances of the case.
"That girl was killed on the second floor of the factory," he declared. "Either Frank did it or he sat supinely in his office where he could not fail to have heard the scream and the sounds of the struggle, nor could he have failed to see the negro when he sought to dispose of the body. The latter supposition is preposterous and we must return to the belief that Frank was the guilty man."
Hooper said that the incidents Conley related as taking place in Frank's office were the most natural things in the world. He declared that Conley related as taking place in Frank's office were the most natural things in the world. He declared that Conley could not have manufactured the conversation out of his own knowledge. Frank must have been there and uttered the words that Conley put into his mouth in his affidavits to the police and this story on the stand.
Hooper closed his address with an inquiry as to the whereabouts of W. H. Mincey, who was expected to swear that Conley made a virtual confession to him.
PAGE 7
HOOPER AND ARNOLD IN
ARGUMENT MADE MOST
OF THEIR OPPORTUNITIES
By JAMES B. NEVIN
Frank Hooper's speech in behalf of the prosecution against Leo Frank, charged with the murder of little Mary Phagan, reflected much credit upon him.
It was fair, to the point, well thought out and appealing in tone and delivery.
It went for the defendant, hammer and tongs, but it was devoid of anything that might be construed as below the belt.
Undoubtedly, it was not pleasant to the defendant, sitting there, stolidly, following the words of Hooper but Dorsey and Hooper, in its final aspect, have made out a most dangerous case against Frank, and Hooper was there to explain and sustain it. He performed his duty in a way that hardly can fail to bring him lasting applause and commendation.
If, however, Frank felt to the full the gloom of the case made out against him by Hooper, he was more than abundantly taken care of when Arnold followed.
The case made out in defense of Frank by Arnold was extremely plausible it covered in detail every point developed by Hooper. It, like Hooper's, was a speech evidently carefully considered.
Jury Held In High Esteem.
Now, the thing about these two speeches that made them particularly and uniquely noteworthy, perhaps, is that both were seemingly designed for the consideration of a jury held to be highly intelligent and not apt to rush pell-mell to a verdict either for or against Frank.
And if the opposing counsel entertain the opinion of the jury if they hold it in such compelling esteem and respect and if the jury is such a jury as deserves that opinion, which I think it is, then the chances are that its verdict will be righteous and just, whatever it may be.
And that the finding of this jury SHALL speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth that, in the words of Hamlet, "is a consummation most devoutly to be wished!"
"Try this case, gentlemen, according to the law and the f
acts!" said Frank Hooper, addressing the jury Thursday.
That is the final and ultimate request any man for or against the defendant could or should make of the "twelve good men and true" there to pass upon the fate of Leo Frank.
Neither the State nor the defense, in justice and right, dare will plead for more or less!
The two opening speeches in murder trials are presumed to outline clearly the trend of the completed arguments both ways.
Concluding attorneys may amplify and enlarge upon points raised by opening attorneys, but they rarely go far beyond the primary outlining of the two main points of view.
And so, while Rosser and Dorsey may go further than Hooper and Arnold in invective, sarcasm, ridicule and passionate outbreak, neither is apt to add anything material to either side, as compared with the things Hooper and Arnold have said.
There is some advantage to the State or, at least, there is supposed to be some advantage to it in that it has the concluding argument before the jury.
No Injustice There.
Some people think this is an injustice and a hardship upon the defense, but when one comes to consider the theory upon which that practice is founded the apparent injustice and hardship of it vanishes, and it may be seen readily enough that in this, as in so many things the law has been most carefully thought out
And is just and right.
The law throws about the defendant at bar the presumption of innocent
It places upon the State the burden of proving him guilty, rather than putting upon the defendant the burden of proving himself innocent.
But the law, having done this, permits the final voice to be the voice from the grave.
The dead he or she is not there to speak, and to say as to the truth, and so the law directs that the State's prosecuting counsel shall speak it instead.
Thus does the law, with impartial hand, protect first the defendant and the protect quite as jealously its own majesty, and the rights of the dead!
The law, however, in the event the defendant elects to introduce no witnesses in his behalf, and to rely solely upon his own isolated statement, not under oath, reverses the order of argument and permits the defense to open and close for the law will not permit a defendant even to place himself at a disadvantage without fully compensating him for the same!
What will the Frank jury say?
Will it find the prisoner not guilty, clear his name of all stain and send him forth a free man?
Or will it find him guilty and fasten upon him forever the disgrace of one of the most inhuman and diabolical crimes ever committed in Georgia?
To render the latter verdict, it must believe Frank a monster, lost to every sense of decency and right a man who has meanly and unpardonably deceived his mother, his wife, his friends, his faithful employees and his acquaintances. It must believe him a cruel murderer, for an unspeakable lust the vilest and most evil creature ever known among his kindred and his kind!
Will the jury believe that? It is not easy to think it will.
And yet
The Alternative.
Not to believe it is to believe those girls who swore Frank's character is bad, who cited instances of a suspicious nature to uphold that belief, are wrong that they knew him not, notwithstanding their opportunity and that all the circumstances of the crime seemingly connecting him with it are errors and that Conley's story, no less too big to be true than too big to be untrue, still is untrue, and that all the thins alleged against Frank either are wrong naturally or wrong by design and malicious purpose!
Will the jury look at the matter that way? It is not easy to think it will!
And yet, again, it MUST believe the one or the other or there will be no verdict!
What, then, CAN honest minded mortals, men and women who want to see the right and the right alone prevail, do other than put their faith in the JURY there, and believe that it will speak the TRUTH of this case, no matter what may be anybody's preconceived opinion?
The time for argument has passed. Rosser and Arnold and Hooper and Dorsey have about concluded that.
The general public should now prepare itself to receive the verdict as the final and determining circumstances in the cases.
Individual opinion is interesting at times, but after all, one man's opinion is as good as another's, but not more so.
The Important Thing.
What you think, reader, and what I think, is relatively inconsequential the thing that matters SUPREMELY now, and the thing that alone matters supremely, is what does the
FELINE WAIF FINDS PROTECTOR
IN PRETTY HOTEL ANSLEY MISS
This is Miss
Gladys
Brinkley and
"Governor
Slaton" in a
special pose for camera
"Governor"
is never quite
happy unless
he is safe in the
arms of his fair
guardian. No
one can step on
his tall then
he's sure
of that.
JURY think, and what will the jury say!
No one of us has the opportunity to know so well the ins and outs of the case as the jury. The jury does not read what I write nor does it hear what you say. It is there, in the courtroom, aside from the outside world, off to itself, a thing apart there to do justice, to the State and to Frank, though the heavens fall!
There is no responsibility up individuals expressing opinion pro and con. They are not under oath the life of a human being, on the one hand, and the majesty of the law of the land on the other, are no direct legal concerns of theirs.
It is all very well for you to say, "If I were running this thing I would turn Frank loose in a jiffy," or "If I were running this thing I would hang Frank," when there is no legally impose and oath-bound obligation upon you to render a verdict that means something definite in law.
With a juryman, however, the case is different he is there to fashion a finding that means everything!
Within twenty-four hours, perhaps, the public will know what the Frank jury thinks of the case made against him.
The jury may convict him, and it may acquit him.
No man possibly can know, at this time and nothing is so uncertain in the matter of forecasting as the verdict of a jury.
Public Should Accept Verdict.
But whether it be acquittal or conviction, the public should, and the law-abiding public WILLL, prepare itself to accept that verdict as righteous and just.
No man ought to be willing to set his opinion doggedly against that of those "twelve good men and true," whatever their verdict may be.
Leo Frank, the defendant, is entitled to all the protection the law gives defendants he is entitled to an absolutely fair trial, without favor or prejudice, one way or the other. He is entitled to all of that but no more.
The State has rights as sacred as the defendant's they must be considered.
What more can human ingenuity and the forms of law provide by way of finding the truth of a case like the one now on trial, than has been provided in the present hearing?
"Governor Slaton" Is One of the
Most Distinguished Young
Cats in Atlanta.
"Governor Slaton" was peeved, and justly so, for a hurrying travelling man had stepped on his tail. He arched his back, dug his claws into the soft rugs at the Hotel Ansley and snarled vengefully. He loved nobody and nobody loved him.
Then Miss Glady's Brinkley came along. Miss Brinkley is one of the prettiest of the young women who worked at the Ansley. Diners unite in saying that the smiles she dispenses as she hands out the hats at the door of the rathskeller are worth more than the dinner.
It was one of those whole-souled, joyful smiles that Miss Brinkley bestowed on the disconsolate "Governor." The "Governor" succumbed to the witchery of the smile and knew right away that he had found a friend. So he sheathed his claws, dropped his back, and leaped straight into Miss Brinkley's arms, where he purred contentedly while she stroked him b
ehind the ears and crooned over him.
For "Governor Slaton" isn't what you might think he is at all!
He's a cat!
And the "Governor" is quite a remarkable cat, too. To begin with, he is snow white; not a blotch of color mars his sleek beauty. He is absolutely alone in the world, having no brothers and sisters, and his mother deserted him when he was quite young. He is further distinguished by the fact that he probably is the only cat in captivity born in a big hotel. For the "Governor" first saw the light of day in a vacant room on the thirteenth floor of Atlanta's newest hostelry.
"Governor Slaton" does not care much for human companionship except Miss Brinkley but once again in a while he will allow Mrs. Morgan, who keeps a shop on the mezzanine floor, to pat him. He has no use for men, unless they come bearing gifts, which he accepts and then sticks a claw into the hand of the giver. He is happy about six hours a day. That is when Miss Brinkley is on duty and he can snuggle up at her feet or purr luxuriously in her lap.
And Miss Brinkley likes the "Governor," too.
"All cats are nice," she said, "but I just dote on Governor.' He is so well behaved, and never tries to scratch me. He always hunts me up when I go to work, and will sit with me for hours at a time. The Governor' has been my friend ever since I first saw him, the day the travelling man stepped on his foot. I felt so sorry for him I couldn't keep from cuddling him."
The hotel attaches tell a rather remarkable tale about the coming of the cat, which shows why he was named "Governor Slaton." It seems that when the rugs came to the Ansley and workmen took them to the thirteenth floor, a big white cat jumped out when they unrolled one. Kitty ran down the hall, and no attention was paid to her. Two weeks later this hotel opened, and Governor John M. Slaton was the first man to register. The same night one of the hotel employees found a little white cat on the thirteenth floor, crying its little heart out for something to eat. By consulting a few clocks and watches, it was learned that the cat had been born at the exact moment Governor Slaton was inscribing his name on the hotel register hence the name.
PAGE 9
ROSSER FLAY'S DORSEY'S TACTICS
They Will Never Be Repeated in Georgia Courts, He Says
CALM, DISPASSIONED
PLEA FOR ACQUITTAL
IMPRESSES HEARERS
With the fate of Leo M. Frank, accused of the murder of Mary Phagan, soon to be put in the hands of the jury, Luther Z. Rosser Friday made an extraordinary closing argument for the defense in a final effort to convince the jury of the entire innocence of his client.
Rosser's speech was remarkable for its calmness, but its very quietness added to its impressiveness. For the most part he bought to impress upon the jury that "fair play" must be done, and that they were a sacred body set apart to weigh facts and do justice uninfluenced by outside consideration.
However, the speaker was unsparing in discussing Jim Conley, C. B. Dalton and the methods used by the detectives to set evidence that he held up to ridicule. When he had been talking for two hours he launched into an indirect but bitter arraignment of Solicitor Dorsey, referring particularly to the attempt to make Frank's hiring of Rosser look like a damning circumstance.
Calls Dorsey's Insinuations Contemptible.
"My friend Dorsey," he said, "made much of the fact that Frank hired the lawyer. The charges and insinuations that he has made are the most contemptible that have ever occurred in a Georgia court. The things he has done in this trial will never be done in Georgia again. I will stake my life on that.
"You may question Frank in his judgement, he might have hired a better lawyer than I. He might have hired a more decent lawyer, but he couldn't have hired a more devoted lawyer. I will saw that for myself if I drop dead in my tracks."
"Gentlemen of the jury," he began in a low voice, as he leaned against the railing of the jury box, "all things come to an end. With the end of this case it was almost the end of the trial. But for that masterly effort of my friend Arnold, I almost wish it had ended without any speaking. My physical condition enabled me to say but little. My voice is husky and almost useless. But for my intense interest, my profound conviction of the innocence of this man, I would say nothing."
Public Mind
Always Careless.
"I want to repeat what my friend Arnold so aptly said, "This jury is no mob. The attitude of the jurors' mind is not the attitude of the man who carelessly walks the street. My friend Hooper must have brought that doctrine with him when he came to Atlanta."
"We walk the streets carelessly, absorbed in our own interests. We pass our friends and do not recognize them. The mind wanders in flights of fancy and fits of revelry. We mean no harm to ourselves nor harm to our friends, but we are careless."
"Men, you are set aside. You came to be a part of that revelry of the streets. In old pagan Rome women walked the streets chatted gally and carelessly, but a few were set aside the vestal virgins. They cared not for the gladiatorial combats or the strife."
"So it is with you set apart, You care not for the chatter or the laughter of the rabble. You are unprejudiced. Yours is the sworn duty to pass on a matter of life and death. You are to decide on the evidence without an echo from any hostile mob. With no fear, no favor, no affect."
"Others may take the brave task of standing up for the weak and oppressed, but it is not for you. You are a still, silent, consecrated band. You are to do your duty without one thought of the past or the future. You are here and now consecrated by justice to do your duty. I do not feel that I can add to anything Mr. Arnold said except to touch the high palaces and probably wander afield Rome place where he did not go."
"No crime could be more frightful than this. That little girl in the sweetest period of her life was cut down by some brute and the public was horrified. We all agree that no punishment would be severe enough. It is nothing but human nature in a crime of this kind that a victim is demanded."
"A cry goes up for vengeance. It is the old law of an eye for an eye and a life for a life. It is the primeval man. The early Indian when his companion fell by his side demanded vengeance. He went out for a victim regardless of who it was. But, thank God, that age is past and in this intelligent twentieth century of ours we no longer say, Give us a victim, a sacrifice, but give us the guilty man.'"
Rosser Analyzes
Dalton's Character.
"I believe this jury is a courageous jury. I know they are not like primeval men. I know they are not lime primeval men, who sought to find a victim whether he was guilty or not. Let us see who is the man most likely to have committed the crime. You want to ask what surroundings such a crime was likely to have come from, and to look at the man who was most likely to have done it."
"My friend Hooper understood that. He said that the conditions at the factory were likely to produce such a crime, but as a matter of fact the conditions are no better and no worse than in any other factory. You find good men and bad man, good women and bad women. What man raises one word against the moral atmosphere of that factory? Conley? Yes. I'll come to him later, not now. Dalton? Yes. I'll take up his case right now.
"God Almighty when He writes upon a human face does not always write a beautiful hand, but He writes a legible one. If you were in the dark with that man Dalton, wouldn't
PAGE 10
ASKS HOW DID FRANK KNOW GIRL WOULD COME FOR HER PAY?'
No Way for Him to Know She Would Call on Holiday, Rosser Asserts
DETECTIVES ARE SCORED
AS ACTIVE GANG' BENT
ON CONVICTING ACCUSED
Continued from Page 1.
you put your hand on your pocketbook? If you wouldn't, you are braver men than I. The word "thief" is written all over his face. My friend Rube Arnold said when D
alton came to the stand, "That's a thief or I don't know one." I smelled the odor of the chaingang upon him; I reached' for him; I felt' for him; I asked him if he had ever been long away from home. He evaded me. When he left the stand, I said, Rube, that man's been in the chaingang as sure as there's a God in heaven.' And, sure enough, we looked him up, and he had been. Then he came to Atlanta, and they said he had reformed. But there are two things in this world I do not believe in. One is a reformed thief and the other is a reformed woman of the streets."
"Joining the Church Is
Old Trick of Thieves."
"One the cross the thief prayed, and the Master recognized him. He gave him forgiveness. He saw the thief and before the thief spoke He recognized him as a thief. But the Lord is all-forgiving, and He said to the thief, This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.' Now, I have no faith in these reformed thieves. I have no faith in a reformed prostitute. Tell me you can reform a thief? I mean a thief at heart, and the man who has thievery in his heart will carry it there all his life. He may steal with secrecy, and be safe, but the thievery is still within him. You may reform other criminals, but the thief never."
"Has Dalton reformed? Oh, he has done the beastly thing. He has done the low, with a sanctimonious expression on his face. He slinks down upon a congregation of godly people and deceives them. He joins them in hypocritical carrying on of their work. He deceives them. Why, gentlemen of the jury, joining the church is an old trick of thieves, and here before us we have had the real illustration, that of a thief who stinks in two counties and goes into another to get away from the odor of his past existence."
"Here is this man Dalton, of the Anglo-Saxon race. Yes, gentlemen of the jury, he had a white face, but that was all. He was black within. What did he do, this thief who joined the church? Look how brazenly he advertised his immorality. When he was placed upon the stand and questioned as to his acts, he could have declined to answer; he could at least have hung his head in shame. But was he ashamed? No; he was as proud of his dirty immorality was a young boy with a new red top. He smiled over it. He gloated over it. It was the first time in his existence that a group of respectable men and women had listened to him, and he fairly gloated."
"Did you hear what he said when asked as to what Frank was doing in his office? He said: I had such a peach myself that I had no time to give attention to anyone else.' Gentlemen, he said he had Daisy, and you saw Daisy. She was the peach!' Poor Daisy! She is not to blame. If she has fallen, which I pray to God she has not, let us forgive her, like the Saviour forgave the Magdalene."
"Gentlemen of the jury, I don't say all of us have been free of passion's lust, but I do say that most of humanity guilty of the crime hold it private. A gentleman wants decent surroundings when committing such an act. He wants cleanliness. No decent man ever stood on the stand and bragged about the peace' that he had. Why, even the beasts of the field hide that."
"Burns had it right when he said in that poem about be gentle with your brother man, be gentler with your sister woman.' That ends with the line, Tis human to step aside.'"
Dalton went and got that peace' and carried her to his scuttlehole like a gopher. Did you ever see a gopher? My friend Hooper used them for chains down in South Georgia all his life. The gopher has a hole, with usually a rattlesnake for his companion. Ain't that a fine combination? In that dirty, filthy old hole of the pencil factory, an old goods boxes, with an odor which if put to the nose of a skunk would be offensive, where a dog would not step aside, where an old lascivious cat would not crouch that's Dalton. Yet only he and Jim Conley have brought charges of immorality against this factory.
"I am going to be fair with you, gentlemen, if I can. I am not going to tell you the truth. I thought this case was to be tried by a Solicitor General. God save the mark! I've never seen such partisan feelings before."
Says State Witness
Left Serpent's Trail.
"This arm of the State is to protect the weak, yet I've heard something I've never heard before, and I never expect to hear as long as God lets me live. The Solicitor said, I'll go as far as the court will allow me. That's the crux of this whole case. When the Solicitor General said that, God only knows how far the detectives want. Dalton said he went to the factory some time last year, between the hours of 1 and 2 o'clock. Did he go into the Woodenware Company's part of the building or into the pencil factory? There's nothing to show, except that wherever he went he left the trail of a serpent behind him. Frank didn't know he was there. It was Frank's lunch hour. If Dalton went, he was taking advantage of the factory authorities."
"When we come to consider it, what is there about this factory to make it so bad as the State has tried to paint it? It was searched by my friend Starnes, who wouldn't stop at anything to get evidence. It was searched by that delightful man John Black. Do you know when I think of him I just want to take him in my arms and caress him. And it was searched by Patrick Campbell, that noble detective who wouldn't go on the stand for fear I might ask him about his tutorage of Jim Conley."
"The entire police department, in all its pride, went over the record of that factory with a fine-toothed comb. What have they found?"
"Let's see. In the first place we have had a mighty upheaval in the last two years. It is wrong to commit adultery, but with segregation, the proper surroundings, and a decent amount of secrecy, the world tolerates it. But Chief beavers doesn't. He has combed the town with a fine-toothed comb. Young women have had to fly to cover, and young men are down the middle of the road. That immoral squad; what do they call it, Brother Arnold? Oh, yes; the vice squad, has swept the town with a broom until there is not one lascivious louse left in the head of the body politic. And now they try to tell us this pencil factory was an immoral resort."
"Who has one word to say against that boy Schiff? Who has a word to say against young Wade Campbell?"
Rosser turned toward Attorney Hooper at this point, and continued: "You were willing, without one line of testimony, to attack the characters of these young men, so that you may carry your case. You are willing to clasp this Bertus Dalton to your breast as though he were a 16-year-old. If I know a single thing on this earth I know the ordinary working man and working woman of Georgia. I have an ancestry of working people behind me. My parents were working people. With 100 of Atlanta's working girls, with about the same number of Atlanta's hardy working men, in that factory on Forsyth street. I assert they could not have been there eight long years if the factory had been an immoral house. Those girls would have fled. The outraged citizens would have torn down that old building, stone by stone. You may assert that those girls wouldn't have fled, but I tell you I have a higher conception of the Georgian working girl than to believe for one minute that she would have remained."
"If I am mistaken, and 100 willing females stayed there, and 100 thin-blooded males stood by and let conditions continue. I assert the factory could not have lasted 48 hours. NO man in charge of a business of that magnitude ever yet attempted to be on terms of criminal intimacy with the scores of women in his employ but that they didn't rule him with stronger reins than the Queen of Sheba."
"Frank's Statement
Had Ring of Truth.'"
"What do you think would become of a factory superintendent who got on intimate terms with his women employees? This would be bad enough for a native born American, but what would you think full-blooded Americans would do or say about a foreigner who came here and attempted such a thing, and especially considering the antipathy which has al
ways been borne to the Jewish race?"
"Now, I have shown you that the factory has been prosperous, and we know well enough that it could not have been prosperous if immorality had been allowed to exist there."
"Now, let's take up the man. I don't have to tell you that he is smart. Every one of us knows that. When he got upon the stand and talked to you, he gave illustration of being one the most remarkable men I have ever met. His talk to you was, indeed, remarkable, and as I sat and listened to it for the first time. I wondered and marveled at the brain of the man. I could never have made up a speech like that, even if I had had the brains. And it wasn't a written speech, either. It was the truth, gushing out naturally as does the water from the flowing spring. There was no force behind it. There was no electricity there. It was the plain, simple flowing truth as mother Nature furnished it."
"Gentlemen of the jury, if Frank's tank to you had been forced, it would not have had that ring of truth to it. You may make a silver dollar that in appearance would fool the Secretary of the Treasury. But drop that dollar and the ring will tell. The real dollar has the real ring, the silver ankle that can not be mistaken. And the real truth, like the real ring, has the ring that shows that it is nothing but the truth."
"Frank's words had the ring that come from old Mother Nature's breast when telling the truth. The old saying is that the idle brain, is the devil's workshop. No one knowns this better than I do. When I am busy, I am one of the nicest men you ever met. I eat regularly and get plenty of sleep, and I behave myself. I mean I am fairly good. But let me stop work for a couple of days and there is no telling where I will light. It is the man with nothing to do who gets into mischief."
Why Frank's Character
Was Put in Evidence.
"Who do you catch stealing and doing mischief all around? It is the idle folks. An old bank retired from active business in New York was once given a banquet, and this is what he said when his faithful employees gathered around him: In my 40 years in this bank, it has been an unfortunate coincidence that nearly every man connected with the bank has been under suspicion at one time or the other. But there is one thing I wish to say. There was never a hard-working, thrifty man among you who was ever found guilty in the slightest way.'"
"Now, gentlemen of the jury, that is the way it is in every walk of life. When you watch a great river flowing on to the sea, you don't take a spyglass and pick out the little eddies. No. You look at the heavy flow of the waters as they move majestically along."
"So it is with human life. It is this way with the hard-working man who follows the straight course and goes on in a majestic flow on the even tenor of his way. It is not for the jury, trying him, to take the spy-glasses and search out the small eddies. In his character, but let them take his full character, the broad and majestic flow of it."
"If we hadn't said a word about his character, the court would have instructed you to assume a good character. Under the law, we could have remained mute, and his character would have been good to you. But we didn't wish to do that. We wanted you to know what manner of man he was. I say to you with all the sincerity of my soul that no man within the sound of my voice could show as good character as he has, fi put to such a test. I am not dealing with the infamous lies of Dalton and Conley."
"But you say, Wait a minute. Some people said he had a bad character. That's correct. I am not going to try to fool you. I am going to deal with the facts."
"I couldn't fool you if I tried. Let's see who they are who say he has a bad character. You know you can find some people to swear against anyone. Suppose my friend Arnold had occasion and so far forgot himself as to put my character up. Don't you suppose you could find a hundred men in Atlanta to swear that I am vicious? I am not not extraordinarily so, but in my long practice of law, perhaps I have wronged someone. Perhaps sometimes in my zeal I have been too sever, and some people may think they have a just grievance against me."
"Now, what did this young man do? Here are the young ladies, and I haven't a word to say against them. The older I get the gentler I become, if anything. Oh, why would I abuse and vilify anyone? With our lives a moment bright, then dark forever, why should I?"
"Here is Miss Myrtice Cato. She worked there three and a half years. If she was a sweet, pure girl, and I take it for granted she was, would she have stayed there that long, constantly associated with Frank, if he was a vile man? She would have fled from him long ago. Oh, she has felt the bitterness of the rabble since this crime occurred. She was under the tense heated atmosphere of this trial."
"Then Miss Maggie Griffin. She worked there two months two years ago. What does she know about Frank compared with these women who have been there for years?"
Miss Estelle Winkle had an extensive acquaintance with Frank. She worked there're one week in 2010. Miss Carrie Smith, like Miss Cato, worked there three and a half years, and the other few worked there very brief periods.
"That's all, gentlemen, of the hundreds of women who worked there during the last five years."
Scores Detectives
As "Active Gang."
"Why, I could find more people to swear against the Bishop of Atlanta. They have searched every corner. They have spyglassed every nook. Starnes and Black and Campbell and Rosser, generated by that mighty detective, Chief Lanford."
Attorney Rosser turned and addressed the detectives grouped around the prosecution's table.
"You are an active gang," he said to them. "Not only that, but how much of the Minola McKnight methods you have used nobody knows. How they have wheedled and turned and twisted the minds of these little girls no one but God Almighty knows. Hundreds of men have worked in that factory, and they are the larger vessels, but notions of them appeared here to testify against Frank's character.
"Has no man who ever worked their brains enough to accent the corruption and depravity that existed around the factory? Here is that long-legged fellow Gantt. My friend Hooper here tried to explain why he left but you know why he was fired. He was there for three months. Don't you know that if Frank's character had been what they said it was, if he had been the lascivious fiend, the brute, and moral Mary, and this Gantt said Frank told him he seemed to know Mary Phagan very well. Gantt did not tell that before the coroner's inquest and that other young fellow had to be wheedled and led by my friend Dorsey, only to get tangled up and prove that knew nothing.
"Then what was next? The next was a little boy named Turner. I am not here to say anything against Turner, but look at the detectives with their claws about him. Remember what they did to Minola McKnight, and then you will realize what happened to the boy.
"Turner testified that he went into the metal room and saw Frank speak to Mary Phagan. Under the leading questioning of the Solicitor, under his wheedling and coaxing, Turner said that the girl backed off two or three steps, but he admitted that it all took place in broad daylight, and in full sight of Lemmie Quinn's office.
"Is it to be believed that a man in sight of a whole factory, handicapped by his race, would have gone into the metal room and attempted those advances with that little girl? Is it to be conceived that this innocent little girl would not have fled like a frightened deer and would not have run home and told that good stepfather and the good old mother who reared her?"
"That little girl, Dewey Hewell, testified that Frank put his hand on Mary's shoulder, but there were Grace Hix, Magnolia Kennedy, and Helen Ferguson. Do you believe that he would have done this in their sight, and that they would have said nothing about it when they were on the stand?"
Gantt Knows Nothing
Wrong
About Frank.
"My friend from the wiregrass (meaning Hooper) said that this was the beginning of his diabolical scheme. Then Gantt was turned on as a part of the plot. Gantt being the only one who knew of Frank's intentions toward the girl."
"Don't you suppose that if this plot had existed, Gantt would have been the one who in clarion tones would have proclaimed it from the witness stand? Yet they had this long-legged fellow twice on the stand, and both time he said he knew nothing wrong about Frank."
"Conley says that Frank told him at 2 o'clock Friday afternoon to come back Saturday. Now, gentlemen, do you believe that? Don't you know that Frank had every reason in the world to believe she would not be there Saturday? Placards had been posted all around the factory, telling that it would be a holiday. All of the employees knew of it, and there was nothing to show that she did not know of it. They paid off Friday afternoon, and there were some envelopes left over, but Frank did not know whose they were. Schiff had paid off, and had put the envelopes up. Frank had not even seen them. Now, little Helen Ferguson said she went to the office Friday afternoon and got her envelope, and that, she asked them to give her Mary Phagan's. She said Frank declined to give it to her, and that when he did this, she turned and walked away."
"Now, we have Magnolia Kennedy, who says she was right there with the little Ferguson girl, and that she
Continued on Page 3, Column 1.
PAGE 11
FRANK WOULD HAVE HAD
2 LAWYERS HAD HE BEEN
ON TO CURVES OF POLCE'
Continued From Page 2.
did not ask for Mary Phagan's pay. Now one of them is mistaken, but this is not of much importance, so we will pass it on."
"How did Frank know that Mary Phagan would come back to the factory at all on Saturday. The custom had been that when employees failed to get their envelopes on regular pay days before holidays, that they passed over the holiday and waited until the next regular working day to draw their pay. So we see from that there was absolutely no reason why Frank would have expected her there on Saturday."
"Now, what else? They say Frank was nervous. He was, and we admit it. A young boy went there, said he saw Frank, and that he was nervous. Black said he was nervous. Darley said he was nervous. Mr. Montag, his wife, Isaac Haas, and a number of others, all said he was nervous. Of course, he was nervous, and there were lots of others around there that were nervous. Why don't they hang Jake Montag? Why don't they hang old Isaac Haas? They were nervous. Why don't they hang all those pretty little girls who became nervous and hysterical when they heard of this terrible crime? Wouldn't the sight of this little girl's body , dragged in the dirt and crushed into the cinders, have made you nervous too?
Only Manhunter Not
Moved By Child's Death.
"Man is a cruel monster. He is hard-hearted. They say he is a little below the angles, but he has fallen mighty low in ages past. If the angels haven't descended with him. Yet I have never seen a man who when he looked upon a little girl crushed that some of the divinity that shapes his head did not arouse him and cause tears to flow down his cheeks.
"I am not chicken-hearted. I could see one of you badly hurt without going into hysterics. But I never hear the cry of a woman or a child but that manhood and tenderness I got from my sainted mother does not arise to rebellion within me, and I pray God if it ever should cease that my end may come. No one but the manhunter with blood in his heart would want to hang a man because he was nervous from the death of a little child."
"Then we come to that telephone call. They say he did not hear it and that that is cause for suspicion. Some people sleep lightly, others are hard to awake. The wife of old man Selig had to arouse him. They called old Uncle Ike Haas and he did not hear. His wife had to awaken him. Why not hang old Uncle Isaac Haas? He did not hear the telephone. Hang him because he slept a peaceful sleep, evidence of a good conscience."
"They have another suspicion. He hired a lawyer. I had known the National Pencil Company, but I don't know that I ever saw Frank until I met him at the police station. Frank had been down there on Sunday and told them all that he could. I don't know what was in the minds of the detectives; I don't know what is the head of old John Black. God Almighty only knows. That's one reason I love John so I can't tell what's in his head."
"Then on Monday the police did not have the same attitude to Frank."
Hooper Saysa Rosser Is
"Wire-grass" Man, Too.
At this point the jury was executed for a breathing spell. Attorney Frank Hooper, of the prosecution, came over to the press table and said that he wanted to make an explanation of where h came from, after Mr. Rosser's humorous references to him.
"We both came from Randolph County," Hooper said, "and I guess Mr. Rosser knows about as much about gophers and wire grass as I do."
"The only suspicion against this man is that he employed me and he employed Herbert Haas. I felt a little bad about it because my friend Dorsey didn't say anything about Rube Arnold. Frank didn't employ a lawyer Sunday, but on Monday the police employed different tactics. They went after him with two detectives. He wasn't arrested oh, no. But my friend Black said he was released. When I asked him what that meant, if he wasn't arrested, he had to admit that to all intents and purposes Frank was under arrest.
"Chief Lanford walked about with his accustomed dignity, and Chief Beavers, the beautiful one, scudded around, and they left Frank to soak."
Here Rosser turned to Frank.
"That's the only time in this whole thing," he said, "you didn't show good sense. If you had known what I know about that bunch, you wouldn't have gotten one lawyer, but would have gotten two good ones, and you wouldn't have been satisfied then."
"But old man Sig Montag was a little wiser than Frank. He knew that bunch. He was onto their curves. I am going to be mighty careful, though, about what I say about that police bunch, because if they take a notion they would get me for white slavery before to-night."
"At any rate, Sig Montag called Herbert Haas and told him to go down there and see what is the matter with Leo Frank. Haas could not go. I will give a house and lot worth $20,000 to be in the same position he was that day. His wife was preparing to have a baby."
Not Arrested, But
Had To Be "Released."
"Sig took the automobile and wept down to Haas' house and said you must go. They went to the police station, and what happened? That throws a whole flood of light on the matter."
"No, Frank was not arrested, but he had to be released. I said to John Black, John, what do you mean by released?' He stammered and stuttered, and said, Why, I just mean released.'
"These men went down to see a man who was not under arrest. He was a free citizen sitting there, and yet they wouldn't let his friends see him. They wouldn't let his lawyer Haas see him."
"This man Haas is not of my age or of my flesh, or of my experience. He called me up. If there is any crime in that he is the guilty man. My friend Dorsey with his eyes close together, snapping like snakes, made much of the fact that Frank had hired the lawyer. The charges and insinuations that he has made are the most contemptible that ever have occurred in a Georgia court. The things that he has done in this trial will never be done a gain in Georgia. I will stake my life on that."
Could Not Hire
More Devoted Lawyer.
"Dorsey's eyes got as green as beads on a woman's dress as he hissed his charges against Frank of dirty dog and brutal murderer. You may question Frank in his judgement; he might have hired a better lawyer than I. He might have hired a more decent lawyer, but he couldn't have hired a more devoted lawyer. I will say that for myself if I drop dead in my tracks."
Could Not Hire
More De
voted Lawyer.
"Dorsey's eyes got as green as beads on a woman's dress as he hissed his charges against Frank of dirty dog and brutal murderer. You may question Frank in his judgement; he might have hired a better lawyer than I. He might have hired a more decent lawyer, but he couldn't have hired a more devoted lawyer. I will say that for myself if I drop dead in my tracks."
"Under what circumstances did Frank hire the detectives? He had been to the station house and was asked to make a statement. I went down there, not at Frank's invitation, for he didn't know I was coming. Mr. Haas had asked me to go down there, and I wasn't a welcome visitor at the police station that morning. They don't take my hate; they didn't give my hat; they didn't give me a warm welcome. I guess they would have arrested me long ago, but they just don't want me down there. I can't blame them for that."
"And when I reached there I saw Frank for the first time in my life. I walked in and said, What's the matter here, boys?' You know, I just used plain old common English. I don't put on any fancy frills."
"Someone said, They've got Mr. Frank under arrest here for murder.' One of the detectives got up and said, No, we haven't.' Yet they talked about him not being under arrest at that time."
Why Didn't They
Want Me There?
"Someone said, They want him to make a statement.' I said, Let him go ahead and make it.' Right away Lanford and the others hustled him over to a room. They didn't want me to go with him."
"Now, I have always been a little bit impudent, and when I started in, they said, We don't want you in here,' and I said, kind of impudent-like, I'm coming in, anyway, I won't interrupt him but I'm coming in.'"
"And why didn't they want me in there? I don't know. Wasn't I as reputable a citizen as Lanford? Wasn't I as capable of protecting the law as he was? Gentlemen, while we were there a peculiar thing happened. I said a man could not have committed that crime and not have scars upon him. Frank showed them that he had no marks upon himself."
"Why didn't Lanford get upon the stand. Was it because he dreaded to get in converse with me? No, he didn't want to recall that dark Conley chapter; that hideous Minola McKnight incident."
"And after they had released Frank, what did they do? They went out to his house and looked at his soiled linen, and what evidence did they
Luther Rosser's Tribute to the Jury
"We walk in the streets carelessly, absorbed in our own interests. We pass our friends, and do not recognize them. The mind wanders in flights of fancy and fits of revelry. We mean no harm to ourselves nor harm to our friends, but we are careless."
"Men of the jury, you are set aside. You cease to be a part of that revelry of the streets. In old pagan Rome women walked the streets, chatted gayly and carelessly, but a few were set aside the vestal virgins. They cared not for the gladiatorial combats or the strife."
"So it is with you set apart. You care not for the chatter or the laughter of the rabble. You are unprejudiced. Yours is the sworn duty to pass on a matter of life and death. You are to decide on the evidence, with no fear, no favor, no affection."
"Others may take the brave task of standing up for the weak and oppressed, but it is not for you. You are a still, silent, consecrated band. You are to do your duty without one thought of the past or the future. You are here and now consecrated by justice to do your duty."
find? Not a thing."
"If Frank had been a guilty man, do you know what he would have done? Gentlemen of the jury, he would have kept quiet. He would have kept his silence to himself. But he was not guilty and he did not do that. But he went home with the thought of this horrible murder in his mind. He thought of how a beast had committed the crime; of how God's laws had been outraged; of how there was a stain upon the fair nannie of this city."
Says Frank Wanted
To Find Slayer.
"Then he sat down and di what? He telephoned Sig Montag that he wanted to hire detectives; that he wanted to ferret out and punish the murderer of Mary Phagan."
"I have not had too high an estimate of the detective department. I don't mean they are not good, clever fellows, but no man can spy on folks, come in constant contact with crime and elevate his character. God Almighty couldn't do it."
"You," and here Rosser turned again to the detectives, "may not be made worse men, but you won't be made better men. Nor Scott; I am sorry he has gone and will not hear what I have got to say. He crept into this case in the most remarkable situation I ever heard of. He got up on the stand and said, We worked hand and glove with the city detectives. Ain't that a fine gang? Do nothing outside of what the city police do."
"Hiring Detective
A Courageous Deed."
"Some good man will hire him again. But I don't care anything about that. I will let it go. The point is that Frank knew that Scott was going to work with the police. I will give Scott credit for being that honest. He told Frank he was going to lock arms with John Black and walk down the disgraceful avenue of this case."
"This young Jew, just down from the North, ignorant of Southern customs, hired a Pinkerton detective to ferret out the crime. The detective told him he was going to trail with the police. Frank told him, Find the murderer.' He knew Scott was going to trail with the police, even Frank himself was trailed."
"Ah, gentlemen, his race has present many a heroic scene, but never one greater than this. Yet they want to hang him because he employed a detective."
"My friend Hooper charged that he tried to point suspicion on Newt Lee. I don't believe Hooper meant what he said. Frank first said there was no error in the time slips. The next day here said there was. Darley made the same mistake. Why not hang Darley?"
"Then do you remember what he said about the time being rubbed off of that slip? Dorsey had to admit that he erased it. I don't mean that Dorsey meant any harm."
Denounces Bloody
Shirt Evidence.
"Then the bloody shirt. Gentlemen, that is the most unfair thing in this whole case to charge that that young man had that shirt planted. Black and Scott went out and found that shirt in the bottom of an old barrel at Newt Lee's house. They found it Tuesday morning, brought it in and Newt said it was his shirt."
Dorsey jumped to his feet at this moment and exclaimed that such was not the testimony, Rosser said:
"Newt Lee did. I got it out of one of those boys on the stand."
"No he didn't," replied Dorsey. "Lee said it looked like a shirt of his."
"Well, we'll admit it then," Rosser continued; "we will just put it that way. We will suppose they went out and got a bloody shirt just like the one old Newt Lee wore and hid it in that barrel."
"Frank didn't even know where old man Lee lived. He certainly didn't know he had a shirt that looked like that one. I never heard of going to such extremities to try to hang an innocent man."
"But old man Lee I don't believe he had anything to do with the crime, itself. I never will believe anything but that he found that corpse earlier than he said he did. I can't understand how he knew it was while when it took the detectives so long to find cut. I can't understand how he saw the body from where the detectives themselves and it was impossible to see it."
"And he said the face was turned up and the police found it different. I am mighty afraid the old man know it was a white girl, but I still don't believe he had anything to do with the crime itself. If he did, he is the most remarkable old negro that ever lived."
"Shame the Way They
Treated Newt Lee."
"If I had his endurance. I would talk forever. It will be ashamed to the dying day of every member of that detective department the way they treated that poor old man. They talked to him until he got weary and his head hung low, and then they sent in a fresh relay, and when it looked l
ike he couldn't endure it any longer, they would come in with a battery of pistols and poke them in his face."
"I am afraid Newt Lee saw the body before he said he did. But he is a wonderful negro. Oh, the dirty trick that you played on him will be a shame to you as long as you live. (Rosser looked at the detectives). You hammered away at that old negro all hours of the night. But Newt wore the detectives out in relays. They fired pistols near him."
"I am afraid he knows more about this than he ever has told. Let us listen to the story that he told. He told of coming to the factory that night and that Gantt and he stood out in front of the factory. He said that Frank appeared alarmed when he came out and ran into Gantt."
"But the explanation that the negro gave was the very best that could be given. He said, I knew they had had some trouble, and I thought Gantt was there to do Mr. Frank dirt.' Lee and Gantt both say now that Frank jumped back, but neither said it before the Coroner's inquest."
No Wonder Frank
Jumped at Seeing Gantt.
"Is it to be wondered at that Frank jumped, if he actually did jump, which I doubt? Why, you could take him and put him on the top floor of the factory with a girl the size of Mary Phagan and she could make him jump out of the window. He is not a strong man. He is a physical weakling, comparatively, I am not saying this unkindly, but the Jewish people, once the bravest on earth, are not the fighters now that they used to be."
"As he came out of the factory he was confronted by this giant, Gantt. He might have jumped back. If little Dorsey had come out suddenly like that in the night he would have bent his back into a bow jumping back. It is little groveling, snakelike suspicions like this that have marked Dorsey's whole case against the defendant."
"They said also that Frank had thrown suspicion on Gantt. Scott gets up now and says that Frank told him Gantt was familiar with the little Phagan girl, not in a bad way, as there has been no reflection upon this little girl's character, but that they were friends in a good way. But, gentlemen of the jury, Scott didn't say that in his reports to us. He didn't say that in his reports to his agency, and now, in this connection, the understanding was that the Pinkertons were to furnish he police their reports 24 hours before they gave them to us. And this was done all the way through."
"Now for old Newt Lee, and then I am through with the suspicious circumstances. Frank had told old Newt to come early Saturday, as that was a holiday, and having in his mind at the time that he was going to the ball game."
"The suspicion has been cast because he was afraid that he might discover something, that he might make the gruesome find of that cruelly mutilated body in the basement."
"Is it conceivable that by a trick he would get old Newt away for two hour and then leave him the whole night alone in the building where he was sure to discover the body? Then we know that Frank went home and calmy ate his supper, that he read, that he was light-hearted and told a joke. And my brother gets up and charges that Frank was so callous that he laughed."
"Oh, gentlemen of the jury, can you imagine that laugh? If Frank had been guilty of murder, it would have been the laugh of a maniac. Now, Frank is smart. Is there a man here who is such a fool that he believes that Frank would have sent the watchman away by a trick for two hours and would have then left the body with no one but Newt in the building? And Newt there all night?"
"Gentlemen, that would have weighted on his mind. He would have been raving like a maniac, waiting to be called by old Newt to be told of the gruesome find. Can you believe it? Oh, such a stigma; oh, such a hideous plot."
No Chance for Him
To Commit Crime.
"There is one other suspicion. They say he was in the factory the time Mary Phagan was. But, gentlemen, you know this only because Frank says it. You didn't have to fish it out. He was not the only man there. If the corpse had been found there and he was the only man in the building, it might have been some proof; but there were others. He was in an open room. He had company every hour. Unless he was some magician there was no chance for him to commit the crime. Up on the fourth floor were two young men."
"If there is one thing indelibly fixed in this case, it is that this young boy could not see ingoers and outgoers of that factory. "Conley or some other negro was seen in the hall on the first floor. Yesterday there came out like a ray of sunlight on a wicked world another negro, a lighter one. They had the same opportunity to commit this murder that Frank had. Who knows what white-faced scoundrel might have lurked around among those machines."
"Gentlemen, these facts drive out any suspicion that he did the deed simply because he was there. Father of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, father of us all, may no such mean prejudices rankle in the hearts of this consecrated jury, to the undoing of this unfortunate young boy."
"I know you will not blame if I fail in my feeble steps to walk over this same ground that this legal giant (referring to Arnold) did yesterday. So I will touch briefly on some of these points."
"I come to Conley. That part of the case fatigues may indignation. That white men should believe this infamous character is a shame on this great city and this great Siste, and will be to the end of time. Who is this Conley? Let's see who he used to be. A plain, dirty, filthy, drunken, lying, and I expect, lousy, negro.
Scores Scott,
Pinkerton Detective.
"Have I overstated that? Starnes knows I have not. Black knows I have not. I don't know whether Chief Beavers' dignity has ever got down low enough for him to see him, but if it has, he knows it. Now Black, he of the doubtful memory, he would remember one thing one time and the next time he wouldn't there was a good deal of fun made over Black, but I say he was trying to tell the truth and got mixed. But he is in a heap better fix than Scott. Scott well, I've seen a heap of men heavier up here (pointing to his forehead). He might detect a louse with a spyglass; I don't think he could do more."
"I said, Scott, what about that negro? Does he look like he did when you got him here?' He said No!' I said, They have slicked him up a little bit, haven't they?' And he had to admit it. And shame to them. Who was it that took this dirty, filthy negro, gave him warm baths and good clothes, and brought him out here to make his dirty, lying testimony before detectives? I don't charge that to anybody, because I don't know who it was, but it is as dirty and contemptible a piece of work as was ever done. They shaved that dirty-wool and his bestial face; and if I knew who was responsible for it I'd call his name."
"I've had that joke played on me, nearly, once before. Some hallroad lawyer dreaded up a brakeman who was suing the railroad and brought him into court, but I never heard of it being done in a case of life and death."
"It is very hard to find a man that somebody won't believe. There's Dalton; some few believed him. But who was there. In all that crowd, who would say they would believe Jim Conley?"
Black Hypocrisy
Charged to Dalton.
"What a contempt Black has for this man Dalton. What a contempt that son of Erin (pointing out Pat Campbell) has for him."
"Yet they found people who would testify to his good character and to his reputation for truth and veracity. One man said that Dalton had joined the church and so far as he knew, he was a good church member now. Thus was the blackest hypocrisy added to his other evil characteristics. But they found sponsors for him."
"But who was Conley? Who would stand up and may his character was good? Who would be sponsor for him?"
"Do you, Black? Stand up."
"Do you, Campbell?"
"Do you, Rosser? Rosser is one whose ancestors trod the earth in the same places as mine, and I know he wouldn't hang a suck-egg dog on the testimony of this l
ying nigger Conley."
"They have swept every back alley in Atlanta to get someone who would stand up and say that he was an honest nigger. But they found not a soul. Who is there that will stand up and marry the nigger Conley to the truth? Not a person."
Failed to Prove
Frank a Pervert.
"My friends on the other side have attempted to make this young man before you a pervert. They tried to do it on the lying testimony of this nigger, unsupported by a single other person. But they didn't do it."
"But even if they had proved it beyond doubt, it could not enter into this case. This boy is being tried for murder, and if he is a thousand times a pervert, that can not be allowed to sway your verdict."
"The vilest thing in this case is the dragging of this issue into the trial on the unsupported word of the lying nigger who is trying to save his own neck by any foul lies which he can shape."
"Yet the Solicitor made the charges here in open court." He made them before the jury, before everyone in the courtroom. He made them before the young wife of the defendant. He made them uselessly and purposelessly. They could serve only one purpose. The sole explanation is that the Solicitor made them to add a little strength to his case, to serve his leaping ambition to win his case and send a man to the gallows. It is impossible that it was done in the interests of justice."
"A dirty thief and liar was brought into the courtroom to destroy a man's character. My indignation can not be put in words."
Court adjourned at this point, for the noon recess, Attorney Rosser saying that as it was near the recess hour he would prefer to stop his address at that time, as he did not want to be interrupted in his closing at the afternoon session.
Woman Early
To Get Seats.
Attorney Rosser resumed his address at 2 o'clock. He said that he would probably consume about half or three-quarters of an hour longer. Many women were in courtroom during the afternoon, having been allowed to come in early and get seats. Several hundred men were on the outside trying to get admission when the court opened.
Attorney Rosser said:
"Gentlemen of the jury, when recess came I was just saying how horrible it was that this charge of perversion had been made against the defendant. Dorsey made the charge through his lying witness Conley. No other witness in this case has made such a suggestion as that made by the negro."
"It was a horrible thing a thing inconceivable that such an accusation should be brought in here. Conley had no one to support him except Dalton, and Dalton did not say that he ever had seen Frank in any wrong conduct. Dalton merely said that he had seen women in Frank's office. When questioned, he was unable to say that he ever saw Frank do a wrong act.
"Dalton in his story said that he was with Daisy Hopkins in the factory."
"But Conley says that it was Frank who had Daisy Hopkins. This is the important point on which these two liars differ. Conley said that Dalton was with some peace,' some lesser beauty, living between Haines and Hunter streets."
Says Conley Has
"Butted In" for Life.
He went to that Butt Inn saloon and Lord bless my soul, he has butted in for life. He gave a detailed statement of seeing those negroes and taking drinks with them. Did anyone of them come here to say he did? Did that negro come here that Conley said he shot dice with the negro with the whip around his neck"? Did that bartender come here who mixed his wins and beer?"
"Now, these police know those negroes on Peters street lots better than they do you and I. It is their business to know them. They know those dicemen around there like a book. If Conley had given a single correct name, time, place or incident, they would have had that whole horde of negroes lined up here."
"Another thing, he said dice: He would have said craps, until those policemen got him and talked to him. He said his name was James Conley; he certainly would have said Jim. If they hadn't have been after him. He said "Snowball" heard Frank tell him to come back and watch for him, but Snowball said he didn't! Snowball is just a plain, ordinary, African negro. He didn't know how to tell a lie."
"And then they talk about Frank try to make the police suspect somebody if he could. Why, it is just like an English sparrow suspecting a horse and then following him a mile."
An eloquent four-and-a-half address by Reuben Arnold for the defense marked the first day of the arguments in the Frank trial. Only, two addresses were made to the jury, that by Arnold and the opening argument of the State by Attorney Frank A. Hooper, who has been associated with Solicitor Dorsey in the prosecution of the case.
Hooper spoke in the forenoon from 9 o'clock until 11:30. Arnold began his remarkable speech at 11:50 and was interrupted by recess at 12:30 o'clock. He resumed at 2 and continued until 5:50 in the evening.
Arnold's speech was remarkable for the minute detail with which it covered practically every important phase of the great murder mystery, for its satire, for its flashes of humor and sarcasm, for its impassioned appeal for the life and liberty of a man who was described as the innocent victim of one of the most nefarious plots ever hatched against a man's character."
The lawyer in bitter words charged that if it had not been for Frank's race he never would have been on trial for his life. He charged that the State had been compelled to bring its witnesses from the dregs of humanity, from the jails and from the convict camps, to perfect the terrible conspiracy against Frank.
He asserted that the Solicitor had been forced to warp and stretch the probabilities to the breaking point in order to bring about a suppositious situation in which it would have been possible for Frank to have committed the crime and gone through the disposal of Mary Phagan's body as described by Jim Conley. They built up a structure of testimony against Frank by their own witnesses, he charged, and then proceeded to demolish it because it would not fit in with their theories or with the probabilities of the case."
Laughs at State's
Chain of Circumstances.
He held up to ridicule the theory of the State that the attack could have been premeditated on the part of Frank. He laughed at the chain of antecedent circumstances which the Solicitor and Attorney Hooper had endeavored to link together to show that Frank on Friday was contemplating the attack Saturday on the little factory girl.
He did not believe that Frank on Friday at 3 o'clock asked Jim Conley to come back the next morning to work at the factory. "But if he did," said Arnold, "how was he to know that Mary Phagan was not going to come after her pay envelope Friday night at 5:50 or 6, along with the rest of the employees?"
He did not believe that Helen Ferguson asked Frank for the pay envelope of Mary Phagan and was refused. Of course, the Ferguson girl testified on the stand that she did, but other testimony developed that Schiff was the man who paid off and not Frank at all. And Magnolia Kennedy, in whose word Arnold was included to place as much credence as in that of the State's witness, swore that she was standing by Helen Ferguson at the pay window and that the Ferguson girl got her envelope and never asked for the Phagan girl's pay.
But even granting that this was so, argued Arnold, what reason had Frank to believe, accepting the State's theory that he knew all about Mary Phagan not coming for her pay Friday, that Mary would not come on Monday, the next work day, for her money, as was the general outcome in the pencil factory?
Arnold presented it as his positive conviction that the man who wrote the notes found by the body of Mary Phagan was her murderer. He branded Jim Conley as a miserable, lying scoundrel, who was busily engaged in concocting stories, with the help of the detectives, with which he might save his own black neck from the hangman's noose. The crime, he said, was the work of a savage
negro.
The eloquent lawyer paid his compliments to "Christopher Columbus" Barrett, the "discoverer" of the alleged blood spots and of the strands of hair on the lathing machine. He charged that Barret was only after the reward money, and called to the attention of the jury that Chief of Detectives Lanford and his sleuths went over the same place on the factory floor Sunday where Barrett discovered the spots on Monday morning.
He further called their attention to the fact that four chips were taken up by the detectives in the place where the supposed blood spots were found and that on only one of them were any blood corpuscles found and then only three or four, when one droop of blood contains thousands of the corpuscles. He referred to the testimony and showed that the chips were covered with grime and dirt and that there was nothing to show that the few blood corpuscles had not been there months or years.
The spots, inasmuch as they failed to respond to the blood test, he maintained, must have resulted from aniline dyes, exactly as the defense had contended from the very first.
C. B. Dalton, who was one of the spectators in the room, along with "Christoopher Columbus" Barrett, heard himself described by the attorney as a "common liar" and heard again his chaingang and court record.
Says Detectives
Coached Negro.
Arnold then turned his attention to the negro Conley's story, as told in his various affidavits and so on the stand. He took it from the first and pointed out what he deemed the inconsistencies and the impossibilities.
He pictured the detectives helping the negro in his story. He exhibited a chart and pointed out the time discrepancies in the State's case from the viewpoint of the defense. He concluded with an appeal to the jury not to be swayed by prejudice or by any slander that had been uttered against the prisoner.
Attorney Hooper made a vigorous assault on Frank's morals in the opening argument of the trial. He charged that Frank, respected among the people of influences of the city, might very easily carry on his acts of immorality in the factory without its becoming a matter of general knowledge.
He accused the young factory superintendent of having Dalton as one of his associates in the gay parties that the State charges were held in Frank's office and in which several women participated.
Hooper said that his trio Frank, Darley, and Schiff practically had the moral lives of the factory girls in their hands. He charged that as a result the factory had been the scene of many grossly improper incidents, and that Frank had started an acquaintance with the Phagan girl which later culminated in the tragedy of April 25.
He charged premeditation. He said that the pay of Mary Phagan deliberately was withheld from Helen Ferguson on Friday so that the Phagan girl would come for her envelope Saturday. He was convinced that Conley was told on Friday to come to the factory Saturday so that he might watch against unwelcome interruptions while the Phagan girl was on the second floor.
Attorney Outlines
Plot Against Girl.
The State's attorney outlined a horrible plot against the innocence of the pretty little factory girl, on whom he said Frank's lustful eyes had been for weeks. He stopped just short of charging premeditated murder.
"I do not have any idea," he said, "that Frank had murder in his heart when he went back to the metal with the little girl on Saturday."
Hooper believed in the negro. He expressed his opinion that Conley finally had arrived at the truth and would stick there under the severest pressure. He showed how his story dove-tailed in with the other circumstances of the case.
"That girl was killed on the second floor of the factory," he declared. "Either Frank did it or he sat supinely in his office where he could not fail to have heard the scream and the sounds of the struggle, nor could he have failed to see the negro when he sought to dispose of the body. The latter supposition is preposterous and we must return to the belief that Frank was the guilty man."
Hooper said that the incidents Conley related as taking place in Frank's office were the most natural things in the world. He declared that Conley related as taking place in Frank's office were the most natural things in the world. He declared that Conley could not have manufactured the conversation out of his own knowledge. Frank must have been there and uttered the words that Conley put into his mouth in his affidavits to the police and this story on the stand.
Hooper closed his address with an inquiry as to the whereabouts of W. H. Mincey, who was expected to swear that Conley made a virtual confession to him.
PAGE 12
HOOPER AND ARNOLD IN
ARGUMENT MADE MOST
OF THEIR OPPORTUNITIES
By JAMES B. NEVIN
Frank Hooper's speech in behalf of the prosecution against Leo Frank, charged with the murder of little Mary Phagan, reflected much credit upon him.
It was fair, to the point, well thought out and appealing in tone and delivery.
It went for the defendant, hammer and tongs, but it was devoid of anything that might be construed as below the belt.
Undoubtedly, it was not pleasant to the defendant, sitting there, stolidly, following the words of Hooper but Dorsey and Hooper, in its final aspect, have made out a most dangerous case against Frank, and Hooper was there to explain and sustain it. He performed his duty in a way that hardly can fail to bring him lasting applause and commendation.
If, however, Frank felt to the full the gloom of the case made out against him by Hooper, he was more than abundantly taken care of when Arnold followed.
The case made out in defense of Frank by Arnold was extremely plausible it covered in detail every point developed by Hooper. It, like Hooper's, was a speech evidently carefully considered.
Jury Held In High Esteem.
Now, the thing about these two speeches that made them particularly and uniquely noteworthy, perhaps, is that both were seemingly designed for the consideration of a jury held to be highly intelligent and not apt to rush pell-mell to a verdict either for or against Frank.
And if the opposing counsel entertain the opinion of the jury if they hold it in such compelling esteem and respect and if the jury is such a jury as deserves that opinion, which I think it is, then the chances are that its verdict will be righteous and just, whatever it may be.
And that the finding of this jury SHALL speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth that, in the words of Hamlet, "is a consummation most devoutly to be wished!"
"Try this case, gentlemen, according to the law and the facts!" said Frank Hooper, addressing the jury Thursday.
That is the final and ultimate request any man for or against the defendant could or should make of the "twelve good men and true" there to pass upon the fate of Leo Frank.
Neither the State nor the defense, in justice and right, dare will plead for more or less!
The two opening speeches in murder trials are presumed to outline clearly the trend of the completed arguments both ways.
Concluding attorneys may amplify and enlarge upon points raised by opening attorneys, but they rarely go far beyond the primary outlining of the two main points of view.
And so, while Rosser and Dorsey may go further than Hooper and Arnold in invective, sarcasm, ridicule and passionate outbreak, neither is apt to add anything material to either side, as compared with the things Hooper and Arnold have said.
There is some advantage to the State or, at least, there is supposed to be some advantage to it in that it has the concluding argument before the jury.
No Injustice There.
Some people think this is an injustice and a hardship upon the defense, but when one comes to consider the theory upon which that practice is founded the apparent injustice and hardship of it vanishes, and it may be seen readily enough that in this, as in so many things the law has
been most carefully thought out
And is just and right.
The law throws about the defendant at bar the presumption of innocent
It places upon the State the burden of proving him guilty, rather than putting upon the defendant the burden of proving himself innocent.
But the law, having done this, permits the final voice to be the voice from the grave.
The dead he or she is not there to speak, and to say as to the truth, and so the law directs that the State's prosecuting counsel shall speak it instead.
Thus does the law, with impartial hand, protect first the defendant and the protect quite as jealously its own majesty, and the rights of the dead!
The law, however, in the event the defendant elects to introduce no witnesses in his behalf, and to rely solely upon his own isolated statement, not under oath, reverses the order of argument and permits the defense to open and close for the law will not permit a defendant even to place himself at a disadvantage without fully compensating him for the same!
What will the Frank jury say?
Will it find the prisoner not guilty, clear his name of all stain and send him forth a free man?
Or will it find him guilty and fasten upon him forever the disgrace of one of the most inhuman and diabolical crimes ever committed in Georgia?
To render the latter verdict, it must believe Frank a monster, lost to every sense of decency and right a man who has meanly and unpardonably deceived his mother, his wife, his friends, his faithful employees and his acquaintances. It must believe him a cruel murderer, for an unspeakable lust the vilest and most evil creature ever known among his kindred and his kind!
Will the jury believe that? It is not easy to think it will.
And yet
The Alternative.
Not to believe it is to believe those girls who swore Frank's character is bad, who cited instances of a suspicious nature to uphold that belief, are wrong that they knew him not, notwithstanding their opportunity and that all the circumstances of the crime seemingly connecting him with it are errors and that Conley's story, no less too big to be true than too big to be untrue, still is untrue, and that all the thins alleged against Frank either are wrong naturally or wrong by design and malicious purpose!
Will the jury look at the matter that way? It is not easy to think it will!
And yet, again, it MUST believe the one or the other or there will be no verdict!
What, then, CAN honest minded mortals, men and women who want to see the right and the right alone prevail, do other than put their faith in the JURY there, and believe that it will speak the TRUTH of this case, no matter what may be anybody's preconceived opinion?
The time for argument has passed. Rosser and Arnold and Hooper and Dorsey have about concluded that.
The general public should now prepare itself to receive the verdict as the final and determining circumstances in the cases.
Individual opinion is interesting at times, but after all, one man's opinion is as good as another's, but not more so.
The Important Thing.
What you think, reader, and what I think, is relatively inconsequential the thing that matters SUPREMELY now, and the thing that alone matters supremely, is what does the
FELINE WAIF FINDS PROTECTOR
IN PRETTY HOTEL ANSLEY MISS
This is Miss
Gladys
Brinkley and
"Governor
Slaton" in a
special pose for camera
"Governor"
is never quite
happy unless
he is safe in the
arms of his fair
guardian. No
one can step on
his tall then
he's sure
of that.
JURY think, and what will the jury say!
No one of us has the opportunity to know so well the ins and outs of the case as the jury. The jury does not read what I write nor does it hear what you say. It is there, in the courtroom, aside from the outside world, off to itself, a thing apart there to do justice, to the State and to Frank, though the heavens fall!
There is no responsibility up individuals expressing opinion pro and con. They are not under oath the life of a human being, on the one hand, and the majesty of the law of the land on the other, are no direct legal concerns of theirs.
It is all very well for you to say, "If I were running this thing I would turn Frank loose in a jiffy," or "If I were running this thing I would hang Frank," when there is no legally impose and oath-bound obligation upon you to render a verdict that means something definite in law.
With a juryman, however, the case is different he is there to fashion a finding that means everything!
Within twenty-four hours, perhaps, the public will know what the Frank jury thinks of the case made against him.
The jury may convict him, and it may acquit him.
No man possibly can know, at this time and nothing is so uncertain in the matter of forecasting as the verdict of a jury.
Public Should Accept Verdict.
But whether it be acquittal or conviction, the public should, and the law-abiding public WILLL, prepare itself to accept that verdict as righteous and just.
No man ought to be willing to set his opinion doggedly against that of those "twelve good men and true," whatever their verdict may be.
Leo Frank, the defendant, is entitled to all the protection the law gives defendants he is entitled to an absolutely fair trial, without favor or prejudice, one way or the other. He is entitled to all of that but no more.
The State has rights as sacred as the defendant's they must be considered.
What more can human ingenuity and the forms of law provide by way of finding the truth of a case like the one now on trial, than has been provided in the present hearing?
"Governor Slaton" Is One of the
Most Distinguished Young
Cats in Atlanta.
"Governor Slaton" was peeved, and justly so, for a hurrying travelling man had stepped on his tail. He arched his back, dug his claws into the soft rugs at the Hotel Ansley and snarled vengefully. He loved nobody and nobody loved him.
Then Miss Glady's Brinkley came along. Miss Brinkley is one of the prettiest of the young women who worked at the Ansley. Diners unite in saying that the smiles she dispenses as she hands out the hats at the door of the rathskeller are worth more than the dinner.
It was one of those whole-souled, joyful smiles that Miss Brinkley bestowed on the disconsolate "Governor." The "Governor" succumbed to the witchery of the smile and knew right away that he had found a friend. So he sheathed his claws, dropped his back, and leaped straight into Miss Brinkley's arms, where he purred contentedly while she stroked him behind the ears and crooned over him.
For "Governor Slaton" isn't what you might think he is at all!
He's a cat!
And the "Governor" is quite a remarkable cat, too. To begin with, he is snow white; not a blotch of color mars his sleek beauty. He is absolutely alone in the world, having no brothers and sisters, and his mother deserted him when he was quite young. He is further distinguished by the fact that he probably is the only cat in captivity born in a big hotel. For the "Governor" first saw the light of day in a vacant room on the thirteenth floor of Atlanta's newest hostelry.
"Governor Slaton" does not care much for human companionship except Miss Brinkley but once again in a while he will allow Mrs. Morgan, who keeps a shop on the mezzanine floor, to pat him. He has no use for men, unless they come bearing gifts, which he accepts and then sticks a claw into the hand of the giver. He is happy about six hours a day. That is when Miss Brinkley is on duty and he can snuggle up at her feet or purr luxuriously in her lap.
And Miss Brinkley likes the "Governor," too.
"All cats are nice," she said, "but I just dote on Governor.' He is so well behaved, and never tries to scratch me. He always hunts me up when I go to work, and will sit with me for hours at a time. The Governor' has been my friend ever
since I first saw him, the day the travelling man stepped on his foot. I felt so sorry for him I couldn't keep from cuddling him."
The hotel attaches tell a rather remarkable tale about the coming of the cat, which shows why he was named "Governor Slaton." It seems that when the rugs came to the Ansley and workmen took them to the thirteenth floor, a big white cat jumped out when they unrolled one. Kitty ran down the hall, and no attention was paid to her. Two weeks later this hotel opened, and Governor John M. Slaton was the first man to register. The same night one of the hotel employees found a little white cat on the thirteenth floor, crying its little heart out for something to eat. By consulting a few clocks and watches, it was learned that the cat had been born at the exact moment Governor Slaton was inscribing his name on the hotel register hence the name.
PAGE 13
ARNOLD CHARGES A FRAME-UP'
Hooper Calls Defendant a Jekyll and Hyde
DEFENDER OF FRANK WHO
RIDICULES PROSEUCTION
Attorney Reuben Arnold, who opened the closing Argument for the defense in the Frank trial.
LINK BY LINK, FRANK
DEFENDER HEWS AWAY
AT STATE'S THEORIES
In a cold, cutting arraignment of the methods used to build up a case against Leo M. Frank, accused of the murder of Mary Phagan, Reuben Arnold, of the accused man's defense, Thursday afternoon unsparingly flayed Jim Conley as a perjurer and willing tool in the hands of men determined to convict an innocent man.
Arnold's attack minced no words. It bristles with scathing denunciation and bitter ridicule. Its impassioned appeal was interspersed with sardonic humor that made a hostile court room laugh. But its humor was only in flashes. Otherwise it fairly rang with accusation and denunciation.
Arnold charged that the state had deliberately perverted innocent action into a circumstance pointing to guilt. Link by link, he hewed away at the prosecution's chain.
He ridiculed the theory of a premeditated attack, declaring that none but God could have known that Mary Phagan was to call for her pay on Saturday a holiday. He said the State's attempt to prove premeditation was but an instance of its many "wild guesses."
From time to time, Arnold centered his attack on Conley. He said that they had never heard of a witness who was so thoroughly convicted of lying being put forward as one to be believed.
Arnold finished his address at 5:50 o'clock.
His address followed a scathing arraignment of Frank by Frank A. Hooper, who opened the argument for the State and demanded the conviction of the defendant on the plea that the evidence presented left no other conclusion than of Frank's guilt.
Charges Efforts To Make Time Agree.
Directing his remarks as much to the counsel for the State as to the twelve men in the jury box, Arnold charged that in order to place Frank's life in jeopardy, Solicitor Dorsey and his colleague, Hooper, had gone to the extreme length of assuming on the one hand that the street car on which Mary Phagan came to town was several minutes ahead of time and on the other that the clock at the factory was five or ten minutes behind time.
They had established by their own witness, George Epps, he said, that Mary arrived in town at 12:07 o'clock and then forthwith had started out to destroy Epps' testimony and arouse the assumption that she got in town at 12:02 or 12:03.
Arnold was only well started on his address when recess came at 12:30. He began a review of all the circumstances preceding and following the crime as soon as court opened in the afternoon.
Through all the day Frank's mother and wife sat by him. The younger Mrs. Frank sat much of the time with her arm linked with that of her husband. Very little change in the appearance of the three persons was observable. Frank smiled slightly when Hooper satirically was describing Frank's actions at the Selig home Saturday night when he is said to have interrupted a card game which was in progress by the relation of a funny story he had read in a magazine.
Hooper Emphasizes Gantt's Trip to Factory.
Mr. Hooper emphasized various features of the State's case that had not been clearly brought out before, dwelling particularly on the incident of J. M. Gantt's visit to the factory on the afternoon of the tragedy and how Frank had at first refused to let him enter, and how the accused man had called up Newt Lee, the watchman, later, fearful, said Hooper, that Gantt had discovered something.
After Hooper had finished his argument he began presenting authorities to the judge to guide him in making his charge to the jury. He declared that the jury should not be charged that direct evidence was superior to circumstantial evidence.
Before Thursday's session began Frank had expressed himself as entirely confident of the outcome.
"I am certain that I will be acquitted and set right before the world," he said. "It has been a terrible ordeal, but I await the outcome with the utmost confidence."
"May it please your honor and gentlemen of the jury," began Mr. Hooper, "the object of this trial, as of all other cases, is the ascertaining of truth and attainment of justice. I want to distinctly impress upon you the correctness of our position. We want it distinctly understood that burden of proving him guilty is on our shoulders. We recognize that this has got to be done beyond a reasonable doubt, and from the evidence. We cheerfully assume this burden."
"There is not one connected with the prosecution who would see a hair of the head of this man injured wrongfully."
"We want him to have the rights and protection of the law just as any other citizen. He is entitled to the
PAGE 14
FRANK CALM AS HOOPER ARGUES TO SEND HIM TO THE GALLOWS
Stoically and Unblinkingly He Listens to Scathing Arraignment of State
ACCUSED ATTEMPTED TO
SACRIFICE TWO NEGROES
AND GANTT, STATE SAYS
Continued from Page 1.
protection of the law just as any other citizen.
"But another thing: He is not entitled to any more. He is not, on account of his high position and wealthy connections, entitled to any more than any other defendant. The strong arm of the law is strong enough to reach to the highest places and do justice there."
"It is strong enough to reach down into the gutter and regulate the lives of the lowliest. I am not going to undertake to go over all the facts in this case."
Believes Firmly
In Frank's Guilt.
"I congratulate you, gentleman of the jury, that the case is nearing an end. I have felt sympathy for you, because you not only have worked hard, but you have been deprived of your liberty and the enjoyment of your homes. In one sense of the word, you have been in jail."
"There has never been a criminal case in Georgia that has been so long. There has been no trial so important or the result of which will be so far reaching, and that only makes the responsibility on you the greater."
"There is one other thing that I want to say to you before I go into the facts of the case. This man ought not to be convicted simply because someone has to be, nor because of the law that demands an eye for an eye and a life for a life. We think the evidence shows him to be guilty beyond any reasonable doubt."
"In taking up this evidence I am considering you deeply, I am considering the strain you have been under. I am thinking deeply; in fact, I am trying to make myself as one of you twelve men, and in attempting to bring this to a conclusion I am striving to get at the truth."
"Let's see what the situation was on Memorial Day, Saturday April 26. Here is this great big pencil factory, which was being run by a number of men with this defendant in charge. Let us consider the conditions that existed there and, gentlemen. I must say that I am not proud of these conditions.
Witnesses Incensed
By Factory Conditions.
"But to get to the real facts of this case; to come to a full realization of just how things occurred, we
must understand the conditions that existed here absolutely before we can proceed with this case. The character of this place was one to make us think deeply. The evidence which has been laid before you here has been of the kind to make one doubly serious. Take the defendant. Between 25 and 40 girls have come before you and said that his character was good."
"They spoke in the highest terms of him. That must be considered. But on this charge this is negative evidence. But also consider that we have brought before you girl after girl who told of his character being bad; who told of the immoral conditions that existed in this great pencil factory, and, gentlemen of the jury, most of these girls had quit working at that factory from two years to three weeks before the time of this trial."
"Every one of them said his character was bad. Did you notice the emphasis with which they said it was bad? And did you notice that they would have told more if they could have been allowed to? Did you notice how highly incensed they felt toward the immoral conditions which existed at this factory?"
"You have those who are still there who will say that his character is good, but you have those who have left who invariably say his character is bad. We put them on notice from the very first that we were willing to enter fully into his character. We could furnish particular information in regard to this, but we have been prevented."
"We have asked their own witnesses and our own; we have asked them, "Did you ever hear of this incident?" and Did you ever hear of that incident?' We brought these particular girls before you, and asked them in regards to Frank's character. They said it was bad. We turned them over to the defense, and they failed to question them in regard to any of the incidents to which we have referred."
Colonel Arnold interrupted at this point, protesting to Judge Roan that he considered Mr. Hooper was making an improper argument in saying that the State could not go into the particular evidence and intimating that it was an incriminating circumstance that the defense did not take advantage of its privilege and question the State's witnesses in regard to the particular incidents. Judge Roan sustained Hooper, saying that it was his only legal recourse. Hooper continued:
"If out of 100 men, 90 of them say that a certain person's character is good, but ten of them say, Beware of that man; he is a bad man,' would you say that you had a man of good character?"
Says Girls' Morals
Were in Hands of Men.
"It is almost impossible to magnify the temptation in the National Pencil Factory to a man without conscience and filled with lust. These girls in the factory were entirely dependent upon the attitude assumed by the men who were superior to them. This defendant, assisted by the noble Darley and the handsome young Schiff, practically had these girls' morals in his hands. The girls were absolutely dependent upon his rule."
"We find that the defendant connected himself up with a man whose character is good enough at present, but who admittedly was leading an immoral life at that time. What can we say when a man whose daily associates are bankers and prominent business men shall associate himself in his leisure hours with a man of the character of C. B. Dalton?"
"I expect most all of you have read that little story, "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." We are all dual characters; none is so good but that there is some evil; none so bad but that there is some good. It is when the evil predominates that we have a bad man. The bad is good when with his own class. When the shades of night have fallen, and he seeks associates of his baser passions, then it is that we get a glimpse into his other nature. So it is with this defendant."
"He didn't seek out the bankers and people of his regular sphere when his baser passions came on. He looked for an associate in a man like Dalton. Dalton has had a number of men to get up here and say they would believe him. They are men who have worked side by side with him. Of course, he is a fellow of a lower class, but it has been show to you that he is a good fellow of his class, congenial to that environment."
"Then there are other facts to support this idea. This defendant claimed to you he did not know Mary Phagan. Yet the evidence showed that he passed back and forth by her every day. We find he did know her. Witnesses declared he stopped to speak to her and show her how to do her work. He told her HE was the superintendent of the factory. He pursued her out of the beaten path. This little girl, sent there by her parents to be under his protection, was in his eye, the eye of lust. He was laying a foundation for his object."
Conley, Too Ignorant to
Lie, Stuck to Truth.
"Let's turn back to the first evidence of this, the first interest of this man who never knew Mary Phagan. He said to Gantt, a man reared in the same community, several weeks before the tragedy, 'You are pretty thick with Mary Phagan?' He had her in his mind. Next we see him getting Gantt removed, and it was just after he had remarked what a good office force he had. The first opportunity was about one dollar. He sought to give you the impression of dishonest. He would attack this man whom he wouldn't let go into his factory unless accompanied by a negro. Shame upon him!"
"Thus he got rid of Gantt, and began to lay his plans."
"You remember that the defense pitted its case against Conley. I haven't said anything about him yet, but he comes in right here. He was to them like a stone mountain. They must break him down, or they are lost. They must break him down, and you have seen here the greatest fight between my herculean friend Rosser on the one side, and that poor, ignorant negro on the other, and you have seen the result. It was brains against ignorance; strength against weakness and after three and one-half days you saw Conley unshaken. His evidence was written as fast as he talked and my friend here, Rosser, carried him back over the same ground again and again, but they could not break him down, because it was the truth. It continued to pour like the waters through a mill race, because that negro didn't have sense enough to lie. He was telling for the first time the real story of what actually happened that fatal day."
"Why didn't Mr. Rosser break Jim Conley down? It was because, after all the lies the negro had told, he was telling the truth, and the truth is stronger than either of these two gentlemen. And it was the truth, gentlemen of the jury, that held Jim
ATTORNEY F. A. HOOPER
ARGUING BEFORE JURY
Characteristic attitude of Dorsey's aide in action.
Attorney F. A. Hooper, who opened the Frank trial argument for the State.
Conley unbroken on the stand for three days. And the truth is greater than all. Yes, even after my herculean friend had worn himself out in a three days' effort to break the negro, he tried to put it off on his brother, Mr. Arnold. But the law protects a man, and would not allow this. They will tell you that Jim Conley is a powerful liar and he is. But take each of his affidavits. Each one of them gave a little more of the truth, and on Mr. Rosser's long cross-examination he brought out more of the truth."
"The option I expressed at the time was that if the defense continued to bore into Conley they might bring out even more of the truth. What they brought out did Frank no good. They beat upon him mentally but he remained unshaken."
"This defendant is a smart man. It was a remarkable statement that he made upon the stand to you, but he didn't need to get on the stand here and talk to you for more than two and a half hours. He went into each detail, going from one thing to the other, and putting it on one man and then the other."
"But let us go back to Jim Conley, the Jim Conley they could not shake, because he was telling the truth. He tells you he had done that often before. He told you that he saw other people come there; that he saw men and women meet there; and, gentlemen, th
ere are other people who corroborate Jim Conley; who said they saw men and women come to this pencil factory and meet the defendant there."
Says Affidavits Fit Exactly
With Negro's Narrative.
"The next morning Frank was there to see him; the next morning Jim was there. Do you know, gentlemen, that Providence sometimes will divulge the truth at the very last minute? At the last minute yesterday two men came up here and said that they saw Jim Conley there. Mrs. Arthur White said she saw someone resembling Jim, but she was not certain. So Jim was telling a story that a good many people were disbelieving, but here came two men who said they saw him there, or a negro very much like him, who directed them to the office at the right of the stairs. As Mrs. White came downstairs she aw a negro sitting exactly where Jim Conley in his affidavits said he was. They made their affidavits at different places, but they fitted in exactly."
"Why was he there? For what was he sitting there hour after hour. He was sitting there to do as he had done many times before to watch at the direction of Frank. One thing they have said is that he was drunk. I suppose he did drink a few beers that morning, but have you noticed that he told of everyone that went up there that morning, and in the order in which they went up. He could have said that he saw Mrs. White, but he admitted that he was napping about this time. Now we come to the time of the tragedy. Jim was still there."
"But about this little Mary Phagan. A little girl who asked for Mary's money had been refused the night before. They told her that Mary would have to come after it herself. This was a violation of the general rule at the office. Even Schiff told you, I think, that they gave out the envelopes to other persons if they knew them well enough. Frank told Jim on Friday night to come back the next morning, but he didn't have any work for him to do. All he wanted of him was to watch at the door as he had done before. He wanted him to watch while girls came up to the office to chat with him. You will notice something peculiar about that word chat.' It is a word I never have heard before, but you will notice that there are two persons that use it. One of them is Frank and the other is Conley."
"He tells Jim he wants to have chat with that girl that day. Jim, you just make yourself convenient; wait around.' Jim comes and waits. He makes himself easy there in the hall. He takes a nap. People come and go. Then Mary Phagan comes the beautiful little Mary. She must have been a beautiful little girl. I guess you all remember her pictures, with her curly hair and bright eyes, and trim figure."
"She came with a little boy. They must have been sweethearts. She had an engagement with him. She wanted to go to the factory first for her little $1.20. She went, tripping along, a happy child. From that dreadful hour not one thing was heard from her. But we know what a horrible catastrophe she met as she went, so innocently, for her little $1.20."
"Frank was there. How do we know it? From his own statement. And he had to change it when he came upon the stand. A live human being, a young girl, came here and said he was not there when she went to his office. Frank did not see her. She waited five minutes. He was not in. I am not going into the details of the time. Mr. Dorsey will do that in his conclusion. What I want to impress upon you is that Frank stated here from this stand he might have gone out of his office for a moment. It was the first time such an admission was intimated. But there was the sworn statement of Monteen Stover to combat him."
"It had to be got around. You don't have to depend altogether on Jim Conley's story. Monteen Stover went to his office after Mary Phagan, and he was not here."
Rosser Interrupts to
Enter and Objection.
"In the meantime another little girl was waiting in his office Monteen Stover and Conley was waiting for the signal downstairs. Frank followed that little girl back there, and I want to be perfectly frank and say I do not think he had murder in his heart when he did, but the pent-up passions of weeks gained control and he could not stop. That scream that was poorly described here by this poor, ignorant, negro I wish you could have heard it; that scream that sounded like a ripple of laughter that ended when she realized his hellish purpose; the scream that ended when her life began to ebb."
Rosser interrupted Attorney Hooper to say that there was no evidence about laughter. Hooper replied: "All right; I was mistaken."
"The scream," Hooper continued, "and then those fast running footsteps. That was Frank coming to get the cord that strangled the child. Then he gave the signal for the negro to lock the door and come up, and Conley found him nervous and shaking, fresh from that harrowing scene on the rear of the floor on which his office was located."
"Now, gentlemen, we have this man Frank this man of high standing and character either committed this crime or that he was back in his office in plain hearing of any scream or any running of the elevator or the hearing of people going up and down the stairs, attending to his duties in his office, preparing that wonderful statement we have heard so much about."
Finds Mute Accuser
In Factory Diagram.
"By this diagram I will show you that he was bound to have known of the commission of this crime, even if he hadn't committed it, but listened to that brute negro attack that little girl."
"I want to show you that even if he was where he said he was, and where Monteen Stover said he was not, that this crime could not have been committed without his knowledge."
"I want to show you that he could see from his desk to a point by the clock. I don't want to give any testimony, for if I did I could show that he saw more than that, but by this diagram and it is a face I will show that his line of vision sitting at his desk would bring him to the clocks."
"Frank doesn't sit back in his chair. He sits away forward, and when he is at work he is the hardest working man you ever saw. And, gentlemen, he could see into the space beyond his office."
"Little Mary Phagan was killed back there in the metal room back there where our friends say they could see not find any blood spots, but where we have shown there were spots of blood. And, gentlemen of the jury, if Frank did not commit this crime, he sat supinely there at his desk and let that brute negro kill her; let that negro bring her up the passageway, bring her up to the elevator and take her down that elevator, which, when running, shook the whole building, which the negro said he could hear downstairs; which witness after witness has told you could be heard over the entire building, and which Frank could not have helped but hear."
"Frank's First Word
Betrayed His Guilt."
"Mr. Frank, I will give you the benefit of every doubt, but according to your own statements as to the time which has been shown conclusively that the girl was killed, you were right there; you sat right there, and you never moved."
"Now, to bring Jim Conley back into it; Gentlemen of the jury, isn't it an evident fact haven't you been shown conclusively, that either Frank or Conley killed little Mary Phagan? Or that Frank killed her by himself, as Conley says? Or that Frank sat supinely at his desk and let this negro Conley kill her, and yet he made no move?"
"As soon as the murder was consummated, there was something upstairs that had to be attended to. There were two men upstairs and a woman. Frank was anxious that they be let out of the factory. He went upstairs and told them that if they were going to go, now was the time."
"Mrs. Arthur White left. Arthur White and Harry Denham stayed. Frank told Mrs. White that he was going to put on his coat and hurry away. But this man, who was in such a hurry, still was without his coat when she got down to the office floor. Frank went into his office, washing his hands in that imaginary water. They say that this was his habit
, and that we must not assume anything from it."
"The first words that he uttered when he got inside the office, he opened the doors to his guilt that all might look in. Frank said: Why should I hang,' adding that he had wealthy people in Brooklyn."
"What was the estimate that he put on the life of a young girl? Didn't it hurt him to wind the rope about her neck until it had "sunk deeply into the tender flesh? I can't conceive how being with the instincts of humanity could have twisted the rope about the neck of that pretty little girl. But he said: Why should I be punished for doing such a little thing as taking the life of this little girl? I have rich relatives in Brooklyn.' They will say he never uttered these words. He has denied them on the stand. But did Jim know that he came from Brooklyn? Did Jim know that he had rich relatives in Brooklyn? Did Jim know that he reckoned a human life in dollars and cents?"
"No; those words came from the bottom of this man's heart."
"From the African temperament of Jim Conley came the next remark. What's going to become of me?' he asked. Oh, I'll take care of you, Jim; you have been a good negro. I will write my mother in Brooklyn.'"
"This is that old mother who has stayed here in the courtroom so faithfully through all this trial. I can not understand how she has had the bravery to do it."
At this point Attorney Rosser objected on the ground that the speaker was quoting from the affidavits that Conley first made and not those that he told on the stand.
"You will find that they are all about the same," said Hooper.
"Frank says: Jim, can you write?' Jim says: Yes, I can write a little bit.'
Says Frank Lost Head
In Fixing the Notes
"Why did he ask Jim that question? Jim had furnished reports on those boxes. He knew what Jim could do."
"Jim was trustful; he wasn't on his guard like hew as when confronted by the terrible Mr. Rosser. He had faith in his boss, and how false was his boss? As false as he was to the little girl. As false as he was to poor old Newt Lee when that bloody shirt was planted."
"You all, I presume are Southern men, or have lived long enough in the South to become familiar with the traits of the negro. Can you tell me that you could imagine a negro on his own initiative writing such notes as were found beside that body."
"They charge the crime to a negro a negro who could hardly write. Would a negro who stood before the grilling of Luther Rosser for three days, and came out victor, be fool enough to do that!"
"The truth of the matter the fixing of those notes seems to be the only time that Frank lost his head. He might have known the police would go back of that."
"Then we come to the money in the case: I don't think Frank had any $200 in his office when he was talking to Conley, but dollar bills would look mighty big. He handed the reward to Conley. Then he thought: You are as deep in the mud as I am in the mud as I am in the mire.' Aloud he said: Let me see that money, Jim:\ and he sticks it back into his pocket as if to say: If everything comes out all right. I will give it back to you.'
Tells How He Arranged
To Dispose of the Body.
"False again to the poor negro who had carried out his hellish purpose, he compromises with a cigarette box containing about $1.60."
"Perhaps there was another idea in his head; there was the mute and mutilated evidence of the crime in the basement. That must be destroyed. This money would be a reward to get that removed."
"Then we come back to that original proposition that the body was carried down the elevator shaft by Frank and Conley. But there is the part of burning the body. A man who had committed the crime would not hesitate to burn it. He knew that there was no man to come back there that day except Newt Lee."
"I don't care anything about what time Frank got home or what he did there; he got back to the factory at 3 o'clock, where he had an engagement with Conley to dispose of the body, and he knew that Newt Lee was going to get there at 4 o'clock."
"Conley overslept himself and Lee came first; Frank said: You go away, Newt,' then to himself he said: And give me two more hours to get rid of that body.'"
"But Conley never came back, and Newt Lee did. He had to let him in, and he knew then that he was lost."
"When Frank saw Gantt in front of the factory door, did he start back against and say, There is that blood-thirsty that was $1 short?' Not he said, "There is Gantt; he was Mary Phagan's friend. He lived near her and her family has sent him to find her."
"But Gantt would not harm a flea. He reassured Frank by telling him he had come to set a pair of shoes he had left in the factory. But Frank didn't want him in there, and told him the shoes had been swept out."
Charges Frank
Lied to Gantt.
"Gantt told him there was another pair, and, gentle off the jury, Frank had to let him in, and he went in and found not one pair of shoes, but both pairs."
"Did Frank tell him a lie to keep him out of the factory, or did he really think the shoes had been swept out? He told a lie, and he was so afraid Gantt would find something that he sent him in under guard."
"And, gentlemen of the jury, as he stood at that entrance in the presence of Gantt the thought was going through his head, It is going to be known in a day that Mary is gone. Lord knows I don't want to let you in here, but I have got to let you in, but I will guard you. Come on in, but you go with him, Newt,' and, gentle-men of the jury, notice this:
"The striking thing about it the singular fact is that Gantt found both pairs of shoes, showing, gentlemen of the jury, that Frank had never seen the negro sweeping them out."
"Did he lie about this, gentlemen? And after he had left the pencil factory, trembling and with a burden upon him, what did he do that night? He did something he had never done before. He called up Newt Lee over the telephone, and when he could not get him the first time, he called again and asked if that long-legged Gantt was there."
"And when he found that Gantt had left and had discovered nothing, what burden rolled from him! No wonder he looked light-hearted. No wonder that he could read baseball stories and jokes. No wonder that his family could say that he had nothing on his mind."
"Another Thing on His
Mind That Night."
"But yet he had another thing on his mind before the night had gone. During the early hours his telephone rang, but he did not answer it. Honest old Newt Lee notified the police and tried to notify him."
"But Frank did not answer. He says he heard the telephone but faintly, or he imagined he heard it."
"But the police heard the call, and they went down into that basement
Continued on Page 3, Column 1.
PAGE 15
ARNOLD CHARGES A FRAME-UP'
Hooper Calls Defendant a Jekyll and Hyde
WRITER OF THOSE NOTES
KILLED MARY PHAGAN,'
IS CHARGE OF DEFENSE
Continued From Page 2.
and found something. They found the body of little Mary Phagan cruelly murdered, the cold body lying on the ground where it had been left for Jim Conley to burn."
"Jim had taken his nap, though, and had not come back. The policemen took the body to the undertaking establishment, and at daybreak they started to get up Frank again. And when they got him he was anxious to know if there had been a fire."
"And, gentlemen, aside from the conversation that took place, every officer and every man who was with him that morning will tell you that he was nervous; that he was shaking like a leaf; that he rubbed his hands and was completely filled with nervousness."
"But, gentlemen, he is a wonderful man. Though he stood there and quivered that Sunday morning, not a one of you can say can say that during this trial you have seen him quiver once. He is as calm and cool as any man in the courthouse, to all intents and purposes."
"But the morning after the crime he was as weak as a cat. He was a nervou
s; he was trembling like a leaf. The people in the automobile on the way to the undertaking establishment felt him tremble."
Holds Up Time
Slip to Jury.
"What was his conduct when he got down there to the morgue? He did not look on his victim, on whom he had lustful eyes for weeks. He fled; he could not pay the proper respect to a dead body. He went behind a curtain, a place where he had no business to go. He rushed out and waited for the rest."
"Did he identify her? No; he said he thought it was the girl he had paid off the day before. He had to go back to the records; he had to look up and see what her name was. Still he had seen her every day as he passed the machine where she worked."
"It was the same girl he called Mary; it was the same girl he tried to engage in conversation; it was the same girl on whose shoulder he placed his hand."
"What did he do with the time slip that was put in the night before? He said, after looking at it, that it was properly punched. Others looking over his shoulder agreed to it. Darley himself agreed to the error."
At this point Attorney Hooper produced the time slip which he held up before the jury.
"There weren't any marks on it then," he continued, "Frank said it was perfect. He told the night watchman: I know you didn't do it, Newt.' But he found that he was getting himself in trouble."
Bloody Shirt
Also Exhibited.
"He asked himself why he had said anything about the slip until he had had time to fix it up."
"The next day comes Holloway, his right-hand man, saying that he had the slip and that it had two misses on it. Frank made some remarks about Newt Lee."
"John Black, suspecting that the negro might know something about the crime, went out to Newt Lee's house and in a trash barrel he found this."
The bloody shirt was held up by Hooper before the jury.
"Somebody had to plant a shirt out at Newt Lee's. Somebody did plant a shirt out at Newt Lee's."
"Did you notice how minutely Frank described his movements all day Sunday and all Sunday night? That struck me as very suspicious."
"Newt Lee said: If that is a machine-made shirt it is not mine, and if it is a home-made shirt, it is mine." And behold! It was a home-made shirt.'"
"These remarkable discoveries were made when the shirt was found. You will find that the blood is on both sides of the shirt. And not in corresponding places."
"There is only one explanation it was used to wipe up a pool of blood. It did not have the distinctive negro odor; it had not been washed. The button holes and not been opened up since it came from the laundry."
"Willing and Anxious
To Sacrifice Negro."
"Remember please that that morning this defendant had brought up a time slip with skips showing that newt Lee had not made all the punches. Gentlemen, he was willing and anxious to have that negro's life sacrificed to save himself."
"The Bible says: What will a man not give for his life?' He was willing to give up Gantt, but never one word did he say against Conley. Conley was his friend and associate. That poor negro got arrested for washing a shirt to go to Frank's trial."
"Frank never accused him until the Newt Lee scheme and the other schemes had fallen through. As a last resort the defense was thrown his whole attack on Conley."
"There is one other thing I want to mention that big stick and the little piece of paper found by the shrewd, smart Pinkerton detectives who can find anything, even an elephant, on a floor. These were found after numerous searches, weeks after the murder."
"Unfortunately, they showed the slip of paper to Mr. and Mrs. Coleman, but there was a figure 5' on this piece of paper, purporting to be a part of Mary Phagan's pay envelope."
"When they came on the stand with that evidence, the figure 5' had been conveniently removed. It fitted the amount Mary Phagan drew that week."
"Doctors say the word on Mary Phagan's head could not have been made with a stick like they exhibited. No scientific tests for blood were made on it. Yet the defense introduced it as the possible weapon that caused her death."
"Where is Mincey?"
Hooper Asks.
"An inquiry has been made about a man named Mincey. Conley went on the stand and was asked if he did not make certain statements to Mincey about killing a girl. The only purpose of these questions was to introduce Mincey to clear up this whole affair."
"My recollection was he was brought into the courtroom and sworn with the other witnesses."
Rosser: "You are mistaken."
Hooper: "I may be, but where is Mincey? It looked like the whoel fight was to be about him. Frank was to be cleared, Conley convicted. But there has not been one word from him."
"Gentlemen, I am not going to take up any more of your time. I wanted to open up the case fairly and squarely to show you and the defense your positions on these various points."
Hooper concluded. Then Judge Roan asked Solicitor Dorsey to cite the authorities upon which he expected the court to base its charge to the jury.
Solicitor Dorsey requested Mr. Hooper to do it for him.
The jury retired for a short recess and Dorsey sent his deputies out for a number of court decisions.
"Use Common Sense,"
Hooper Tells Jury.
After the jury returned to the box, Hooper read from a great many au-
DAUGHTER OF JUROR
WAITING TO SEE PAPA'
Margaret
Louise Wisbey,
whose father
Is on the Frank
Trial Jury.
thorities on the question of a reasonable doubt and the quality of circumstantial evidence.
"I have heard men say that they thought one thing but when they were on a jury they had to decide another way," said Hooper. "That being on a jury made a whole lot of difference, but it was never intended that such should be the case."
"If you gentlemen believe beyond a reasonable doubt, that is the way you should decide. You should decide this case as you would in your own home. You are supposed to use your common sense in arriving at a conclusion in this case, for the law is supposed to be common sense in its highest form."
"The absolute certainty is not obtainable. The most that can be obtained is the moral certainty, which has been described as being an absolute certainty."
"It is unfair for a jury to be charged that direct evidence is superior to circumstantial evidence. And it is against the law to charge a jury that circumstantial evidence is inferior to direct."
"Citing other authorities, Hooper said: "If the facts of the case point unerringly to the guilt of this defendant, then to all intents and purposes his guilt is as certain as though the evidence was direct."
"The proof of good character," Hooper continued, "will not hinder a conviction if the evidence against the defendant is sufficient. Even though the proof of good character is not attacked, as it was in this cage, the evidence in the case is enough to overbalance the character testimony."
"An alibi must exclude the possibility of the presence of the defendant at the place and the time the crime was committed."
"You are not to be governed by any opinion that counsel may express, but by the evidence presented."
"If a party is apprised of the evidence against him and does not explain or controvert it, the strongest presumption is that it is true."
Arnold Opens Argument
Charging Persecution
When Attorney Arnold arose to speak he asked for the paper model of the pencil factory. The model was brought in and placed before the jury stand.
"Gentlemen of the jury," Arnold began, "we are to be congratulated that this case is drawing to a close. We have all suffered at trying a case requiring so much effort, time and concentration is such hot weather. We have suffered for lack of adequate quarters, and from the noises from the street."
"A man's physical surrounding has a good deal to do with how he can do work. I never could do good work when I was uncomfortable. And it has been e
specially hard for you jurymen, shut off as you are, but that has always been so. You are set upon a hill, as it were, where the sound of the multitude does not reach you away from the ugly things men do and think and feel."
"The jury system has been in use a long time. It is now in use in all of the countries of Europe adopted from the English system. In the old days trained judges tried cases; they heard all the facts and were supposed to be able to tell when a man was telling the truth and when he was not, and from the viewpoint of an expert
Continued on Page 5, Column 1.
PAGE 16
MAN WHO WROTE NOTES KILLED MARY PHAGAN,' SAYS ARNOLD
Recalls Dreyfus Case to Show Mistakes of Circumstantial Convictions
PRINCE OF PERJURERS'
IS EPITHET APPLIED TO
CONLEY BY ATTORNEY
Continued From Page 3.
determine his guilt or his innocence. The jury system case as a result of a desire to popularize the courts; to let the people flow through the courts.
"God Grant We Get
Away From the Street."
"Inexperienced, as they are, it was decided that juries were capable of deciding questions of fact. Of course the judge still decides all legal points."
"My friend Hooper, in reading his authority just now, used a funny expression. He said your position is no different from any man's who wants to learn from any man's who wants to learn the facts; from any man on the street."
Hooper objected. "Your honor," he said, "I don't want the speaker to misrepresent my meaning."
Arnold: "You said street. God grant that we get away from the street when we come into court. What is the use of having any court if we don't get away from the street? There it is the man who has the most friends who wins. Courts are to protect a man from the street."
"Gentlemen, sometimes the very horror of a crime does a man a grave. Time rights it all, of course, but at the present blush of a horror friends can't judge fairly."
"The crime in this case is an awful crime. It was committed by a friend a brute. But no matter how terrible, no fair-minded man would refuse to give a man accused of it a fair trial."
"But well-balanced men don't say just because he is charged with the crime by Detective Starnes and Solicitor Dorsey. We will hang him.' Thinking men weigh the facts.
"Kenley Sample of
Lying Blowhards."
"I remember a cake when Charley Hill was Solicitor, he asked a prospective juror the formal question, and when he came to that part where the Solicitor General said: Juror, look on prisoner; prisoner, look on juror,' that old fellow got up and looked him over and said: Judge, he's guilty.' That is the way with public sentiment in this case."
"There has been so much lying and rascality as I will show you that I won't add to it. That fellow Kenly is a fair example. He is a man that any honest man ought to be ashamed to say one knows. His mouth is set like a catfish. He is the type of lying blowhards that constitutes the so-called public sentiment. He is the man who said they hanged two negroes at Decatur because they had to have somebody, and he is the man who said, Hang this Jew for the murder of that poor little girl whether he is innocent or guilty.'
"I had rather be in Leo Frank's shoes today than Kenley's."
"Gentlemen of the jury, there are people who say that Frank is a remarkable man; that he is a man of wonderful courage; that he has gone through this trial in a manner most remarkable for a man of his physical build and temperament."
"Gentlemen, he has inherited through 2,000 years of persecution. Behind him there is a long line of ancestors who for centuries have been abused, and I hope the day will come when a man will get justice, will be accorded fair treatment, be he Jew or Gentile, or white or black."
"He has endured persecution, and his family has endured it. The Jews have been thrifty, and envy has been the result. If Leo M. Frank had not been a Jew there would not have been any prosecution of him on this despicable charge. The miserable, lying negro, Jim Conley, was brought in to tell his miserable, lying story, to recite, parrot-like, the story in which he had been so well drilled."
"I am asking my own people and my own kind of people to do Frank justice. I am not a Jew, but I would rather my throat would be cut than do one an injustice of this sort."
"They have got their miserable perjurer, Conley, to come up here and swear Frank's life away. They have had him swear against a man who never had a word said against him before."
"Of course, after a crime, you always find persons who say that they knew the defendant's character was bad. But you don't make a murderer in a single day."
"I am going to compare the witnesses that were used by the defense with those that were used by the prosecution. They brought up the dregs of humanity to testify against this man. They brought up jailbirds and convicts to hang this man. They spouted hot and cold. They hurried the schedule of a street car. They slowed down the time clock at the factory. They got the detectives to say that Frank was nervous. They got his mother-in-law to say that he was soulless he didn't open his mouth."
"Built Up Case,
Then Tore It Down."
"They got little George Epps to testify that Mary Phagan got into town at 12:07. Then they began to tear their own testimony down. I am going to strip the case of some of the falsities and the warpings of the evidence, if God Almighty gives me strength. I don't know that He will, for I am nearly worn out."
"There have been a great many thins brought into this case which should not have been brought int. The defendant must be proved guilty of the murder of Mary Phagan. Every other reasonable hypothesis must be eliminated."
"You must liberate Frank, otherwise. The law says you must. If you think that it is as reasonable to believe that Jim Conley committed the crime, then you must turn Frank loose."
"Our friends, the detectives and police, were hard put to find somebody on whom to place the crime. They thought at first it was this man Gantt. Sentell and others said they saw Mary Phagan on the street at midnight. Of course, they did not. But it will illustrate the uncertainty with which this crime has been hatched."
"Then they were almost certain that Newt Lee was the man. They found the notes by the girl's body, and Newt Lee said in reference to night-witch,' a phrase occurring in one of the notes, that night-witch means me, Boss.'"
"I do not think that Newt Lee committed the murder, or had anyting to do with the killing of the girl, but I never will get it out of my mind that Newt Lee knew something about the writing of those notes."
"Man Who Wrote Note
Killed Mary Phagan."
"This is one of the profoundest mysteries that ever confronted a community. It has baffled investigation at every turn. But one thing has stood out like a mountain on a plain, since the very beginning of this case. The man who wrote those notes killed Mary Phagan."
"Oh, you remember how they searched for him. The notes were found beside the dead body. It was right hard to recite what was in the obsecure mind that wrote those notes. It looked like one negro trying to accuse another, but the one question stood out. Who wrote the notes? Who wrote the notes?
"Things developed. Newt Lee was put through the third degree and the fourth degree. Just the day or the day before the Court of Appeals handed down a decision which is especially applicable to this case. It denounces such methods. How it does hit Jim Conley and the authorities that made him swear. How it does hit Minola McKnight!"
He read a newspaper clipping of the decision.
"Our friend Hooper said there was nothing to hold Jim Conley in that chair but the truth. My God! He has his life at stake! Before you get through with this case you will see that they have to depend on Jim Conley. If they can not hobble on those top rotten crutches they can't hobble at all. Before I get through with it I
am going to show there never was such a frame up since the world began."
Court adjourned at this time.
Recalls Famous
Durrant Case.
When court convened for the afternoon session, Arnold resumed his argument.
"Gentlemen of the jury," he said, "my friend Hooper made some remarks about circumstantial evidence and how powerful it was. He forgot to mention the fact that the circumstances had to be substantiated by reputable witnesses and eliminate every other reasonable doubt."
"I read a book once that dealt; it a circumstantial evidence and it was positively sickening the number of mistakes that have been made. The famous Durant case that has come within our memory is a striking illustration. Two girls were found murdered in the tower of a church. Durant was the last man seen with them. The public said, You are guilty.' One man swore he saw him wearing a girl's ring. Another man swore he had found Durant nervous and perspiring as though he had come from a recent great exercise. The women egged him on his way to court. The jury found him guilty and a weak judge the first I have ever heard of, sentenced him to hang in three days. They appealed the case, but lost out, and they hanged him. There was not a cemetery in Frisco that would bury that man. They took him out to a little country churchyard and buried him. Time went on and people forgot about it. The preacher in that little church continued to address his congregation. After a number of years, the preacher was confined to his death bed. He called a number of his friends around him and confessed to the murder of those two girls, and explained the circumstances in such a way that it left no room for doubt that he was telling the truth."
Cites Infamous
Dreyfus Case.
"I remember another case the Hampton case in England. It is a historic case. A country gentleman by the name of Hampton disappeared in life."
"I recall another case, the most dreadful of all the Dreyfus case. He was a lieutenant in the French army. Someone had been telling the plans of the French fortifications. Dreyfus the suspected. They got evidence against him, he was court-martialed and sent to Devil's Island. The men who sent him away thought they were safe, but the people became calmer and began reconsidering their action. In time a most infamous conspiracy was revealed. One man confessed and before the end practically every man in the prosecution committed suicide. Dreyfus was a Jew. He was friendless. He was an easy mark and they got him.
"I have never seen so much venom as there is in this trial. The murderous bestiality that robbed little Mary Phagan of her life is scarcely worse than the spirit that would deprive this man of justice. No wolf in the forest, no beast in his cage, is so savage as these people who would hang this man on the flimsiest sort of evidence."
Arnold Grows Facetious
At Expense of Hooper.
"One thing in my friend Hooper's speech I want you to consider. What he didn't know about the case would fill many volumes. He has got just a little feeble smattering of an idea. He doesn't know what the witnesses said. He doesn't know anything about the factory. He got mixed in Conley's evidence. Part of the time he was quoting from statements of Conley made before the trial."
"But I can't blame him much. Conley's evidence is so crooked he couldn't follow it. It reminds me of the story of the farmer who tried to teach his boy to plow a straight row. He said: Son, you see that bull across yonder? Follow straight to him and your row will be straight. He came back later and found the boy plowing in semi-circles. What are you doing?' asked the farmer. I am following the bull,' replied the boy."
Arnold illustrated his point by walking around in circles before the jury, holding his walking stick as though it were a plow stock.
Sheriff Mangum had to rap to keep down the laughter.
"I have never yet seen an effort to get a jury to believe a witness in the attitude of Jim Conley," Arnold continued. "There are vile different editions of his statement. If he made one tomorrow, there would be a sixth. He has got the strongest motive in the world to lie to save his own neck."
Premediated Killing,
Scouts Theory Frank
"Take my friend Hooper's theory that Frank knew it if Conley killed the girl. That is about as weak as the rest of his argument. If Conley had killed her on the second floor, he never would have taken her down until Frank and Mrs. White left."
"Frank left about one. It is absurd to assume that it was impossible for him not to have seen Conley. But we don't believe she was killed on the second floor. And I am going to show that there is no evidence that she was killed there, except what Christopher Columbus Barrett found."
"Hooper smelled the plot. He says this man had had his eye on this dear little girl for some time. That he had been thinking of how he could get her. That he had plotted to make an attack on her. I join with everyone in saying that who killed Mary Phagan was a foul beast, a fiend, a savage. It was not the act of a civilized man."
"But Hooper was hard pressed. They had to fall on something. They say that on Friday Frank knew he was going to make an attack on little Mary Phagan. And, gentlemen, taking in the evidence and everything else, this is the wildest conception I ever heard of."
"Conley Was Made to
Tell Suitable Tale."
"The utmost they can get is by this poor miserable little fellow, Turner, brought in here at the eleventh hour and who says he worked at the pencil factory for ten days. And all he said was that Frank had put his hand on her shoulder and called her Mary."
"When asked if he could describe her, Turner said that he could not. He did not know anyone else in the factory. He could not describe anyone. And what did he say that Frank said to her? All in the world that he said was that: I am superintendent of this factory.'"
"And mind you, gentleman of the jury, this was in broad open daylight. They brought in other women here to testify as to his conduct with Mary Phagan. And all that they could say was that they had heard him call her Mary."
"To get back to Jim Conley; he is at the beginning of the plot. From all the evidence, they just took him and led him around and made him fit a theory. I will prove by Harry Scott's evidence that whenever Conley said anything that didn't exactly fit, they said: Here Jim, that won't do. That doesn't fit Bill Jones' testimony and Conley immediately switched it around so that it would fit.'"
"By Conley's evidence that on 1 o'clock Friday afternoon, Frank came to him on the third and fourth floors, they expected to show that Frank at 3 o'clock Friday afternoon knew Mary Phagan was not coming for her pay."
"Now they didn't begin the payroll until 5 o'clock Friday afternoon. Who on earth but God himself would know that little girl was not coming for her pay?"
Sees Conspiracy in
State Evidence Chain.
"How unreasonable must it be for intelligent human beings to believe any story so utterly unreasonable."
"There is a little girl named Ferguson. I notice that Mrs. Coleman never said a word about the Ferguson girl, nor did she say a one about the Epps boy. But the Ferguson girl says: I asked Mr. Frank for Mary Phagan's pay, and he wouldn't give it to me.' Frank didn't know Mary was not for her pay that day? How did he know she wouldn't come for her pay that day? Wasn't it natural to suppose that if she didn't come that day, that she would com on Monday, the next working day? Do you think that he knew she was coming Saturday morning?"
"Gentlemen, it is the wildest theory on earth. Yet the Ferguson girl said: I asked for Mary's pay and he said he wouldn't give it to me.' Frank never paid off. Schiff always did that. They had a pay window, and Schiff sat behind it. I doubt if Frank ever saw the girls who were paid."
"There is another little girl, Magnolia Kennedy. She looks just as well as the Ferguson girl. She declares she was behi
nd the Ferguson girl and that the Ferguson girl asked for the pay of no one but herself."
"There is your conspiracy. Before anything happened you have Conley laying the foundation. You have Frank on Friday knowing all these things and telling Conley to come back Saturday. You have Frank saying: I don't think Mary Phagan will ask for her pay this evening. I don't think she will come down and get it at the usual time. I think she will come Saturday morning. So I will have Conley here and he can watch for me while I assault her."
Accuses the State of
Begging the Question.
"Gentlemen, it is too thin. But my friend Hooper says that Frank fired Gantt for a one-dollar debt. Gantt don't come into this case in a very good light. He admitted the one shortage for which he was discharged. There was no doubt that the man who made the complaint knew of the missing one dollar. You don't know how much more there was. You don't know what Gantt did during the time he was working there. We didn't go into that. We don't want to sling any mud on to anyone at all. Yet they are bringing in the discharge of Gantt as having a hearing on this case."
"They claim Gnatt was discharged because he had said he knew Mary Phagan. There is no proof that Gantt knew her. They were born in the same country, but there are 30,000 people in Cobb County. He was not her guardian. She was not dependent upon him."
"Little Grace Hix said that Frank didn't know Mary, Magnolia Kennedy said that Frank was not acquainted with the Phagan girl."
"My friend Hooper said some mighty bad things about what happened at the factory. He has pictured the conditions at the factory as being grossly immoral."
"Gentlemen, that is begging the question: I venture the assertion that this factory is no better nor no worse than the general line of factories. Any place where you work from 100 to twice that number of men and women you are almost certain to get some who are not so good as they might be. There is always the evil mixed with the good."
"Discharged Employees
Testified in Revenge."
"We are not trying this case on whether you or Dorsey or me or Mr. Starnes or Frank have always been perfect. I say to my friends, let him without sin cast the first stone. There was a little immorality here as in other factories. My friends Dorsey and Hooper have put the microscope on everything. They have dug up everything that ever happened at that factory. They have gone back five years in their efforts to create trouble. They went fishing for witnesses and I don't wonder that they could find a dozen or so who were willing to swear that Frank's character was bad."
"You can always find discharged employees of the factory who were envious or jealous and are anxious to get revenge on their employees. When you swear to character, it is always an opinion. And the value of your opinion depends on the length of time you have known the person for or against whom you are swearing."
"The prosecution has put up eleven girls. Most of them worked there years ago and for only a few weeks at a time. They have gotten all the floaters they could find, employees who worked at one place for a short while then moved on."
"They have searched these witnesses out carefully. They have taken them to their offices and questioned them. And I don't doubt that after they got through questioning them they were able to find many who were willing to swear that Frank's character was bad. From the way they have been giving evidence. I am inclined to believe it."
"Now, of all the incidents mentioned by our friend Mr. Hooper, the dressing room incident is about the worst. There is the room, gentlemen that has absolutely no conveniences no wash room, no lavatory."
"Now Miss Jackson said that the girls went to work at 7 o'clock and that Frank looked in at 7:10 or 7:15. Miss Jackson admitted that girls had been flirting from the windows of that dressing room. She said they were all afraid of Frank and went on to work when he appeared. The only reason that Frank looked into that dressing room, was to see that his orders prohibiting flirting had been obeyed."
"Do you think he could run a factory like that and flirted and had been familiar with the help? Don't you know that if he had done that, all organization would have been swept away and work would have been practically at a standstill? Do you think Montag would have kept him if he had done all the things the prosecution said he did? Do you think they would have trusted their business with a man like that? Why, it is preposterous?"
"Men here talk like putting the hand on a thirteen-year-old girl's shoulder amounts to anything. Or looking into a room where girls change only their top dresses? Why you can go out to Piedmont Park any day and see 500 women with almost nothing on."
"You can go to shows and see them with practically nothing on. And I don't mean we are getting worse, either. We are getting broader. This prudish attitude of holding up your hands in horror of a man's putting a hand on a woman's shoulder makes me sick. I wouldn't trust that sort of a man behind a door."
Killing Was Crime
Of Savage Negro.
"We are living in a broad age. We are getting more sense about these matters. Sometimes I think it is a little too broad for me. But Frank's acts that were testified about were made in the broad open day, and no complaints were made about them at the time."
"I was talking about Hooper's theory. He is the sort of man who sees a bear behind every bush. He quoted Conley's statement about Frank telling him to come back and watch. Don't that fit beautifully? Mary Phagan had not been there. It isn't so of course. Frank couldn't have had any engagement with that little girl. That crime couldn't have happened as Conley said it did. It was the crime of a savage negro whose first attack is violence because he can not accomplish his objective in any other way."
"Now we come to this man Barrett. I don't know what his name is but I call him Christopher Columbus because of his numerous discoveries. He talked about a reward. Smith testified he saw him counting his imaginary money. Frank, Chief Beavers and Detective Starnes made a searching investigation of that factory Sunday. They didn't find any blood spots. But Christopher Columbus embarked on a voyage the next day and discovered wonders."
"I am going to show you just how
Continued on Page 6.
PAGE 17
JIM CONLEY MISERABLE, LYING SCOUNDREL, SAYS ARNOLD
Dressing Room Story Preposterous, Lawyer Asserts Hotly to the Jury
DALTON IS BRANDED AS
COMMON LIAR; NO SPOTS
WHERE HAIR WAS FOUND
Continued From Page 5.
absurd his discoveries are. I am not going to just hit the high places like my friend Hooper did. I am going fully into it. My friend Hooper is a bully fellow. He is such a good fellow that really I am almost persuaded he hasn't had his heart in this case at all."
Blood Stains Were
Only Analine Drops.
"Four pieces of floor were chipped up. Each piece had a spot on it which they thought to be blood. These chips were taken from the floor covered with dirt and grease one-quarter of an inch thick. This floor has never been scoured and we know a few men who had been hurt back there and who had been carried by this spot. There is a difference of opinion as to how much they bled but we know they did bleed, that they bled considerably. And this place was in front of the ladies' toilet."
"And we know from the chemists who have been upon the stand that if a drop of blood had fallen there four years ago the chemist could find corpuscles now. They took up four chips. I want to show you these chips, and I also want to read you Dr. Claud Smith's testimony on the stand here. Here are the chips with the blood spots on them all blood. Oh! The chemist can find the corpuscles. Unless they are scoured up they will be there ten years. Now listen to Dr. Claude Smith's evidence. He says that he found three or four or five corpuscles in the field. My reco
llection is that one drop of blood contains not less than 80,000 corpuscles."
"As to the amount of blood, you can form your conception. And here is what he says about the chips: The chips I handled had blood and dirt, grease and other things on them.' He says he found corpuscles on one of the chips, but he could not tell what chip it was. He said he raked them all together. He could not even say whether the corpuscles he found were human or not. He could not even pick out the one chip that had the blood on it. He said that he tested for blood only; that he made his test in the ordinary way, and he found the stain on every chip. And that stain was paint, analine which we have insisted was there. And as to the amount of blood, eh could not say whether it was half a drop or less."
No Blood Spots
Where Hair Was Found.
"I say that one half a drop of blood might have been there several years. And now, if I make myself clear, what they say was blood was a stain, the same thing on every chip, and not blood at all. It just happened there were one or two corpuscles on one chip when one drop of blood would have remained intact several years."
"Now that hair Christopher Columbus found on the lathing machine, and by the by it has never been introduced and I would like to know where it is. It has never been identified for the very simple reason that it is not in existence. Every doctor has told you that she must have bled where the hair was found or where the would was made, and there was the blood found."
Attorney Rosser here interrupted Arnold to read from Detective Black's testimony in which he said that Detective Starnes and himself made a thorough examination of the metal room and dressing room the Sunday morning after the crime and found neither hair nor blood.
"Now here where Barrett found strands of hair," Arnold continued, "I want to say that it would be nothing remarkable to find strands of hair on any machine in the factory at which women worked."
Seen Frank's Honesty
Worked Against Him.
"My friend Dorsey says they washed up blood in several places. Now why wasn't it all washed up, instead of putting this haskeline around that one place?"
"The whole truth is that the whole case rests on this fact: that Frank was honest enough to tell them that first Sunday morning that he did see Mary Phagan; that she did come there for her money, the time she came there for her money, the time she came there and the time she left. Now, if he had been trying to hide anything he would certainly have had sense enough my friend Hooper says he is more than the ordinary in intelligence to have denied seeing the girl at all, to have known absolutely nothing about her and to have had her pay envelope in the cash drawer where it would have been if he had not honestly paid her off when she went to his office unharmed."
"When Little Mary Phagan came harry Denham and Arthur White were upstairs. Lemme Quinn and Monteen Stover and all the others were coming in. People were coming and going all morning. The doors of the office were open; the doors of the metal room were open. There were glass doors in the metal room so anyone could look in and see everything that was going on."
"Do you mean to tell me that a man is going to plot murder with conditions like that? There were people coming in before and after the crime a dozen people were dropping in. There Frank was overwhelmed with work, his stenographer gone, and yet they tell me he had planned to lose half or almost all the entire morning with a plot like that. All reason would be against his having relations with girls in the factory."
Brand Dalton A
A Common Liar.
"I have no doubt that some of the girls in the factory were bad, but I don't believe they were all bad. I believe most of the girls who work in that place are good. Now the prosecution has jumped on poor Daisy Hopkins and has torn her character to shreds. I have no doubt that Daisy Hopkins is a bad woman. She has admitted it. I am sorry for her, but some of the men who testified in this case were no better. Think of the motorman who got on the stand here and told about going to that place with women and Dalton telling about going there with Daisy Hopkins and sneaking down through a scuttle hole into the basement."
"They told us that Dalton, the man with a criminal record, had reformed. He lied when he said he had reformed and if he ever went into the pencil factory he slipped in. Look at this man, gentlemen (pointing to Frank). Why should such as he associate with Dalton. Would you think he would be a boon companion of a man like that. No man says he was but Dalton and Conley. Dalton and Conley brought Daisy Hopkins into the case, too. She was not our witness except in this way. Fallen women sometimes tell the truth. It is known they have peculiar characteristics and we knew that if they had lied when they said they went to this place with her she would say so."
"Now, Daisy Hopkins says it is a lie and when all of these people say Frank was never there with women and when the clerks, the office boys and his assistant, Schiff, say that these men lied, then Dalton has lied."
State Suppressed
Dalton's Record.
"The State was hard pressed to bring on a witness like Dalton. They didn't tell you about Dalton. They didn't tell you that he had been arrested and served prison terms almost without number. Now, gentlemen, occasionally a thief reforms, but not often. Drunkards may reform and a man with bad habits will reform, but a man with stealing propensities seldom reforms. Our friends, Dorsey and Hooper, any Dalton has reformed. Now this man stole valuable articles in Walton County and in Gwinnett County. We brought witnesses from both counties to show that Dalton's character was bad now. They had witnesses from Walton County, not a soul from Gwinnett County.
"Now, Dalton has named two other girls he says he met at the pencil factory. They said he lied. Now, gentlemen, I am coming to Jim Conley. As our friend Hooper said this morning, the whole case centers around Jim Conley. At the outset suspicion was directed to Frank because it was thought he was the only person in the building who had the opportunity to commit the crime. Harry Denham and Arthur White were there on the fourth floor, and as far as Frank knew, Mrs. White was there, but no one knew of anyone being in the dark passageway near the elevator, the most favorable place in the entire building for a crime."
"No one knew anything about this for weeks. The detectives started against Frank because he admitted that eh had seen the little girl, that she had come there and that he had given her, her money. They worked on Newt Lee, and if he had been a negro who could have been bulldozed or intimidated he would to-day have been swearing falsely against Frank."
"Negroes, Like Children,
Tell Long Fairy Tales."
"Now I have no harsh words to say about the methods of the detectives, but in the case they have let their zeal lead them astray. Their theory is that when they get a prisoner so he will tell something on some one they have accomplished something. Now, I am coming to the case of Minola McKnight, and it is a fearful thing. It is worse than the Newt Lee affair. Mr. Frank said he had never heard such vilification as was showered upon the head of Newt Lee by the detectives. Evidence gained in that manner, gentlemen, by browbeating, intimidating or persuading is suspicious and it is so held in the decision of the Court of Appeals that I read to you this morning."
"This evidence looks bad no matter how blameless are the men who got it. I don't believe that Detective Starnes would write something and tell Jim Conley or anyone else to swear to it, but they can accomplish the same thing or more by doing what they did."
"Tell me a negro can't invent a tale with lots of details. They have got the capacity of little children for doing that. Don't you know how little children tell stories of fairies and things like that? There is nothing in the world so e
xtensive as the imagination of a child."
"The older I grow the less imagination I have. And anyone who has been around court rooms much knows that negroes are the equals of children in making up plausible yarns."
"They say that Frank used the word chat' and that Conley used it. The very first things that a negro apes in his boss are his peculiarities of expression. I have heard negroes stand and mimic their bosses, using all their mannerism and motions. Why, gentlemen, I can see it developing how Conley sat and read the papers and conjured up this tale. I can see the developments in the cooking up of this whole thing. And I am coming to it. And it is monstrous."
"Then the bloody shirt: my friend waving that scared me. I thought the war was over. They say Frank planted it. Frank didn't know anything about it. But John Black knew it was there before he went and got it. I don't say that the detectives planted it. But you had to find out about it from Black and Scott. WE don't know anything about it. About that time Lanford was giving out interviews saying Newt Lee was guilty. The detectives were bringing up a case against him. The shirt was found."
"Conley was arrested on May 1. He denied that he could write. This fact points to him like the finger of fate itself. They found out he could write from Frank. Frank didn't know, before that, what the detectives were trying to learn from Conley. I honestly believe that."
"Frank showed them pawn tickets and Conley admitted the handwriting. Then time rocked along and Conley began to try to figure out his story to clear himself. He knew suspicion pointed to Frank. He had plenty of time to conjure up his tale before he said anything."
"They didn't want Conley to stay with Wheeler Mangum. They found he could write, they found that he wrote those notes and found out eh was consistently lying. Why didn't they leave him with Wheeler? Because they knew he was honest and would not stand for any frame-ups, and they come into court with a petition and say they don't want him to stay down there because they are talking to him. I never heard of a petition like that before, but they got one, and got Conley out of there. They have got that petition over there now."
"I like my friend Dorsey. He's a mighty nice young fellow, full of zeal, but he is a younger man and when he gets a little older he will know better than to take the initiative in a case of this kind and get mixed up with the detectives in their investigations."
Calis Jim Conley
A Lying Animal.'
"But the officers had indicted Frank before Conley made his first confession. Back in his cell, this negro was studying, and he smiled himself. It was the easiest thing in the world for him to say that he wrote the notes and lay the blame of the crime on Frank. He said on that stand: Why the reason I did this was because Mr. Frank had gone back on me. But that was only the beginning of his lies.'
"Why, gentlemen of the jury, I suppose there never was in the history of criminal animals, and I stick to my opinion that there are criminal animals, another such instance as this, an instance where the lies of an ignorant but smooth negro are taken by officers of the law and used no evidence to place the life of an innocent man in jeopardy."
"But how glad the officers were when Conley made his first statement. How they jumped at it like a straw. Frank is a well-known man and officers felt that they were bound to push their case against him. Else they thought might be criticized if they failed to do so. So they progressed along the evidence furnished them by this lying criminal animal. Their evidence alone is based on these miserable lies. Take the affidavits made by Jim Conley. Oh, he is smooth, this negro Conley. He is not near the fool he made out he was. And the State has clutched at his lying testimony."
"Now look at these affidavits."
The attorney here read the affidavits of Jim Conley.
Accuses Officers of
Scheming With Negro.
"In one of these affidavits he said he did a lot of things on Peters street. Then he comes along later and says this is not true. Here is another instance, the greatest one of all, he changes the time he said he wrote the notes, and here also in another little fact in the notes found by the side of the girl's body. Just notice the word negro.' It is spelled right."
"Now, gentlemen, the first word a negro learn spell is the word negro. And it was a noticeable fact when Conley was on the stand that he went out of his way to say the word nigger.' He said the word nigger every five minutes."
Gentlemen, he was drilled to it. The first time Jim Conley admitted writing the notes, he said he wrote them at four minutes to one Friday. But he trapped in this. He had told a crude lie. He had gone back on Frank. The officers caught him in it. Then the scheming began.
"Jim, this don't fit,' the officers told him. So he went back to lying again. He had tied and was feeling his way by lying. The reason he put it on Friday at first was because it was a whole lie. But these officers schemed with him, and he kept building lie upon lie until we don't know where we are. If they put him on the stand again he would go to lying some more, I expect. If they had left him over in the County Jail with old Daddy Wheeler Mangum. I haven't a doubt but that he would have told the whole truth long ago.
Tells How Conley Was
Taken From the Tower.
"Here is what my good friend did and the detectives got him to do it. He said: Judge Roan, I want to get that negro Conley out of the Tower. Judge Roan said: All right, I want to get that negro Conley out of the Tower.' Judge Roan said: All right, I've got nothing to do with it.'
"They took him out of the Tower and put him in the police station. There they held him. They haven't any charge against him; they haven't indicted him despite the fact that there is ten times the evidence against him that there is against Frank."
"Now I am going to show you something about getting evidence. I have learned something myself in this case. Here is an affidavit from Conley. Here is another one saying it is a lie. I am not going to read them. They tell all about saloons, sausage and the like."
At this point the jury was permitted to go out for refreshments. When they returned five minutes later Arnold continued.
"The third statement. May 28," he said, "in which Conley changes the date of writing the letters from Friday to Saturday, conflicts with all his other statements. He tells two pages of what he did that morning. Now he says all that is a lie. He says: "I made the statement about writing the notes on Friday because I was afraid I might be accused."
"He says he told all the truth and that this is his last statement. God knows when he will make the last statement. According to him he has a sign language by which he tells whether he is lying or telling the truth."
Says Negro's Story Was
Wonderful in Detail.
"Don't you know he looked into the faces of the detectives when he made these statements just as he looked into your faces when he talked the other day? If he had a sign language why didn't he take the detectives into his confidence. He said he always looked down when he lied. But the detectives didn't know his signs. And in it all he keeps away from the truth of his guilt of lying in wait in that hall. Guilt was in his soul and he was afraid to approach that. When he did finally admit he was in that hall, he said he was watching for Frank."
"Why the miserable lying wretch. It makes me almost too indignant to argue. Yet some people wonder how he could imagine such a wonderful lie. Why, if there is anything a negro can do, it is to lie?'"
"My late lamented friend Charley Hill, used to say that if a negro was put into a hoper he would drip lies."
"I haven't time to read this second affidavit or to read of the hundreds of things the negro did on Peters street during the mourning; how he went to half a dozen saloons; fought with a negro who
had a bull whip over his shoulder; of the controversies he engaged in; of the things he ate and the things he drank. I have never seen such a labyrinth of detail."
"We now come back to the writing of the latter in this affidavit. This affidavit is filled with all sorts of things. Conley says: Frank grabbed me by the arm and squeezed it. He held me so tight it made his hands cramp. He had me like he was walking up the street with a lady. He carried me back through his office into his outer office, picked up a boy of Sulphur matches. Then he looked out and saw two ladies coming."
Searching Analysis
Of Negro Continued.
"He said Gee, there come Emma Clark and Corinthia Hall. Then Frank grabbed me and put me into a closet. I was a little slow, and he gave me a push.'"
"Now, gentlemen, Conely says Emma Clark and Corinthia Hall were there at 1'clock or shortly after, and as a matter of truth they were there between 11:30 and 11:40. Then Frank says: Get into the closet.' Once it was mapped out it was no trouble at all for Conley to tell his tale. He knew about the closet in Frank's office. He knew every fool of the plant. He had swept out every inch of it. He could tell by the voice of the women and the spots on their dress who they were. He says he heard Mrs. Freeman say: Good morning, Mr. Frank, are you alone?'"
"Now, gentlemen, this miserable wretch has himself hiding in the
Continued on Page 7
PAGE 18
CRIME WAS THE DEED OF A SAVAGE NEGRO, DEFENSE CHARGES
Couldn't Have Happened as Conley Said It Did, Attorney Arnold Declares
OFFICERS ARE ACCUSED
OF SCHEMING WITH BLACK
TO FIX GUILT ON FRANK
Continued From Page 6.
closet while Mrs. Clark and Miss Hall were there. He said this was after the murder, when there has been evidence here that Mrs. Freeman and Miss Hall came and left before Mary Phagan came to the factory."
"All of this story has been changed now, gentlemen. When he was on the stand, he swore that he thought it was Corinthia Hall and Mrs. Freeman. They changed it when they saw that it wouldn't fit. This thing of Frank hiding Conley in the closet is ridiculous. There was no necessity for Frank hiding Conley in the closet."
"Notes Are Products
Of Negro's Brain."
"If Frank saw the women coming, he could have met them in the hall. He could have shut the door of his office. He was the boss of the plant. It is all so utterly ridiculous that it is almost useless to argue it."
"And this thing of Conley watching. That was wholly unnecessary. And what a fine watchman he was? When Frank was in the metal room with the little girl and she screaming at the top of her voice, Conley let another girl in Monteen Stover and let her go upstairs and ramble all over the floor. And yet he was watching to see that no one interrupted while Frank murdered the girl."
"Now in his affidavit, Conley says that Frank told him to sit down, then said, Jim,' can you write?' Now think of that. Conley admitted on the witness stand that he had been writing for Frank for two years, that he had been writing for Frank for two years, that he had written the names of pencils and made reports and that he had written notes to Frank, asking for loans. And yet the miserable liar says Frank asked me if I could write.'"
"Things like this, gentlemen, show what a liar this negro has been. My friend Hooper says how foolish it would have been of the negro to write these notes. The notes are the product of a negro brain. That is one thing that made me believe Newt Lee knew something of the murder, I believe Newt Lee discovered the body before he says he did, and I am forced to believe that Conley killed the girl."
"This question of Can you write?' is a beautiful question for a man to ask anyone who has been writing for him for two years. A lie always catches up with itself. Conley says that Frank told him to write: Dear Mother, a long, tall black negro did this by himself.'"
Says Officers Stopped
Conley in Confessing.
"Here Conley says Frank slapped him on the back and said, Jim, old boy, you're all right.' Just think of that. Jim, old boy, you're all right. You're a trump.' I just put in that trump myself, but that's what he meant."
"Now, Scott swore that he heard this negro sit down and write one of these notes for him, and how long did Scott say it took this negro? Why, he said it took him more than six minutes to write a part of it. Gentlemen of the jury, do you really think this defendant slapped that negro on the back and said: Jim, you're all right'? Do you think any decent white man would have done that. Good lord, just think of it. Lies, lies, lies.'
"And here he says Frank sat down in his chair, the chair that turned around, and reared back at him and then gave him a cigarette. He says Frank handed him a cigarette box. He talks at first like the box was full of cigarettes. Then he says the box had money in it, and when he told Mr. Frank there was money there Mr. Frank told him to keep it. Lying all the way through."
"Listen at this. After he had done this he said that Mr. Frank stood there and said, Why should I hang? I have wealthy folks in Brooklyn.' Ah, why should I hang. Gentlemen, the papers had been full of the fact for a week that Frank had relatives in Brooklyn. Everybody thought he was wealthy, but he wasn't. The only wealthy relative he had is his uncle, Mr. Frank, here in Atlanta, who made his money in Atlanta. People say, but how could Conley have made that up? I don't know how he did it, but it was a monstrous lie. There he sat in his cell and lying in every direction having at the moon. And then the officers keep after him."
"He wanted to confess but he never had a chance to. He would start off to confess and they would stop him. They would say, Stop, stop, now wait a minute.'"
"Now he said in his affidavit that Frank rubbed his hands and then rubbed his face, rolled his eyes, then rubbed his hands again. I asked where is Snowball? Yea. In his extremity he asked for Snowball. Give me Snowball, give me Snowball.' Ah, give me liberty or give me death."
"Must Believe Whole
Story or None of It."
"Then he said Frank's reason for wanting him to write the notes was that he wanted to send them to his relatives in Brooklyn to show them what a good nigger he was. He didn't know the reason why."
"Now, gentlemen, do you think that any sane man would have ever told that to an insane negro? Now, look at what these notes were that Jim says Frank told him he was going to send away. Listen how it starts:"
"Dear mother, he said he would love me.' Gentlemen, is that within reason? Is it within reason to believe that Frank told this negro that it is a lie, base, infamous, preposterous.'"
"Unless you believe every word Jim Conley has said, the State has got no case at all. You have got to swallow guts, feathers and all or not take anything. When he said that about those notes, and right in the same breath said: Don't take out one dollar for that watchman,' his mind was wandering. He followed that right away by saying: And Frank said that big, fat wife of mine wants me to buy her an automobile.'"
"Conley had seen her around the factory sometimes and put that in to make his lie sound the more reasonable. It is unkind for them to say she would not go down to the jail to see her husband. As a matter of fact she was very anxious to go down and see him and it was only at his specific request, almost a demand, that she stayed away, because he knew the newspapers would snapshot her, and that she would see him in a cell."
"His motives were the purest. No gentleman would want his wife to see him in jail and you know it. It was the only thing for a gentleman to do."
Reads Statement of
Pinkerton Detective.
"Of course that didn't satisfy them. Anybody could see he was dodging being at the building. His first statement got him into it, all right. They knew there was more. I am going to show you, that in the next statement, there never was a man g
uided and protected more from becoming a principal in a crime. He has helped."
"I read you the testimony of Mr. Scott, a detective called as a witness by Solicitor Dorsey. My friend Hooper thinks you have got to believe Conley because he did not break down the stand. I have seen honest men go to pieces on the stand, and I have seen the blackest liars on earth look the judge and the jury straight in the face and tell their tales."
"But here's Mr. Scott's story of how he made a statement."
Attorney Arnold proceeded to read Scott's testimony.
"Listen to these words of Scott: We tried to get him to add to or confirm the earlier statement he had made. He would say nothing further. We saw him again in Lanford's office for six or seven hours. We tried to impress on him that his statement about writing the notes on Friday would not fit. We saw him Lanford's office the next day for five or six hours. We pointed out that the time of the note-writing would not fit at all. On that day he changed it to Saturday."
"Is anything clearer than that? Yet in this statement Conley stuck to the parts of the story about what he did Saturday morning."
"Tracks of Perjury
Clear in This Case."
"I can hear the detectives now: Conley, we want you to tell enough about this crime to convict Frank, but not enough to get yourself indicted. We want you as a witness.'"
"Gentlemen, I hope I make myself clear. This is one of the slickest places of business ever pulled off on the face of the earth. I don't mean they literally told Conley that, but their suggestion was mighty strong. They had taken them from Uncle Wheeler and turned him over to Lanford, Black and Scott. Scott says they told him what didn't fit. Think of that, gentlemen. He told him what didn't fit."
"Convict a man on this? It is hard to believe a negro at any time, but to convict a man on this testimony "
"They say that negro is smart; that he withstood Mr. Rosser's attack. He is smart. He is well acquainted with the law. They did not have him hide the body of a murdered girl. He would have been guilty under the law. They had him say she had fallen and got hurt; that he did not know she was murdered. Isn't it clear? Just enough to put all the guilty on Frank and keep the negro free as a witness?"
"The idea was to show that the other man killed the girl but Conley did not get into it himself. Gentlemen, the tracks of perjury in this case are as big as elephant tracks. They stand out like buildings."
"When we came into court we thought we had to believe his statement of May 29. Why couldn't he have told the truth then? In his first statements he said he hadn't told the truth because he thought Mr. Frank would help him. But he had cut loose from Mr. Frank at this time and on May 29, Conley swore that he saw that Mr. Frank wasn't going to help him and he decided to tell the truth."
Pictures Conley
Killing Phagan Girl.
"That statement was what we came here to answer. Since then Conley says: I have had new revelations. Mr. Dorsey saw me seven times. Starnes and Campbell had regular seances with me. I saw everything in a new light. I made lots of changes in my testimony."
Arnold picked up Harry Scott's testimony and read from it where Scott had told about detectives talking to the negro and getting him to add to and change his testimony.
Arnold continued: "Does Jim Conley tell a thing because it is the truth or because it fits into something else they have in the case. Harry Scott says they told the negro to get his story so that it would fit. Conley says that after Mr. Dorsey and Starnes and my Irish friend, Patrick Campbell, saw him that he changed and added to his story."
"Are you going to hang a man on evidence like that? Where have we drifted, if I have to argue this? If we can't do this man justice we are less than men. We are spineless grubworms. I am not afraid to espouse his cause and talk it because it has for its foundation that rock of truth. I have the approval of my own conscience."
"The man who wrote the notes killed Mary Phagan. Conley admits he was in the factory slinking in the shadow of the dark passageway near the elevator when this little innocent girl tripped down the stairway."
"Gentlemen, I am telling this as in all probability it happened. It took but the twinkling of an eye for the deed. In two steps, the drink-crazed negro rushes forward and grabs the mesh bag from her hand."
"Probably robbery was his only motive. The little girl held on to her mesh bag. She struggled, the drunken brute hit her in the eye. She fell unconscious, her head striking the floor. It was but a moment's work to throw the body down the elevator shaft. Then the negro hung around until Frank left, carried the body back into the deep recesses of the basement and wrote the notes."
"What is more probable the or the lying, rotten ridiculous story of the negro Conley which he told on the witness stand?"
Arnold then picked up the court records and read portions of Conley's testimony to show that it had been changed, and how long it took Dorsey and his men to get it changed.
"Now every time he corrected his statement he added to it, assisted by Dorsey, Campbell and Starnes. In his previous statements he never said anything about seeing Mary Phagan come in, but it had to fit the evidence that she came in after Monteen Stover and he said All right boss, just put it that way.'
"Then he never said anything about seeing Frank come running back, but they told Conley he could hear it, and he heard it."
"Then they said to Conley, We've got an idea Frank is a moral pervert,' and asked him if he had not watched for Frank on previous occasions, and he said, Yes, boss, I expect. I did.' Then they said, Conley there's a fellow named Dalton who used to go down there. We will bring him up here and let you see if you don't know him.' And he said, Yes, boss, sure I do.' And then there's that lewd girl, and he said he knew her, too."
"There is that cord around the girl's neck. He didn't see that the first time, but he sees it now, all right, And the mean bag. He never saw that until Dorsey put him in rebuttal. He couldn't see it on the direct examination at all, and he never said anything at all about that pay envelope because, gentlemen of the jury, robbery was the motive, and he had the envelope and money."
Asks Why Negro Was
Removed From Tower.
"Finally my friend Dorsey on his last examination, asked about that bag. That was the straw that broke the camel's back, the crowning lie of all. Conley said yes, he had seen it Frank had it on his desk. He didn't say anything about that envelope. He stole that for the money."
"Gentlemen, I have got to hurry on. What was the object in taking Conley from the jail to the police station? Is Shariff Mangum an honest man? I have always heard he was but he runs the jail fairly and not to convict people."
"They said it was awful that Frank would not face Conley. Frank told you why he wouldn't, who would want to get into a row with that negro? Would it do any good? Then think of the possibilities of having your statement twisted and distorted. We have got in court the evidence of the man who wrote the two notes. We have got his own statement and perhaps the evidence of others that he was lurking in that hall."
"Gentlemen, is a life work nothing? Is it worth nothing for a man to work hard on a little salary and try to hold up his head? Is his word worth nothing against a drunken brute like this? This little child who was found brutally murdered in the basement of the factory she couldn't inspire a crime like that in an intelligent white man. I have always sold, the man who wrote those notes and who left incriminating evidence in the elevator shaft was the man who committed the crime."
Displays Chart of
Frank's Movements.
"But take the defendant this man's race don't kill l people. They are not violent people. You may say some of them are immoral and they may be immoral, but they don't car
ry it to the extent of murder. But a murder; a brute like him would try to do something to hide the body. The killing of Mary Phagan was a black brute's crime. This negro had the lust for the little girl in his mind. He had been carrying it in his mind and I believe this man Jim Conley killed her."
Arnold had the deputies to unwrap a long package which he had brought to the court room, a long printed chart of Frank's movements Memorial Day. It was arranged in a tabulation of minutes.
"First, I will discuss Mary Phagan's movements Memorial Day, and then the time Jim Conley said it took him to do what he alleges he did. Then I will take up Frank's movements, showing what he did and just how long it took him."
"Let's get back to the little girl's movements. First, the State put up little George Epps. And ever since they have been trying to knock him off. Epps says he got off the car at about 7 minutes past 12 at the corner of Forsyth and Marielle streets. I have always rather doubted that this little boy was as friendly with Mary as he says he was."
"Then Hollis says that he arrived at the corner of Broad and Marietta at 5 or 6 minutes after 12. Matthews says he knew her well and took her around to Hunter and Broad streets. The State has been trying to bulldoze these two witnesses ever since they went on the stand.
Phagan Girl's Steps
Retraced in Detail.
"One witness whole watch had been in soak for six months and we didn't have a watch on Memorial Day says he looked at his watch and saw Mary Phagan at 8 minutes after 12. Then they had other witnesses to get up and swear all sorts of things, and yet there were even other witnesses who have walked from Forsyth and Marietta streets and from Broad and Hunter streets to the pencil factory, and the time it took them to walk there even according to their own witnesses would put little Mary Phagan at the factory at 8 minutes past 12."
"They have put up men like this fellow Kenley, who would lead a mob of forty men and who would run at the crack of a pop-gun. This man Kenley never saw Mary Phagan say more than I did."
"Now, let's take little George Epps again. Would Dorsey say that his own witness lied? If Epps, Hollis, and Matthews are telling the truth, Mary-Phagan reached Mr. Frank's office some time between 8 and 11 minutes past 12. Now the State is trying to do everything it can to get away from the Epps evidence. I am taking it to be the truth."
"Frank says she got there at about 12:07. I would take the dead girl's mother's word, and she said Mary left thereat a quarter of 12. The schedule to town is seventeen minutes. The cars are due at Broad and Marietta at 12:07. We've got the schedule; our witnesses and their witnesses Epps and Mary Phagan's mother s word, and every one of them puts here there at this time."
Time Discrepancies
Emphasized to Jury.
"So we take it she got to the factory about 12:12, and I stand on that. We can't change watches and schedules to suit Dorsey."
Next, how long did it take to go through Conley's performance
Continued on Page 14.
PAGE 15
GEORGIA'S GREATEST
MURDER TRIAL NEARS
ITS FATEFUL CLOSE
By JAMES B. NEVIN.
The evidence in the Frank case all has been delivered; the last word has been spoken, both for and against the defendant, so far as the witnesses are concerned.
It only remains for the lawyers to argue the matter to the jury and then, after the court has given the jury the law in charge, there will remain only the verdict to record.
The most complex difficult elusive and mysterious murder case in the entire criminal history of Georgia is nearing its end.
It is doubtful whether any of us ever shall see the like of the Frank trial again.
Lawyers give it as their opinion that it has been, in a dozen or more ways, the most extraordinary proceeding ever coming under their observation and certainly the newspapers of the State never have been called upon to handle a story so amazingly strange in its varied and sometimes astonishing ramifications.
The Phagan case for as such it will go down in history, rather than as the Frank case has combined within itself all that goes to make for intense and insistent heart interest.
It has revolved about a sweet little working girl, tragically, and cruelly and brutally killed murdered in the first flush of young and promising womanhood, who probably never knew, and if knowing, still not comprehending, why that awful fate should have come upon her so suddenly and so unavoidably!
It has involved the honor and the home happiness of a young business man, theretofore of unblemished integrity and standing in one of the most cultured cities in the world; it has stormed about two household, equally unoffending within themselves; it has concerned itself with the love of two mothers, and it has made to bleed the heart of a wife, and has brought sorrow unspeakable to the minds of hundreds of loving friends, both the accused man and the dead girl.
Sleeping Prejudice Aroused.
It has, with sordid emphasis, suppressed but unmistakable, made manifest deep-seated prejudices and opinions gathering as it swept along many things foreign to the real point in issue, until the one big stake the cards must settle presently has, at times, been completely lost sight of, and even now is not easy to locate with certainty.
The Phagan case has run the entire scale of human emotions there is little by way of sinister or grim appeal that has not been, somehow and sometime, injected into it!
But, after all is said and done, perhaps the matter has been thrashed out thus far in the light of the biggest intelligence that might have been applied to it.
At times, fate has seemed all too unkind to the defendant; at times the State has seemed unduly stooped from proceeding as it thought it had a right to proceed.
Undoubtedly things have been said and done by both sides to the Frank trial that, as strict matters of law and justice, never should have been said or done.
Frank has had to answer not to the charge of murder alone as the indictment contemplated he should but to two charges.
The one means an ignoble death if sustained; the other means a worse than ignoble life thereafter in the penitentiary.
In a measure, too, the charge of murder has been swallowed up and obscured by the other monstrous thing and yet one can hardly see wherein the defense may complain of that, in that the second charge got into the record with the consent of the defense, if not almost by its invitation.
Scales Held With Even Hand.
Judge Roan and in this, at least I think the public is agreed, has tried his level best to hold the balances even. If there be error in his rulings, they have been errors of the head and not of the heart, I take it. And, error or no, he has maintained an impartial average of judicial favor, so to speak, and he will come through unsullied and uncriticized.
What effect upon the jury the evidence will have is highly speculative and problematical.
If the jury were not composed of human beings and could confine itself to those things alone. It has ben legally held to the pathway to acquittal of Frank might seem brighter.
But the trial been so long drawn out, so full of perplexing detail, so worrying and fretting to simple analysis, so mixed as to issues, and so disconcerting in sequence of testimony, that one is at a loss to imagine just what the jury MUST think of it all now.
In its strict legal aspect, the case against Leo Frank, while fully well held together and set forth by the solicitor General, still is not such a case as would prompt one to predict sure conviction.
Neither, however, has the defense been of a nature warranting a prediction of sure acquittal.
If the technically legal case could be differentiated in the mind of the jury from the psychological case if the pleadings could be confined strictly to the primary issue, murder, and not in any manner confused with the other unmentiona
ble issue brought into the case the probably finding of the jury would be easier to anticipate and forecast.
If Frank might have been tried for murder, pure and simple, NOW, and LATER tried for the other thing, the problem of the jury might, and doubtless would, be simplified immensely.
But to expect the jury to separate tin its mind entirely the two things Frank is answering for is almost to expect of it the impossible the superhuman!
Jury but a Part of the Public.
It has been seemingly impossible for the public to do that and, after all is said and done, the jury is but a portion of the public, made more careful in forming its opinions, to be sure, by the sole solemn oath it has taken, but merely a portion of the great public nevertheless!
The big card played against Frank was the negro sweeper, Conley.
Upon the astonishing story turns the State's entire case, from every point of view.
Conley it was who first pointed the direct finger of accusation toward Frank and fixed upon him the awful charge of murder, and Conley it was who first spoke the word of unspeakable scandal that has made Frank's road to acquittal a thousand times hard to journey.
Pitted against Conley is Frank, almost and pathetically alone!
He made a remarkable statement it carried with it every indication, so far as the surface of things seemed to show, of truth and straight forwardness. If it shall so fall out that he be acquitted, that statement must and will be credited with a tremendous share of the responsibility thereof.
It has behind it, too, some things that the Conley statement has not among other things, a long record of respectability, integrity and business standing, vouched for by an abundance of very high class evidence as to Frank's character.
And yet it was not delivered on oath, and it certainly carried a load of self interest.
Undoubtedly much has crept into the case, or been lugged in, that is irrelevant, but well, it is in, and that is the end of it, perhaps!
If Frank is convicted there will be grounds innumerable for asking new trial; and if that is refused, there will be an abundant assignment of error whereby a reversal possibly may be had later and a new trial ordered.
Frank, however, has staked his all and everything on acquittal to be denied that is to be denied the hope of all hopes that sustain him today!
And so, after the evidence is all in, and the public at least is face to face with the forthcoming verdict after four months of nerve-racking suspense, swung this way and that, and never knowing exactly what to think there is but one thing human beings of normal minds and pose can do today.
They must await the verdict with minds prepared to accept it as the truth the very best human ingenuity and the forms of law can establish by way of justice and right.
Either an acquittal or a conviction the one final, and the other a matter to be reviewed would be the finish of this trial most satisfactory to the public.
All that any man SHOULD desire all indeed, that any honest man CAN desire is that the truth be recorded in the Frank case. In the light of reason, common sense and justice, as man is given the light to see!
Both the defendant and the State have much at stake the one has his life and his liberty, the other has the majesty of the law, which is the protection of the lives and liberties for all.
It is easy to find fault, to say that a mistake was made here and there; that sins of commission and sins of omission marked the progress of the trial from both sides.
But that and none of that, gets us away from the fact that the trial has been as fair and square as might have been expected and whatever the verdict, no man will have the right to say that undue favor has been shown.
The verdict of the jury "twelve good men and true" that the public should be, prepared to accept loyally, and sincerely, as the TRUTH of the Phagan murder, in so far as Leo Frank is concerned therein.
PAGE 19
DORSEY CHEERED BY CROWD
CONVICTION ON CHAIN
OF CIRCUMSTANCES IS
UPHELD BY SOLICITOR
Solicitor Hugh Dorsey, Friday afternoon, opened a vigorous, cutting arraignment of Leo M. Frank the final blow of the State at the man accused of the murder of Mary Phagan. The Solicitor followed Luther Rosser who had spoken for more than six hours and he was expected to make an exhaustive review of the evidence in an effort to show that it fixed the crime conclusively on Frank.
Court adjourned at 5:15 when the Solicitor had hardly started on his speech. The opening was brilliant in its slashing attack parison with the famous Durant case in California, which the defense had itself cited. The defense had itself cited the Durant case as an instance where the wrong man had been executed. The Solicitor insisted that justice had been done.
Frank was calm under the fiery attack. His wife and mother looked somewhat worn.
The Solicitor was given an ovation as he left the courtroom, a big crowd cheering him for his masterful opening of the State's case.
Solicitor Dorsey arose from his seat and remaining at his table, began addressing the court in low, even tones.
"May it please your Honor," he said, "I wish to thank you for the courtesy in giving us unlimited time, and I desire, gentlemen of the jury, to commiserate you. But as his Honor has told you, this is an important case. It is important to society; important to the defense; important to me; important to you."
"I would not feel like slurring over any of it for the sake of physical conditions. And indeed, gentlemen of the jury, although I know it does inconvenience you, I feel that you would not have me slur over any of it. I may seem at some stages a little tedious, but a case that has consumed almost a solid month, a case of thin magnitude, can't be argued quickly."
"This case, not only as his honor has told you, and X have intimated, is important, but it is extraordinary. It was an extraordinary crime, a most heinous crime; a crime that demanded earnest, vigorous, conscientious effort on the part of the detectives and myself. And it demands earnest, vigorous conscientious consideration on your part."
"It is extraordinary because of the prominence and the ability of the counsel that has been pitted against me. Four of them, Arnold, Rosser and the two Haas'."
Leonard Haas interrupted Dorsey: "No, I am not one of the counsel," he said.
"All right," said Dorsey, "three of them Haas. It is extraordinary because of the defendant. It is extraordinary on account of the argument of the defense; also on account of the methods they have pursued. They have two of the ablest lawyers in this country; also Mr. Haas is an able lawyer."
"As Mild a Man As
Ever Cut a Throat."
"There is Mr. Rosser, rider of the winds and stirrer of the storms. Mr. Arnold and what I say is meant in no bitterness, because I love him as mild a mannered man as ever cut a throat or scuttled a ship."
"They have maligned me and abused the detectives and they have heaped calumny upon us to such an extent that good lady over there, the mother of the defendant, arose in this presence and called me a dog. When did a murderer ever feel the halter tightening around his neck with a good opinion of the law?"
"I don't want your good opinion," said Dorsey, turning to Frank. "If you (turning to the jury) put your stamp of approval on my case. I am satisfied. They say prejudice and perjury, and they used that stereotyped expression, fatigued indignation. Don't let that indignation accentuate your action."
Defense Brought in
Issue of Prejudice.
"Gentlemen, do you think that these detectives and myself, sworn officers of the law would have sought to hang this man and pass up Jim Conley, a negro, unless we knew what we were doing?"
(Luther Rosser's speech in full on inside pages.)
"Prejudice? Was it prejudice when they arrested Newt Lee? And Gantt? No, it was not prejudice until the law got their client,
Leo M. Frank. We never once in this trial referred to a sect or creed. It was they that brought it in. It was their one deliverance."
"Not a word emanated from this side indicating any prejudice in this case. Any prejudice, white or black, Jew or Gentile. We did not need it. We would have despised ourselves if we had brought it into this case, and when it was brought into the case at the last hour, when the attorneys for the defense questioned George Kenley how they jumped upon it. How the expressions of delight spread over their faces when the word Jew was spoken. They seized on it with avidity. They have harped on it all through their speeches. We never mentioned it. Please remember that. The race from which that man came is just as good as ours. It was civilized when ours was still cutting each other up and eating one another. Their race is as good as ours, but not any better."
"I honor the race that has produced a Disraeli, the greatest Prime Minister that England ever had. I honor the Strauss brothers, particularly the one who went down on the Titanic with his wife. I know Rabbi Marx and I honor him. I know Dr. Sonn, of the Orphan's Home, and I honor him."
Ask Conviction
Only On Evidence.
"But this same race has produced its Abe Humel, sent to the penitentiary in New York; its Abe Reuf, sent to the penitentiary in California. Its Nathan Schwartz, who stabbed little Julia Conners in New York."
"These illustrations show that this race is amenable to the same laws as other races. They rise to heights sublime, but they sink to the depths of degradation."
"We don't ask the conviction of this man except according to the law which his honor will give to you in
Continued on Page 7, Column 1.
PAGE 24
SOLICITOR MAKES STRONG SUMMING UP AGAINST ACCUSED We Want Frank Convicted According to Law Only, Declares Hugh Dorsey
PREJUDICE ISSUE BROUGHT
IN BY DEFENSE ONLY, SAYS
DORSEY IN FINAL SPEECH
Continued from Page 1.
his charts. His honor will say to you not to convict this defendant unless you are convinced of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt."
"And what is this reasonable doubt? The jurors get an idea that there is something mysterious about this. But it is as plain as the nose on your face. It is a thing that speaks for itself. It is not perceptible of any definition. Anyone who attempts to define it uses tautology; he used the same word over again. Its best definition is contained in the eighty-third Georgia Report, which says:
"A reasonable doubt is one opposed to an unreasonable doubt. It is one for which a reason can be given. And is one based on reason. Such a doubt leaves the mind in an uncertain and wavering condition. It is impossible to say with reason and moral certainty that a person is guilty."
"If you have a doubt it must be such a doubt as to control and decide your conduct in the highest and most
Continued on Page 7, Column 1.
important affairs of life. It was not as was said in the case of John way back in the Thirty-third Georgia that possibility of the accused not being guilty was sufficient. It must be such a doubt as a reasonable honest man in an honest investigation would entertain as to the truth."
"That authority is from the Forty-seventh Georgia. It must not be a doubt that might be conjured up; it must not be such a doubt as one might claim to acquit a friend. It must not be a trivial doubt; a base possibility. It must not be the doubt of a crank or an oversensitive person."
Doubt, He Says,
Must Be Reasonable.
"The reasonable doubt must be based on practical, common sense. There must not be acquittal every time there is doubt. In that case there would be acquittal in all cases. As Chief Justice White says, every bit of evidence dependent on human morals is subject to some doubt. This doubt is incapable of precise definition. But a comprehension of its meaning follows directly the words. Some say circumstantial evidence is not as good as direct evidence. That is not so, according to these authorities. It is a popular fallacy that has no place in a courthouse. And I am coming to Mr. Arnold's Durant case, in a minute."
"If circumstantial evidence satisfies the mind, it is as good as positive evidence. The doctrine of reasonable doubt, as shown by the defense, originated black yonder at the time when a man was not allowed counsel."
"As we progress with our improved methods, that idea will be dropped altogether. The State has got all kinds of burdens and difficulties to surmount. It never was better illustrated than in this case."
"Don't think this matter is a subtle, illusive something. When you get your ideas as a man, you have got them as a juror. You can get up any kind of an excuse of turning loose a man, but that must be outside of a jury box. You can not turn a man loose here on any light, fanciful conjecture. That, would violate your oath, and I know you won't do that."
Upholds Evidence
That Is Circumstantial.
"In the Ninety-second Georgia they speak of it thus: reasonable doubt does not mean a vague conjectural doubt; a doubt conjured up in the minds of a juror, but a decision on the evidence in the case. It means a doubt which would cause a juror to hesitate to proceed in his common, everyday business walk of life."
"It is a moral certainty which you are after, gentlemen. The certainty brought to your mind by the facts in the case. And now let us pass from the reasonable doubt proposition to circumstantial evidence. There are some people who say they will not convict on circumstantial evidence. Such talk as that is the merest bosh. They say they should not convict a man unless it is absolutely known that he committed a crime. But, gentlemen of the jury, the authorities say it is the best evidence.
"It is true that recently there have been main failures to convict on circumstantial evidence, but a man should not be declared innocent by a jury on some trivial fancy. The evidence in the case should satisfy every juror. You are to judge by the common sense evidence. Any other rule will expose society to the ravages of the most atrocious crimes generally perpetrated in a manner and time which precludes positive evidence against the person committing it.
Brings in Famous
Durant Case Again.
"To refuse to convict on circumstantial evidence is consistent with every other hypothesis of the laws of our land."
"Now, gentlemen, Mr. Arnold spoke to you about that Durrant case that celebrated case in San Francisco. He said that case was the greatest crime of the century. I don't know where Mr. Arnold got all the authority for his statement. On April 15, 1913, C. M. Picket, District Attorney of the city of San Francisco, wrote a letter "
Attorney Arnold interrupted the Solicitor at this point, making the objection that he could not permit the Solicitor to read any letter.
Dorsey said: "It is not a letter I want to read; it is a telegram I received yesterday.
"I telegraphed to San Francisco yesterday," said Dorsey; "I ask your honor if I can not quote that in my address to the jury. I am permitted to argue what is a matter of public notoriety."
"I do not object to my brother arguing what is a matter of public notoriety," said Arnold, "but I must object when he attempts to read something from some letter a friend of his in San Francisco has written him. I want here and now to record my objection to the Solicitor getting any information from such a source."
"Can't I state what I know about the case," demanded Dorsey, "I anticipated that some such claim as this would be made and that is why I made the investigation."
Judge Roan allowed Dorsey to tell what he knew about the case, but would not permit him to read the letter or the telegram. Dorsey continued:
"Mr. Arnold, in discussing the uncertainties of circumstantial evidence said that Theodore Durant had been hanged for the murder of Blanche Lamont and Minnie Williams, and that the real murderer had made a death-bed confe
ssion.
Dorsey said in contradicting this: "My information is that nobody has ever confessed to the murder of Blanche and Minnie Williams. There can be no doubt that this man Durant was guilty. The body of one girl was found in the belfry, and the other in the basement. The forty-eighth Pacific Reporter shows that the body of one girl was tripped stark naked, and was found in the belfry of the Emmanuel church, San Francisco, after she had been two weeks missing. It shows that Durrant who was a medical student as well as a minister, had a character far better than this man Frank. It shows that although he was convicted in 1895, he did not go to the gallows until 1898. It shows that his mother cremated the remains. That's all poppycock that Arnold has been talking about. There never was a guiltier man than Durant, and never a more courageous jury."
Attorney Arnold called attention to the fact that the letter from this man C.M. Pickett was dated April 15, nearly two weeks before the murder of Mary Phagan. He made this statement to throw doubt on Dorsey's statement that he had made the investigation in anticipation of just such a story as Arnold had told.
"There are lust murderers," said Mr. Dorsey. "There are people who are in the height of exultation when choking a girl to death with their hands or with a cord. This man had stripped the body, strangulation was the cause of death. At that time Durant was a young man of 24 years of age, a student at the Cooper Medical School, a member of the army signal corps, an attendant of the Emmanuel Baptist Church, assistant superintendent of the Sunday school and librarian of the church.
"He was said to be religious; that, of course, included his character was regarded as excellent. At his trial the defense was an alibi the last rest resort to which the guilty man can come. He declared he had seen Blanche Lamont on her way to school, but never afterward. The contention of the prosecution was that he murdered her in the church. Both were attendants of the church, and members of the Christian Endeavor Association. Durant had keys to the side door of the church, and was familiar with the interior.
Likens Durant
Case to Frank's.
"A woman saw the defendant walking up and down in front of the schoolhouse that afternoon as though waiting for someone. She saw the defendant board a street car with two girls."
Mr. Dorsey was reading the complete story of this case and pointing out from time to time analogies to the Phagan case. He continued:
"George King, organist, went to the church that afternoon and was playing. Durant came in to the Sunday school where he was and stood looking at him. He was very pale; his coat and his hat were off; there were no scratches or blood stains on him; the organist asked him what was the trouble. He said he had been fixing the gas, not making up a financial sheet."
"He said he had to rest. Frank called off a baseball engagement. He gave King 50 cents and asked for bromo seltzer. Frank trembled on Darley's knee as they rode to the police station. You can always tell; the signs betray. Later the mother of Blanche Lamont received a package through the mall, with the rings the girl had worn wrapped in a newspaper. On the paper were written the names of George King, church organist, and Professor Schernstein, music teacher."
"A pawnbroker testified that a man had offered him one of those rings in pawn. The person offering the ring for sale was the defendant, I emphasize defendant to show how accurate Mr. Arnold was. Of course, he is an honorable man, he wouldn't mislead you. I am just reading the record."
"Durant went to his friends and asked for notes on the lecture which he was supposed to have attended that afternoon. He said that he had forgotten to take any notes, but with his friends' notes he could easily bring his up. Why, even in jail there, he could have fixed up his notes. This summarization of the evidence in the Durant case is not exhaustive; if it were it would show many more facts which fastened the chain around Durant. But briefly, Blanche Lamont and her friend were at the church at 4:20."
Demands to Know
Motive for Conley.
"At 5 o'clock the defendant was seen just outside of it in a wild and excited condition. He explained his condition by the accidental inhalation of gas. At 6 o'clock he left there. Blanche Lamont was never seen again and two weeks later her body was found in the belfry."
"Now, tell me, what motive could Conley have had to have knocked Mary Phagan down that scuttle hole. Compare this with the motive of the defendant."
"What greater motive could Durant have had to move Blanche Lamont's body, from the library to the belfry than this defendant here to move Mary Phagan's body from the office floor to the basement. The girl's body was found two weeks later. The books still tightly strapped, were found by her. She had last been seen there a few minutes before the defendant. Durant was seen there. These facts were sufficient to justify the hypothesis of Durant's guilt. The evidence of the defendant's good character was introduced and was in his favor."
"That, gentlemen, is the case in which Arnold says the jury went wrong; in which the higher court, the community and the civilized world went wrong. Despite the defendant's Christian character, they judged against him. I do not think Mr. Arnold would mislead you, but it is not true that any man confessed to the killing of Blanche Lamont, for the murder was committed by Theo Durant."
"All this has no direct bearing on this case before you. But I wanted to clear away the underbrush before I began. If you think this man is innocent, you turn him loose. If you think he is guilty, you put a cord around his neck. I know you will do as your conscience dictates. Character has much to do with this case, so let us first establish his good character.
Declares Defense
Gave Character Defl.
"If they had not put his character in issue, we would have been absolutely helpless. But they put his character in issue, and we accepted the challenge. And we have met it fully, we maintain."
Solicitor Dorsey at this time cited a passage of law in respect to the value of character testimony. He said:
"The proof of good character will not hinder the conviction of the defendant if the guilt is plainly proved to the satisfaction of the jury."
"You first have got to have a good character before it weighs a feather in the balance, and then remember it is the hardest thing in the world to do to break down a man's character in court, if it is any character at all."
"When we sought to introduce testimony of this sore Attorney Arnold in his dramatic manner said: I will move for a mistrial if this continue." I don't know whether his attitude is one of the characteristics of a great lawyer. If it is, I don't want to be a great lawyer."
"Time and again, throughout this trial, he has branded testimony of this sort as lies of crack-brained fanatics. He would have done this if he hadn't realized the weight of evidence banked up against this man who on April 26 snuffed out the life of this little girl. Mary Phagan, in the pencil factory."
"If such attributes as Attorney Arnold has displayed are those of great lawyers, I don't want to attain to their greatness. I will put it up to your verdict to determine who has been telling the lies, and I will be satisfied with your decision, too."
"Now this book says that if a man has a good character it shall not hinder conviction if evidence of his guilt is sufficient to satisfy the jury. It was in the Durant case, and I submit there is sufficient proof in this case, character or no character, to demand conviction. It is not on prejudice. I am coming to perjury after a while."
"Have I so far forgot myself that I would ask you to convict that man (pointing to Frank) if I thought Conley was guilty? I am going to talk to you a little about those conscientious letters to the grand jury, asking Conley's indictment."
"Dr. Billy Owens,
who went over to that factory with a man named Brent, afterwards called as a witness, went over to that factory to pull off that little farce. He is the man whose conscience hurt him so that he wrote to the grand jury, instructing them what to do. And then there was a man named Fleming with them who wrote a letter to the grand jury."
Rosser: "I object. There was no evidence to any such a fact."
Declares He Never
Will Indict Conley.
"Well, a man with the same name and the same initials is the same man who wrote a letter to the grand jury and who went to the factory," replied Dorsey. "Mr. Arnold, in his argument, mentioned that Conley had never been indicted. No, and he will never be for this crime. The evidence shows him to be only an accessory after the fact. Dr. Billy Owens' conscience may be smiting him, as he sits in his office building houses and shooting something into people's noses, but unless something comes out, something that has not been developed during this trial, I will tell you that you have got to get another solicitor general before I will make any effort to hang that negro Conley, lousy negro that is. If that is treason, make the most of it. I have my own conscience to keep."
"Knowing we could not put in specific instances of the real charges against his character unless they brought it in, and not wanting to do it in the presence of his mother who has charged, You dog, you do not know it either.' We refrained from it."
"But the defense could have brought it in, yet they dared not. The witnesses were there who could have told much on cross-examination, but they dared not cross-examine him. We gave them the opportunity, but they didn't dare take it. We could not go beyond the formal general character questions but we put these girls upon the stand and they could have told. These girls are poor, but pure and truthful, but the defense dared not bring it up once."
"Do you mean to tell me that these good people who live out on Washington street, these reputable Hebrew citizens, officials of the Orphans' Home and Dr. Marx knew the real character of Leo M. Frank as did these girls who had worked with him at the pencil factory and who are not working there are now because they learned his true character."
"I tell you that it is a dastardly suggestion that this evidence was framed up. Do you think that Starnes and Campbell and Rosser would go out and get a girl to come in here and swear that Frank's character was bad if it were not true. Gentlemen, this can not be done. The trouble with this world is that there is too much shenanigan. There is not enough of the truth and sticking to facts. People who associated with Dr. Jekyll don't know Mr. Hyde. And Leo Frank and his friends did not call Dr. Marx to the pencil factory on Saturdays."
"But the girls there knew his character; they knew it was bad, and they left there. If old Jim Conley didn't get every bird in the covey, he got in amongst them. He flushed Daisy and flushed Dalton. He said that he saw Frank, and we have the word of a reputable man that he saw Dalton enter the factory."
"If you are a man of good character and you are haled into court and your character is attacked, you have recourse. Your counsel has the right of cross-examination; your counsel has the right to find out what the witnesses know and where they got their information."
"If your counsel had this right, you wouldn't let them remain in silence, would you? Not if you were a man of good character and wanted to defend it."
"You would want to investigate what had been published to the world and nail it as a lie. It was allowable for the defense to cross=examine and to inquire about the facts concerning this man."
"This situation has a very vital bearing on the guilt or innocence of this defendant. This silence does not comport with innocence. This man was overcome by his passion. It ruled him and made him a beast. It made him do this poor little girl to death."
"Even with their witnesses there appears to have been a leak. Little Miss Jackson failed them, not intentionally, but she failed them. It dropped out just as easily. What business did Frank have going into that dressing room on the fourth floor? What business did he have going in there when he had foreladies to see if there was any flirting going on the excuse that Arnold for the defendant pushing open the doors."
"This man has been in there with one of the women on the fourth floor. Two witnesses have testified that they saw him go in there on different occasions. It might have been just at the time he was looking in there on these times of which Miss Jackson told that he was looking to see of the coast were clear for him and this woman was on the fourth floor."
"It may be that this negro Conley isn't so far wrong after all."
"Frank went into the dressing room with Miss Carson. The Judge would not allow me to ask how long they stayed in there. I don't know why this ruling was made, but what the Judge says goes. But Frank was in there with Miss Carson and he came out with her. Did the two of them go in there to stop the girls flirting."
"Attorney Arnold, with that affidavit faces of his, said that you had seen all of the girls on the fourth floor and that they all had testified to Frank's good character. But up comes Miss Kitchen and testifies of Frank entering the dressing room. She told of at least one other who had not know to this day how many there are up there that have not been called. If Attorney Arnold is no more accurate in this than he was in the Durant case, he is pretty far off."
Judge Roan interrupted the solicitor at this point and asked him how much more time he would need.
"I have just started, your honor," Dorsey replied.
The judge thereupon adjourned court until Saturday morning at 9 o'clock.
PAGE 20
LUTHER ROSSER'S COMPLETE ADDRESS DEFENDING LEO FRANK
Dorsey, Detectives and Conley Are Given Terrific Scoring by Attorney
CALM, DISPASSIONED
PLEA FOR ACQUITTAL
IMPRESSES HEARERS
Luther Rosser's closing argument unquestionably made a deep impression. He attacked the State's case at every point and branded Conley's story a tissue of rehearsed lies. He analyzed the case piece by piece and against the State's assumptions advanced others to show that what the prosecution had tried to show was sinister fact was hunt distortion of innocent facts.
In a moving description of the death of Mary Phagan and the picture her body made as it lay in the morgue, Mr. Rosser had many in the courtroom on the verge of tears, but the motif' of his talk was not pathos but ridicule, denunciation and calm analysis.
Rosser's Speech Remarkably Calm.
Rosser's speech was remarkable for its calmness, but its very quietness added to its impressiveness. For the most part he bought to impress upon the jury that "fair play" must be done, and that they were a sacred body set apart to weigh facts and do justice uninfluenced by outside consideration.
However, the speaker was unsparing in discussing Jim Conley, C. b> Dalton and the methods used by the detectives to set evidence that he held up to ridicule. When he had been talking for two hours he launched into an indirect but bitter arraignment of Solicitor Dorsey, referring particularly to the attempt to make Frank's hiring of Rosser look like a damning circumstance.
Calls Dorsey's Insinuations Contemptible.
"My friend Dorsey," he said, "made much of the fact that Frank hired the lawyer. The charges and insinuations that he has made are the most contemptible that have ever occurred in a Georgia court. The things he has done in this trial will never be done in Georgia again. I will stake my life on that.
"You may question Frank in his judgement, he might have hired a better lawyer than I. He might have hired a more decent lawyer, but he couldn't have hired a more devoted lawyer. I will saw that for myself if I drop dead in my tracks."
"Gentlemen of the jury," he began in a low voice, as he leaned against t
he railing of the jury box, "all things come to an end. With the end of this case it was almost the end of the trial. But for that masterly effort of my friend Arnold, I almost wish it had ended without any speaking. My physical condition enabled me to say but little. My voice is husky and almost useless. But for my intense interest, my profound conviction of the innocence of this man, I would say nothing."
Public Mind
Always Careless.
"I want to repeat what my friend Arnold so aptly said, "This jury is no mob. The attitude of the jurors' mind is not the attitude of the man who carelessly walks the street. My friend Hooper must have brought that doctrine with him when he came to Atlanta."
"We walk the streets carelessly, absorbed in our own interests. We pass our friends and do not recognize them. The mind wanders in flights of fancy and fits of revelry. We mean no harm to ourselves nor harm to our friends, but we are careless."
"Men, you are set aside. You came to be a part of that revelry of the streets. In old pagan Rome women walked the streets chatted gally and carelessly, but a few were set aside the vestal virgins. They cared not for the gladiatorial combats or the strife."
"So it is with you set apart, You care not for the chatter or the laughter of the rabble. You are unprejudiced. Yours is the sworn duty to pass on a matter of life and death. You are to decide on the evidence without an echo from any hostile mob. With no fear, no favor, no affect."
"Others may take the brave task of standing up for the weak and oppressed, but it is not for you. You are a still, silent, consecrated band. You are to do your duty without one thought of the past or the future. You are here and now consecrated by justice to do your duty. I do not feel that I can add to anything Mr. Arnold said except to touch the high palaces and probably wander afield Rome place where he did not go."
"No crime could be more frightful than this. That little girl in the sweetest period of her life was cut down by some brute and the public was horrified. We all agree that no punishment would be severe enough. It is nothing but human nature in a crime of this kind that a victim is demanded."
"A cry goes up for vengeance. It is the old law of an eye for an eye and a life for a life. It is the primeval man. The early Indian when his companion fell by his side demanded vengeance. He went out for a victim regardless of who it was. But, thank God, that age is past and in this intelligent twentieth century of ours we no longer say, Give us a victim, a sacrifice, but give us the guilty man.'"
Rosser Analyzes
Dalton's Character.
"I believe this jury is a courageous jury. I know they are not like primeval men. I know they are not lime primeval men, who sought to find a victim whether he was guilty or not. Let us see who is the man most likely to have committed the crime. You want to ask what surroundings such a crime was likely to have come from, and to look at the man who was most likely to have done it."
"My friend Hooper understood that. He said that the conditions at the factory were likely to produce such a crime, but as a matter of fact the conditions are no better and no worse than in any other factory. You find good men and bad man, good women and bad women. What man raises one word against the moral atmosphere of that factory? Conley? Yes. I'll come to him later, not now. Dalton? Yes. I'll take up his case right now.
"God Almighty when He writes upon a human face does not always write a beautiful hand, but He writes a legible one. If you were in the dark with that man Dalton, wouldn't you put your hand on your pocketbook? If you wouldn't, you are braver men than I. The word "thief" is written all over his face. My friend Rube Arnold said when Dalton came to the stand, "That's a thief or I don't know one." I smelled the odor of the chaingang upon him; I reached' for him; I felt' for him; I asked him if he had ever been long away from home. He evaded me. When he left the stand, I said, Rube, that man's been in the chaingang as sure as there's a God in heaven.' And, sure enough, we looked him up, and he had been. Then he came to Atlanta, and they said he had reformed. But there are two things in this world I do not believe in. One is a reformed thief and the other is a reformed woman of the streets."
"Joining the Church Is
Old Trick of Thieves."
"One the cross the thief prayed, and the Master recognized him. He gave him forgiveness. He saw the thief and before the thief spoke He recognized him as a thief. But the Lord is all-forgiving, and He said to the thief, This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.' Now, I have no faith in these reformed thieves. I have no faith in a reformed prostitute. Tell me you can reform a thief? I mean a thief at heart, and the man who has thievery in his heart will carry it there all his life. He may steal with secrecy, and be safe, but the thievery is still within him. You may reform other criminals, but the thief never."
"Has Dalton reformed? Oh, he has done the beastly thing. He has done the low, with a sanctimonious expression on his face. He slinks down upon a congregation of godly people and deceives them. He joins them in hypocritical carrying on of their work. He deceives them. Why, gentlemen of the jury, joining the church is an old trick of thieves, and here before us we have had the real illustration, that of a thief who stinks in two counties and goes into another to get away from the odor of his past existence."
"Here is this man Dalton, of the Anglo-Saxon race. Yes, gentlemen of the jury, he had a white face, but that was all. He was black within. What did he do, this thief who joined the church? Look how brazenly he advertised his immorality. When he was placed upon the stand and questioned as to his acts, he could have declined to answer; he could at least have hung his head in shame. But was he ashamed? No; he was as proud of his dirty immorality was a young boy with a new red top. He smiled over it. He gloated over it. It was the first time in his existence that a group of respectable men and women had listened to him, and he fairly gloated."
"Did you hear what he said when asked as to what Frank was doing in his office? He said: I had such a peach myself that I had no time to give attention to anyone else.' Gentlemen, he said he had Daisy, and you saw Daisy. She was the peach!' Poor Daisy! She is not to blame. If she has fallen, which I pray to God she has not, let us forgive her, like the Saviour forgave the Magdalene."
"Gentlemen of the jury, I don't say all of us have been free of passion's lust, but I do say that most of humanity guilty of the crime hold it private. A gentleman wants decent surroundings when committing such an act. He wants cleanliness. No decent man ever stood on the stand and bragged about the peace' that he had. Why, even the beasts of the field hide that."
"Burns had it right when he said in that poem about be gentle with your brother man, be gentler with your sister woman.' That ends with the line, Tis human to step aside.'"
Dalton went and got that peace' and carried her to his scuttlehole like a gopher. Did you ever see a gopher? My friend Hooper used them for chains down in South Georgia all his life. The gopher has a hole, with usually a rattlesnake for his company-
LEADING COUNSEL FOR
FRANK IN FULL SWING
ROSSER A "WIREGRASS"
MAN, TOO HOOPER
During his argument Attorney
Rosser referred to Attorney Hooper
Of the prosecution, as "my friend from the wiregrass."
Not long after the jury was ex-
cused for a breathing spell. Hooper
came over to the press table and
said that he wanted us to make an ex-
planation of where he came from after Mr. Rosser's humorous refer-ences to him.
"We both came from Randolph County," Hooper said, "and I guess Mr. Rosser knows about as much about poghers and wiregrass as I do".
Rosser's
work on
the case has
taxed even
his
remarkable
physic. He
has lost 25
pounds in
weight.
Luther Z.
Rosser
closes
argument
for
defense.
Rosser
possesses
none of the graces of the
pleasing
speaker, but in forcefulness he is hardly
surpassed at the Atlanta bar.
Luther Z. Rosser's
closes
argument for
defense.
ion. Ain't that a fine combination? In that dirty, filthy old hole of the pencil factory, an old goods boxes, with an odor which if put to the nose of a skunk would be offensive, where a dog would not step aside, where an old lascivious cat would not crouch that's Dalton. Yet only he and Jim Conley have brought charges of immorality against this factory.
"I am going to be fair with you, gentlemen, if I can. I am not going to tell you the truth. I thought this case was to be tried by a Solicitor General. God save the mark! I've never seen such partisan feelings before."
Says State Witness
Left Serpent's Trail.
"This arm of the State is to protect the weak, yet I've heard something I've never heard before, and I never expect to hear as long as God lets me live. The Solicitor said, I'll go as far as the court will allow me. That's the crux of this whole case. When the Solicitor General said that, God only knows how far the detectives want. Dalton said he went to the factory some time last year, between the hours of 1 and 2 o'clock. Did he go into the Woodenware Company's part of the building or into the pencil factory? There's nothing to show, except that wherever he went he left the trail of a serpent behind him. Frank didn't know he was there. It was Frank's lunch hour. If Dalton went, he was taking advantage of the factory authorities."
"When we come to consider it, what is there about this factory to make it so bad as the State has tried to paint it? It was searched by my friend Starnes, who wouldn't stop at anything to get evidence. It was searched by that delightful man John Black. Do you know when I think of him I just want to take him in my arms and caress him. And it was searched by Patrick Campbell, that noble detective who wouldn't go on the stand for fear I might ask him about his tutorage of Jim Conley."
"The entire police department, in all its pride, went over the record of that factory with a fine-toothed comb. What have they found?"
"Let's see. In the first place we have had a mighty upheaval in the last two years. It is wrong to commit adultery, but with segregation, the proper surroundings, and a decent amount of secrecy, the world tolerates it. But Chief beavers doesn't. He has combed the town with a fine-toothed comb. Young women have had to fly to cover, and young men are down the middle of the road. That immoral squad; what do they call it, Brother Arnold? Oh, yes; the vice squad, has swept the town with a broom until there is not one lascivious louse left in the head of the body politic. And now they try to tell us this pencil factory was an immoral resort."
"Who has one word to say against that boy Schiff? Who has a word to say against young Wade Campbell?"
Rosser turned toward Attorney Hooper at this point, and continued: "You were willing, without one line of testimony, to attack the characters of these young men, so that you may carry your case. You are willing to clasp this Bertus Dalton to your breast as though he were a 16-year-old. If I know a single thing on this earth I know the ordinary working man and working woman of Georgia. I have an ancestry of working people behind me. My parents were working people. With 100 of Atlanta's working girls, with about the same number of Atlanta's hardy working men, in that factory on Forsyth street. I assert they could not have been there eight long years if the factory had been an immoral house. Those girls would have fled. The outraged citizens would have torn down that old building, stone by stone. You may assert that those girls wouldn't have fled, but I tell you I have a higher conception of the Georgian working girl than to believe for one minute that she would have remained."
"If I am mistaken, and 100 willing females stayed there, and 100 thin-blooded males stood by and let conditions continue. I assert the factory could not have lasted 48 hours. NO man in charge of a business of that magnitude ever yet attempted to be on terms of criminal intimacy with the scores of women in his employ but that they didn't rule him with stronger reins than the Queen of Sheba."
"Frank's Statement
Had Ring of Truth.'"
"What do you think would become of a factory superintendent who got on intimate terms with his women employees? This would be bad enough for a native born American, but what would you think full-blooded Americans would do or say about a foreigner who came here and attempted such a thing, and especially considering the antipathy which has always been borne to the Jewish race?"
"Now, I have shown you that the factory has been prosperous, and we know well enough that it could not have been prosperous if immorality had been allowed to exist there."
"Now, let's take up the man. I don't have to tell you that he is smart. Every one of us knows that. When he got upon the stand and talked to you, he gave illustration of being one the most remarkable men I have ever met. His talk to you was, indeed, remarkable, and as I sat and listened to it for the first time. I wondered and marveled at the brain of the man. I could never have made up a speech like that, even if I had had the brains. And it wasn't a written speech, either. It was the truth, gushing out naturally as does the water from the flowing spring. There was no force behind it. There was no electricity there. It was the plain, simple flowing truth as mother Nature furnished it."
"Gentlemen of the jury, if Frank's tank to you had been forced, it would not have had that ring of truth to it. You may make a silver dollar that in appearance would fool the Secretary of the Treasury. But drop that dollar and the ring will tell. The real dollar has the real ring, the silver ankle that can not be mistaken. And the real truth, like the real ring, has the ring that shows that it is nothing but the truth."
"Frank's words had the ring that come from old Mother Nature's breast when telling the truth. The old saying is that the idle brain, is the devil's workshop. No one knowns this better than I do. When I am busy, I am one of the nicest men you ever met. I eat regularly and get plenty of sleep, and I behave myself. I mean I am fairly good. But let me stop work for a couple of days and there is no telling where I will light. It is the man with nothing to do who gets into mischief."
Why Frank's Character
Was Put in Evidence.
"Who do you catch stealing and doing mischief all around? It is the idle folks. An old bank retired from active business in New York was once given a banquet, and this is what he said when his faithful employees gathered around him: In my 40 years in this bank, it has been an unfortunate coincidence that nearly every man connected with the bank has been under suspicion at one time or the other. But there is one thing I wish to say. There was never a hard-working, thrifty man among you who was ever found guilty in the slightest way.'"
"Now, gentlemen of the jury, that is the way it is in every walk of life. When you watch a great river flowing on to the sea, you don't take a spyglass and pick out the little eddies. No. You look at the heavy flow of the waters as they move majestically along."
"So it is with human life. It is this way with the hard-working man who follows the straight course and goes on in a majestic flow on the even tenor of his way. It is not for the jury, trying him, to take the spy-glasses and search out the small eddies. In his character, but let them take his full character, the broad and majestic flow of it."
"If we hadn't said a word about his character, the court would have instructed you to assume a good character. Under the law, we could have remained mute, a
nd his character would have been good to you. But we didn't wish to do that. We wanted you to know what manner of man he was. I say to you with all the sincerity of my soul that no man within the sound of my voice could show as good character as he has, fi put to such a test. I am not dealing with the infamous lies of Dalton and Conley."
"But you say, Wait a minute. Some people said he had a bad character. That's correct. I am not going to try to fool you. I am going to deal with the facts."
"I couldn't fool you if I tried. Let's see who they are who say he has a bad character. You know you can find some people to swear against anyone. Suppose my friend Arnold had occasion and so far forgot himself as to put my character up. Don't you suppose you could find a hundred men in Atlanta to swear that I am vicious? I am not not extraordinarily so, but in my long practice of law, perhaps I have wronged someone. Perhaps sometimes in my zeal I have been too sever, and some people may think they have a just grievance against me."
"Now, what did this young man do? Here are the young ladies, and I haven't a word to say against them. The older I get the gentler I become, if anything. Oh, why would I abuse and vilify anyone? With our lives a moment bright, then dark forever, why should I?"
"Here is Miss Myrtice Cato. She worked there three and a half years. If she was a sweet, pure girl, and I take it for granted she was, would she have stayed there that long, constantly associated with Frank, if he was a vile man? She would have fled from him long ago. Oh, she has felt the bitterness of the rabble since this crime occurred. She was under the tense heated atmosphere of this trial."
"Then Miss Maggie Griffin. She worked there two months two years ago. What does she know about Frank compared with these women who have been there for years?"
Miss Estelle Winkle had an extensive acquaintance with Frank. She worked there're one week in 2010. Miss Carrie Smith, like Miss Cato, worked there three and a half years, and the other few worked there very brief periods.
"That's all, gentlemen, of the hundreds of women who worked there during the last five years."
Scores Detectives
As "Active Gang."
"Why, I could find more people to swear against the Bishop of Atlanta. They have searched every corner. They have spyglassed every nook. Starnes and Black and Campbell and Rosser, generated by that mighty detective, Chief Lanford."
Attorney Rosser turned and addressed the detectives grouped around the prosecution's table.
"You are an active gang," he said to them. "Not only that, but how much of the Minola McKnight methods you have used nobody knows. How they have wheedled and turned and twisted the minds of these little girls no one but God Almighty knows. Hundreds of men have worked in that factory, and they are the larger vessels, but notions of them appeared here to testify against Frank's character.
"Has no man who ever worked their brains enough to accent the corruption and depravity that existed around the factory? Here is that long-legged fellow Gantt. My friend Hooper here tried to explain why he left but you know why he was fired. He was there for three months. Don't you know that if Frank's character had been what they said it was, if he had been the lascivious fiend, the brute, and moral Mary, and this Gantt said Frank told him he seemed to know Mary Phagan very well. Gantt did not tell that before the coroner's inquest and that other young fellow had to be wheedled and led by my friend Dorsey, only to get tangled up and prove that knew nothing.
"Then what was next? The next
Continued on Page 3, Column 1.
PAGE 21
DORSEY'S TACTICS ARE FLAYED BY ROSSER
They Will Never Be Repeated in Georgia Courts, He Says
FRANK WOULD HAVE HAD
2 LAWYERS HAD HE BEEN
ON TO CURVES OF POLICE'
Continued From Page 2.
was a little boy named Turner. I am not here to say anything against Turner, but look at the detectives with their claws about him. Remember what they did to Minola McKnight, and then you will realize what happened to the boy.
"Turner testified that he went into the metal room and saw Frank speak to Mary Phagan. Under the leading questioning of the Solicitor, under his wheedling and coaxing, Turner said that the girl backed off two or three steps, but he admitted that it all took place in broad daylight, and in full sight of Lemmie Quinn's office.
"Is it to be believed that a man in sight of a whole factory, handicapped by his race, would have gone into the metal room and attempted those advances with that little girl? Is it to be conceived that this innocent little girl would not have fled like a frightened deer and would not have run home and told that good stepfather and the good old mother who reared her?"
"That little girl, Dewey Hewell, testified that Frank put his hand on Mary's shoulder, but there were Grace Hix, Magnolia Kennedy, and Helen Ferguson. Do you believe that he would have done this in their sight, and that they would have said nothing about it when they were on the stand?"
Gantt Knows Nothing
Wrong About Frank.
"My friend from the wiregrass (meaning Hooper) said that this was the beginning of his diabolical scheme. Then Gantt was turned on as a part of the plot. Gantt being the only one who knew of Frank's intentions toward the girl."
"Don't you suppose that if this plot had existed, Gantt would have been the one who in clarion tones would have proclaimed it from the witness stand? Yet they had this long-legged fellow twice on the stand, and both time he said he knew nothing wrong about Frank."
"Conley says that Frank told him at 2 o'clock Friday afternoon to come back Saturday. Now, gentlemen, do you believe that? Don't you know that Frank had every reason in the world to believe she would not be there Saturday? Placards had been posted all around the factory, telling that it would be a holiday. All of the employees knew of it, and there was nothing to show that she did not know of it. They paid off Friday afternoon, and there were some envelopes left over, but Frank did not know whose they were. Schiff had paid off, and had put the envelopes up. Frank had not even seen them. Now, little Helen Ferguson said she went to the office Friday afternoon and got her envelope, and that, she asked them to give her Mary Phagan's. She said Frank declined to give it to her, and that when he did this, she turned and walked away."
"Now, we have Magnolia Kennedy, who says she was right there with the little Ferguson girl, and that she did not ask for Mary Phagan's pay. Now one of them is mistaken, but this is not of much importance, so we will pass it on."
"How did Frank know that Mary Phagan would come back to the factory at all on Saturday. The custom had been that when employees failed to get their envelopes on regular pay days before holidays, that they passed over the holiday and waited until the next regular working day to draw their pay. So we see from that there was absolutely no reason why Frank would have expected her there on Saturday."
"Now, what else? They say Frank was nervous. He was, and we admit it. A young boy went there, said he saw Frank, and that he was nervous. Black said he was nervous. Darley said he was nervous. Mr. Montag, his wife, Isaac Haas, and a number of others, all said he was nervous. Of course, he was nervous, and there were lots of others around there that were nervous. Why don't they hang Jake Montag? Why don't they hang old Isaac Haas? They were nervous. Why don't they hang all those pretty little girls who became nervous and hysterical when they heard of this terrible crime? Wouldn't the sight of this little girl's body , dragged in the dirt and crushed into the cinders, have made you nervous too?
Only Manhunter Not
Moved By Child's Death.
"Man is a cruel monster. He is hard-hearted. They say he is a little below the angles, but he has fallen mighty low in ages past. If the angels haven't descended with
him. Yet I have never seen a man who when he looked upon a little girl crushed that some of the divinity that shapes his head did not arouse him and cause tears to flow down his cheeks.
"I am not chicken-hearted. I could see one of you badly hurt without going into hysterics. But I never hear the cry of a woman or a child but that manhood and tenderness I got from my sainted mother does not arise to rebellion within me, and I pray God if it ever should cease that my end may come. No one but the manhunter with blood in his heart would want to hang a man because he was nervous from the death of a little child."
"Then we come to that telephone call. They say he did not hear it and that that is cause for suspicion. Some people sleep lightly, others are hard to awake. The wife of old man Selig had to arouse him. They called old Uncle Ike Haas and he did not hear. His wife had to awaken him. Why not hang old Uncle Isaac Haas? He did not hear the telephone. Hang him because he slept a peaceful sleep, evidence of a good conscience."
"They have another suspicion. He hired a lawyer. I had known the National Pencil Company, but I don't know that I ever saw Frank until I met him at the police station. Frank had been down there on Sunday and told them all that he could. I don't know what was in the minds of the detectives; I don't know what is the head of old John Black. God Almighty only knows. That's one reason I love John so I can't tell what's in his head."
"Then on Monday the police did not have the same attitude to Frank."
Hooper Saysa Rosser Is
"Wire-grass" Man, Too.
At this point the jury was executed for a breathing spell. Attorney Frank Hooper, of the prosecution, came over to the press table and said that he wanted to make an explanation of where h came from, after Mr. Rosser's humorous references to him.
"We both came from Randolph County," Hooper said, "and I guess Mr. Rosser knows about as much about gophers and wire grass as I do."
"The only suspicion against this man is that he employed me and he employed Herbert Haas. I felt a little bad about it because my friend Dorsey didn't say anything about Rube Arnold. Frank didn't employ a lawyer Sunday, but on Monday the police employed different tactics. They went after him with two detectives. He wasn't arrested oh, no. But my friend Black said he was released. When I asked him what that meant, if he wasn't arrested, he had to admit that to all intents and purposes Frank was under arrest.
"Chief Lanford walked about with his accustomed dignity, and Chief Beavers, the beautiful one, scudded around, and they left Frank to soak."
Here Rosser turned to Frank.
"That's the only time in this whole thing," he said, "you didn't show good sense. If you had known what I know about that bunch, you wouldn't have gotten one lawyer, but would have gotten two good ones, and you wouldn't have been satisfied then."
"But old man Sig Montag was a little wiser than Frank. He knew that bunch. He was onto their curves. I am going to be mighty careful, though, about what I say about that police bunch, because if they take a notion they would get me for white slavery before to-night."
"At any rate, Sig Montag called Herbert Haas and told him to go down there and see what is the matter with Leo Frank. Haas could not go. I will give a house and lot worth $20,000 to be in the same position he was that day. His wife was preparing to have a baby."
Not Arrested, But
Had To Be "Released."
"Sig took the automobile and wept down to Haas' house and said you must go. They went to the police station, and what happened? That throws a whole flood of light on the matter."
"No, Frank was not arrested, but he had to be released. I said to John Black, John, what do you mean by released?' He stammered and stuttered, and said, Why, I just mean released.'
"These men went down to see a man who was not under arrest. He was a free citizen sitting there, and yet they wouldn't let his friends see him. They wouldn't let his lawyer Haas see him."
"This man Haas is not of my age or of my flesh, or of my experience. He called me up. If there is any crime in that he is the guilty man. My friend Dorsey with his eyes close together, snapping like snakes, made much of the fact that Frank had hired the lawyer. The charges and insinuations that he has made are the most contemptible that ever have occurred in a Georgia court. The things that he has done in this trial will never be done a gain in Georgia. I will stake my life on that."
Could Not Hire
More Devoted Lawyer.
"Dorsey's eyes got as green as beads on a woman's dress as he hissed his charges against Frank of dirty dog and brutal murderer. You may question Frank in his judgement; he might have hired a better lawyer than I. He might have hired a more decent lawyer, but he couldn't have hired a more devoted lawyer. I will say that for myself if I drop dead in my tracks."
Could Not Hire
More Devoted Lawyer.
"Dorsey's eyes got as green as beads on a woman's dress as he hissed his charges against Frank of dirty dog and brutal murderer. You may question Frank in his judgement; he might have hired a better lawyer than I. He might have hired a more decent lawyer, but he couldn't have hired a more devoted lawyer. I will say that for myself if I drop dead in my tracks."
"Under what circumstances did Frank hire the detectives? He had been to the station house and was asked to make a statement. I went down there, not at Frank's invitation, for he didn't know I was coming. Mr. Haas had asked me to go down there, and I wasn't a welcome visitor at the police station that morning. They don't take my hate; they didn't give my hat; they didn't give me a warm welcome. I guess they would have arrested me long ago, but they just don't want me down there. I can't blame them for that."
"And when I reached there I saw Frank for the first time in my life. I walked in and said, What's the matter here, boys?' You know, I just used plain old common English. I don't put on any fancy frills."
"Someone said, They've got Mr. Frank under arrest here for murder.' One of the detectives got up and said, No, we haven't.' Yet they talked about him not being under arrest at that time."
Why Didn't They
Want Me There?
"Someone said, They want him to make a statement.' I said, Let him go ahead and make it.' Right away Lanford and the others hustled him over to a room. They didn't want me to go with him."
"Now, I have always been a little bit impudent, and when I started in, they said, We don't want you in here,' and I said, kind of impudent-like, I'm coming in, anyway, I won't interrupt him but I'm coming in.'"
"And why didn't they want me in there? I don't know. Wasn't I as reputable a citizen as Lanford? Wasn't I as capable of protecting the law as he was? Gentlemen, while we were there a peculiar thing happened. I said a man could not have
Luther Rosser's Tribute to the Jury
"We walk in the streets carelessly, absorbed in our own interests. We pass our friends, and do not recognize them. The mind wanders in flights of fancy and fits of revelry. We mean no harm to ourselves nor harm to our friends, but we are careless."
"Men of the jury, you are set aside. You cease to be a part of that revelry of the streets. In old pagan Rome women walked the streets, chatted gayly and carelessly, but a few were set aside the vestal virgins. They cared not for the gladiatorial combats or the strife."
"So it is with you set apart. You care not for the chatter or the laughter of the rabble. You are unprejudiced. Yours is the sworn duty to pass on a matter of life and death. You are to decide on the evidence, with no fear, no favor, no affection."
"Others may take the brave task of standing up for the weak and oppressed, but it is not for you. You are a still, silent, consecrated band. You are to do your duty without one thought of the past or the future. You are here and now consecrated by justice to do your duty."</p >
committed that crime and not have scars upon him. Frank showed them that he had no marks upon himself."
"Why didn't Lanford get upon the stand. Was it because he dreaded to get in converse with me? No, he didn't want to recall that dark Conley chapter; that hideous Minola McKnight incident."
"And after they had released Frank, what did they do? They went out to his house and looked at his soiled linen, and what evidence did they find? Not a thing."
"If Frank had been a guilty man, do you know what he would have done? Gentlemen of the jury, he would have kept quiet. He would have kept his silence to himself. But he was not guilty and he did not do that. But he went home with the thought of this horrible murder in his mind. He thought of how a beast had committed the crime; of how God's laws had been outraged; of how there was a stain upon the fair nannie of this city."
Says Frank Wanted
To Find Slayer.
"Then he sat down and di what? He telephoned Sig Montag that he wanted to hire detectives; that he wanted to ferret out and punish the murderer of Mary Phagan."
"I have not had too high an estimate of the detective department. I don't mean they are not good, clever fellows, but no man can spy on folks, come in constant contact with crime and elevate his character. God Almighty couldn't do it."
"You," and here Rosser turned again to the detectives, "may not be made worse men, but you won't be made better men. Nor Scott; I am sorry he has gone and will not hear what I have got to say. He crept into this case in the most remarkable situation I ever heard of. He got up on the stand and said, We worked hand and glove with the city detectives. Ain't that a fine gang? Do nothing outside of what the city police do."
"Hiring Detective
A Courageous Deed."
"Some good man will hire him again. But I don't care anything about that. I will let it go. The point is that Frank knew that Scott was going to work with the police. I will give Scott credit for being that honest. He told Frank he was going to lock arms with John Black and walk down the disgraceful avenue of this case."
"This young Jew, just down from the North, ignorant of Southern customs, hired a Pinkerton detective to ferret out the crime. The detective told him he was going to trail with the police. Frank told him, Find the murderer.' He knew Scott was going to trail with the police, even Frank himself was trailed."
"Ah, gentlemen, his race has present many a heroic scene, but never one greater than this. Yet they want to hang him because he employed a detective."
"My friend Hooper charged that he tried to point suspicion on Newt Lee. I don't believe Hooper meant what he said. Frank first said there was no error in the time slips. The next day here said there was. Darley made the same mistake. Why not hang Darley?"
"Then do you remember what he said about the time being rubbed off of that slip? Dorsey had to admit that he erased it. I don't mean that Dorsey meant any harm."
Denounces Bloody
Shirt Evidence.
"Then the bloody shirt. Gentlemen, that is the most unfair thing in this whole case to charge that that young man had that shirt planted. Black and Scott went out and found that shirt in the bottom of an old barrel at Newt Lee's house. They found it Tuesday morning, brought it in and Newt said it was his shirt."
Dorsey jumped to his feet at this moment and exclaimed that such was not the testimony, Rosser said:
"Newt Lee did. I got it out of one of those boys on the stand."
"No he didn't," replied Dorsey. "Lee said it looked like a shirt of his."
"Well, we'll admit it then," Rosser continued; "we will just put it that way. We will suppose they went out and got a bloody shirt just like the one old Newt Lee wore and hid it in that barrel."
"Frank didn't even know where old man Lee lived. He certainly didn't know he had a shirt that looked like that one. I never heard of going to such extremities to try to hang an innocent man."
"But old man Lee I don't believe he had anything to do with the crime, itself. I never will believe anything but that he found that corpse earlier than he said he did. I can't understand how he knew it was while when it took the detectives so long to find cut. I can't understand how he saw the body from where the detectives themselves and it was impossible to see it."
"And he said the face was turned up and the police found it different. I am mighty afraid the old man know it was a white girl, but I still don't believe he had anything to do with the crime itself. If he did, he is the most remarkable old negro that ever lived."
"Shame the Way They
Treated Newt Lee."
"If I had his endurance. I would talk forever. It will be ashamed to the dying day of every member of that detective department the way they treated that poor old man. They talked to him until he got weary and his head hung low, and then they sent in a fresh relay, and when it looked like he couldn't endure it any longer, they would come in with a battery of pistols and poke them in his face."
"I am afraid Newt Lee saw the body before he said he did. But he is a wonderful negro. Oh, the dirty trick that you played on him will be a shame to you as long as you live. (Rosser looked at the detectives). You hammered away at that old negro all hours of the night. But Newt wore the detectives out in relays. They fired pistols near him."
"I am afraid he knows more about this than he ever has told. Let us listen to the story that he told. He told of coming to the factory that night and that Gantt and he stood out in front of the factory. He said that Frank appeared alarmed when he came out and ran into Gantt."
"But the explanation that the negro gave was the very best that could be given. He said, I knew they had had some trouble, and I thought Gantt was there to do Mr. Frank dirt.' Lee and Gantt both say now that Frank jumped back, but neither said it before the Coroner's inquest."
No Wonder Frank
Jumped at Seeing Gantt.
"Is it to be wondered at that Frank jumped, if he actually did jump, which I doubt? Why, you could take him and put him on the top floor of the factory with a girl the size of Mary Phagan and she could make him jump out of the window. He is not a strong man. He is a physical weakling, comparatively, I am not saying this unkindly, but the Jewish people, once the bravest on earth, are not the fighters now that they used to be."
"As he came out of the factory he was confronted by this giant, Gantt. He might have jumped back. If little Dorsey had come out suddenly like that in the night he would have bent his back into a bow jumping back. It is little groveling, snakelike suspicions like this that have marked Dorsey's whole case against the defendant."
"They said also that Frank had thrown suspicion on Gantt. Scott gets up now and says that Frank told him Gantt was familiar with the little Phagan girl, not in a bad way, as there has been no reflection upon this little girl's character, but that they were friends in a good way. But, gentlemen of the jury, Scott didn't say that in his reports to us. He didn't say that in his reports to his agency, and now, in this connection, the understanding was that the Pinkertons were to furnish he police their reports 24 hours before they gave them to us. And this was done all the way through."
"Now for old Newt Lee, and then I am through with the suspicious circumstances. Frank had told old Newt to come early Saturday, as that was a holiday, and having in his mind at the time that he was going to the ball game."
"The suspicion has been cast because he was afraid that he might discover something, that he might make the gruesome find of that cruelly mutilated body in the basement."
"Is it conceivable that by a trick he would get old Newt away for two hour and then leave him the whole night alone in the building where he was sure to discover the body? Then we know that Frank went home and calmy ate his supper, that he read, that he wa
s light-hearted and told a joke. And my brother gets up and charges that Frank was so callous that he laughed."
"Oh, gentlemen of the jury, can you imagine that laugh? If Frank had been guilty of murder, it would have been the laugh of a maniac. Now, Frank is smart. Is there a man here who is such a fool that he believes that Frank would have sent the watchman away by a trick for two hours and would have then left the body with no one but Newt in the building? And Newt there all night?"
"Gentlemen, that would have weighted on his mind. He would have been raving like a maniac, waiting to be called by old Newt to be told of the gruesome find. Can you believe it? Oh, such a stigma; oh, such a hideous plot."
No Chance for Him
To Commit Crime.
"There is one other suspicion. They say he was in the factory the time Mary Phagan was. But, gentlemen, you know this only because Frank says it. You didn't have to fish it out. He was not the only man there. If the corpse had been found there and he was the only man in the building, it might have been some proof; but there were others. He was in an open room. He had company every hour. Unless he was some magician there was no chance for him to commit the crime. Up on the fourth floor were two young men."
"If there is one thing indelibly fixed in this case, it is that this young boy could not see ingoers and outgoers of that factory. "Conley or some other negro was seen in the hall on the first floor. Yesterday there came out like a ray of sunlight on a wicked world another negro, a lighter one. They had the same opportunity to commit this murder that Frank had. Who knows what white-faced scoundrel might have lurked around among those machines."
"Gentlemen, these facts drive out any suspicion that he did the deed simply because he was there. Father of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, father of us all, may no such mean prejudices rankle in the hearts of this consecrated jury, to the undoing of this unfortunate young boy."
"I know you will not blame if I fail in my feeble steps to walk over this same ground that this legal giant (referring to Arnold) did yesterday. So I will touch briefly on some of these points."
"I come to Conley. That part of the case fatigues may indignation. That white men should believe this infamous character is a shame on this great city and this great Siste, and will be to the end of time. Who is this Conley? Let's see who he used to be. A plain, dirty, filthy, drunken, lying, and I expect, lousy, negro.
Scores Scott,
Pinkerton Detective.
"Have I overstated that? Starnes knows I have not. Black knows I have not. I don't know whether Chief Beavers' dignity has ever got down low enough for him to see him, but if it has, he knows it. Now Black, he of the doubtful memory, he would remember one thing one time and the next time he wouldn't there was a good deal of fun made over Black, but I say he was trying to tell the truth and got mixed. But he is in a heap better fix than Scott. Scott well, I've seen a heap of men heavier up here (pointing to his forehead). He might detect a louse with a spyglass; I don't think he could do more."
"I said, Scott, what about that negro? Does he look like he did when you got him here?' He said No!' I said, They have slicked him up a little bit, haven't they?' And he had to admit it. And shame to them. Who was it that took this dirty, filthy negro, gave him warm baths and good clothes, and brought him out here to make his dirty, lying testimony before detectives? I don't charge that to anybody, because I don't know who it was, but it is as dirty and contemptible a piece of work as was ever done. They shaved that dirty-wool and his bestial face; and if I knew who was responsible for it I'd call his name."
"I've had that joke played on me, nearly, once before. Some hallroad lawyer dreaded up a brakeman who was suing the railroad and brought him into court, but I never heard of it being done in a case of life and death."
"It is very hard to find a man that somebody won't believe. There's Dalton; some few believed him. But who was there. In all that crowd, who would say they would believe Jim Conley?"
Black Hypocrisy
Charged to Dalton.
"What a contempt Black has for this man Dalton. What a contempt that son of Erin (pointing out Pat Campbell) has for him."
"Yet they found people who would testify to his good character and to his reputation for truth and veracity. One man said that Dalton had joined the church and so far as he knew, he was a good church member now. Thus was the blackest hypocrisy added to his other evil characteristics. But they found sponsors for him."
"But who was Conley? Who would stand up and may his character was good? Who would be sponsor for him?"
"Do you, Black? Stand up."
"Do you, Campbell?"
"Do you, Rosser? Rosser is one whose ancestors trod the earth in the same places as mine, and I know he wouldn't hang a suck-egg dog on the testimony of this lying nigger Conley."
"They have swept every back alley in Atlanta to get someone who would stand up and say that he was an honest nigger. But they found not a soul. Who is there that will stand up and marry the nigger Conley to the truth? Not a person."
Failed to Prove
Frank a Pervert.
"My friends on the other side have attempted to make this young man before you a pervert. They tried to do it on the lying testimony of this nigger, unsupported by a single other person. But they didn't do it."
"But even if they had proved it beyond doubt, it could not enter into this case. This boy is being tried for murder, and if he is a thousand times a pervert, that can not be allowed to sway your verdict."
"The vilest thing in this case is the dragging of this issue into the trial on the unsupported word of the lying nigger who is trying to save his own neck by any foul lies which he can shape."
"Yet the Solicitor made the charges here in open court." He made them before the jury, before everyone in the courtroom. He made them before the young wife of the defendant. He made them uselessly and purposelessly. They could serve only one purpose. The sole explanation is that the Solicitor made them to add a little strength to his case, to serve his leaping ambition to win his case and send a man to the gallows. It is impossible that it was done in the interests of justice."
"A dirty thief and liar was brought into the courtroom to destroy a man's character. My indignation can not be put in words."
Court adjourned at this point, for the noon recess, Attorney Rosser saying that as it was near the recess hour he would prefer to stop his address at that time, as he did not want to be interrupted in his closing at the afternoon session.
Woman Early
To Get Seats.
Attorney Rosser resumed his address at 2 o'clock. He said that he would probably consume about half or three-quarters of an hour longer. Many women were in courtroom during the afternoon, having been allowed to come in early and get seats. Several hundred men were on the outside trying to get admission when the court opened.
Attorney Rosser said:
"Gentlemen of the jury, when recess came I was just saying how horrible it was that this charge of perversion had been made against the defendant. Dorsey made the charge through his lying witness Conley. No other witness in this case has made such a suggestion as that made by the negro."
"It was a horrible thing a thing inconceivable that such an accusation should be brought in here. Conley had no one to support him except Dalton, and Dalton did not say that he ever had seen Frank in any wrong conduct. Dalton merely said that he had seen women in Frank's office. When questioned, he was unable to say that he ever saw Frank do a wrong act.
"Dalton in his story said that he was with Daisy Hopkins in the factory."
"But Conley says that it was Frank who had Daisy Hopkins. This is the important point on which these two liars differ. Conley said that Dalton was with some peace,' some les
ser beauty, living between Haines and Hunter streets."
Says Conley Has
"Butted In" for Life.
He went to that Butt Inn saloon and Lord bless my soul, he has butted in for life. He gave a detailed statement of seeing those negroes and taking drinks with them. Did anyone of them come here to say he did? Did that negro come here that Conley said he shot dice with the negro with the whip around his neck"? Did that bartender come here who mixed his wins and beer?"
"Now, these police know those negroes on Peters street lots better than they do you and I. It is their business to know them. They know those dicemen around there like a book. If Conley had given a single correct name, time, place or incident, they would have had that whole horde of negroes lined up here."
"Another thing, he said dice: He would have said craps, until those policemen got him and talked to him. He said his name was James Conley; he certainly would have said Jim. If they hadn't have been after him. He said "Snowball" heard Frank tell him to come back and watch for him, but Snowball said he didn't! Snowball is just a plain, ordinary, African negro. He didn't know how to tell a lie."
"And then they talk about Frank try to make the police suspect somebody if he could. Why, it is just like an English sparrow suspecting a horse and then following him a mile."
Rosser Asserts He
"Broke Down" Conley.
"Get John Black on a negro and he will have to leave town. Poor old Snowball. That por negro is going to melt under the wrath of these policemen because he would not swear the way they wanted him to. Then there was old Truman McCrary, that old negro drayman raised before the war on greens and meat. I mighty near said cabbage. God deliver, me. Old man McCrary proved Conley a liar. The story implicating McCrary was about the 157th story, I don't remember the exact number."
"Conley didn't have to bring in old Truman, but with that African imagination of his, he likes to put frills on his tale. Instead of saying simply that eh did a thing, he says somebody told him to do it. Then Conley says he was there on Saturdays. Old man Holloway was there, and he branded Conley's story a lie."
"Do you believe those little office boys; those clean-cut little fellows who worked in Frank's office on Saturday afternoons? They brand Conley a liar."
"They say I didn't break Jim Conley flown. That is the silliest thing that he's been said since this trial began. I have been since this trial began. I have been practicing almost as long as my bald head would indicate, and I have never yet broken a witness down in the sense they mean. Did they want me to take a club and break his head? Lord knows I wish I could, but what we lawyers mean when we say we break a witness down is to demonstrate that he is a liar."
Says Conley Practiced
Telling Same Story.
"You can't get a man with Anglo-Saxon blood to admit he lied. He has pride. I have never seen one admit he lied. No matter where he is born, he has that same Anglo-Saxon pride. My friend John Black, Honest John, and I mean it, when he got to the point where he didn't know whether he was standing on his feet or his head, he admitted he was mixed up. Those were the words of an honest man."
"Now, with a negro it is different. He will admit he lied. Jim Conley without any character to protect, lied this way and lied that, and grinningly admitted it. He reminded me of a merchant down at Fayetteville. It was a case in which old Judge Dorsey appeared, in which Uncle Jesse was sued. They put an old man by the name of Green Gray on the stand who worked for old man Blalock, and he swore against the old fellow. Judge Dorsey argued that Uncle Jesse was bound by Green's statement. Uncle Jesse got up and said do the jury: Gentlemen, I just put old Green Gray up to see how he would swear,' and that is the way it is with Conley. It is a revelation how he did swear."
"It is true that every time Jim Conley repeated his story of the disposition of the body that he repeated it word for word. But is this so wonderful? Take an actor, one who portrays Shakespeare's characters, but who has studied Macbeth so much that he is letter perfect, you can wake him up in the midst of the night and he can repeat the part for
Continued on Page 5.
PAGE 23
FRANK'S AGITATION IS DECLARED NO GROUND FOR SUSPICION
Why Don't They Hang Everybody Who Was Nervous? Attorney Demand
Continued From Page 3.
you word for word. But get him on something else and he is lost."
"You can train a dog to do tricks; you can train a horse to count, but tell the dog or horse to count, something than that in which he is trained, and he is completely lost."
Conley Arraigned
For "Disremembering."
"And it was like this with this negro. He had been well trained in his part. As long as he was repeating his story of the disposition of the body he was letter perfect. But just let me ask him anything else and instantly he was freed. He couldn't remember anything else. I asked him about Daisy Hopkins. The first time he spoke of Daisy he said he saw her on the first floor with Mr. Frank. Then he had her somewhere else, and then again at another place."
"If I asked him questions of other things, he would say, I can't remember.' He could trip pack and forth over his story and remember every word. Conley reminds me of an instance in connection with Queen Caroline of England. She was charged with treason, but no Englishman dared to swear against her. They searched the whole of the broad land and not a man of the Anglo-Saxon race would dare to speak the lies they sought to have spoken. Finally they found two or three Italians who swore against her. They learned their tale and they had it as letter perfect as the actor who studied Macbeth. But when their questioners deviated from the particular subject they would resort they could not remember. They perjured themselves. And it was this way with that negro, Jim Conley. He perjured himself."
"They say he could not have made up that kind of a story, but I think he could, and I think he did well in remembering his story."
"Negro Was Lying To
Save His Own Neck."
"But why shouldn't he? Think of the coaching he had, I think if I had Black, Starnes, the Chief of Detectives and the rest of them, that I could become letter perfect in it, too. He had them to help him out. Let's call them professors in this school of learning."
"Here is Starnes; let's call him the professor of theology. Then there is Professor Black Professor Scott, Professor Rosser and their dean, Newport Lanford. Ah, here comes the dean now."
At this moment Chief Lanford entered the courtroom.
"Now, we shall open school in regular order. Tell me a negro can't fix up a scheme to protect himself. Why, gentlemen of the jury, would any Southern man believe that statement? I would not expect a negro to become a student by the midnight lamp. I would not expect him to become an astrologer. I would not expect him to become an architect and plan a cathedral. The negro is not possessed of that sort originality. But if anyone thinks this negro Jim Conley hasn't a keen African imagination, he is mistaken."
"The person who thinks the negro can not make up folklore and stories is greatly mistaken. They are mistaken if they think eh can not tell a story to save his own neck."
"Why, Brother Starnes, if you saw a negro with a chicken in his possession and he told you he got it from Mrs. Jones across the street you would put him in jail as soon as he told the story. Where does all the folklore come from? It comes from Africa. Where did we get the material for the Uncle Remus stories? From the same origin."
How the Witness
Arranged His Dates.
"When it comes to fixing a grewsome story like that told by Jim Conley, there is not a white man in my hearing who is the equal of the negro. Let's see the story he told: He began by telling of being on Peters street all Saturday forenoon. He said that he wasn't at the f
actory at all. Starnes said he couldn't fix a story, but he fixed this one. They got Mrs. White to look at him at the police station. And he screwed his face up so she couldn't recognize him. They found out that he could write. He had lied about that. They caught him reading in the stockade; caught him reading right in this courthouse. He had lied about that."
"What did the detectives do with that negro? They took him down and gave him what I called the third degree. They said it wasn't, but if it wasn't, I should hate to get the fourth. They swore at him; they abused him; they said to him Don't you know that man didn't bring you down there Friday to write those notes?' and Jim would say, Yes, boss, I know.' They would say, Don't you know eh wouldn't have you write those notes before he killed the girl?' and Jim would say, Yes, boss, I know that's right.' They would say. Well, then, why don't you tell the truth,' and Jim would say, I will, boss: it was on Saturday.'
"You can very easily see how they made him fix up his story. They took his lies and showed him where they could not be true. They told him where they were wrong and where they would have to be fixed up. We have got Scott's own testimony for that."
Viciously Assails
Detectives' Methods.
"Scott and Black had him when he was in the high school. I don't know whether Scott and Black are professors or not, but they would say to him, Stand up, Jim Conley, and recite.' I reckon they called him James' and then say to him, Stand up James; when did you write those notes, James?"
"And he would say, On Friday.' And they would say, Ain't you got no sense? Don't you know that you wrote those notes on Saturday?' He would say, Yes, boss.' They would say, Now, James, let's be sure about that; when did you write those notes?'. And the negro would say, I wrote them on Saturday, boss.' They would say, That's right, Jim. You are all right, now.'"
"I know how they got that. Good boy, James; let's have that again. What were they doing five hours one day and one hour another day? Was it an honest thing; was it a right thing? Was it right for two white men to take him and educate him. But that was only the high school. They had to take him through the university. Scott and Black were too white for that; they didn't get any perversion. They were too honest. But at the university they had Professors Starnes and Campbell. I would give anything in the world to look as pious as Professor Starnes. I don't know whether Professor Dorsey was in there or not, but there are some mighty strange things. They didn't dare make other affidavits. We trailed the serpent too well by those first three. It is just as plain as Colonel Hooper and I used to trail the gopher in South Georgia."
He Told New Story
At Every Opportunity.
"That tiptoeing and running back and forth when did that get in? Seven times Dorsey had him. Three times Starnes had him. Oh, gentlemen, lovers of justice, is it fair to take this pliable negro and fan him away from a statement he said was the truth and was his last? Has he told the last? Who knows but that the 157th chapter of his statement is but the beginning of the clearing of this mystery? At the very last opportunity he told a new story, one even Professor Starnes did not know about, the product of some other party. He told about finding that mesh bag."
"They didn't put him back as they started to. They were afraid he would give a new revelation of the whole affair. I am nearly through, but before I conclude I want to direct your attention to one fact. Put away all I have said. Forget it, and I wouldn't blame you if you did. One who has talked as much as I have, deserves to be forgotten. I don't care anything about that doctor's row. I think that was one of the funniest things that ever crept into a courthouse. It doesn't make any difference whether the statement of Johnson that she died within an hour, or the statement of Westmoreland and the others that it was all a wild guess, is true. I just want to say that if I believed Dr. Harris' statement the next time I got sick I would send for him and give him the earth."
"Dr. Harris believed he was telling the truth. Harris is a fine body. His father admitted me to the bar, though he may be culpable for that, but did you ever eat any cabbage? I can eat everything from whetstones to cabbage, but cabbage alone I can't digest."
"Time Element Fatal
To State's Theory."
"I can drink everything from lager beer to champagne, but I can't digest champagne. They say they are talking about normal stomachs. There are no normal stomachs, according to these experts. I will bet there are not three men in the courtroom who will prove to have normal stomachs under their examination."
"Have you got a normal nose? Have I got a normal nose? I wouldn't say I have, but let's dismiss all that. Let Harris pet his theory like he would a house cat. Let's look at the cold facts in this case."
"In the first place, that little boy Epps says he and Mary Phagan got to Forsyth and Marietta streets at 12:07 o'clock. The motorman testified that that was the time the car got there. Her own mother said she left home at 11:45 and the most reasonable assumption from that statement is that she caught the 12:07 schedule."
"If you make a just allowance for the time it took to walk to the factory, it was about 12:12 when arrived. Dorsey is going to deny that, but just for the sake of argument, admit the car was three minutes ahead of time. She got there at 12:09. Suppose she got there at 12:05? I don't believe she did. I don't believe little Monteen Stover could see into Frank's infer office. The fact stands out that at 12:20 Lemmie Quinn was there at this work. Frank was there. Do you believe he could have killed that little girl, washed his hands, cleaned his clothes, and been in their calmly at work in 13 minutes?"
"Who Lies Conley
Or These Good Women?"
"If he could have done it, the magicians of India are but common tricksters compared with him."
"Frank is a magician if he killed a girl and then performed the work that he did that afternoon. But I think that we will hardly accuse him of being that. He must have disposed of the body some time between six minutes to 1 and 1:30 o'clock. That is, if we believe Jim Conley."
"Conley is positive about the time, because he went across the street and ate a lunch. Ah, what an appetite he had. He ate a fish and liver sandwich, and eh is positive that Frank must have done it by 1:30, because after he got over there and ate this fish and liver sandwich he looked at the clock, and it was 20 minutes to 2."
"Now, bear this in mind, gentlemen. He said 1:30. Now, let's see whether he perjured himself or not. Here is little Miss Curran. She has told you that she saw Frank at 1:10. Are we to make a perjurer of this sweet young girl? Then there is Mrs. Levy, a neighbor of Frank's. She saw Frank at 1:30. Are we to make a perjurer of her? Can you say that you believe the story of Conley and in the same breath call Miss Curran and Mrs. Levy liars?"
"Now take the mother-in-law and father-in-law of Frank. They say that Frank came home about 1:20 to lunch. Are we to tell these old people that they are liars, too?"
Claims Alibi From
State's Own Testimony.
"And, gentlemen, there is the hardest thing of all. They must also make a perjurer of Minola's husband. Albert McKnight, for he says that Frank was there about 1:20 at the Selig home. Ah, think of that. To make a perjurer of their own Albert."
"Then Minola says that Frank was there at 1:20. And Minola ah, she is the greatest stain on this case. Can we ever forget the plot made by this poor wretch arrested out of the Solicitor's office? Ah, the shame of it all, I assert that the men connected with this hideous affair, the unlawful arrest of this poor woman, will be ashamed of this one act the balance of their lives. And Starnes, the honest man that he is, tells us that before he could turn her loose, he had to call up Dorsey twice. And wh
ere is my immaculate friend Beavers, who stood by and watched it all? If all this is not true, then Starnes had to perjure himself when on the stand."
"Ah, many things have happened under oath in this case which may or may not have happened, but there is one thing on which the State and the defense are agreed that is, except Conley that Frank was not in that factory at 1:30. Conley alone, perjurer that he is, untrained and untaught, the great liar that he is, also says he was there. And on Conley rests their case."
"Consider this line, gentlemen, and the others. No one body on earth has the power of the American jury. They hold the power of life and death and I have yet to find one that failed to show its courage."
Rosser Concludes
Plea of Defense.
"Gentlemen, I am nearly through. I wish to call your attention to one thing. They mentioned this man Mincey and intimated that we were afraid to introduce him. But his testimony was not of any direct, prohibitive value. All that we desired of Mincey was to discredit Conley, but Conley got up himself, and admitted that he was a liar. So what was the use of calling Mincey for the same purpose? It might have been a day's row to determine if he were a responsible person. I know nothing about Mincey, nor care anything about him. If he is as honest and truthful as the angels in Heaven we had no need for him. If he is merely part of a scum that has arisen at a time like this, then I would certainly want to wash my hands of him."
"I have yet to believe that it is necessary for the truth to be cared for, cherished and watered through four long months by the detectives. I have yet to believe that this man Conley has to be supported in his statement by sudden visits of the Solicitor I have yet to believe it requires so many professors to bring Conley's story to its full and fruition. God deliver me from some of the testimony that has come up in this case. I might have hanged a yellow dog upon it, btu I would have gone home ashamed of myself. Gentlemen of the jury, you have heard me courteously, I thank you. This case has been a furious one. You have been attentive and I have appreciated it."
This concluded Rosser's address and Solicitor Dorsey immediately began the closing argument for the State.
PAGE 22
HOOPER AND ARNOLD IN
ARGUMENT MADE MOST
OF THEIR OPPORTUNITIES
By JAMES B. NEVIN
Frank Hooper's speech in behalf of the prosecution against Leo Frank, charged with the murder of little Mary Phagan, reflected much credit upon him.
It was fair, to the point, well thought out and appealing in tone and delivery.
It went for the defendant, hammer and tongs, but it was devoid of anything that might be construed as below the belt.
Undoubtedly, it was not pleasant to the defendant, sitting there, stolidly, following the words of Hooper but Dorsey and Hooper, in its final aspect, have made out a most dangerous case against Frank, and Hooper was there to explain and sustain it. He performed his duty in a way that hardly can fail to bring him lasting applause and commendation.
If, however, Frank felt to the full the gloom of the case made out against him by Hooper, he was more than abundantly taken care of when Arnold followed.
The case made out in defense of Frank by Arnold was extremely plausible it covered in detail every point developed by Hooper. It, like Hooper's, was a speech evidently carefully considered.
Jury Held In High Esteem.
Now, the thing about these two speeches that made them particularly and uniquely noteworthy, perhaps, is that both were seemingly designed for the consideration of a jury held to be highly intelligent and not apt to rush pell-mell to a verdict either for or against Frank.
And if the opposing counsel entertain the opinion of the jury if they hold it in such compelling esteem and respect and if the jury is such a jury as deserves that opinion, which I think it is, then the chances are that its verdict will be righteous and just, whatever it may be.
And that the finding of this jury SHALL speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth that, in the words of Hamlet, "is a consummation most devoutly to be wished!"
"Try this case, gentlemen, according to the law and the facts!" said Frank Hooper, addressing the jury Thursday.
That is the final and ultimate request any man for or against the defendant could or should make of the "twelve good men and true" there to pass upon the fate of Leo Frank.
Neither the State nor the defense, in justice and right, dare will plead for more or less!
The two opening speeches in murder trials are presumed to outline clearly the trend of the completed arguments both ways.
Concluding attorneys may amplify and enlarge upon points raised by opening attorneys, but they rarely go far beyond the primary outlining of the two main points of view.
And so, while Rosser and Dorsey may go further than Hooper and Arnold in invective, sarcasm, ridicule and passionate outbreak, neither is apt to add anything material to either side, as compared with the things Hooper and Arnold have said.
There is some advantage to the State or, at least, there is supposed to be some advantage to it in that it has the concluding argument before the jury.
No Injustice There.
Some people think this is an injustice and a hardship upon the defense, but when one comes to consider the theory upon which that practice is founded the apparent injustice and hardship of it vanishes, and it may be seen readily enough that in this, as in so many things the law has been most carefully thought out
And is just and right.
The law throws about the defendant at bar the presumption of innocent
It places upon the State the burden of proving him guilty, rather than putting upon the defendant the burden of proving himself innocent.
But the law, having done this, permits the final voice to be the voice from the grave.
The dead he or she is not there to speak, and to say as to the truth, and so the law directs that the State's prosecuting counsel shall speak it instead.
Thus does the law, with impartial hand, protect first the defendant and the protect quite as jealously its own majesty, and the rights of the dead!
The law, however, in the event the defendant elects to introduce no witnesses in his behalf, and to rely solely upon his own isolated statement, not under oath, reverses the order of argument and permits the defense to open and close for the law will not permit a defendant even to place himself at a disadvantage without fully compensating him for the same!
What will the Frank jury say?
Will it find the prisoner not guilty, clear his name of all stain and send him forth a free man?
Or will it find him guilty and fasten upon him forever the disgrace of one of the most inhuman and diabolical crimes ever committed in Georgia?
To render the latter verdict, it must believe Frank a monster, lost to every sense of decency and right a man who has meanly and unpardonably deceived his mother, his wife, his friends, his faithful employees and his acquaintances. It must believe him a cruel murderer, for an unspeakable lust the vilest and most evil creature ever known among his kindred and his kind!
Will the jury believe that? It is not easy to think it will.
And yet
The Alternative.
Not to believe it is to believe those girls who swore Frank's character is bad, who cited instances of a suspicious nature to uphold that belief, are wrong that they knew him not, notwithstanding their opportunity and that all the circumstances of the crime seemingly connecting him with it are errors and that Conley's story, no less too big to be true than too big to be untrue, still is untrue, and that all the thins alleged against Frank either are wrong naturally or wrong by design and malicious purpose!
Will the jury look at the matter that way? It is not easy to think it will!
And yet, again, it MUST believe the one or the oth
er or there will be no verdict!
What, then, CAN honest minded mortals, men and women who want to see the right and the right alone prevail, do other than put their faith in the JURY there, and believe that it will speak the TRUTH of this case, no matter what may be anybody's preconceived opinion?
The time for argument has passed. Rosser and Arnold and Hooper and Dorsey have about concluded that.
The general public should now prepare itself to receive the verdict as the final and determining circumstances in the cases.
Individual opinion is interesting at times, but after all, one man's opinion is as good as another's, but not more so.
The Important Thing.
What you think, reader, and what I think, is relatively inconsequential the thing that matters SUPREMELY now, and the thing that alone matters supremely, is what does the JURY think, and what will the jury say!
No one of us has the opportunity to know so well the ins and outs of the case as the jury. The jury does not read what I write nor does it hear what you say. It is there, in the courtroom, aside from the outside world, off to itself, a thing apart there to do justice, to the State and to Frank, though the heavens fall!
There is no responsibility up individuals expressing opinion pro and con. They are not under oath the life of a human being, on the one hand, and the majesty of the law of the land on the other, are no direct legal concerns of theirs.
It is all very well for you to say, "If I were running this thing I would turn Frank loose in a jiffy," or "If I were running this thing I would hang Frank," when there is no legally impose and oath-bound obligation upon you to render a verdict that means something definite in law.
With a juryman, however, the case is different he is there to fashion a finding that means everything!
Within twenty-four hours, perhaps, the public will know what the Frank jury thinks of the case made against him.
The jury may convict him, and it may acquit him.
No man possibly can know, at this time and nothing is so uncertain in the matter of forecasting as the verdict of a jury.
Public Should Accept Verdict.
But whether it be acquittal or conviction, the public should, and the law-abiding public WILLL, prepare itself to accept that verdict as righteous and just.
No man ought to be willing to set his opinion doggedly against that of those "twelve good men and true," whatever their verdict may be.
Leo Frank, the defendant, is entitled to all the protection the law gives defendants he is entitled to an absolutely fair trial, without favor or prejudice, one way or the other. He is entitled to all of that but no more.
The State has rights as sacred as the defendant's they must be considered.
What more can human ingenuity and the forms of law provide by way of finding the truth of a case like the one now on trial, than has been provided in the present hearing?
FELINE WAIF FINDS PROTECTOR
IN PRETTY HOTEL ANSLEY MISS
This is Miss
Gladys
Brinkley and
"Governor
Slaton" in a
special pose for camera
"Governor"
is never quite
happy unless
he is safe in the
arms of his fair
guardian. No
one can step on
his tall then
he's sure
of that.
"Governor Slaton" Is One of the
Most Distinguished Young
Cats in Atlanta.
"Governor Slaton" was peeved, and justly so, for a hurrying travelling man had stepped on his tail. He arched his back, dug his claws into the soft rugs at the Hotel Ansley and snarled vengefully. He loved nobody and nobody loved him.
Then Miss Glady's Brinkley came along. Miss Brinkley is one of the prettiest of the young women who worked at the Ansley. Diners unite in saying that the smiles she dispenses as she hands out the hats at the door of the rathskeller are worth more than the dinner.
It was one of those whole-souled, joyful smiles that Miss Brinkley bestowed on the disconsolate "Governor." The "Governor" succumbed to the witchery of the smile and knew right away that he had found a friend. So he sheathed his claws, dropped his back, and leaped straight into Miss Brinkley's arms, where he purred contentedly while she stroked him behind the ears and crooned over him.
For "Governor Slaton" isn't what you might think he is at all!
He's a cat!
And the "Governor" is quite a remarkable cat, too. To begin with, he is snow white; not a blotch of color mars his sleek beauty. He is absolutely alone in the world, having no brothers and sisters, and his mother deserted him when he was quite young. He is further distinguished by the fact that he probably is the only cat in captivity born in a big hotel. For the "Governor" first saw the light of day in a vacant room on the thirteenth floor of Atlanta's newest hostelry.
"Governor Slaton" does not care much for human companionship except Miss Brinkley but once again in a while he will allow Mrs. Morgan, who keeps a shop on the mezzanine floor, to pat him. He has no use for men, unless they come bearing gifts, which he accepts and then sticks a claw into the hand of the giver. He is happy about six hours a day. That is when Miss Brinkley is on duty and he can snuggle up at her feet or purr luxuriously in her lap.
And Miss Brinkley likes the "Governor," too.
"All cats are nice," she said, "but I just dote on Governor.' He is so well behaved, and never tries to scratch me. He always hunts me up when I go to work, and will sit with me for hours at a time. The Governor' has been my friend ever since I first saw him, the day the travelling man stepped on his foot. I felt so sorry for him I couldn't keep from cuddling him."
The hotel attaches tell a rather remarkable tale about the coming of the cat, which shows why he was named "Governor Slaton." It seems that when the rugs came to the Ansley and workmen took them to the thirteenth floor, a big white cat jumped out when they unrolled one. Kitty ran down the hall, and no attention was paid to her. Two weeks later this hotel opened, and Governor John M. Slaton was the first man to register. The same night one of the hotel employees found a little white cat on the thirteenth floor, crying its little heart out for something to eat. By consulting a few clocks and watches, it was learned that the cat had been born at the exact moment Governor Slaton was inscribing his name on the hotel register hence the name.
PAGE 25
DORSEY FLAYS FRANK
CONVICTION ON CHAIN
OF CIRCUMSTANCES IS
UPHELD BY SOLICITOR
Solicitor Hugh Dorsey, Friday afternoon, opened a vigorous, cutting arraignment of Leo M. Frank the final blow of the State at the man accused of the murder of Mary Phagan. The Solicitor followed Luther Rosser who had spoken for more than six hours and he was expected to make an exhaustive review of the evidence in an effort to show that it fixed the crime conclusively on Frank.
Solicitor Dorsey was not expected to finish before evening and the Judge's charge will probably be made tomorrow.
Solicitor Dorsey arose from his seat and remaining at his table, began addressing the court in low, even tones.
"May it please your Honor," he said, "I wish to thank you for the courtesy in giving us unlimited time, and I desire, gentlemen of the jury, to commiserate you. But as his Honor has told you, this is an important case. It is important to society; important to the defense; important to me; important to you."
"I would not feel like slurring over any of it for the sake of physical conditions. And indeed, gentlemen of the jury, although I know it does inconvenience you, I feel that you would not have me slur over any of it. I may seem at some stages a little tedious, but a case that has consumed almost a solid month, a case of thin magnitude, can't be argued quickly."
"This case, not only as his honor has told you, and X have intimated, is important, but it is extraordinary. It was an extraordinary crime, a most heinous crime; a cri
me that demanded earnest, vigorous, conscientious effort on the part of the detectives and myself. And it demands earnest, vigorous conscientious consideration on your part."
"It is extraordinary because of the prominence and the ability of the counsel that has been pitted against me. Four of them, Arnold, Rosser and the two Haas'."
Leonard Haas interrupted Dorsey: "No, I am not one of the counsel," he said.
"All right," said Dorsey, "three of them Haas. It is extraordinary because of the defendant. It is extraordinary on account of the argument of the defense; also on account of the methods they have pursued. They have two of the ablest lawyers in this country; also Mr. Haas is an able lawyer."
"As Mild a Man As
Ever Cut a Throat."
"There is Mr. Rosser, rider of the winds and stirrer of the storms. Mr. Arnold and what I say is meant in no bitterness, because I love him as mild a mannered man as ever cut a throat or scuttled a ship."
"They have maligned me and abused the detectives and they have heaped calumny upon us to such an extent that good lady over there, the mother of the defendant, arose in this presence and called me a dog. When did a murderer ever feel the halter tightening around his neck with a good opinion of the law?"
"I don't want your good opinion," said Dorsey, turning to Frank. "If you (turning to the jury) put your stamp of approval on my case. I am satisfied. They say prejudice and perjury, and they used that stereotyped expression, fatigued indignation. Don't let that indignation accentuate your action."
Defense Brought in
Issue of Prejudice.
"Gentlemen, do you think that these detectives and myself, sworn officers of the law would have sought to hang this man and pass up Jim Conley, a negro, unless we knew what we were doing?"
"Prejudice? Was it prejudice when they arrested Newt Lee? And Gantt? No, it was not prejudice until the law got their client, Leo M. Frank. We never once in this trial referred to a sect or creed. It was they that brought it in. It was their one deliverance."
"Not a word emanated from this side indicating any prejudice in this case. Any prejudice, white or black, Jew or Gentile. We did not need it. We would have despised ourselves if we had brought it into this case, and when it was brought into the case at the last hour, when the attorneys for the defense questioned George Kenley how they jumped upon it. How the expressions of delight spread over their faces when the word Jew was spoken. They seized on it with avidity. They have harped on it all through their speeches. We never mentioned it. Please remember that. The race from which that man came is just as good as ours. It was civilized when ours was still cutting each other up and eating one another. Their race is as good as ours, but not any better."
"I honor the race that has produced a Disraeli, the greatest Prime Minister that England ever had. I honor the Strauss brothers, particularly the one who went down on the Titanic with his wife. I know Rabbi Marx and I honor him. I know Dr. Sonn, of the Orphan's Home, and I honor him."
Ask Conviction
Only On Evidence.
"But this same race has produced its Abe Humel, sent to the penitentiary in New York; its Abe Reuf, sent to the penitentiary in California. Its Nathan Schwartz, who stabbed little Julia Conners in New York."
"These illustrations show that this race is amenable to the same laws as other races. They rise to heights sublime, but they sink to the depths of degradation."
"We don't ask the conviction of this man except according to the law which his honor will give to you in his charts. His honor will say to you not to convict this defendant unless you are convinced of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt."
"And what is this reasonable doubt? The jurors get an idea that there is something mysterious about this. But it is as plain as the nose on your face. It is a thing that speaks for itself. It is not perceptible of any definition. Anyone who attempts to define it uses tautology; he used the same word over again. Its best definition is contained in the eighty-third Georgia Report, which says:
"A reasonable doubt is one opposed to an unreasonable doubt. It is one for which a reason can be given. And is one based on reason. Such a doubt leaves the mind in an uncertain and wavering condition. It is impossible to say with reason and moral certainty that a person is guilty."
"If you have a doubt it must be such a doubt as to control and decide your conduct in the highest and most
Continued on Page 7, Column 1.
PAGE 30
SOLICITOR MAKES STRONG SUMMING UP AGAINST ACCUSED We Want Frank Convicted According to Law Only, Declares Hugh Dorsey
PREJUDICE ISSUE BROUGHT
IN BY DEFENSE ONLY, SAYS
DORSEY IN FINAL SPEECH
Continued from Page 1.
important affairs of life. It was not as was said in the case of John way back in the Thirty-third Georgia that possibility of the accused not being guilty was sufficient. It must be such a doubt as a reasonable honest man in an honest investigation would entertain as to the truth."
"That authority is from the Forty-seventh Georgia. It must not be a doubt that might be conjured up; it must not be such a doubt as one might claim to acquit a friend. It must not be a trivial doubt; a base possibility. It must not be the doubt of a crank or an oversensitive person."
Doubt, He Says,
Must Be Reasonable.
"The reasonable doubt must be based on practical, common sense. There must not be acquittal every time there is doubt. In that case there would be acquittal in all cases. As Chief Justice White says, every bit of evidence dependent on human morals is subject to some doubt. This doubt is incapable of precise definition. But a comprehension of its meaning follows directly the words. Some say circumstantial evidence is not as good as direct evidence. That is not so, according to these authorities. It is a popular fallacy that has no place in a courthouse. And I am coming to Mr. Arnold's Durant case, in a minute."
"If circumstantial evidence satisfies the mind, it is as good as positive evidence. The doctrine of reasonable doubt, as shown by the defense, originated black yonder at the time when a man was not allowed counsel."
"As we progress with our improved methods, that idea will be dropped altogether. The State has got all kinds of burdens and difficulties to surmount. It never was better illustrated than in this case."
"Don't think this matter is a subtle, illusive something. When you get your ideas as a man, you have got them as a juror. You can get up any kind of an excuse of turning loose a man, but that must be outside of a jury box. You can not turn a man loose here on any light, fanciful conjecture. That, would violate your oath, and I know you won't do that."
Upholds Evidence
That Is Circumstantial.
"In the Ninety-second Georgia they speak of it thus: reasonable doubt does not mean a vague conjectural doubt; a doubt conjured up in the minds of a juror, but a decision on the evidence in the case. It means a doubt which would cause a juror to hesitate to proceed in his common, everyday business walk of life."
"It is a moral certainty which you are after, gentlemen. The certainty brought to your mind by the facts in the case. And now let us pass from the reasonable doubt proposition to circumstantial evidence. There are some people who say they will not convict on circumstantial evidence. Such talk as that is the merest bosh. They say they should not convict a man unless it is absolutely known that he committed a crime. But, gentlemen of the jury, the authorities say it is the best evidence.
"It is true that recently there have been main failures to convict on circumstantial evidence, but a man should not be declared innocent by a jury on some trivial fancy. The evidence in the case should satisfy every juror. You are to judge by the common sense evidence. Any other rule will expose society to the ravages of the most
atrocious crimes generally perpetrated in a manner and time which precludes positive evidence against the person committing it.
Brings in Famous
Durant Case Again.
"To refuse to convict on circumstantial evidence is consistent with every other hypothesis of the laws of our land."
"Now, gentlemen, Mr. Arnold spoke to you about that Durrant case that celebrated case in San Francisco. He said that case was the greatest crime of the century. I don't know where Mr. Arnold got all the authority for his statement. On April 15, 1913, C. M. Picket, District Attorney of the city of San Francisco, wrote a letter "
Attorney Arnold interrupted the Solicitor at this point, making the objection that he could not permit the Solicitor to read any letter.
Dorsey said: "It is not a letter I want to read; it is a telegram I received yesterday.
"I telegraphed to San Francisco yesterday," said Dorsey; "I ask your honor if I can not quote that in my address to the jury. I am permitted to argue what is a matter of public notoriety."
"I do not object to my brother arguing what is a matter of public notoriety," said Arnold, "but I must object when he attempts to read something from some letter a friend of his in San Francisco has written him. I want here and now to record my objection to the Solicitor getting any information from such a source."
"Can't I state what I know about the case," demanded Dorsey, "I anticipated that some such claim as this would be made and that is why I made the investigation."
Judge Roan allowed Dorsey to tell what he knew about the case, but would not permit him to read the letter or the telegram. Dorsey continued:
"Mr. Arnold, in discussing the uncertainties of circumstantial evidence said that Theodore Durant had been hanged for the murder of Blanche Lamont and Minnie Williams, and that the real murderer had made a death-bed confession.
Dorsey said in contradicting this: "My information is that nobody has ever confessed to the murder of Blanche and Minnie Williams. There can be no doubt that this man Durant was guilty. The body of one girl was found in the belfry, and the other in the basement. The forty-eighth Pacific Reporter shows that the body of one girl was tripped stark naked, and was found in the belfry of the Emmanuel church, San Francisco, after she had been two weeks missing. It shows that Durrant who was a medical student as well as a minister, had a character far better than this man Frank. It shows that although he was convicted in 1895, he did not go to the gallows until 1898. It shows that his mother cremated the remains. That's all poppycock that Arnold has been talking about. There never was a guiltier man than Durant, and never a more courageous jury."
Attorney Arnold called attention to the fact that the letter from this man C.M. Pickett was dated April 15, nearly two weeks before the murder of Mary Phagan. He made this statement to throw doubt on Dorsey's statement that he had made the investigation in anticipation of just such a story as Arnold had told.
"There are lust murderers," said Mr. Dorsey. "There are people who are in the height of exultation when choking a girl to death with their hands or with a cord. This man had stripped the body, strangulation was the cause of death. At that time Durant was a young man of 24 years of age, a student at the Cooper Medical School, a member of the army signal corps, an attendant of the Emmanuel Baptist Church, assistant superintendent of the Sunday school and librarian of the church.
"He was said to be religious; that, of course, included his character was regarded as excellent. At his trial the defense was an alibi the last rest resort to which the guilty man can come. He declared he had seen Blanche Lamont on her way to school, but never afterward. The contention of the prosecution was that he murdered her in the church. Both were attendants of the church, and members of the Christian Endeavor Association. Durant had keys to the side door of the church, and was familiar with the interior.
Likens Durant
Case to Frank's.
"A woman saw the defendant walking up and down in front of the schoolhouse that afternoon as though waiting for someone. She saw the defendant board a street car with two girls."
Mr. Dorsey was reading the complete story of this case and pointing out from time to time analogies to the Phagan case. He continued:
"George King, organist, went to the church that afternoon and was playing. Durant came in to the Sunday school where he was and stood looking at him. He was very pale; his coat and his hat were off; there were no scratches or blood stains on him; the organist asked him what was the trouble. He said he had been fixing the gas, not making up a financial sheet."
"He said he had to rest. Frank called off a baseball engagement. He gave King 50 cents and asked for bromo seltzer. Frank trembled on Darley's knee as they rode to the police station. You can always tell; the signs betray. Later the mother of Blanche Lamont received a package through the mall, with the rings the girl had worn wrapped in a newspaper. On the paper were written the names of George King, church organist, and Professor Schernstein, music teacher."
"A pawnbroker testified that a man had offered him one of those rings in pawn. The person offering the ring for sale was the defendant, I emphasize defendant to show how accurate Mr. Arnold was. Of course, he is an honorable man, he wouldn't mislead you. I am just reading the record."
"Durant went to his friends and asked for notes on the lecture which he was supposed to have attended that afternoon. He said that he had forgotten to take any notes, but with his friends' notes he could easily bring his up. Why, even in jail there, he could have fixed up his notes. This summarization of the evidence in the Durant case is not exhaustive; if it were it would show many more facts which fastened the chain around Durant. But briefly, Blanche Lamont and her friend were at the church at 4:20."
Demands to Know
Motive for Conley.
"At 5 o'clock the defendant was seen just outside of it in a wild and excited condition. He explained his condition by the accidental inhalation of gas. At 6 o'clock he left there. Blanche Lamont was never seen again and two weeks later her body was found in the belfry."
"Now, tell me, what motive could Conley have had to have knocked Mary Phagan down that scuttle hole. Compare this with the motive of the defendant."
PAGE 26
LUTHER ROSSER'S COMPLETE ADDRESS DEFENDING LEO FRANK
Dorsey, Detectives and Conley Are Given Terrific Scoring by Attorney
CALM, DISPASSIONED
PLEA FOR ACQUITTAL
IMPRESSES HEARERS
Luther Rosser's closing argument unquestionably made a deep impression. He attacked the State's case at every point and branded Conley's story a tissue of rehearsed lies. He analyzed the case piece by piece and against the State's assumptions advanced others to show that what the prosecution had tried to show was sinister fact was hunt distortion of innocent facts.
In a moving description of the death of Mary Phagan and the picture her body made as it lay in the morgue, Mr. Rosser had many in the courtroom on the verge of tears, but the motif' of his talk was not pathos but ridicule, denunciation and calm analysis.
Rosser's Speech Remarkably Calm.
Rosser's speech was remarkable for its calmness, but its very quietness added to its impressiveness. For the most part he bought to impress upon the jury that "fair play" must be done, and that they were a sacred body set apart to weigh facts and do justice uninfluenced by outside consideration.
However, the speaker was unsparing in discussing Jim Conley, C. b> Dalton and the methods used by the detectives to set evidence that he held up to ridicule. When he had been talking for two hours he launched into an indirect but bitter arraignment of Solicitor Dorsey, referring particularly to the attempt to make Frank's hiring of Rosser look like a damning c
ircumstance.
Calls Dorsey's Insinuations Contemptible.
"My friend Dorsey," he said, "made much of the fact that Frank hired the lawyer. The charges and insinuations that he has made are the most contemptible that have ever occurred in a Georgia court. The things he has done in this trial will never be done in Georgia again. I will stake my life on that.
"You may question Frank in his judgement, he might have hired a better lawyer than I. He might have hired a more decent lawyer, but he couldn't have hired a more devoted lawyer. I will saw that for myself if I drop dead in my tracks."
"Gentlemen of the jury," he began in a low voice, as he leaned against the railing of the jury box, "all things come to an end. With the end of this case it was almost the end of the trial. But for that masterly effort of my friend Arnold, I almost wish it had ended without any speaking. My physical condition enabled me to say but little. My voice is husky and almost useless. But for my intense interest, my profound conviction of the innocence of this man, I would say nothing."
Public Mind
Always Careless.
"I want to repeat what my friend Arnold so aptly said, "This jury is no mob. The attitude of the jurors' mind is not the attitude of the man who carelessly walks the street. My friend Hooper must have brought that doctrine with him when he came to Atlanta."
"We walk the streets carelessly, absorbed in our own interests. We pass our friends and do not recognize them. The mind wanders in flights of fancy and fits of revelry. We mean no harm to ourselves nor harm to our friends, but we are careless."
"Men, you are set aside. You came to be a part of that revelry of the streets. In old pagan Rome women walked the streets chatted gally and carelessly, but a few were set aside the vestal virgins. They cared not for the gladiatorial combats or the strife."
"So it is with you set apart, You care not for the chatter or the laughter of the rabble. You are unprejudiced. Yours is the sworn duty to pass on a matter of life and death. You are to decide on the evidence without an echo from any hostile mob. With no fear, no favor, no affect."
"Others may take the brave task of standing up for the weak and oppressed, but it is not for you. You are a still, silent, consecrated band. You are to do your duty without one thought of the past or the future. You are here and now consecrated by justice to do your duty. I do not feel that I can add to anything Mr. Arnold said except to touch the high palaces and probably wander afield Rome place where he did not go."
"No crime could be more frightful than this. That little girl in the sweetest period of her life was cut down by some brute and the public was horrified. We all agree that no punishment would be severe enough. It is nothing but human nature in a crime of this kind that a victim is demanded."
"A cry goes up for vengeance. It is the old law of an eye for an eye and a life for a life. It is the primeval man. The early Indian when his companion fell by his side demanded vengeance. He went out for a victim regardless of who it was. But, thank God, that age is past and in this intelligent twentieth century of ours we no longer say, Give us a victim, a sacrifice, but give us the guilty man.'"
Rosser Analyzes
Dalton's Character.
"I believe this jury is a courageous jury. I know they are not like primeval men. I know they are not lime primeval men, who sought to find a victim whether he was guilty or not. Let us see who is the man most likely to have committed the crime. You want to ask what surroundings such a crime was likely to have come from, and to look at the man who was most likely to have done it."
"My friend Hooper understood that. He said that the conditions at the factory were likely to produce such a crime, but as a matter of fact the conditions are no better and no worse than in any other factory. You find good men and bad man, good women and bad women. What man raises one word against the moral atmosphere of that factory? Conley? Yes. I'll come to him later, not now. Dalton? Yes. I'll take up his case right now.
"God Almighty when He writes upon a human face does not always write a beautiful hand, but He writes a legible one. If you were in the dark with that man Dalton, wouldn't you put your hand on your pocketbook? If you wouldn't, you are braver men than I. The word "thief" is written all over his face. My friend Rube Arnold said when Dalton came to the stand, "That's a thief or I don't know one." I smelled the odor of the chaingang upon him; I reached' for him; I felt' for him; I asked him if he had ever been long away from home. He evaded me. When he left the stand, I said, Rube, that man's been in the chaingang as sure as there's a God in heaven.' And, sure enough, we looked him up, and he had been. Then he came to Atlanta, and they said he had reformed. But there are two things in this world I do not believe in. One is a reformed thief and the other is a reformed woman of the streets."
"Joining the Church Is
Old Trick of Thieves."
"One the cross the thief prayed, and the Master recognized him. He gave him forgiveness. He saw the thief and before the thief spoke He recognized him as a thief. But the Lord is all-forgiving, and He said to the thief, This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.' Now, I have no faith in these reformed thieves. I have no faith in a reformed prostitute. Tell me you can reform a thief? I mean a thief at heart, and the man who has thievery in his heart will carry it there all his life. He may steal with secrecy, and be safe, but the thievery is still within him. You may reform other criminals, but the thief never."
"Has Dalton reformed? Oh, he has done the beastly thing. He has done the low, with a sanctimonious expression on his face. He slinks down upon a congregation of godly people and deceives them. He joins them in hypocritical carrying on of their work. He deceives them. Why, gentlemen of the jury, joining the church is an old trick of thieves, and here before us we have had the real illustration, that of a thief who stinks in two counties and goes into another to get away from the odor of his past existence."
"Here is this man Dalton, of the Anglo-Saxon race. Yes, gentlemen of the jury, he had a white face, but that was all. He was black within. What did he do, this thief who joined the church? Look how brazenly he advertised his immorality. When he was placed upon the stand and questioned as to his acts, he could have declined to answer; he could at least have hung his head in shame. But was he ashamed? No; he was as proud of his dirty immorality was a young boy with a new red top. He smiled over it. He gloated over it. It was the first time in his existence that a group of respectable men and women had listened to him, and he fairly gloated."
"Did you hear what he said when asked as to what Frank was doing in his office? He said: I had such a peach myself that I had no time to give attention to anyone else.' Gentlemen, he said he had Daisy, and you saw Daisy. She was the peach!' Poor Daisy! She is not to blame. If she has fallen, which I pray to God she has not, let us forgive her, like the Saviour forgave the Magdalene."
"Gentlemen of the jury, I don't say all of us have been free of passion's lust, but I do say that most of humanity guilty of the crime hold it private. A gentleman wants decent surroundings when committing such an act. He wants cleanliness. No decent man ever stood on the stand and bragged about the peace' that he had. Why, even the beasts of the field hide that."
"Burns had it right when he said in that poem about be gentle with your brother man, be gentler with your sister woman.' That ends with the line, Tis human to step aside.'"
Dalton went and got that peace' and carried her to his scuttlehole like a gopher. Did you ever see a gopher? My friend Hooper used them for chains down in South Georgia all his life. The gopher has a hole, with usually a rattlesnake for his companion. Ain't that a f
ine combination? In that dirty, filthy old hole of the pencil factory, an old goods boxes, with an odor which if put to the nose of a skunk would be offensive, where a dog would not step aside, where an old lascivious cat would not crouch that's Dalton. Yet only he and Jim Conley have brought charges of immorality against this factory.
"I am going to be fair with you, gentlemen, if I can. I am not going to tell you the truth. I thought this case was to be tried by a Solicitor General. God save the mark! I've never seen such partisan feelings before."
Says State Witness
Left Serpent's Trail.
"This arm of the State is to protect the weak, yet I've heard something I've never heard before, and I never expect to hear as long as God lets me live. The Solicitor said, I'll go as far as the court will allow me. That's the crux of this whole case. When the Solicitor General said that, God only knows how far the detectives want. Dalton said he went to the factory some time last year, between the hours of 1 and 2 o'clock. Did he go into the Woodenware Company's part of the building or into the pencil factory? There's nothing to show, except that wherever he went he left the trail of a serpent behind him. Frank didn't know he was there. It was Frank's lunch hour. If Dalton went, he was taking advantage of the factory authorities."
"When we come to consider it, what is there about this factory to make it so bad as the State has tried to paint it? It was searched by my friend Starnes, who wouldn't stop at anything to get evidence. It was searched by that delightful man John Black. Do you know when I think of him I just want to take him in my arms and caress him. And it was searched by Patrick Campbell, that noble detective who wouldn't go on the stand for fear I might ask him about his tutorage of Jim Conley."
"The entire police department, in all its pride, went over the record of that factory with a fine-toothed comb. What have they found?"
"Let's see. In the first place we have had a mighty upheaval in the last two years. It is wrong to commit adultery, but with segregation, the proper surroundings, and a decent amount of secrecy, the world tolerates it. But Chief beavers doesn't. He has combed the town with a fine-toothed comb. Young women have had to fly to cover, and young men are down the middle of the road. That immoral squad; what do they call it, Brother Arnold? Oh, yes; the vice squad, has swept the town with a broom until there is not one lascivious louse left in the head of the body politic. And now they try to tell us this pencil factory was an immoral resort."
"Who has one word to say against that boy Schiff? Who has a word to say against young Wade Campbell?"
Rosser turned toward Attorney Hooper at this point, and continued: "You were willing, without one line of testimony, to attack the characters of these young men, so that you may carry your case. You are willing to clasp this Bertus Dalton to your breast as though he were a 16-year-old. If I know a single thing on this earth I know the ordinary working man and working woman of Georgia. I have an ancestry of working people behind me. My parents were working people. With 100 of Atlanta's working girls, with about the same number of Atlanta's hardy working men, in that factory on Forsyth street. I assert they could not have been there eight long years if the factory had been an immoral house. Those girls would have fled. The outraged citizens would have torn down that old building, stone by stone. You may assert that those girls wouldn't have fled, but I tell you I have a higher conception of the Georgian working girl than to believe for one minute that she would have remained."
"If I am mistaken, and 100 willing females stayed there, and 100 thin-blooded males stood by and let conditions continue. I assert the factory could not have lasted 48 hours. NO man in charge of a business of that magnitude ever yet attempted to be on terms of criminal intimacy with the scores of women in his employ but that they didn't rule him with stronger reins than the Queen of Sheba."
"Frank's Statement
Had Ring of Truth.'"
"What do you think would become of a factory superintendent who got on intimate terms with his women employees? This would be bad enough for a native born American, but what would you think full-blooded Americans would do or say about a foreigner who came here and attempted such a thing, and especially considering the antipathy which has always been borne to the Jewish race?"
"Now, I have shown you that the factory has been prosperous, and we know well enough that it could not have been prosperous if immorality had been allowed to exist there."
"Now, let's take up the man. I don't have to tell you that he is smart. Every one of us knows that. When he got upon the stand and talked to you, he gave illustration of being one the most remarkable men I have ever met. His talk to you was, indeed, remarkable, and as I sat and listened to it for the first time. I wondered and marveled at the brain of the man. I could never have made up a speech like that, even if I had had the brains. And it wasn't a written speech, either. It was the truth, gushing out naturally as does the water from the flowing spring. There was no force behind it. There was no electricity there. It was the plain, simple flowing truth as mother Nature furnished it."
"Gentlemen of the jury, if Frank's tank to you had been forced, it would not have had that ring of truth to it. You may make a silver dollar that in appearance would fool the Secretary of the Treasury. But drop that dollar and the ring will tell. The real dollar has the real ring, the silver ankle that can not be mistaken. And the real truth, like the real ring, has the ring that shows that it is nothing but the truth."
"Frank's words had the ring that come from old Mother Nature's breast when telling the truth. The old saying is that the idle brain, is the devil's workshop. No one knowns this better than I do. When I am busy, I am one of the nicest men you ever met. I eat regularly and get plenty of sleep, and I behave myself. I mean I am fairly good. But let me stop work for a couple of days and there is no telling where I will light. It is the man with nothing to do who gets into mischief."
Why Frank's Character
Was Put in Evidence.
"Who do you catch stealing and doing mischief all around? It is the idle folks. An old bank retired from active business in New York was once given a banquet, and this is what he said when his faithful employees gathered around him: In my 40 years in this bank, it has been an unfortunate coincidence that nearly every man connected with the bank has been under suspicion at one time or the other. But there is one thing I wish to say. There was never a hard-working, thrifty man among you who was ever found guilty in the slightest way.'"
"Now, gentlemen of the jury, that is the way it is in every walk of life. When you watch a great river flowing on to the sea, you don't take a spyglass and pick out the little eddies. No. You look at the heavy flow of the waters as they move majestically along."
"So it is with human life. It is this way with the hard-working man who follows the straight course and goes on in a majestic flow on the even tenor of his way. It is not for the jury, trying him, to take the spy-glasses and search out the small eddies. In his character, but let them take his full character, the broad and majestic flow of it."
"If we hadn't said a word about his character, the court would have instructed you to assume a good character. Under the law, we could have remained mute, and his character would have been good to you. But we didn't wish to do that. We wanted you to know what manner of man he was. I say to you with all the sincerity of my soul that no man within the sound of my voice could show as good character as he has, fi put to such a test. I am not dealing with the infamous lies of Dalton and Conley."
"But you say, Wait a minute. Some people said he had a bad character. Th
at's correct. I am not going to try to fool you. I am going to deal with the facts."
"I couldn't fool you if I tried. Let's see who they are who say he has a bad character. You know you can find some people to swear against anyone. Suppose my friend Arnold had occasion and so far forgot himself as to put my character up. Don't you suppose you could find a hundred men in Atlanta to swear that I am vicious? I am not not extraordinarily so, but in my long practice of law, perhaps I have wronged someone. Perhaps sometimes in my zeal I have been too sever, and some people may think they have a just grievance against me."
"Now, what did this young man do? Here are the young ladies, and I haven't a word to say against them. The older I get the gentler I become, if anything. Oh, why would I abuse and vilify anyone? With our lives a moment bright, then dark forever, why should I?"
"Here is Miss Myrtice Cato. She worked there three and a half years. If she was a sweet, pure girl, and I take it for granted she was, would she have stayed there that long, constantly associated with Frank, if he was a vile man? She would have fled from him long ago. Oh, she has felt the bitterness of the rabble since this crime occurred. She was under the tense heated atmosphere of this trial."
"Then Miss Maggie Griffin. She worked there two months two years ago. What does she know about Frank compared with these women who have been there for years?"
Miss Estelle Winkle had an extensive acquaintance with Frank. She worked there're one week in 2010. Miss Carrie Smith, like Miss Cato, worked there three and a half years, and the other few worked there very brief periods.
"That's all, gentlemen, of the hundreds of women who worked there during the last five years."
Scores Detectives
As "Active Gang."
"Why, I could find more people to swear against the Bishop of Atlanta. They have searched every corner. They have spyglassed every nook. Starnes and Black and Campbell and Rosser, generated by that mighty detective, Chief Lanford."
Attorney Rosser turned and addressed the detectives grouped around the prosecution's table.
"You are an active gang," he said to them. "Not only that, but how much of the Minola McKnight methods you have used nobody knows. How they have wheedled and turned and twisted the minds of these little girls no one but God Almighty knows. Hundreds of men have worked in that factory, and they are the larger vessels, but notions of them appeared here to testify against Frank's character.
"Has no man who ever worked their brains enough to accent the corruption and depravity that existed around the factory? Here is that long-legged fellow Gantt. My friend Hooper here tried to explain why he left but you know why he was fired. He was there for three months. Don't you know that if Frank's character had been what they said it was, if he had been the lascivious fiend, the brute, and moral Mary, and this Gantt said Frank told him he seemed to know Mary Phagan very well. Gantt did not tell that before the coroner's inquest and that other young fellow had to be wheedled and led by my friend Dorsey, only to get tangled up and prove that knew nothing.
"Then what was next? The next
Continued on Page 3, Column 1.
PAGE 27
DORSEY'S TACTICS ARE FLAYED BY ROSSER
They Will Never Be Repeated in Georgia Courts, He Says
FRANK WOULD HAVE HAD
2 LAWYERS HAD HE BEEN
ON TO CURVES OF POLICE'
Continued From Page 2.
was a little boy named Turner. I am not here to say anything against Turner, but look at the detectives with their claws about him. Remember what they did to Minola McKnight, and then you will realize what happened to the boy.
"Turner testified that he went into the metal room and saw Frank speak to Mary Phagan. Under the leading questioning of the Solicitor, under his wheedling and coaxing, Turner said that the girl backed off two or three steps, but he admitted that it all took place in broad daylight, and in full sight of Lemmie Quinn's office.
"Is it to be believed that a man in sight of a whole factory, handicapped by his race, would have gone into the metal room and attempted those advances with that little girl? Is it to be conceived that this innocent little girl would not have fled like a frightened deer and would not have run home and told that good stepfather and the good old mother who reared her?"
"That little girl, Dewey Hewell, testified that Frank put his hand on Mary's shoulder, but there were Grace Hix, Magnolia Kennedy, and Helen Ferguson. Do you believe that he would have done this in their sight, and that they would have said nothing about it when they were on the stand?"
Gantt Knows Nothing
Wrong About Frank.
"My friend from the wiregrass (meaning Hooper) said that this was the beginning of his diabolical scheme. Then Gantt was turned on as a part of the plot. Gantt being the only one who knew of Frank's intentions toward the girl."
"Don't you suppose that if this plot had existed, Gantt would have been the one who in clarion tones would have proclaimed it from the witness stand? Yet they had this long-legged fellow twice on the stand, and both time he said he knew nothing wrong about Frank."
"Conley says that Frank told him at 2 o'clock Friday afternoon to come back Saturday. Now, gentlemen, do you believe that? Don't you know that Frank had every reason in the world to believe she would not be there Saturday? Placards had been posted all around the factory, telling that it would be a holiday. All of the employees knew of it, and there was nothing to show that she did not know of it. They paid off Friday afternoon, and there were some envelopes left over, but Frank did not know whose they were. Schiff had paid off, and had put the envelopes up. Frank had not even seen them. Now, little Helen Ferguson said she went to the office Friday afternoon and got her envelope, and that, she asked them to give her Mary Phagan's. She said Frank declined to give it to her, and that when he did this, she turned and walked away."
"Now, we have Magnolia Kennedy, who says she was right there with the little Ferguson girl, and that she did not ask for Mary Phagan's pay. Now one of them is mistaken, but this is not of much importance, so we will pass it on."
"How did Frank know that Mary Phagan would come back to the factory at all on Saturday. The custom had been that when employees failed to get their envelopes on regular pay days before holidays, that they passed over the holiday and waited until the next regular working day to draw their pay. So we see from that there was absolutely no reason why Frank would have expected her there on Saturday."
"Now, what else? They say Frank was nervous. He was, and we admit it. A young boy went there, said he saw Frank, and that he was nervous. Black said he was nervous. Darley said he was nervous. Mr. Montag, his wife, Isaac Haas, and a number of others, all said he was nervous. Of course, he was nervous, and there were lots of others around there that were nervous. Why don't they hang Jake Montag? Why don't they hang old Isaac Haas? They were nervous. Why don't they hang all those pretty little girls who became nervous and hysterical when they heard of this terrible crime? Wouldn't the sight of this little girl's body , dragged in the dirt and crushed into the cinders, have made you nervous too?
Only Manhunter Not
Moved By Child's Death.
"Man is a cruel monster. He is hard-hearted. They say he is a little below the angles, but he has fallen mighty low in ages past. If the angels haven't descended with him. Yet I have never seen a man who when he looked upon a little girl crushed that some of the divinity that shapes his head did not arouse him and cause tears to flow down his cheeks.
"I am not chicken-hearted. I could see one of you badly hurt without going into hysterics. But I never hear the cry of a woman or a child but that manhood and tenderness I got from my sainted mother does not arise to rebellion
within me, and I pray God if it ever should cease that my end may come. No one but the manhunter with blood in his heart would want to hang a man because he was nervous from the death of a little child."
"Then we come to that telephone call. They say he did not hear it and that that is cause for suspicion. Some people sleep lightly, others are hard to awake. The wife of old man Selig had to arouse him. They called old Uncle Ike Haas and he did not hear. His wife had to awaken him. Why not hang old Uncle Isaac Haas? He did not hear the telephone. Hang him because he slept a peaceful sleep, evidence of a good conscience."
"They have another suspicion. He hired a lawyer. I had known the National Pencil Company, but I don't know that I ever saw Frank until I met him at the police station. Frank had been down there on Sunday and told them all that he could. I don't know what was in the minds of the detectives; I don't know what is the head of old John Black. God Almighty only knows. That's one reason I love John so I can't tell what's in his head."
"Then on Monday the police did not have the same attitude to Frank."
Hooper Saysa Rosser Is
"Wire-grass" Man, Too.
At this point the jury was executed for a breathing spell. Attorney Frank Hooper, of the prosecution, came over to the press table and said that he wanted to make an explanation of where h came from, after Mr. Rosser's humorous references to him.
"We both came from Randolph County," Hooper said, "and I guess Mr. Rosser knows about as much about gophers and wire grass as I do."
"The only suspicion against this man is that he employed me and he employed Herbert Haas. I felt a little bad about it because my friend Dorsey didn't say anything about Rube Arnold. Frank didn't employ a lawyer Sunday, but on Monday the police employed different tactics. They went after him with two detectives. He wasn't arrested oh, no. But my friend Black said he was released. When I asked him what that meant, if he wasn't arrested, he had to admit that to all intents and purposes Frank was under arrest.
"Chief Lanford walked about with his accustomed dignity, and Chief Beavers, the beautiful one, scudded around, and they left Frank to soak."
Here Rosser turned to Frank.
"That's the only time in this whole thing," he said, "you didn't show good sense. If you had known what I know about that bunch, you wouldn't have gotten one lawyer, but would have gotten two good ones, and you wouldn't have been satisfied then."
"But old man Sig Montag was a little wiser than Frank. He knew that bunch. He was onto their curves. I am going to be mighty careful, though, about what I say about that police bunch, because if they take a notion they would get me for white slavery before to-night."
"At any rate, Sig Montag called Herbert Haas and told him to go down there and see what is the matter with Leo Frank. Haas could not go. I will give a house and lot worth $20,000 to be in the same position he was that day. His wife was preparing to have a baby."
Not Arrested, But
Had To Be "Released."
"Sig took the automobile and wept down to Haas' house and said you must go. They went to the police station, and what happened? That throws a whole flood of light on the matter."
"No, Frank was not arrested, but he had to be released. I said to John Black, John, what do you mean by released?' He stammered and stuttered, and said, Why, I just mean released.'
"These men went down to see a man who was not under arrest. He was a free citizen sitting there, and yet they wouldn't let his friends see him. They wouldn't let his lawyer Haas see him."
"This man Haas is not of my age or of my flesh, or of my experience. He called me up. If there is any crime in that he is the guilty man. My friend Dorsey with his eyes close together, snapping like snakes, made much of the fact that Frank had hired the lawyer. The charges and insinuations that he has made are the most contemptible that ever have occurred in a Georgia court. The things that he has done in this trial will never be done a gain in Georgia. I will stake my life on that."
Could Not Hire
More Devoted Lawyer.
"Dorsey's eyes got as green as beads on a woman's dress as he hissed his charges against Frank of dirty dog and brutal murderer. You may question Frank in his judgement; he might have hired a better lawyer than I. He might have hired a more decent lawyer, but he couldn't have hired a more devoted lawyer. I will say that for myself if I drop dead in my tracks."
Could Not Hire
More Devoted Lawyer.
"Dorsey's eyes got as green as beads on a woman's dress as he hissed his charges against Frank of dirty dog and brutal murderer. You may question Frank in his judgement; he might have hired a better lawyer than I. He might have hired a more decent lawyer, but he couldn't have hired a more devoted lawyer. I will say that for myself if I drop dead in my tracks."
"Under what circumstances did Frank hire the detectives? He had been to the station house and was asked to make a statement. I went down there, not at Frank's invitation, for he didn't know I was coming. Mr. Haas had asked me to go down there, and I wasn't a welcome visitor at the police station that morning. They don't take my hate; they didn't give my hat; they didn't give me a warm welcome. I guess they would have arrested me long ago, but they just don't want me down there. I can't blame them for that."
"And when I reached there I saw Frank for the first time in my life. I walked in and said, What's the matter here, boys?' You know, I just used plain old common English. I don't put on any fancy frills."
"Someone said, They've got Mr. Frank under arrest here for murder.' One of the detectives got up and said, No, we haven't.' Yet they talked about him not being under arrest at that time."
Why Didn't They
Want Me There?
"Someone said, They want him to make a statement.' I said, Let him go ahead and make it.' Right away Lanford and the others hustled him over to a room. They didn't want me to go with him."
"Now, I have always been a little bit impudent, and when I started in, they said, We don't want you in here,' and I said, kind of impudent-like, I'm coming in, anyway, I won't interrupt him but I'm coming in.'"
"And why didn't they want me in there? I don't know. Wasn't I as reputable a citizen as Lanford? Wasn't I as capable of protecting the law as he was? Gentlemen, while we were there a peculiar thing happened. I said a man could not have
Luther Rosser's Tribute to the Jury
"We walk in the streets carelessly, absorbed in our own interests. We pass our friends, and do not recognize them. The mind wanders in flights of fancy and fits of revelry. We mean no harm to ourselves nor harm to our friends, but we are careless."
"Men of the jury, you are set aside. You cease to be a part of that revelry of the streets. In old pagan Rome women walked the streets, chatted gayly and carelessly, but a few were set aside the vestal virgins. They cared not for the gladiatorial combats or the strife."
"So it is with you set apart. You care not for the chatter or the laughter of the rabble. You are unprejudiced. Yours is the sworn duty to pass on a matter of life and death. You are to decide on the evidence, with no fear, no favor, no affection."
"Others may take the brave task of standing up for the weak and oppressed, but it is not for you. You are a still, silent, consecrated band. You are to do your duty without one thought of the past or the future. You are here and now consecrated by justice to do your duty."
committed that crime and not have scars upon him. Frank showed them that he had no marks upon himself."
"Why didn't Lanford get upon the stand. Was it because he dreaded to get in converse with me? No, he didn't want to recall that dark Conley chapter; that hideous Minola McKnight incident."
"And after they had released Frank, what did they do? They went out to his house and looked at his soiled lin
en, and what evidence did they find? Not a thing."
"If Frank had been a guilty man, do you know what he would have done? Gentlemen of the jury, he would have kept quiet. He would have kept his silence to himself. But he was not guilty and he did not do that. But he went home with the thought of this horrible murder in his mind. He thought of how a beast had committed the crime; of how God's laws had been outraged; of how there was a stain upon the fair nannie of this city."
Says Frank Wanted
To Find Slayer.
"Then he sat down and di what? He telephoned Sig Montag that he wanted to hire detectives; that he wanted to ferret out and punish the murderer of Mary Phagan."
"I have not had too high an estimate of the detective department. I don't mean they are not good, clever fellows, but no man can spy on folks, come in constant contact with crime and elevate his character. God Almighty couldn't do it."
"You," and here Rosser turned again to the detectives, "may not be made worse men, but you won't be made better men. Nor Scott; I am sorry he has gone and will not hear what I have got to say. He crept into this case in the most remarkable situation I ever heard of. He got up on the stand and said, We worked hand and glove with the city detectives. Ain't that a fine gang? Do nothing outside of what the city police do."
"Hiring Detective
A Courageous Deed."
"Some good man will hire him again. But I don't care anything about that. I will let it go. The point is that Frank knew that Scott was going to work with the police. I will give Scott credit for being that honest. He told Frank he was going to lock arms with John Black and walk down the disgraceful avenue of this case."
"This young Jew, just down from the North, ignorant of Southern customs, hired a Pinkerton detective to ferret out the crime. The detective told him he was going to trail with the police. Frank told him, Find the murderer.' He knew Scott was going to trail with the police, even Frank himself was trailed."
"Ah, gentlemen, his race has present many a heroic scene, but never one greater than this. Yet they want to hang him because he employed a detective."
"My friend Hooper charged that he tried to point suspicion on Newt Lee. I don't believe Hooper meant what he said. Frank first said there was no error in the time slips. The next day here said there was. Darley made the same mistake. Why not hang Darley?"
"Then do you remember what he said about the time being rubbed off of that slip? Dorsey had to admit that he erased it. I don't mean that Dorsey meant any harm."
Denounces Bloody
Shirt Evidence.
"Then the bloody shirt. Gentlemen, that is the most unfair thing in this whole case to charge that that young man had that shirt planted. Black and Scott went out and found that shirt in the bottom of an old barrel at Newt Lee's house. They found it Tuesday morning, brought it in and Newt said it was his shirt."
Dorsey jumped to his feet at this moment and exclaimed that such was not the testimony, Rosser said:
"Newt Lee did. I got it out of one of those boys on the stand."
"No he didn't," replied Dorsey. "Lee said it looked like a shirt of his."
"Well, we'll admit it then," Rosser continued; "we will just put it that way. We will suppose they went out and got a bloody shirt just like the one old Newt Lee wore and hid it in that barrel."
"Frank didn't even know where old man Lee lived. He certainly didn't know he had a shirt that looked like that one. I never heard of going to such extremities to try to hang an innocent man."
"But old man Lee I don't believe he had anything to do with the crime, itself. I never will believe anything but that he found that corpse earlier than he said he did. I can't understand how he knew it was while when it took the detectives so long to find cut. I can't understand how he saw the body from where the detectives themselves and it was impossible to see it."
"And he said the face was turned up and the police found it different. I am mighty afraid the old man know it was a white girl, but I still don't believe he had anything to do with the crime itself. If he did, he is the most remarkable old negro that ever lived."
"Shame the Way They
Treated Newt Lee."
"If I had his endurance. I would talk forever. It will be ashamed to the dying day of every member of that detective department the way they treated that poor old man. They talked to him until he got weary and his head hung low, and then they sent in a fresh relay, and when it looked like he couldn't endure it any longer, they would come in with a battery of pistols and poke them in his face."
"I am afraid Newt Lee saw the body before he said he did. But he is a wonderful negro. Oh, the dirty trick that you played on him will be a shame to you as long as you live. (Rosser looked at the detectives). You hammered away at that old negro all hours of the night. But Newt wore the detectives out in relays. They fired pistols near him."
"I am afraid he knows more about this than he ever has told. Let us listen to the story that he told. He told of coming to the factory that night and that Gantt and he stood out in front of the factory. He said that Frank appeared alarmed when he came out and ran into Gantt."
"But the explanation that the negro gave was the very best that could be given. He said, I knew they had had some trouble, and I thought Gantt was there to do Mr. Frank dirt.' Lee and Gantt both say now that Frank jumped back, but neither said it before the Coroner's inquest."
No Wonder Frank
Jumped at Seeing Gantt.
"Is it to be wondered at that Frank jumped, if he actually did jump, which I doubt? Why, you could take him and put him on the top floor of the factory with a girl the size of Mary Phagan and she could make him jump out of the window. He is not a strong man. He is a physical weakling, comparatively, I am not saying this unkindly, but the Jewish people, once the bravest on earth, are not the fighters now that they used to be."
"As he came out of the factory he was confronted by this giant, Gantt. He might have jumped back. If little Dorsey had come out suddenly like that in the night he would have bent his back into a bow jumping back. It is little groveling, snakelike suspicions like this that have marked Dorsey's whole case against the defendant."
"They said also that Frank had thrown suspicion on Gantt. Scott gets up now and says that Frank told him Gantt was familiar with the little Phagan girl, not in a bad way, as there has been no reflection upon this little girl's character, but that they were friends in a good way. But, gentlemen of the jury, Scott didn't say that in his reports to us. He didn't say that in his reports to his agency, and now, in this connection, the understanding was that the Pinkertons were to furnish he police their reports 24 hours before they gave them to us. And this was done all the way through."
"Now for old Newt Lee, and then I am through with the suspicious circumstances. Frank had told old Newt to come early Saturday, as that was a holiday, and having in his mind at the time that he was going to the ball game."
"The suspicion has been cast because he was afraid that he might discover something, that he might make the gruesome find of that cruelly mutilated body in the basement."
"Is it conceivable that by a trick he would get old Newt away for two hour and then leave him the whole night alone in the building where he was sure to discover the body? Then we know that Frank went home and calmy ate his supper, that he read, that he was light-hearted and told a joke. And my brother gets up and charges that Frank was so callous that he laughed."
"Oh, gentlemen of the jury, can you imagine that laugh? If Frank had been guilty of murder, it would have been the laugh of a maniac. Now, Frank is smart. Is there a man here who is such a fool that he believes that Frank would have sent the watchman away by a trick for two hours and would have then
left the body with no one but Newt in the building? And Newt there all night?"
"Gentlemen, that would have weighted on his mind. He would have been raving like a maniac, waiting to be called by old Newt to be told of the gruesome find. Can you believe it? Oh, such a stigma; oh, such a hideous plot."
No Chance for Him
To Commit Crime.
"There is one other suspicion. They say he was in the factory the time Mary Phagan was. But, gentlemen, you know this only because Frank says it. You didn't have to fish it out. He was not the only man there. If the corpse had been found there and he was the only man in the building, it might have been some proof; but there were others. He was in an open room. He had company every hour. Unless he was some magician there was no chance for him to commit the crime. Up on the fourth floor were two young men."
"If there is one thing indelibly fixed in this case, it is that this young boy could not see ingoers and outgoers of that factory. "Conley or some other negro was seen in the hall on the first floor. Yesterday there came out like a ray of sunlight on a wicked world another negro, a lighter one. They had the same opportunity to commit this murder that Frank had. Who knows what white-faced scoundrel might have lurked around among those machines."
"Gentlemen, these facts drive out any suspicion that he did the deed simply because he was there. Father of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, father of us all, may no such mean prejudices rankle in the hearts of this consecrated jury, to the undoing of this unfortunate young boy."
"I know you will not blame if I fail in my feeble steps to walk over this same ground that this legal giant (referring to Arnold) did yesterday. So I will touch briefly on some of these points."
"I come to Conley. That part of the case fatigues may indignation. That white men should believe this infamous character is a shame on this great city and this great Siste, and will be to the end of time. Who is this Conley? Let's see who he used to be. A plain, dirty, filthy, drunken, lying, and I expect, lousy, negro.
Scores Scott,
Pinkerton Detective.
"Have I overstated that? Starnes knows I have not. Black knows I have not. I don't know whether Chief Beavers' dignity has ever got down low enough for him to see him, but if it has, he knows it. Now Black, he of the doubtful memory, he would remember one thing one time and the next time he wouldn't there was a good deal of fun made over Black, but I say he was trying to tell the truth and got mixed. But he is in a heap better fix than Scott. Scott well, I've seen a heap of men heavier up here (pointing to his forehead). He might detect a louse with a spyglass; I don't think he could do more."
"I said, Scott, what about that negro? Does he look like he did when you got him here?' He said No!' I said, They have slicked him up a little bit, haven't they?' And he had to admit it. And shame to them. Who was it that took this dirty, filthy negro, gave him warm baths and good clothes, and brought him out here to make his dirty, lying testimony before detectives? I don't charge that to anybody, because I don't know who it was, but it is as dirty and contemptible a piece of work as was ever done. They shaved that dirty-wool and his bestial face; and if I knew who was responsible for it I'd call his name."
"I've had that joke played on me, nearly, once before. Some hallroad lawyer dreaded up a brakeman who was suing the railroad and brought him into court, but I never heard of it being done in a case of life and death."
"It is very hard to find a man that somebody won't believe. There's Dalton; some few believed him. But who was there. In all that crowd, who would say they would believe Jim Conley?"
Black Hypocrisy
Charged to Dalton.
"What a contempt Black has for this man Dalton. What a contempt that son of Erin (pointing out Pat Campbell) has for him."
"Yet they found people who would testify to his good character and to his reputation for truth and veracity. One man said that Dalton had joined the church and so far as he knew, he was a good church member now. Thus was the blackest hypocrisy added to his other evil characteristics. But they found sponsors for him."
"But who was Conley? Who would stand up and may his character was good? Who would be sponsor for him?"
"Do you, Black? Stand up."
"Do you, Campbell?"
"Do you, Rosser? Rosser is one whose ancestors trod the earth in the same places as mine, and I know he wouldn't hang a suck-egg dog on the testimony of this lying nigger Conley."
"They have swept every back alley in Atlanta to get someone who would stand up and say that he was an honest nigger. But they found not a soul. Who is there that will stand up and marry the nigger Conley to the truth? Not a person."
Failed to Prove
Frank a Pervert.
"My friends on the other side have attempted to make this young man before you a pervert. They tried to do it on the lying testimony of this nigger, unsupported by a single other person. But they didn't do it."
"But even if they had proved it beyond doubt, it could not enter into this case. This boy is being tried for murder, and if he is a thousand times a pervert, that can not be allowed to sway your verdict."
"The vilest thing in this case is the dragging of this issue into the trial on the unsupported word of the lying nigger who is trying to save his own neck by any foul lies which he can shape."
"Yet the Solicitor made the charges here in open court." He made them before the jury, before everyone in the courtroom. He made them before the young wife of the defendant. He made them uselessly and purposelessly. They could serve only one purpose. The sole explanation is that the Solicitor made them to add a little strength to his case, to serve his leaping ambition to win his case and send a man to the gallows. It is impossible that it was done in the interests of justice."
"A dirty thief and liar was brought into the courtroom to destroy a man's character. My indignation can not be put in words."
Court adjourned at this point, for the noon recess, Attorney Rosser saying that as it was near the recess hour he would prefer to stop his address at that time, as he did not want to be interrupted in his closing at the afternoon session.
Woman Early
To Get Seats.
Attorney Rosser resumed his address at 2 o'clock. He said that he would probably consume about half or three-quarters of an hour longer. Many women were in courtroom during the afternoon, having been allowed to come in early and get seats. Several hundred men were on the outside trying to get admission when the court opened.
Attorney Rosser said:
"Gentlemen of the jury, when recess came I was just saying how horrible it was that this charge of perversion had been made against the defendant. Dorsey made the charge through his lying witness Conley. No other witness in this case has made such a suggestion as that made by the negro."
"It was a horrible thing a thing inconceivable that such an accusation should be brought in here. Conley had no one to support him except Dalton, and Dalton did not say that he ever had seen Frank in any wrong conduct. Dalton merely said that he had seen women in Frank's office. When questioned, he was unable to say that he ever saw Frank do a wrong act.
"Dalton in his story said that he was with Daisy Hopkins in the factory."
"But Conley says that it was Frank who had Daisy Hopkins. This is the important point on which these two liars differ. Conley said that Dalton was with some peace,' some lesser beauty, living between Haines and Hunter streets."
Says Conley Has
"Butted In" for Life.
He went to that Butt Inn saloon and Lord bless my soul, he has butted in for life. He gave a detailed statement of seeing those negroes and taking drinks with them. Did anyone of them come here to say he did? Did that negro come here that Conley said he shot dice with the negro with the whip around his nec
k"? Did that bartender come here who mixed his wins and beer?"
"Now, these police know those negroes on Peters street lots better than they do you and I. It is their business to know them. They know those dicemen around there like a book. If Conley had given a single correct name, time, place or incident, they would have had that whole horde of negroes lined up here."
"Another thing, he said dice: He would have said craps, until those policemen got him and talked to him. He said his name was James Conley; he certainly would have said Jim. If they hadn't have been after him. He said "Snowball" heard Frank tell him to come back and watch for him, but Snowball said he didn't! Snowball is just a plain, ordinary, African negro. He didn't know how to tell a lie."
"And then they talk about Frank try to make the police suspect somebody if he could. Why, it is just like an English sparrow suspecting a horse and then following him a mile."
Rosser Asserts He
"Broke Down" Conley.
"Get John Black on a negro and he will have to leave town. Poor old Snowball. That por negro is going to melt under the wrath of these policemen because he would not swear the way they wanted him to. Then there was old Truman McCrary, that old negro drayman raised before the war on greens and meat. I mighty near said cabbage. God deliver, me. Old man McCrary proved Conley a liar. The story implicating McCrary was about the 157th story, I don't remember the exact number."
"Conley didn't have to bring in old Truman, but with that African imagination of his, he likes to put frills on his tale. Instead of saying simply that eh did a thing, he says somebody told him to do it. Then Conley says he was there on Saturdays. Old man Holloway was there, and he branded Conley's story a lie."
"Do you believe those little office boys; those clean-cut little fellows who worked in Frank's office on Saturday afternoons? They brand Conley a liar."
"They say I didn't break Jim Conley flown. That is the silliest thing that he's been said since this trial began. I have been since this trial began. I have been practicing almost as long as my bald head would indicate, and I have never yet broken a witness down in the sense they mean. Did they want me to take a club and break his head? Lord knows I wish I could, but what we lawyers mean when we say we break a witness down is to demonstrate that he is a liar."
Says Conley Practiced
Telling Same Story.
"You can't get a man with Anglo-Saxon blood to admit he lied. He has pride. I have never seen one admit he lied. No matter where he is born, he has that same Anglo-Saxon pride. My friend John Black, Honest John, and I mean it, when he got to the point where he didn't know whether he was standing on his feet or his head, he admitted he was mixed up. Those were the words of an honest man."
"Now, with a negro it is different. He will admit he lied. Jim Conley without any character to protect, lied this way and lied that, and grinningly admitted it. He reminded me of a merchant down at Fayetteville. It was a case in which old Judge Dorsey appeared, in which Uncle Jesse was sued. They put an old man by the name of Green Gray on the stand who worked for old man Blalock, and he swore against the old fellow. Judge Dorsey argued that Uncle Jesse was bound by Green's statement. Uncle Jesse got up and said do the jury: Gentlemen, I just put old Green Gray up to see how he would swear,' and that is the way it is with Conley. It is a revelation how he did swear."
"It is true that every time Jim Conley repeated his story of the disposition of the body that he repeated it word for word. But is this so wonderful? Take an actor, one who portrays Shakespeare's characters, but who has studied Macbeth so much that he is letter perfect, you can wake him up in the midst of the night and he can repeat the part for
Continued on Page 5.
PAGE 29
FRANK'S AGITATION IS DECLARED NO GROUND FOR SUSPICION
Why Don't They Hang Everybody Who Was Nervous? Attorney Demand
MANY WOMEN FLOCK TO
COURT TO HEAR CLOSE
OF FRANK ARGUMENTS
Continued From Page 3.
you word for word. But get him on something else and he is lost."
"You can train a dog to do tricks; you can train a horse to count, but tell the dog or horse to count, something than that in which he is trained, and he is completely lost."
Conley Arraigned
For "Disremembering."
"And it was like this with this negro. He had been well trained in his part. As long as he was repeating his story of the disposition of the body he was letter perfect. But just let me ask him anything else and instantly he was freed. He couldn't remember anything else. I asked him about Daisy Hopkins. The first time he spoke of Daisy he said he saw her on the first floor with Mr. Frank. Then he had her somewhere else, and then again at another place."
"If I asked him questions of other things, he would say, I can't remember.' He could trip pack and forth over his story and remember every word. Conley reminds me of an instance in connection with Queen Caroline of England. She was charged with treason, but no Englishman dared to swear against her. They searched the whole of the broad land and not a man of the Anglo-Saxon race would dare to speak the lies they sought to have spoken. Finally they found two or three Italians who swore against her. They learned their tale and they had it as letter perfect as the actor who studied Macbeth. But when their questioners deviated from the particular subject they would resort they could not remember. They perjured themselves. And it was this way with that negro, Jim Conley. He perjured himself."
"They say he could not have made up that kind of a story, but I think he could, and I think he did well in remembering his story."
"Negro Was Lying To
Save His Own Neck."
"But why shouldn't he? Think of the coaching he had, I think if I had Black, Starnes, the Chief of Detectives and the rest of them, that I could become letter perfect in it, too. He had them to help him out. Let's call them professors in this school of learning."
"Here is Starnes; let's call him the professor of theology. Then there is Professor Black Professor Scott, Professor Rosser and their dean, Newport Lanford. Ah, here comes the dean now."
At this moment Chief Lanford entered the courtroom.
"Now, we shall open school in regular order. Tell me a negro can't fix up a scheme to protect himself. Why, gentlemen of the jury, would any Southern man believe that statement? I would not expect a negro to become a student by the midnight lamp. I would not expect him to become an astrologer. I would not expect him to become an architect and plan a cathedral. The negro is not possessed of that sort originality. But if anyone thinks this negro Jim Conley hasn't a keen African imagination, he is mistaken."
"The person who thinks the negro can not make up folklore and stories is greatly mistaken. They are mistaken if they think eh can not tell a story to save his own neck."
"Why, Brother Starnes, if you saw a negro with a chicken in his possession and he told you he got it from Mrs. Jones across the street you would put him in jail as soon as he told the story. Where does all the folklore come from? It comes from Africa. Where did we get the material for the Uncle Remus stories? From the same origin."
How the Witness
Arranged His Dates.
"When it comes to fixing a grewsome story like that told by Jim Conley, there is not a white man in my hearing who is the equal of the negro. Let's see the story he told: He began by telling of being on Peters street all Saturday forenoon. He said that he wasn't at the factory at all. Starnes said he couldn't fix a story, but he fixed this one. They got Mrs. White to look at him at the police station. And he screwed his face up so she couldn't recognize him. They found out that he could write. He had lied about that. They caught him reading in the stockade; caught him reading right in this courthouse. He
had lied about that."
"What did the detectives do with that negro? They took him down and gave him what I called the third degree. They said it wasn't, but if it wasn't, I should hate to get the fourth. They swore at him; they abused him; they said to him Don't you know that man didn't bring you down there Friday to write those notes?' and Jim would say, Yes, boss, I know.' They would say, Don't you know eh wouldn't have you write those notes before he killed the girl?' and Jim would say, Yes, boss, I know that's right.' They would say. Well, then, why don't you tell the truth,' and Jim would say, I will, boss: it was on Saturday.'
"You can very easily see how they made him fix up his story. They took his lies and showed him where they could not be true. They told him where they were wrong and where they would have to be fixed up. We have got Scott's own testimony for that."
Viciously Assails
Detectives' Methods.
"Scott and Black had him when he was in the high school. I don't know whether Scott and Black are professors or not, but they would say to him, Stand up, Jim Conley, and recite.' I reckon they called him James' and then say to him, Stand up James; when did you write those notes, James?"
"And he would say, On Friday.' And they would say, Ain't you got no sense? Don't you know that you wrote those notes on Saturday?' He would say, Yes, boss.' They would say, Now, James, let's be sure about that; when did you write those notes?'. And the negro would say, I wrote them on Saturday, boss.' They would say, That's right, Jim. You are all right, now.'"
"I know how they got that. Good boy, James; let's have that again. What were they doing five hours one day and one hour another day? Was it an honest thing; was it a right thing? Was it right for two white men to take him and educate him. But that was only the high school. They had to take him through the university. Scott and Black were too white for that; they didn't get any perversion. They were too honest. But at the university they had Professors Starnes and Campbell. I would give anything in the world to look as pious as Professor Starnes. I don't know whether Professor Dorsey was in there or not, but there are some mighty strange things. They didn't dare make other affidavits. We trailed the serpent too well by those first three. It is just as plain as Colonel Hooper and I used to trail the gopher in South Georgia."
He Told New Story
At Every Opportunity.
"That tiptoeing and running back and forth when did that get in? Seven times Dorsey had him. Three times Starnes had him. Oh, gentlemen, lovers of justice, is it fair to take this pliable negro and fan him away from a statement he said was the truth and was his last? Has he told the last? Who knows but that the 157th chapter of his statement is but the beginning of the clearing of this mystery? At the very last opportunity he told a new story, one even Professor Starnes did not know about, the product of some other party. He told about finding that mesh bag."
"They didn't put him back as they started to. They were afraid he would give a new revelation of the whole affair. I am nearly through, but before I conclude I want to direct your attention to one fact. Put away all I have said. Forget it, and I wouldn't blame you if you did. One who has talked as much as I have, deserves to be forgotten. I don't care anything about that doctor's row. I think that was one of the funniest things that ever crept into a courthouse. It doesn't make any difference whether the statement of Johnson that she died within an hour, or the statement of Westmoreland and the others that it was all a wild guess, is true. I just want to say that if I believed Dr. Harris' statement the next time I got sick I would send for him and give him the earth."
"Dr. Harris believed he was telling the truth. Harris is a fine body. His father admitted me to the bar, though he may be culpable for that, but did you ever eat any cabbage? I can eat everything from whetstones to cabbage, but cabbage alone I can't digest."
"Time Element Fatal
To State's Theory."
"I can drink everything from lager beer to champagne, but I can't digest champagne. They say they are talking about normal stomachs. There are no normal stomachs, according to these experts. I will bet there are not three men in the courtroom who will prove to have normal stomachs under their examination."
"Have you got a normal nose? Have I got a normal nose? I wouldn't say I have, but let's dismiss all that. Let Harris pet his theory like he would a house cat. Let's look at the cold facts in this case."
"In the first place, that little boy Epps says he and Mary Phagan got to Forsyth and Marietta streets at 12:07 o'clock. The motorman testified that that was the time the car got there. Her own mother said she left home at 11:45 and the most reasonable assumption from that statement is that she caught the 12:07 schedule."
"If you make a just allowance for the time it took to walk to the factory, it was about 12:12 when arrived. Dorsey is going to deny that, but just for the sake of argument, admit the car was three minutes ahead of time. She got there at 12:09. Suppose she got there at 12:05? I don't believe she did. I don't believe little Monteen Stover could see into Frank's infer office. The fact stands out that at 12:20 Lemmie Quinn was there at this work. Frank was there. Do you believe he could have killed that little girl, washed his hands, cleaned his clothes, and been in their calmly at work in 13 minutes?"
"Who Lies Conley
Or These Good Women?"
"If he could have done it, the magicians of India are but common tricksters compared with him."
"Frank is a magician if he killed a girl and then performed the work that he did that afternoon. But I think that we will hardly accuse him of being that. He must have disposed of the body some time between six minutes to 1 and 1:30 o'clock. That is, if we believe Jim Conley."
"Conley is positive about the time, because he went across the street and ate a lunch. Ah, what an appetite he had. He ate a fish and liver sandwich, and eh is positive that Frank must have done it by 1:30, because after he got over there and ate this fish and liver sandwich he looked at the clock, and it was 20 minutes to 2."
"Now, bear this in mind, gentlemen. He said 1:30. Now, let's see whether he perjured himself or not. Here is little Miss Curran. She has told you that she saw Frank at 1:10. Are we to make a perjurer of this sweet young girl? Then there is Mrs. Levy, a neighbor of Frank's. She saw Frank at 1:30. Are we to make a perjurer of her? Can you say that you believe the story of Conley and in the same breath call Miss Curran and Mrs. Levy liars?"
"Now take the mother-in-law and father-in-law of Frank. They say that Frank came home about 1:20 to lunch. Are we to tell these old people that they are liars, too?"
Claims Alibi From
State's Own Testimony.
"And, gentlemen, there is the hardest thing of all. They must also make a perjurer of Minola's husband. Albert McKnight, for he says that Frank was there about 1:20 at the Selig home. Ah, think of that. To make a perjurer of their own Albert."
"Then Minola says that Frank was there at 1:20. And Minola ah, she is the greatest stain on this case. Can we ever forget the plot made by this poor wretch arrested out of the Solicitor's office? Ah, the shame of it all, I assert that the men connected with this hideous affair, the unlawful arrest of this poor woman, will be ashamed of this one act the balance of their lives. And Starnes, the honest man that he is, tells us that before he could turn her loose, he had to call up Dorsey twice. And where is my immaculate friend Beavers, who stood by and watched it all? If all this is not true, then Starnes had to perjure himself when on the stand."
"Ah, many things have happened under oath in this case which may or may not have happened, but there is one thing on which the State and the defense are agreed that is, except Conley t
hat Frank was not in that factory at 1:30. Conley alone, perjurer that he is, untrained and untaught, the great liar that he is, also says he was there. And on Conley rests their case."
"Consider this line, gentlemen, and the others. No one body on earth has the power of the American jury. They hold the power of life and death and I have yet to find one that failed to show its courage."
Rosser Concludes
Plea of Defense.
"Gentlemen, I am nearly through. I wish to call your attention to one thing. They mentioned this man Mincey and intimated that we were afraid to introduce him. But his testimony was not of any direct, prohibitive value. All that we desired of Mincey was to discredit Conley, but Conley got up himself, and admitted that he was a liar. So what was the use of calling Mincey for the same purpose? It might have been a day's row to determine if he were a responsible person. I know nothing about Mincey, nor care anything about him. If he is as honest and truthful as the angels in Heaven we had no need for him. If he is merely part of a scum that has arisen at a time like this, then I would certainly want to wash my hands of him."
"I have yet to believe that it is necessary for the truth to be cared for, cherished and watered through four long months by the detectives. I have yet to believe that this man Conley has to be supported in his statement by sudden visits of the Solicitor I have yet to believe it requires so many professors to bring Conley's story to its full and fruition. God deliver me from some of the testimony that has come up in this case. I might have hanged a yellow dog upon it, btu I would have gone home ashamed of myself. Gentlemen of the jury, you have heard me courteously, I thank you. This case has been a furious one. You have been attentive and I have appreciated it."
This concluded Rosser's address and Solicitor Dorsey immediately began the closing argument for the State.
PAGE 28
HOOPER AND ARNOLD IN
ARGUMENT MADE MOST
OF THEIR OPPORTUNITIES
By JAMES B. NEVIN
Frank Hooper's speech in behalf of the prosecution against Leo Frank, charged with the murder of little Mary Phagan, reflected much credit upon him.
It was fair, to the point, well thought out and appealing in tone and delivery.
It went for the defendant, hammer and tongs, but it was devoid of anything that might be construed as below the belt.
Undoubtedly, it was not pleasant to the defendant, sitting there, stolidly, following the words of Hooper but Dorsey and Hooper, in its final aspect, have made out a most dangerous case against Frank, and Hooper was there to explain and sustain it. He performed his duty in a way that hardly can fail to bring him lasting applause and commendation.
If, however, Frank felt to the full the gloom of the case made out against him by Hooper, he was more than abundantly taken care of when Arnold followed.
The case made out in defense of Frank by Arnold was extremely plausible it covered in detail every point developed by Hooper. It, like Hooper's, was a speech evidently carefully considered.
Jury Held In High Esteem.
Now, the thing about these two speeches that made them particularly and uniquely noteworthy, perhaps, is that both were seemingly designed for the consideration of a jury held to be highly intelligent and not apt to rush pell-mell to a verdict either for or against Frank.
And if the opposing counsel entertain the opinion of the jury if they hold it in such compelling esteem and respect and if the jury is such a jury as deserves that opinion, which I think it is, then the chances are that its verdict will be righteous and just, whatever it may be.
And that the finding of this jury SHALL speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth that, in the words of Hamlet, "is a consummation most devoutly to be wished!"
"Try this case, gentlemen, according to the law and the facts!" said Frank Hooper, addressing the jury Thursday.
That is the final and ultimate request any man for or against the defendant could or should make of the "twelve good men and true" there to pass upon the fate of Leo Frank.
Neither the State nor the defense, in justice and right, dare will plead for more or less!
The two opening speeches in murder trials are presumed to outline clearly the trend of the completed arguments both ways.
Concluding attorneys may amplify and enlarge upon points raised by opening attorneys, but they rarely go far beyond the primary outlining of the two main points of view.
And so, while Rosser and Dorsey may go further than Hooper and Arnold in invective, sarcasm, ridicule and passionate outbreak, neither is apt to add anything material to either side, as compared with the things Hooper and Arnold have said.
There is some advantage to the State or, at least, there is supposed to be some advantage to it in that it has the concluding argument before the jury.
No Injustice There.
Some people think this is an injustice and a hardship upon the defense, but when one comes to consider the theory upon which that practice is founded the apparent injustice and hardship of it vanishes, and it may be seen readily enough that in this, as in so many things the law has been most carefully thought out
And is just and right.
The law throws about the defendant at bar the presumption of innocent
It places upon the State the burden of proving him guilty, rather than putting upon the defendant the burden of proving himself innocent.
But the law, having done this, permits the final voice to be the voice from the grave.
The dead he or she is not there to speak, and to say as to the truth, and so the law directs that the State's prosecuting counsel shall speak it instead.
Thus does the law, with impartial hand, protect first the defendant and the protect quite as jealously its own majesty, and the rights of the dead!
The law, however, in the event the defendant elects to introduce no witnesses in his behalf, and to rely solely upon his own isolated statement, not under oath, reverses the order of argument and permits the defense to open and close for the law will not permit a defendant even to place himself at a disadvantage without fully compensating him for the same!
What will the Frank jury say?
Will it find the prisoner not guilty, clear his name of all stain and send him forth a free man?
Or will it find him guilty and fasten upon him forever the disgrace of one of the most inhuman and diabolical crimes ever committed in Georgia?
To render the latter verdict, it must believe Frank a monster, lost to every sense of decency and right a man who has meanly and unpardonably deceived his mother, his wife, his friends, his faithful employees and his acquaintances. It must believe him a cruel murderer, for an unspeakable lust the vilest and most evil creature ever known among his kindred and his kind!
Will the jury believe that? It is not easy to think it will.
And yet
The Alternative.
Not to believe it is to believe those girls who swore Frank's character is bad, who cited instances of a suspicious nature to uphold that belief, are wrong that they knew him not, notwithstanding their opportunity and that all the circumstances of the crime seemingly connecting him with it are errors and that Conley's story, no less too big to be true than too big to be untrue, still is untrue, and that all the thins alleged against Frank either are wrong naturally or wrong by design and malicious purpose!
Will the jury look at the matter that way? It is not easy to think it will!
And yet, again, it MUST believe the one or the other or there will be no verdict!
What, then, CAN honest minded mortals, men and women who want to see the right and the right alone prevail, do other than put their faith in the JURY there, and believe that it will speak the TRUTH of this case, no matter what may be anybody's preconceived opinion?
The time for argument has passe
d. Rosser and Arnold and Hooper and Dorsey have about concluded that.
The general public should now prepare itself to receive the verdict as the final and determining circumstances in the cases.
Individual opinion is interesting at times, but after all, one man's opinion is as good as another's, but not more so.
The Important Thing.
What you think, reader, and what I think, is relatively inconsequential the thing that matters SUPREMELY now, and the thing that alone matters supremely, is what does the JURY think, and what will the jury say!
No one of us has the opportunity to know so well the ins and outs of the case as the jury. The jury does not read what I write nor does it hear what you say. It is there, in the courtroom, aside from the outside world, off to itself, a thing apart there to do justice, to the State and to Frank, though the heavens fall!
There is no responsibility up individuals expressing opinion pro and con. They are not under oath the life of a human being, on the one hand, and the majesty of the law of the land on the other, are no direct legal concerns of theirs.
It is all very well for you to say, "If I were running this thing I would turn Frank loose in a jiffy," or "If I were running this thing I would hang Frank," when there is no legally impose and oath-bound obligation upon you to render a verdict that means something definite in law.
With a juryman, however, the case is different he is there to fashion a finding that means everything!
Within twenty-four hours, perhaps, the public will know what the Frank jury thinks of the case made against him.
The jury may convict him, and it may acquit him.
No man possibly can know, at this time and nothing is so uncertain in the matter of forecasting as the verdict of a jury.
Public Should Accept Verdict.
But whether it be acquittal or conviction, the public should, and the law-abiding public WILLL, prepare itself to accept that verdict as righteous and just.
No man ought to be willing to set his opinion doggedly against that of those "twelve good men and true," whatever their verdict may be.
Leo Frank, the defendant, is entitled to all the protection the law gives defendants he is entitled to an absolutely fair trial, without favor or prejudice, one way or the other. He is entitled to all of that but no more.
The State has rights as sacred as the defendant's they must be considered.
What more can human ingenuity and the forms of law provide by way of finding the truth of a case like the one now on trial, than has been provided in the present hearing?
FELINE WAIF FINDS PROTECTOR
IN PRETTY HOTEL ANSLEY MISS
This is Miss
Gladys
Brinkley and
"Governor
Slaton" in a
special pose for camera
"Governor"
is never quite
happy unless
he is safe in the
arms of his fair
guardian. No
one can step on
his tall then
he's sure
of that.
"Governor Slaton" Is One of the
Most Distinguished Young
Cats in Atlanta.
"Governor Slaton" was peeved, and justly so, for a hurrying travelling man had stepped on his tail. He arched his back, dug his claws into the soft rugs at the Hotel Ansley and snarled vengefully. He loved nobody and nobody loved him.
Then Miss Glady's Brinkley came along. Miss Brinkley is one of the prettiest of the young women who worked at the Ansley. Diners unite in saying that the smiles she dispenses as she hands out the hats at the door of the rathskeller are worth more than the dinner.
It was one of those whole-souled, joyful smiles that Miss Brinkley bestowed on the disconsolate "Governor." The "Governor" succumbed to the witchery of the smile and knew right away that he had found a friend. So he sheathed his claws, dropped his back, and leaped straight into Miss Brinkley's arms, where he purred contentedly while she stroked him behind the ears and crooned over him.
For "Governor Slaton" isn't what you might think he is at all!
He's a cat!
And the "Governor" is quite a remarkable cat, too. To begin with, he is snow white; not a blotch of color mars his sleek beauty. He is absolutely alone in the world, having no brothers and sisters, and his mother deserted him when he was quite young. He is further distinguished by the fact that he probably is the only cat in captivity born in a big hotel. For the "Governor" first saw the light of day in a vacant room on the thirteenth floor of Atlanta's newest hostelry.
"Governor Slaton" does not care much for human companionship except Miss Brinkley but once again in a while he will allow Mrs. Morgan, who keeps a shop on the mezzanine floor, to pat him. He has no use for men, unless they come bearing gifts, which he accepts and then sticks a claw into the hand of the giver. He is happy about six hours a day. That is when Miss Brinkley is on duty and he can snuggle up at her feet or purr luxuriously in her lap.
And Miss Brinkley likes the "Governor," too.
"All cats are nice," she said, "but I just dote on Governor.' He is so well behaved, and never tries to scratch me. He always hunts me up when I go to work, and will sit with me for hours at a time. The Governor' has been my friend ever since I first saw him, the day the travelling man stepped on his foot. I felt so sorry for him I couldn't keep from cuddling him."
The hotel attaches tell a rather remarkable tale about the coming of the cat, which shows why he was named "Governor Slaton." It seems that when the rugs came to the Ansley and workmen took them to the thirteenth floor, a big white cat jumped out when they unrolled one. Kitty ran down the hall, and no attention was paid to her. Two weeks later this hotel opened, and Governor John M. Slaton was the first man to register. The same night one of the hotel employees found a little white cat on the thirteenth floor, crying its little heart out for something to eat. By consulting a few clocks and watches, it was learned that the cat had been born at the exact moment Governor Slaton was inscribing his name on the hotel register hence the name.
PAGE 31
DORSEY IN FINAL ATTACK ON FRANK
Jim Conley's Story Proven Impossible, Says Attorney Rosser
ACCUSED ARRAIGNED
BY SOLICITOR AS HE
SUMS STATE'S CASE
Solicitor Hugh Dorsey, Friday afternoon, opened a vigorous, cutting arraignment of Leo M. Frank the final blow of the State at the man accused of the murder of Mary Phagan. The Solicitor followed Luther Rosser who had spoken for more than six hours and he was expected to make an exhaustive review of the evidence in an effort to show that it fixed the crime conclusively on Frank.
Solicitor Dorsey was not expected to finish before evening and the Judge's charge will probably be made tomorrow.
Solicitor Dorsey arose from his seat and remaining at his table, began addressing the court in low, even tones.
"May it please your Honor," he said, "I wish to thank you for the courtesy in giving us unlimited time, and I desire, gentlemen of the jury, to commiserate you. But as his Honor has told you, this is an important case. It is important to society; important to the defense; important to me; important to you."
"I would not feel like slurring over any of it for the sake of physical conditions. And indeed, gentlemen of the jury, although I know it does inconvenience you, I feel that you would not have me slur over any of it. I may seem at some stages a little tedious, but a case that has consumed almost a solid month, a case of thin magnitude, can't be argued quickly."
"This case, not only as his honor has told you, and X have intimated, is important, but it is extraordinary. It was an extraordinary crime, a most heinous crime; a crime that demanded earnest, vigorous, conscientious effort on the part of the detectives and myself. And it demands earnest, vigorous conscientious consideration on your part."
"It is extraordinary because of the prominence and the ability of the counsel that has
been pitted against me. Four of them, Arnold, Rosser and the two Haas'."
Leonard Haas interrupted Dorsey: "No, I am not one of the counsel," he said.
"All right," said Dorsey, "three of them Haas. It is extraordinary because of the defendant. It is extraordinary on account of the argument of the defense; also on account of the methods they have pursued. They have two of the ablest lawyers in this country; also Mr. Haas is an able lawyer."
"As Mild a Man As
Ever Cut a Throat."
"There is Mr. Rosser, rider of the winds and stirrer of the storms. Mr. Arnold and what I say is meant in no bitterness, because I love him as mild a mannered man as ever cut a throat or scuttled a ship."
"They have maligned me and abused the detectives and they have heaped calumny upon us to such an extent that good lady over there, the mother of the defendant, arose in this presence and called me a dog. When did a murderer ever feel the halter tightening around his neck with a good opinion of the law?"
"I don't want your good opinion," said Dorsey, turning to Frank. "If you (turning to the jury) put your stamp of approval on my case. I am satisfied. They say prejudice and perjury, and they used that stereotyped expression, fatigued indignation. Don't let that indignation accentuate your action."
Defense Brought in
Issue of Prejudice.
"Gentlemen, do you think that these detectives and myself, sworn officers of the law would have sought to hang this man and pass up Jim Conley, a negro, unless we knew what we were doing?"
"Prejudice? Was it prejudice when they arrested Newt Lee? And Gantt? No, it was not prejudice until the law got their client, Leo M. Frank. We never once in this trial referred to a sect or creed. It was they that brought it in. It was their one deliverance."
"Not a word emanated from this side indicating any prejudice in this case. Any prejudice, white or black, Jew or Gentile. We did not need it. We would have despised ourselves if we had brought it into this case, and when it was brought into the case at the last hour, when the attorneys for the defense questioned George Kenley how they jumped upon it. How the expressions of delight spread over their faces when the word Jew was spoken. They seized on it with avidity. They have harped on it all through their speeches. We never mentioned it. Please remember that. The race from which that man came is just as good as ours. It was civilized when ours was still cutting each other up and eating one another. Their race is as good as ours, but not any better."
"I honor the race that has produced a Disraeli, the greatest Prime Minister that England ever had. I honor the Strauss brothers, particularly the one who went down on the Titanic with his wife. I know Rabbi Marx and I honor him. I know Dr. Sonn, of the Orphan's Home, and I honor him."
Ask Conviction
Only On Evidence.
"But this same race has produced its Abe Humel, sent to the penitentiary in New York; its Abe Reuf, sent to the penitentiary in California. Its Nathan Schwartz, who stabbed little Julia Conners in New York."
"These illustrations show that this race is amenable to the same laws as other races. They rise to heights sublime, but they sink to the depths of degradation."
"We don't ask the conviction of this man except according to the law which his honor will give to you in his charts. His honor will say to you not to convict this defendant unless you are convinced of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt."
"And what is this reasonable doubt? The jurors get an idea that there is something mysterious about this. But it is as plain as the nose on your face. It is a thing that speaks for itself. It is not perceptible of any definition. Anyone who attempts to define it uses tautology; he used the same word over again. Its best definition is contained in the eighty-third Georgia Report, which says:
"A reasonable doubt is one opposed to an unreasonable doubt. It is one for which a reason can be given. And is one based on reason. Such a doubt leaves the mind in an uncertain and wavering condition. It is impossible to say with reason and moral certainty that a person is guilty."
(Luther Rosser's speech in full on inside page.)
PAGE 32
LUTHER ROSSER'S COMPLETE ADDRESS DEFENDING LEO FRANK
Dorsey, Detectives and Conley Are Given Terrific Scoring by Attorney
CALM, DISPASSIONED
PLEA FOR ACQUITTAL
IMPRESSES HEARERS
Luther Rosser's closing argument unquestionably made a deep impression. He attacked the State's case at every point and branded Conley's story a tissue of rehearsed lies. He analyzed the case piece by piece and against the State's assumptions advanced others to show that what the prosecution had tried to show was sinister fact was hunt distortion of innocent facts.
In a moving description of the death of Mary Phagan and the picture her body made as it lay in the morgue, Mr. Rosser had many in the courtroom on the verge of tears, but the motif' of his talk was not pathos but ridicule, denunciation and calm analysis.
Rosser's Speech Remarkably Calm.
Rosser's speech was remarkable for its calmness, but its very quietness added to its impressiveness. For the most part he bought to impress upon the jury that "fair play" must be done, and that they were a sacred body set apart to weigh facts and do justice uninfluenced by outside consideration.
However, the speaker was unsparing in discussing Jim Conley, C. b> Dalton and the methods used by the detectives to set evidence that he held up to ridicule. When he had been talking for two hours he launched into an indirect but bitter arraignment of Solicitor Dorsey, referring particularly to the attempt to make Frank's hiring of Rosser look like a damning circumstance.
Calls Dorsey's Insinuations Contemptible.
"My friend Dorsey," he said, "made much of the fact that Frank hired the lawyer. The charges and insinuations that he has made are the most contemptible that have ever occurred in a Georgia court. The things he has done in this trial will never be done in Georgia again. I will stake my life on that.
"You may question Frank in his judgement, he might have hired a better lawyer than I. He might have hired a more decent lawyer, but he couldn't have hired a more devoted lawyer. I will saw that for myself if I drop dead in my tracks."
"Gentlemen of the jury," he began in a low voice, as he leaned against the railing of the jury box, "all things come to an end. With the end of this case it was almost the end of the trial. But for that masterly effort of my friend Arnold, I almost wish it had ended without any speaking. My physical condition enabled me to say but little. My voice is husky and almost useless. But for my intense interest, my profound conviction of the innocence of this man, I would say nothing."
Public Mind
Always Careless.
"I want to repeat what my friend Arnold so aptly said, "This jury is no mob. The attitude of the jurors' mind is not the attitude of the man who carelessly walks the street. My friend Hooper must have brought that doctrine with him when he came to Atlanta."
"We walk the streets carelessly, absorbed in our own interests. We pass our friends and do not recognize them. The mind wanders in flights of fancy and fits of revelry. We mean no harm to ourselves nor harm to our friends, but we are careless."
"Men, you are set aside. You came to be a part of that revelry of the streets. In old pagan Rome women walked the streets chatted gally and carelessly, but a few were set aside the vestal virgins. They cared not for the gladiatorial combats or the strife."
"So it is with you set apart, You care not for the chatter or the laughter of the rabble. You are unprejudiced. Yours is the sworn duty to pass on a matter of life and death. You are to decide on the evidence without an echo from any hostile mob. With no fear, no favor, no affect."
"Others may take the brave task of standing up for the weak and oppressed, but it is not fo
r you. You are a still, silent, consecrated band. You are to do your duty without one thought of the past or the future. You are here and now consecrated by justice to do your duty. I do not feel that I can add to anything Mr. Arnold said except to touch the high palaces and probably wander afield Rome place where he did not go."
"No crime could be more frightful than this. That little girl in the sweetest period of her life was cut down by some brute and the public was horrified. We all agree that no punishment would be severe enough. It is nothing but human nature in a crime of this kind that a victim is demanded."
"A cry goes up for vengeance. It is the old law of an eye for an eye and a life for a life. It is the primeval man. The early Indian when his companion fell by his side demanded vengeance. He went out for a victim regardless of who it was. But, thank God, that age is past and in this intelligent twentieth century of ours we no longer say, Give us a victim, a sacrifice, but give us the guilty man.'"
Rosser Analyzes
Dalton's Character.
"I believe this jury is a courageous jury. I know they are not like primeval men. I know they are not lime primeval men, who sought to find a victim whether he was guilty or not. Let us see who is the man most likely to have committed the crime. You want to ask what surroundings such a crime was likely to have come from, and to look at the man who was most likely to have done it."
"My friend Hooper understood that. He said that the conditions at the factory were likely to produce such a crime, but as a matter of fact the conditions are no better and no worse than in any other factory. You find good men and bad man, good women and bad women. What man raises one word against the moral atmosphere of that factory? Conley? Yes. I'll come to him later, not now. Dalton? Yes. I'll take up his case right now.
"God Almighty when He writes upon a human face does not always write a beautiful hand, but He writes a legible one. If you were in the dark with that man Dalton, wouldn't you put your hand on your pocketbook? If you wouldn't, you are braver men than I. The word "thief" is written all over his face. My friend Rube Arnold said when Dalton came to the stand, "That's a thief or I don't know one." I smelled the odor of the chaingang upon him; I reached' for him; I felt' for him; I asked him if he had ever been long away from home. He evaded me. When he left the stand, I said, Rube, that man's been in the chaingang as sure as there's a God in heaven.' And, sure enough, we looked him up, and he had been. Then he came to Atlanta, and they said he had reformed. But there are two things in this world I do not believe in. One is a reformed thief and the other is a reformed woman of the streets."
"Joining the Church Is
Old Trick of Thieves."
"One the cross the thief prayed, and the Master recognized him. He gave him forgiveness. He saw the thief and before the thief spoke He recognized him as a thief. But the Lord is all-forgiving, and He said to the thief, This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.' Now, I have no faith in these reformed thieves. I have no faith in a reformed prostitute. Tell me you can reform a thief? I mean a thief at heart, and the man who has thievery in his heart will carry it there all his life. He may steal with secrecy, and be safe, but the thievery is still within him. You may reform other criminals, but the thief never."
"Has Dalton reformed? Oh, he has done the beastly thing. He has done the low, with a sanctimonious expression on his face. He slinks down upon a congregation of godly people and deceives them. He joins them in hypocritical carrying on of their work. He deceives them. Why, gentlemen of the jury, joining the church is an old trick of thieves, and here before us we have had the real illustration, that of a thief who stinks in two counties and goes into another to get away from the odor of his past existence."
"Here is this man Dalton, of the Anglo-Saxon race. Yes, gentlemen of the jury, he had a white face, but that was all. He was black within. What did he do, this thief who joined the church? Look how brazenly he advertised his immorality. When he was placed upon the stand and questioned as to his acts, he could have declined to answer; he could at least have hung his head in shame. But was he ashamed? No; he was as proud of his dirty immorality was a young boy with a new red top. He smiled over it. He gloated over it. It was the first time in his existence that a group of respectable men and women had listened to him, and he fairly gloated."
"Did you hear what he said when asked as to what Frank was doing in his office? He said: I had such a peach myself that I had no time to give attention to anyone else.' Gentlemen, he said he had Daisy, and you saw Daisy. She was the peach!' Poor Daisy! She is not to blame. If she has fallen, which I pray to God she has not, let us forgive her, like the Saviour forgave the Magdalene."
"Gentlemen of the jury, I don't say all of us have been free of passion's lust, but I do say that most of humanity guilty of the crime hold it private. A gentleman wants decent surroundings when committing such an act. He wants cleanliness. No decent man ever stood on the stand and bragged about the peace' that he had. Why, even the beasts of the field hide that."
"Burns had it right when he said in that poem about be gentle with your brother man, be gentler with your sister woman.' That ends with the line, Tis human to step aside.'"
Dalton went and got that peace' and carried her to his scuttlehole like a gopher. Did you ever see a gopher? My friend Hooper used them for chains down in South Georgia all his life. The gopher has a hole, with usually a rattlesnake for his companion. Ain't that a fine combination? In that dirty, filthy old hole of the pencil factory, an old goods boxes, with an odor which if put to the nose of a skunk would be offensive, where a dog would not step aside, where an old lascivious cat would not crouch that's Dalton. Yet only he and Jim Conley have brought charges of immorality against this factory.
"I am going to be fair with you, gentlemen, if I can. I am not going to tell you the truth. I thought this case was to be tried by a Solicitor General. God save the mark! I've never seen such partisan feelings before."
Says State Witness
Left Serpent's Trail.
"This arm of the State is to protect the weak, yet I've heard something I've never heard before, and I never expect to hear as long as God lets me live. The Solicitor said, I'll go as far as the court will allow me. That's the crux of this whole case. When the Solicitor General said that, God only knows how far the detectives want. Dalton said he went to the factory some time last year, between the hours of 1 and 2 o'clock. Did he go into the Woodenware Company's part of the building or into the pencil factory? There's nothing to show, except that wherever he went he left the trail of a serpent behind him. Frank didn't know he was there. It was Frank's lunch hour. If Dalton went, he was taking advantage of the factory authorities."
"When we come to consider it, what is there about this factory to make it so bad as the State has tried to paint it? It was searched by my friend Starnes, who wouldn't stop at anything to get evidence. It was searched by that delightful man John Black. Do you know when I think of him I just want to take him in my arms and caress him. And it was searched by Patrick Campbell, that noble detective who wouldn't go on the stand for fear I might ask him about his tutorage of Jim Conley."
"The entire police department, in all its pride, went over the record of that factory with a fine-toothed comb. What have they found?"
"Let's see. In the first place we have had a mighty upheaval in the last two years. It is wrong to commit adultery, but with segregation, the proper surroundings, and a decent amount of secrecy, the world tolerates it. But Chief beavers doesn't. He has combed the town with a fine-toothed comb. Youn
g women have had to fly to cover, and young men are down the middle of the road. That immoral squad; what do they call it, Brother Arnold? Oh, yes; the vice squad, has swept the town with a broom until there is not one lascivious louse left in the head of the body politic. And now they try to tell us this pencil factory was an immoral resort."
"Who has one word to say against that boy Schiff? Who has a word to say against young Wade Campbell?"
Rosser turned toward Attorney Hooper at this point, and continued: "You were willing, without one line of testimony, to attack the characters of these young men, so that you may carry your case. You are willing to clasp this Bertus Dalton to your breast as though he were a 16-year-old. If I know a single thing on this earth I know the ordinary working man and working woman of Georgia. I have an ancestry of working people behind me. My parents were working people. With 100 of Atlanta's working girls, with about the same number of Atlanta's hardy working men, in that factory on Forsyth street. I assert they could not have been there eight long years if the factory had been an immoral house. Those girls would have fled. The outraged citizens would have torn down that old building, stone by stone. You may assert that those girls wouldn't have fled, but I tell you I have a higher conception of the Georgian working girl than to believe for one minute that she would have remained."
"If I am mistaken, and 100 willing females stayed there, and 100 thin-blooded males stood by and let conditions continue. I assert the factory could not have lasted 48 hours. NO man in charge of a business of that magnitude ever yet attempted to be on terms of criminal intimacy with the scores of women in his employ but that they didn't rule him with stronger reins than the Queen of Sheba."
"Frank's Statement
Had Ring of Truth.'"
"What do you think would become of a factory superintendent who got on intimate terms with his women employees? This would be bad enough for a native born American, but what would you think full-blooded Americans would do or say about a foreigner who came here and attempted such a thing, and especially considering the antipathy which has always been borne to the Jewish race?"
"Now, I have shown you that the factory has been prosperous, and we know well enough that it could not have been prosperous if immorality had been allowed to exist there."
"Now, let's take up the man. I don't have to tell you that he is smart. Every one of us knows that. When he got upon the stand and talked to you, he gave illustration of being one the most remarkable men I have ever met. His talk to you was, indeed, remarkable, and as I sat and listened to it for the first time. I wondered and marveled at the brain of the man. I could never have made up a speech like that, even if I had had the brains. And it wasn't a written speech, either. It was the truth, gushing out naturally as does the water from the flowing spring. There was no force behind it. There was no electricity there. It was the plain, simple flowing truth as mother Nature furnished it."
"Gentlemen of the jury, if Frank's tank to you had been forced, it would not have had that ring of truth to it. You may make a silver dollar that in appearance would fool the Secretary of the Treasury. But drop that dollar and the ring will tell. The real dollar has the real ring, the silver ankle that can not be mistaken. And the real truth, like the real ring, has the ring that shows that it is nothing but the truth."
"Frank's words had the ring that come from old Mother Nature's breast when telling the truth. The old saying is that the idle brain, is the devil's workshop. No one knowns this better than I do. When I am busy, I am one of the nicest men you ever met. I eat regularly and get plenty of sleep, and I behave myself. I mean I am fairly good. But let me stop work for a couple of days and there is no telling where I will light. It is the man with nothing to do who gets into mischief."
Why Frank's Character
Was Put in Evidence.
"Who do you catch stealing and doing mischief all around? It is the idle folks. An old bank retired from active business in New York was once given a banquet, and this is what he said when his faithful employees gathered around him: In my 40 years in this bank, it has been an unfortunate coincidence that nearly every man connected with the bank has been under suspicion at one time or the other. But there is one thing I wish to say. There was never a hard-working, thrifty man among you who was ever found guilty in the slightest way.'"
"Now, gentlemen of the jury, that is the way it is in every walk of life. When you watch a great river flowing on to the sea, you don't take a spyglass and pick out the little eddies. No. You look at the heavy flow of the waters as they move majestically along."
"So it is with human life. It is this way with the hard-working man who follows the straight course and goes on in a majestic flow on the even tenor of his way. It is not for the jury, trying him, to take the spy-glasses and search out the small eddies. In his character, but let them take his full character, the broad and majestic flow of it."
"If we hadn't said a word about his character, the court would have instructed you to assume a good character. Under the law, we could have remained mute, and his character would have been good to you. But we didn't wish to do that. We wanted you to know what manner of man he was. I say to you with all the sincerity of my soul that no man within the sound of my voice could show as good character as he has, fi put to such a test. I am not dealing with the infamous lies of Dalton and Conley."
"But you say, Wait a minute. Some people said he had a bad character. That's correct. I am not going to try to fool you. I am going to deal with the facts."
"I couldn't fool you if I tried. Let's see who they are who say he has a bad character. You know you can find some people to swear against anyone. Suppose my friend Arnold had occasion and so far forgot himself as to put my character up. Don't you suppose you could find a hundred men in Atlanta to swear that I am vicious? I am not not extraordinarily so, but in my long practice of law, perhaps I have wronged someone. Perhaps sometimes in my zeal I have been too sever, and some people may think they have a just grievance against me."
"Now, what did this young man do? Here are the young ladies, and I haven't a word to say against them. The older I get the gentler I become, if anything. Oh, why would I abuse and vilify anyone? With our lives a moment bright, then dark forever, why should I?"
"Here is Miss Myrtice Cato. She worked there three and a half years. If she was a sweet, pure girl, and I take it for granted she was, would she have stayed there that long, constantly associated with Frank, if he was a vile man? She would have fled from him long ago. Oh, she has felt the bitterness of the rabble since this crime occurred. She was under the tense heated atmosphere of this trial."
"Then Miss Maggie Griffin. She worked there two months two years ago. What does she know about Frank compared with these women who have been there for years?"
Miss Estelle Winkle had an extensive acquaintance with Frank. She worked there're one week in 2010. Miss Carrie Smith, like Miss Cato, worked there three and a half years, and the other few worked there very brief periods.
"That's all, gentlemen, of the hundreds of women who worked there during the last five years."
Scores Detectives
As "Active Gang."
"Why, I could find more people to swear against the Bishop of Atlanta. They have searched every corner. They have spyglassed every nook. Starnes and Black and Campbell and Rosser, generated by that mighty detective, Chief Lanford."
Attorney Rosser turned and addressed the detectives grouped around the prosecution's table.
"You are an active gang," he said to them. "Not only that, but how much of the Minola McKnight methods you have use
d nobody knows. How they have wheedled and turned and twisted the minds of these little girls no one but God Almighty knows. Hundreds of men have worked in that factory, and they are the larger vessels, but notions of them appeared here to testify against Frank's character.
"Has no man who ever worked their brains enough to accent the corruption and depravity that existed around the factory? Here is that long-legged fellow Gantt. My friend Hooper here tried to explain why he left but you know why he was fired. He was there for three months. Don't you know that if Frank's character had been what they said it was, if he had been the lascivious fiend, the brute, and moral Mary, and this Gantt said Frank told him he seemed to know Mary Phagan very well. Gantt did not tell that before the coroner's inquest and that other young fellow had to be wheedled and led by my friend Dorsey, only to get tangled up and prove that knew nothing.
"Then what was next? The next
Continued on Page 3, Column 1.
PAGE 33
DORSEY'S TACTICS ARE FLAYED BY ROSSER
They Will Never Be Repeated in Georgia Courts, He Says
FRANK WOULD HAVE HAD
2 LAWYERS HAD HE BEEN
ON TO CURVES OF POLICE'
Continued From Page 2.
was a little boy named Turner. I am not here to say anything against Turner, but look at the detectives with their claws about him. Remember what they did to Minola McKnight, and then you will realize what happened to the boy.
"Turner testified that he went into the metal room and saw Frank speak to Mary Phagan. Under the leading questioning of the Solicitor, under his wheedling and coaxing, Turner said that the girl backed off two or three steps, but he admitted that it all took place in broad daylight, and in full sight of Lemmie Quinn's office.
"Is it to be believed that a man in sight of a whole factory, handicapped by his race, would have gone into the metal room and attempted those advances with that little girl? Is it to be conceived that this innocent little girl would not have fled like a frightened deer and would not have run home and told that good stepfather and the good old mother who reared her?"
"That little girl, Dewey Hewell, testified that Frank put his hand on Mary's shoulder, but there were Grace Hix, Magnolia Kennedy, and Helen Ferguson. Do you believe that he would have done this in their sight, and that they would have said nothing about it when they were on the stand?"
Gantt Knows Nothing
Wrong About Frank.
"My friend from the wiregrass (meaning Hooper) said that this was the beginning of his diabolical scheme. Then Gantt was turned on as a part of the plot. Gantt being the only one who knew of Frank's intentions toward the girl."
"Don't you suppose that if this plot had existed, Gantt would have been the one who in clarion tones would have proclaimed it from the witness stand? Yet they had this long-legged fellow twice on the stand, and both time he said he knew nothing wrong about Frank."
"Conley says that Frank told him at 2 o'clock Friday afternoon to come back Saturday. Now, gentlemen, do you believe that? Don't you know that Frank had every reason in the world to believe she would not be there Saturday? Placards had been posted all around the factory, telling that it would be a holiday. All of the employees knew of it, and there was nothing to show that she did not know of it. They paid off Friday afternoon, and there were some envelopes left over, but Frank did not know whose they were. Schiff had paid off, and had put the envelopes up. Frank had not even seen them. Now, little Helen Ferguson said she went to the office Friday afternoon and got her envelope, and that, she asked them to give her Mary Phagan's. She said Frank declined to give it to her, and that when he did this, she turned and walked away."
"Now, we have Magnolia Kennedy, who says she was right there with the little Ferguson girl, and that she did not ask for Mary Phagan's pay. Now one of them is mistaken, but this is not of much importance, so we will pass it on."
"How did Frank know that Mary Phagan would come back to the factory at all on Saturday. The custom had been that when employees failed to get their envelopes on regular pay days before holidays, that they passed over the holiday and waited until the next regular working day to draw their pay. So we see from that there was absolutely no reason why Frank would have expected her there on Saturday."
"Now, what else? They say Frank was nervous. He was, and we admit it. A young boy went there, said he saw Frank, and that he was nervous. Black said he was nervous. Darley said he was nervous. Mr. Montag, his wife, Isaac Haas, and a number of others, all said he was nervous. Of course, he was nervous, and there were lots of others around there that were nervous. Why don't they hang Jake Montag? Why don't they hang old Isaac Haas? They were nervous. Why don't they hang all those pretty little girls who became nervous and hysterical when they heard of this terrible crime? Wouldn't the sight of this little girl's body , dragged in the dirt and crushed into the cinders, have made you nervous too?
Only Manhunter Not
Moved By Child's Death.
"Man is a cruel monster. He is hard-hearted. They say he is a little below the angles, but he has fallen mighty low in ages past. If the angels haven't descended with him. Yet I have never seen a man who when he looked upon a little girl crushed that some of the divinity that shapes his head did not arouse him and cause tears to flow down his cheeks.
"I am not chicken-hearted. I could see one of you badly hurt without going into hysterics. But I never hear the cry of a woman or a child but that manhood and tenderness I got from my sainted mother does not arise to rebellion within me, and I pray God if it ever should cease that my end may come. No one but the manhunter with blood in his heart would want to hang a man because he was nervous from the death of a little child."
"Then we come to that telephone call. They say he did not hear it and that that is cause for suspicion. Some people sleep lightly, others are hard to awake. The wife of old man Selig had to arouse him. They called old Uncle Ike Haas and he did not hear. His wife had to awaken him. Why not hang old Uncle Isaac Haas? He did not hear the telephone. Hang him because he slept a peaceful sleep, evidence of a good conscience."
"They have another suspicion. He hired a lawyer. I had known the National Pencil Company, but I don't know that I ever saw Frank until I met him at the police station. Frank had been down there on Sunday and told them all that he could. I don't know what was in the minds of the detectives; I don't know what is the head of old John Black. God Almighty only knows. That's one reason I love John so I can't tell what's in his head."
"Then on Monday the police did not have the same attitude to Frank."
Hooper Saysa Rosser Is
"Wire-grass" Man, Too.
At this point the jury was executed for a breathing spell. Attorney Frank Hooper, of the prosecution, came over to the press table and said that he wanted to make an explanation of where h came from, after Mr. Rosser's humorous references to him.
"We both came from Randolph County," Hooper said, "and I guess Mr. Rosser knows about as much about gophers and wire grass as I do."
"The only suspicion against this man is that he employed me and he employed Herbert Haas. I felt a little bad about it because my friend Dorsey didn't say anything about Rube Arnold. Frank didn't employ a lawyer Sunday, but on Monday the police employed different tactics. They went after him with two detectives. He wasn't arrested oh, no. But my friend Black said he was released. When I asked him what that meant, if he wasn't arrested, he had to admit that to all intents and purposes Frank was under arrest.
"Chief Lanford walked about with his accustomed dignity, and Chief Beavers, the beautiful one, scudded around, and they left Frank to soak."
Here Rosser turned to Frank.
< p>"That's the only time in this whole thing," he said, "you didn't show good sense. If you had known what I know about that bunch, you wouldn't have gotten one lawyer, but would have gotten two good ones, and you wouldn't have been satisfied then."
"But old man Sig Montag was a little wiser than Frank. He knew that bunch. He was onto their curves. I am going to be mighty careful, though, about what I say about that police bunch, because if they take a notion they would get me for white slavery before to-night."
"At any rate, Sig Montag called Herbert Haas and told him to go down there and see what is the matter with Leo Frank. Haas could not go. I will give a house and lot worth $20,000 to be in the same position he was that day. His wife was preparing to have a baby."
Not Arrested, But
Had To Be "Released."
"Sig took the automobile and wept down to Haas' house and said you must go. They went to the police station, and what happened? That throws a whole flood of light on the matter."
"No, Frank was not arrested, but he had to be released. I said to John Black, John, what do you mean by released?' He stammered and stuttered, and said, Why, I just mean released.'
"These men went down to see a man who was not under arrest. He was a free citizen sitting there, and yet they wouldn't let his friends see him. They wouldn't let his lawyer Haas see him."
"This man Haas is not of my age or of my flesh, or of my experience. He called me up. If there is any crime in that he is the guilty man. My friend Dorsey with his eyes close together, snapping like snakes, made much of the fact that Frank had hired the lawyer. The charges and insinuations that he has made are the most contemptible that ever have occurred in a Georgia court. The things that he has done in this trial will never be done a gain in Georgia. I will stake my life on that."
Could Not Hire
More Devoted Lawyer.
"Dorsey's eyes got as green as beads on a woman's dress as he hissed his charges against Frank of dirty dog and brutal murderer. You may question Frank in his judgement; he might have hired a better lawyer than I. He might have hired a more decent lawyer, but he couldn't have hired a more devoted lawyer. I will say that for myself if I drop dead in my tracks."
Could Not Hire
More Devoted Lawyer.
"Dorsey's eyes got as green as beads on a woman's dress as he hissed his charges against Frank of dirty dog and brutal murderer. You may question Frank in his judgement; he might have hired a better lawyer than I. He might have hired a more decent lawyer, but he couldn't have hired a more devoted lawyer. I will say that for myself if I drop dead in my tracks."
"Under what circumstances did Frank hire the detectives? He had been to the station house and was asked to make a statement. I went down there, not at Frank's invitation, for he didn't know I was coming. Mr. Haas had asked me to go down there, and I wasn't a welcome visitor at the police station that morning. They don't take my hate; they didn't give my hat; they didn't give me a warm welcome. I guess they would have arrested me long ago, but they just don't want me down there. I can't blame them for that."
"And when I reached there I saw Frank for the first time in my life. I walked in and said, What's the matter here, boys?' You know, I just used plain old common English. I don't put on any fancy frills."
"Someone said, They've got Mr. Frank under arrest here for murder.' One of the detectives got up and said, No, we haven't.' Yet they talked about him not being under arrest at that time."
Why Didn't They
Want Me There?
"Someone said, They want him to make a statement.' I said, Let him go ahead and make it.' Right away Lanford and the others hustled him over to a room. They didn't want me to go with him."
"Now, I have always been a little bit impudent, and when I started in, they said, We don't want you in here,' and I said, kind of impudent-like, I'm coming in, anyway, I won't interrupt him but I'm coming in.'"
"And why didn't they want me in there? I don't know. Wasn't I as reputable a citizen as Lanford? Wasn't I as capable of protecting the law as he was? Gentlemen, while we were there a peculiar thing happened. I said a man could not have
Luther Rosser's Tribute to the Jury
"We walk in the streets carelessly, absorbed in our own interests. We pass our friends, and do not recognize them. The mind wanders in flights of fancy and fits of revelry. We mean no harm to ourselves nor harm to our friends, but we are careless."
"Men of the jury, you are set aside. You cease to be a part of that revelry of the streets. In old pagan Rome women walked the streets, chatted gayly and carelessly, but a few were set aside the vestal virgins. They cared not for the gladiatorial combats or the strife."
"So it is with you set apart. You care not for the chatter or the laughter of the rabble. You are unprejudiced. Yours is the sworn duty to pass on a matter of life and death. You are to decide on the evidence, with no fear, no favor, no affection."
"Others may take the brave task of standing up for the weak and oppressed, but it is not for you. You are a still, silent, consecrated band. You are to do your duty without one thought of the past or the future. You are here and now consecrated by justice to do your duty."
committed that crime and not have scars upon him. Frank showed them that he had no marks upon himself."
"Why didn't Lanford get upon the stand. Was it because he dreaded to get in converse with me? No, he didn't want to recall that dark Conley chapter; that hideous Minola McKnight incident."
"And after they had released Frank, what did they do? They went out to his house and looked at his soiled linen, and what evidence did they find? Not a thing."
"If Frank had been a guilty man, do you know what he would have done? Gentlemen of the jury, he would have kept quiet. He would have kept his silence to himself. But he was not guilty and he did not do that. But he went home with the thought of this horrible murder in his mind. He thought of how a beast had committed the crime; of how God's laws had been outraged; of how there was a stain upon the fair nannie of this city."
Says Frank Wanted
To Find Slayer.
"Then he sat down and di what? He telephoned Sig Montag that he wanted to hire detectives; that he wanted to ferret out and punish the murderer of Mary Phagan."
"I have not had too high an estimate of the detective department. I don't mean they are not good, clever fellows, but no man can spy on folks, come in constant contact with crime and elevate his character. God Almighty couldn't do it."
"You," and here Rosser turned again to the detectives, "may not be made worse men, but you won't be made better men. Nor Scott; I am sorry he has gone and will not hear what I have got to say. He crept into this case in the most remarkable situation I ever heard of. He got up on the stand and said, We worked hand and glove with the city detectives. Ain't that a fine gang? Do nothing outside of what the city police do."
"Hiring Detective
A Courageous Deed."
"Some good man will hire him again. But I don't care anything about that. I will let it go. The point is that Frank knew that Scott was going to work with the police. I will give Scott credit for being that honest. He told Frank he was going to lock arms with John Black and walk down the disgraceful avenue of this case."
"This young Jew, just down from the North, ignorant of Southern customs, hired a Pinkerton detective to ferret out the crime. The detective told him he was going to trail with the police. Frank told him, Find the murderer.' He knew Scott was going to trail with the police, even Frank himself was trailed."
"Ah, gentlemen, his race has present many a heroic scene, but never one greater than this. Yet they want to hang him because he employed a detective."
"My friend Hooper charged that he tried to point suspicion on Newt Lee. I don't
believe Hooper meant what he said. Frank first said there was no error in the time slips. The next day here said there was. Darley made the same mistake. Why not hang Darley?"
"Then do you remember what he said about the time being rubbed off of that slip? Dorsey had to admit that he erased it. I don't mean that Dorsey meant any harm."
Denounces Bloody
Shirt Evidence.
"Then the bloody shirt. Gentlemen, that is the most unfair thing in this whole case to charge that that young man had that shirt planted. Black and Scott went out and found that shirt in the bottom of an old barrel at Newt Lee's house. They found it Tuesday morning, brought it in and Newt said it was his shirt."
Dorsey jumped to his feet at this moment and exclaimed that such was not the testimony, Rosser said:
"Newt Lee did. I got it out of one of those boys on the stand."
"No he didn't," replied Dorsey. "Lee said it looked like a shirt of his."
"Well, we'll admit it then," Rosser continued; "we will just put it that way. We will suppose they went out and got a bloody shirt just like the one old Newt Lee wore and hid it in that barrel."
"Frank didn't even know where old man Lee lived. He certainly didn't know he had a shirt that looked like that one. I never heard of going to such extremities to try to hang an innocent man."
"But old man Lee I don't believe he had anything to do with the crime, itself. I never will believe anything but that he found that corpse earlier than he said he did. I can't understand how he knew it was while when it took the detectives so long to find cut. I can't understand how he saw the body from where the detectives themselves and it was impossible to see it."
"And he said the face was turned up and the police found it different. I am mighty afraid the old man know it was a white girl, but I still don't believe he had anything to do with the crime itself. If he did, he is the most remarkable old negro that ever lived."
"Shame the Way They
Treated Newt Lee."
"If I had his endurance. I would talk forever. It will be ashamed to the dying day of every member of that detective department the way they treated that poor old man. They talked to him until he got weary and his head hung low, and then they sent in a fresh relay, and when it looked like he couldn't endure it any longer, they would come in with a battery of pistols and poke them in his face."
"I am afraid Newt Lee saw the body before he said he did. But he is a wonderful negro. Oh, the dirty trick that you played on him will be a shame to you as long as you live. (Rosser looked at the detectives). You hammered away at that old negro all hours of the night. But Newt wore the detectives out in relays. They fired pistols near him."
"I am afraid he knows more about this than he ever has told. Let us listen to the story that he told. He told of coming to the factory that night and that Gantt and he stood out in front of the factory. He said that Frank appeared alarmed when he came out and ran into Gantt."
"But the explanation that the negro gave was the very best that could be given. He said, I knew they had had some trouble, and I thought Gantt was there to do Mr. Frank dirt.' Lee and Gantt both say now that Frank jumped back, but neither said it before the Coroner's inquest."
No Wonder Frank
Jumped at Seeing Gantt.
"Is it to be wondered at that Frank jumped, if he actually did jump, which I doubt? Why, you could take him and put him on the top floor of the factory with a girl the size of Mary Phagan and she could make him jump out of the window. He is not a strong man. He is a physical weakling, comparatively, I am not saying this unkindly, but the Jewish people, once the bravest on earth, are not the fighters now that they used to be."
"As he came out of the factory he was confronted by this giant, Gantt. He might have jumped back. If little Dorsey had come out suddenly like that in the night he would have bent his back into a bow jumping back. It is little groveling, snakelike suspicions like this that have marked Dorsey's whole case against the defendant."
"They said also that Frank had thrown suspicion on Gantt. Scott gets up now and says that Frank told him Gantt was familiar with the little Phagan girl, not in a bad way, as there has been no reflection upon this little girl's character, but that they were friends in a good way. But, gentlemen of the jury, Scott didn't say that in his reports to us. He didn't say that in his reports to his agency, and now, in this connection, the understanding was that the Pinkertons were to furnish he police their reports 24 hours before they gave them to us. And this was done all the way through."
"Now for old Newt Lee, and then I am through with the suspicious circumstances. Frank had told old Newt to come early Saturday, as that was a holiday, and having in his mind at the time that he was going to the ball game."
"The suspicion has been cast because he was afraid that he might discover something, that he might make the gruesome find of that cruelly mutilated body in the basement."
"Is it conceivable that by a trick he would get old Newt away for two hour and then leave him the whole night alone in the building where he was sure to discover the body? Then we know that Frank went home and calmy ate his supper, that he read, that he was light-hearted and told a joke. And my brother gets up and charges that Frank was so callous that he laughed."
"Oh, gentlemen of the jury, can you imagine that laugh? If Frank had been guilty of murder, it would have been the laugh of a maniac. Now, Frank is smart. Is there a man here who is such a fool that he believes that Frank would have sent the watchman away by a trick for two hours and would have then left the body with no one but Newt in the building? And Newt there all night?"
"Gentlemen, that would have weighted on his mind. He would have been raving like a maniac, waiting to be called by old Newt to be told of the gruesome find. Can you believe it? Oh, such a stigma; oh, such a hideous plot."
No Chance for Him
To Commit Crime.
"There is one other suspicion. They say he was in the factory the time Mary Phagan was. But, gentlemen, you know this only because Frank says it. You didn't have to fish it out. He was not the only man there. If the corpse had been found there and he was the only man in the building, it might have been some proof; but there were others. He was in an open room. He had company every hour. Unless he was some magician there was no chance for him to commit the crime. Up on the fourth floor were two young men."
"If there is one thing indelibly fixed in this case, it is that this young boy could not see ingoers and outgoers of that factory. "Conley or some other negro was seen in the hall on the first floor. Yesterday there came out like a ray of sunlight on a wicked world another negro, a lighter one. They had the same opportunity to commit this murder that Frank had. Who knows what white-faced scoundrel might have lurked around among those machines."
"Gentlemen, these facts drive out any suspicion that he did the deed simply because he was there. Father of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, father of us all, may no such mean prejudices rankle in the hearts of this consecrated jury, to the undoing of this unfortunate young boy."
"I know you will not blame if I fail in my feeble steps to walk over this same ground that this legal giant (referring to Arnold) did yesterday. So I will touch briefly on some of these points."
"I come to Conley. That part of the case fatigues may indignation. That white men should believe this infamous character is a shame on this great city and this great Siste, and will be to the end of time. Who is this Conley? Let's see who he used to be. A plain, dirty, filthy, drunken, lying, and I expect, lousy, negro.
Scores Scott,
Pinkerton Detective.
"Have I overstated that? Starnes knows I have not. Black knows I have not. I don't know whether Chief Beavers' dig
nity has ever got down low enough for him to see him, but if it has, he knows it. Now Black, he of the doubtful memory, he would remember one thing one time and the next time he wouldn't there was a good deal of fun made over Black, but I say he was trying to tell the truth and got mixed. But he is in a heap better fix than Scott. Scott well, I've seen a heap of men heavier up here (pointing to his forehead). He might detect a louse with a spyglass; I don't think he could do more."
"I said, Scott, what about that negro? Does he look like he did when you got him here?' He said No!' I said, They have slicked him up a little bit, haven't they?' And he had to admit it. And shame to them. Who was it that took this dirty, filthy negro, gave him warm baths and good clothes, and brought him out here to make his dirty, lying testimony before detectives? I don't charge that to anybody, because I don't know who it was, but it is as dirty and contemptible a piece of work as was ever done. They shaved that dirty-wool and his bestial face; and if I knew who was responsible for it I'd call his name."
"I've had that joke played on me, nearly, once before. Some hallroad lawyer dreaded up a brakeman who was suing the railroad and brought him into court, but I never heard of it being done in a case of life and death."
"It is very hard to find a man that somebody won't believe. There's Dalton; some few believed him. But who was there. In all that crowd, who would say they would believe Jim Conley?"
Black Hypocrisy
Charged to Dalton.
"What a contempt Black has for this man Dalton. What a contempt that son of Erin (pointing out Pat Campbell) has for him."
"Yet they found people who would testify to his good character and to his reputation for truth and veracity. One man said that Dalton had joined the church and so far as he knew, he was a good church member now. Thus was the blackest hypocrisy added to his other evil characteristics. But they found sponsors for him."
"But who was Conley? Who would stand up and may his character was good? Who would be sponsor for him?"
"Do you, Black? Stand up."
"Do you, Campbell?"
"Do you, Rosser? Rosser is one whose ancestors trod the earth in the same places as mine, and I know he wouldn't hang a suck-egg dog on the testimony of this lying nigger Conley."
"They have swept every back alley in Atlanta to get someone who would stand up and say that he was an honest nigger. But they found not a soul. Who is there that will stand up and marry the nigger Conley to the truth? Not a person."
Failed to Prove
Frank a Pervert.
"My friends on the other side have attempted to make this young man before you a pervert. They tried to do it on the lying testimony of this nigger, unsupported by a single other person. But they didn't do it."
"But even if they had proved it beyond doubt, it could not enter into this case. This boy is being tried for murder, and if he is a thousand times a pervert, that can not be allowed to sway your verdict."
"The vilest thing in this case is the dragging of this issue into the trial on the unsupported word of the lying nigger who is trying to save his own neck by any foul lies which he can shape."
"Yet the Solicitor made the charges here in open court." He made them before the jury, before everyone in the courtroom. He made them before the young wife of the defendant. He made them uselessly and purposelessly. They could serve only one purpose. The sole explanation is that the Solicitor made them to add a little strength to his case, to serve his leaping ambition to win his case and send a man to the gallows. It is impossible that it was done in the interests of justice."
"A dirty thief and liar was brought into the courtroom to destroy a man's character. My indignation can not be put in words."
Court adjourned at this point, for the noon recess, Attorney Rosser saying that as it was near the recess hour he would prefer to stop his address at that time, as he did not want to be interrupted in his closing at the afternoon session.
Woman Early
To Get Seats.
Attorney Rosser resumed his address at 2 o'clock. He said that he would probably consume about half or three-quarters of an hour longer. Many women were in courtroom during the afternoon, having been allowed to come in early and get seats. Several hundred men were on the outside trying to get admission when the court opened.
Attorney Rosser said:
"Gentlemen of the jury, when recess came I was just saying how horrible it was that this charge of perversion had been made against the defendant. Dorsey made the charge through his lying witness Conley. No other witness in this case has made such a suggestion as that made by the negro."
"It was a horrible thing a thing inconceivable that such an accusation should be brought in here. Conley had no one to support him except Dalton, and Dalton did not say that he ever had seen Frank in any wrong conduct. Dalton merely said that he had seen women in Frank's office. When questioned, he was unable to say that he ever saw Frank do a wrong act.
"Dalton in his story said that he was with Daisy Hopkins in the factory."
"But Conley says that it was Frank who had Daisy Hopkins. This is the important point on which these two liars differ. Conley said that Dalton was with some peace,' some lesser beauty, living between Haines and Hunter streets."
Says Conley Has
"Butted In" for Life.
He went to that Butt Inn saloon and Lord bless my soul, he has butted in for life. He gave a detailed statement of seeing those negroes and taking drinks with them. Did anyone of them come here to say he did? Did that negro come here that Conley said he shot dice with the negro with the whip around his neck"? Did that bartender come here who mixed his wins and beer?"
"Now, these police know those negroes on Peters street lots better than they do you and I. It is their business to know them. They know those dicemen around there like a book. If Conley had given a single correct name, time, place or incident, they would have had that whole horde of negroes lined up here."
"Another thing, he said dice: He would have said craps, until those policemen got him and talked to him. He said his name was James Conley; he certainly would have said Jim. If they hadn't have been after him. He said "Snowball" heard Frank tell him to come back and watch for him, but Snowball said he didn't! Snowball is just a plain, ordinary, African negro. He didn't know how to tell a lie."
"And then they talk about Frank try to make the police suspect somebody if he could. Why, it is just like an English sparrow suspecting a horse and then following him a mile."
Rosser Asserts He
"Broke Down" Conley.
"Get John Black on a negro and he will have to leave town. Poor old Snowball. That por negro is going to melt under the wrath of these policemen because he would not swear the way they wanted him to. Then there was old Truman McCrary, that old negro drayman raised before the war on greens and meat. I mighty near said cabbage. God deliver, me. Old man McCrary proved Conley a liar. The story implicating McCrary was about the 157th story, I don't remember the exact number."
"Conley didn't have to bring in old Truman, but with that African imagination of his, he likes to put frills on his tale. Instead of saying simply that eh did a thing, he says somebody told him to do it. Then Conley says he was there on Saturdays. Old man Holloway was there, and he branded Conley's story a lie."
"Do you believe those little office boys; those clean-cut little fellows who worked in Frank's office on Saturday afternoons? They brand Conley a liar."
"They say I didn't break Jim Conley flown. That is the silliest thing that he's been said since this trial began. I have been since this trial began. I have been practicing almost as long as my bald head would indicate, and I have never yet broken a witness down in the sense they mean. Did they want me to take a club and
break his head? Lord knows I wish I could, but what we lawyers mean when we say we break a witness down is to demonstrate that he is a liar."
Says Conley Practiced
Telling Same Story.
"You can't get a man with Anglo-Saxon blood to admit he lied. He has pride. I have never seen one admit he lied. No matter where he is born, he has that same Anglo-Saxon pride. My friend John Black, Honest John, and I mean it, when he got to the point where he didn't know whether he was standing on his feet or his head, he admitted he was mixed up. Those were the words of an honest man."
"Now, with a negro it is different. He will admit he lied. Jim Conley without any character to protect, lied this way and lied that, and grinningly admitted it. He reminded me of a merchant down at Fayetteville. It was a case in which old Judge Dorsey appeared, in which Uncle Jesse was sued. They put an old man by the name of Green Gray on the stand who worked for old man Blalock, and he swore against the old fellow. Judge Dorsey argued that Uncle Jesse was bound by Green's statement. Uncle Jesse got up and said do the jury: Gentlemen, I just put old Green Gray up to see how he would swear,' and that is the way it is with Conley. It is a revelation how he did swear."
"It is true that every time Jim Conley repeated his story of the disposition of the body that he repeated it word for word. But is this so wonderful? Take an actor, one who portrays Shakespeare's characters, but who has studied Macbeth so much that he is letter perfect, you can wake him up in the midst of the night and he can repeat the part for
PAGE 35
FRANK'S AGITATION IS DECLARED NO GROUND FOR SUSPICION
Why Don't They Hang Everybody Who Was Nervous? Attorney Demand
Continued From Page 3.
you word for word. But get him on something else and he is lost."
"You can train a dog to do tricks; you can train a horse to count, but tell the dog or horse to count, something than that in which he is trained, and he is completely lost."
Conley Arraigned
For "Disremembering."
"And it was like this with this negro. He had been well trained in his part. As long as he was repeating his story of the disposition of the body he was letter perfect. But just let me ask him anything else and instantly he was freed. He couldn't remember anything else. I asked him about Daisy Hopkins. The first time he spoke of Daisy he said he saw her on the first floor with Mr. Frank. Then he had her somewhere else, and then again at another place."
"If I asked him questions of other things, he would say, I can't remember.' He could trip pack and forth over his story and remember every word. Conley reminds me of an instance in connection with Queen Caroline of England. She was charged with treason, but no Englishman dared to swear against her. They searched the whole of the broad land and not a man of the Anglo-Saxon race would dare to speak the lies they sought to have spoken. Finally they found two or three Italians who swore against her. They learned their tale and they had it as letter perfect as the actor who studied Macbeth. But when their questioners deviated from the particular subject they would resort they could not remember. They perjured themselves. And it was this way with that negro, Jim Conley. He perjured himself."
"They say he could not have made up that kind of a story, but I think he could, and I think he did well in remembering his story."
"Negro Was Lying To
Save His Own Neck."
"But why shouldn't he? Think of the coaching he had, I think if I had Black, Starnes, the Chief of Detectives and the rest of them, that I could become letter perfect in it, too. He had them to help him out. Let's call them professors in this school of learning."
"Here is Starnes; let's call him the professor of theology. Then there is Professor Black Professor Scott, Professor Rosser and their dean, Newport Lanford. Ah, here comes the dean now."
At this moment Chief Lanford entered the courtroom.
"Now, we shall open school in regular order. Tell me a negro can't fix up a scheme to protect himself. Why, gentlemen of the jury, would any Southern man believe that statement? I would not expect a negro to become a student by the midnight lamp. I would not expect him to become an astrologer. I would not expect him to become an architect and plan a cathedral. The negro is not possessed of that sort originality. But if anyone thinks this negro Jim Conley hasn't a keen African imagination, he is mistaken."
"The person who thinks the negro can not make up folklore and stories is greatly mistaken. They are mistaken if they think eh can not tell a story to save his own neck."
"Why, Brother Starnes, if you saw a negro with a chicken in his possession and he told you he got it from Mrs. Jones across the street you would put him in jail as soon as he told the story. Where does all the folklore come from? It comes from Africa. Where did we get the material for the Uncle Remus stories? From the same origin."
How the Witness
Arranged His Dates.
"When it comes to fixing a grewsome story like that told by Jim Conley, there is not a white man in my hearing who is the equal of the negro. Let's see the story he told: He began by telling of being on Peters street all Saturday forenoon. He said that he wasn't at the factory at all. Starnes said he couldn't fix a story, but he fixed this one. They got Mrs. White to look at him at the police station. And he screwed his face up so she couldn't recognize him. They found out that he could write. He had lied about that. They caught him reading in the stockade; caught him reading right in this courthouse. He had lied about that."
"What did the detectives do with that negro? They took him down and gave him what I called the third degree. They said it wasn't, but if it wasn't, I should hate to get the fourth. They swore at him; they abused him; they said to him Don't you know that man didn't bring you down there Friday to write those notes?' and Jim would say, Yes, boss, I know.' They would say, Don't you know eh wouldn't have you write those notes before he killed the girl?' and Jim would say, Yes, boss, I know that's right.' They would say. Well, then, why don't you tell the truth,' and Jim would say, I will, boss: it was on Saturday.'
"You can very easily see how they made him fix up his story. They took his lies and showed him where they could not be true. They told him where they were wrong and where they would have to be fixed up. We have got Scott's own testimony for that."
Viciously Assails
Detectives' Methods.
"Scott and Black had him when he was in the high school. I don't know whether Scott and Black are professors or not, but they would say to him, Stand up, Jim Conley, and recite.' I reckon they called him James' and then say to him, Stand up James; when did you write those notes, James?"
"And he would say, On Friday.' And they would say, Ain't you got no sense? Don't you know that you wrote those notes on Saturday?' He would say, Yes, boss.' They would say, Now, James, let's be sure about that; when did you write those notes?'. And the negro would say, I wrote them on Saturday, boss.' They would say, That's right, Jim. You are all right, now.'"
"I know how they got that. Good boy, James; let's have that again. What were they doing five hours one day and one hour another day? Was it an honest thing; was it a right thing? Was it right for two white men to take him and educate him. But that was only the high school. They had to take him through the university. Scott and Black were too white for that; they didn't get any perversion. They were too honest. But at the university they had Professors Starnes and Campbell. I would give anything in the world to look as pious as Professor Starnes. I don't know whether Professor Dorsey was in there or not, but there are some mighty strange things. They didn't dare make other affidavits. We trailed the serpent too well by those first three. It is just as plain as Colonel Hooper a
nd I used to trail the gopher in South Georgia."
He Told New Story
At Every Opportunity.
"That tiptoeing and running back and forth when did that get in? Seven times Dorsey had him. Three times Starnes had him. Oh, gentlemen, lovers of justice, is it fair to take this pliable negro and fan him away from a statement he said was the truth and was his last? Has he told the last? Who knows but that the 157th chapter of his statement is but the beginning of the clearing of this mystery? At the very last opportunity he told a new story, one even Professor Starnes did not know about, the product of some other party. He told about finding that mesh bag."
"They didn't put him back as they started to. They were afraid he would give a new revelation of the whole affair. I am nearly through, but before I conclude I want to direct your attention to one fact. Put away all I have said. Forget it, and I wouldn't blame you if you did. One who has talked as much as I have, deserves to be forgotten. I don't care anything about that doctor's row. I think that was one of the funniest things that ever crept into a courthouse. It doesn't make any difference whether the statement of Johnson that she died within an hour, or the statement of Westmoreland and the others that it was all a wild guess, is true. I just want to say that if I believed Dr. Harris' statement the next time I got sick I would send for him and give him the earth."
"Dr. Harris believed he was telling the truth. Harris is a fine body. His father admitted me to the bar, though he may be culpable for that, but did you ever eat any cabbage? I can eat everything from whetstones to cabbage, but cabbage alone I can't digest."
"Time Element Fatal
To State's Theory."
"I can drink everything from lager beer to champagne, but I can't digest champagne. They say they are talking about normal stomachs. There are no normal stomachs, according to these experts. I will bet there are not three men in the courtroom who will prove to have normal stomachs under their examination."
"Have you got a normal nose? Have I got a normal nose? I wouldn't say I have, but let's dismiss all that. Let Harris pet his theory like he would a house cat. Let's look at the cold facts in this case."
"In the first place, that little boy Epps says he and Mary Phagan got to Forsyth and Marietta streets at 12:07 o'clock. The motorman testified that that was the time the car got there. Her own mother said she left home at 11:45 and the most reasonable assumption from that statement is that she caught the 12:07 schedule."
"If you make a just allowance for the time it took to walk to the factory, it was about 12:12 when arrived. Dorsey is going to deny that, but just for the sake of argument, admit the car was three minutes ahead of time. She got there at 12:09. Suppose she got there at 12:05? I don't believe she did. I don't believe little Monteen Stover could see into Frank's infer office. The fact stands out that at 12:20 Lemmie Quinn was there at this work. Frank was there. Do you believe he could have killed that little girl, washed his hands, cleaned his clothes, and been in their calmly at work in 13 minutes?"
"Who Lies Conley
Or These Good Women?"
"If he could have done it, the magicians of India are but common tricksters compared with him."
"Frank is a magician if he killed a girl and then performed the work that he did that afternoon. But I think that we will hardly accuse him of being that. He must have disposed of the body some time between six minutes to 1 and 1:30 o'clock. That is, if we believe Jim Conley."
"Conley is positive about the time, because he went across the street and ate a lunch. Ah, what an appetite he had. He ate a fish and liver sandwich, and eh is positive that Frank must have done it by 1:30, because after he got over there and ate this fish and liver sandwich he looked at the clock, and it was 20 minutes to 2."
"Now, bear this in mind, gentlemen. He said 1:30. Now, let's see whether he perjured himself or not. Here is little Miss Curran. She has told you that she saw Frank at 1:10. Are we to make a perjurer of this sweet young girl? Then there is Mrs. Levy, a neighbor of Frank's. She saw Frank at 1:30. Are we to make a perjurer of her? Can you say that you believe the story of Conley and in the same breath call Miss Curran and Mrs. Levy liars?"
"Now take the mother-in-law and father-in-law of Frank. They say that Frank came home about 1:20 to lunch. Are we to tell these old people that they are liars, too?"
Claims Alibi From
State's Own Testimony.
"And, gentlemen, there is the hardest thing of all. They must also make a perjurer of Minola's husband. Albert McKnight, for he says that Frank was there about 1:20 at the Selig home. Ah, think of that. To make a perjurer of their own Albert."
"Then Minola says that Frank was there at 1:20. And Minola ah, she is the greatest stain on this case. Can we ever forget the plot made by this poor wretch arrested out of the Solicitor's office? Ah, the shame of it all, I assert that the men connected with this hideous affair, the unlawful arrest of this poor woman, will be ashamed of this one act the balance of their lives. And Starnes, the honest man that he is, tells us that before he could turn her loose, he had to call up Dorsey twice. And where is my immaculate friend Beavers, who stood by and watched it all? If all this is not true, then Starnes had to perjure himself when on the stand."
"Ah, many things have happened under oath in this case which may or may not have happened, but there is one thing on which the State and the defense are agreed that is, except Conley that Frank was not in that factory at 1:30. Conley alone, perjurer that he is, untrained and untaught, the great liar that he is, also says he was there. And on Conley rests their case."
"Consider this line, gentlemen, and the others. No one body on earth has the power of the American jury. They hold the power of life and death and I have yet to find one that failed to show its courage."
Rosser Concludes
Plea of Defense.
"Gentlemen, I am nearly through. I wish to call your attention to one thing. They mentioned this man Mincey and intimated that we were afraid to introduce him. But his testimony was not of any direct, prohibitive value. All that we desired of Mincey was to discredit Conley, but Conley got up himself, and admitted that he was a liar. So what was the use of calling Mincey for the same purpose? It might have been a day's row to determine if he were a responsible person. I know nothing about Mincey, nor care anything about him. If he is as honest and truthful as the angels in Heaven we had no need for him. If he is merely part of a scum that has arisen at a time like this, then I would certainly want to wash my hands of him."
"I have yet to believe that it is necessary for the truth to be cared for, cherished and watered through four long months by the detectives. I have yet to believe that this man Conley has to be supported in his statement by sudden visits of the Solicitor I have yet to believe it requires so many professors to bring Conley's story to its full and fruition. God deliver me from some of the testimony that has come up in this case. I might have hanged a yellow dog upon it, btu I would have gone home ashamed of myself. Gentlemen of the jury, you have heard me courteously, I thank you. This case has been a furious one. You have been attentive and I have appreciated it."
This concluded Rosser's address and Solicitor Dorsey immediately began the closing argument for the State.
PAGE 34
HOOPER AND ARNOLD IN
ARGUMENT MADE MOST
OF THEIR OPPORTUNITIES
By JAMES B. NEVIN
Frank Hooper's speech in behalf of the prosecution against Leo Frank, charged with the murder of little Mary Phagan, reflected much credit upon him.
It was fair, to the point, well thought out and appealing in tone and delivery.
It went for the defendant, hammer and tongs, but it was devoid of
anything that might be construed as below the belt.
Undoubtedly, it was not pleasant to the defendant, sitting there, stolidly, following the words of Hooper but Dorsey and Hooper, in its final aspect, have made out a most dangerous case against Frank, and Hooper was there to explain and sustain it. He performed his duty in a way that hardly can fail to bring him lasting applause and commendation.
If, however, Frank felt to the full the gloom of the case made out against him by Hooper, he was more than abundantly taken care of when Arnold followed.
The case made out in defense of Frank by Arnold was extremely plausible it covered in detail every point developed by Hooper. It, like Hooper's, was a speech evidently carefully considered.
Jury Held In High Esteem.
Now, the thing about these two speeches that made them particularly and uniquely noteworthy, perhaps, is that both were seemingly designed for the consideration of a jury held to be highly intelligent and not apt to rush pell-mell to a verdict either for or against Frank.
And if the opposing counsel entertain the opinion of the jury if they hold it in such compelling esteem and respect and if the jury is such a jury as deserves that opinion, which I think it is, then the chances are that its verdict will be righteous and just, whatever it may be.
And that the finding of this jury SHALL speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth that, in the words of Hamlet, "is a consummation most devoutly to be wished!"
"Try this case, gentlemen, according to the law and the facts!" said Frank Hooper, addressing the jury Thursday.
That is the final and ultimate request any man for or against the defendant could or should make of the "twelve good men and true" there to pass upon the fate of Leo Frank.
Neither the State nor the defense, in justice and right, dare will plead for more or less!
The two opening speeches in murder trials are presumed to outline clearly the trend of the completed arguments both ways.
Concluding attorneys may amplify and enlarge upon points raised by opening attorneys, but they rarely go far beyond the primary outlining of the two main points of view.
And so, while Rosser and Dorsey may go further than Hooper and Arnold in invective, sarcasm, ridicule and passionate outbreak, neither is apt to add anything material to either side, as compared with the things Hooper and Arnold have said.
There is some advantage to the State or, at least, there is supposed to be some advantage to it in that it has the concluding argument before the jury.
No Injustice There.
Some people think this is an injustice and a hardship upon the defense, but when one comes to consider the theory upon which that practice is founded the apparent injustice and hardship of it vanishes, and it may be seen readily enough that in this, as in so many things the law has been most carefully thought out
And is just and right.
The law throws about the defendant at bar the presumption of innocent
It places upon the State the burden of proving him guilty, rather than putting upon the defendant the burden of proving himself innocent.
But the law, having done this, permits the final voice to be the voice from the grave.
The dead he or she is not there to speak, and to say as to the truth, and so the law directs that the State's prosecuting counsel shall speak it instead.
Thus does the law, with impartial hand, protect first the defendant and the protect quite as jealously its own majesty, and the rights of the dead!
The law, however, in the event the defendant elects to introduce no witnesses in his behalf, and to rely solely upon his own isolated statement, not under oath, reverses the order of argument and permits the defense to open and close for the law will not permit a defendant even to place himself at a disadvantage without fully compensating him for the same!
What will the Frank jury say?
Will it find the prisoner not guilty, clear his name of all stain and send him forth a free man?
Or will it find him guilty and fasten upon him forever the disgrace of one of the most inhuman and diabolical crimes ever committed in Georgia?
To render the latter verdict, it must believe Frank a monster, lost to every sense of decency and right a man who has meanly and unpardonably deceived his mother, his wife, his friends, his faithful employees and his acquaintances. It must believe him a cruel murderer, for an unspeakable lust the vilest and most evil creature ever known among his kindred and his kind!
Will the jury believe that? It is not easy to think it will.
And yet
The Alternative.
Not to believe it is to believe those girls who swore Frank's character is bad, who cited instances of a suspicious nature to uphold that belief, are wrong that they knew him not, notwithstanding their opportunity and that all the circumstances of the crime seemingly connecting him with it are errors and that Conley's story, no less too big to be true than too big to be untrue, still is untrue, and that all the thins alleged against Frank either are wrong naturally or wrong by design and malicious purpose!
Will the jury look at the matter that way? It is not easy to think it will!
And yet, again, it MUST believe the one or the other or there will be no verdict!
What, then, CAN honest minded mortals, men and women who want to see the right and the right alone prevail, do other than put their faith in the JURY there, and believe that it will speak the TRUTH of this case, no matter what may be anybody's preconceived opinion?
The time for argument has passed. Rosser and Arnold and Hooper and Dorsey have about concluded that.
The general public should now prepare itself to receive the verdict as the final and determining circumstances in the cases.
Individual opinion is interesting at times, but after all, one man's opinion is as good as another's, but not more so.
The Important Thing.
What you think, reader, and what I think, is relatively inconsequential the thing that matters SUPREMELY now, and the thing that alone matters supremely, is what does the JURY think, and what will the jury say!
No one of us has the opportunity to know so well the ins and outs of the case as the jury. The jury does not read what I write nor does it hear what you say. It is there, in the courtroom, aside from the outside world, off to itself, a thing apart there to do justice, to the State and to Frank, though the heavens fall!
There is no responsibility up individuals expressing opinion pro and con. They are not under oath the life of a human being, on the one hand, and the majesty of the law of the land on the other, are no direct legal concerns of theirs.
It is all very well for you to say, "If I were running this thing I would turn Frank loose in a jiffy," or "If I were running this thing I would hang Frank," when there is no legally impose and oath-bound obligation upon you to render a verdict that means something definite in law.
With a juryman, however, the case is different he is there to fashion a finding that means everything!
Within twenty-four hours, perhaps, the public will know what the Frank jury thinks of the case made against him.
The jury may convict him, and it may acquit him.
No man possibly can know, at this time and nothing is so uncertain in the matter of forecasting as the verdict of a jury.
Public Should Accept Verdict.
But whether it be acquittal or conviction, the public should, and the law-abiding public WILLL, prepare itself to accept that verdict as righteous and just.
No man ought to be willing to set his opinion doggedly against that of those "twelve good men and true," whatever their verdict may be.
Leo Frank, the defendant, is entitled to all the protection the law gives defendants he is entitled to an absolutely fair trial, without favor or prejudice, one way or the other. He is entitled to all of that but no more.< /p>
The State has rights as sacred as the defendant's they must be considered.
What more can human ingenuity and the forms of law provide by way of finding the truth of a case like the one now on trial, than has been provided in the present hearing?
FELINE WAIF FINDS PROTECTOR
IN PRETTY HOTEL ANSLEY MISS
This is Miss
Gladys
Brinkley and
"Governor
Slaton" in a
special pose for camera
"Governor"
is never quite
happy unless
he is safe in the
arms of his fair
guardian. No
one can step on
his tall then
he's sure
of that.
"Governor Slaton" Is One of the
Most Distinguished Young
Cats in Atlanta.
"Governor Slaton" was peeved, and justly so, for a hurrying travelling man had stepped on his tail. He arched his back, dug his claws into the soft rugs at the Hotel Ansley and snarled vengefully. He loved nobody and nobody loved him.
Then Miss Glady's Brinkley came along. Miss Brinkley is one of the prettiest of the young women who worked at the Ansley. Diners unite in saying that the smiles she dispenses as she hands out the hats at the door of the rathskeller are worth more than the dinner.
It was one of those whole-souled, joyful smiles that Miss Brinkley bestowed on the disconsolate "Governor." The "Governor" succumbed to the witchery of the smile and knew right away that he had found a friend. So he sheathed his claws, dropped his back, and leaped straight into Miss Brinkley's arms, where he purred contentedly while she stroked him behind the ears and crooned over him.
For "Governor Slaton" isn't what you might think he is at all!
He's a cat!
And the "Governor" is quite a remarkable cat, too. To begin with, he is snow white; not a blotch of color mars his sleek beauty. He is absolutely alone in the world, having no brothers and sisters, and his mother deserted him when he was quite young. He is further distinguished by the fact that he probably is the only cat in captivity born in a big hotel. For the "Governor" first saw the light of day in a vacant room on the thirteenth floor of Atlanta's newest hostelry.
"Governor Slaton" does not care much for human companionship except Miss Brinkley but once again in a while he will allow Mrs. Morgan, who keeps a shop on the mezzanine floor, to pat him. He has no use for men, unless they come bearing gifts, which he accepts and then sticks a claw into the hand of the giver. He is happy about six hours a day. That is when Miss Brinkley is on duty and he can snuggle up at her feet or purr luxuriously in her lap.
And Miss Brinkley likes the "Governor," too.
"All cats are nice," she said, "but I just dote on Governor.' He is so well behaved, and never tries to scratch me. He always hunts me up when I go to work, and will sit with me for hours at a time. The Governor' has been my friend ever since I first saw him, the day the travelling man stepped on his foot. I felt so sorry for him I couldn't keep from cuddling him."
The hotel attaches tell a rather remarkable tale about the coming of the cat, which shows why he was named "Governor Slaton." It seems that when the rugs came to the Ansley and workmen took them to the thirteenth floor, a big white cat jumped out when they unrolled one. Kitty ran down the hall, and no attention was paid to her. Two weeks later this hotel opened, and Governor John M. Slaton was the first man to register. The same night one of the hotel employees found a little white cat on the thirteenth floor, crying its little heart out for something to eat. By consulting a few clocks and watches, it was learned that the cat had been born at the exact moment Governor Slaton was inscribing his name on the hotel register hence the name.
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- Police Question Factory Superintendent, The Atlanta Georgian, Monday, 28th April 1913. [Last Updated On: February 22nd, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
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- Tuesday, 29th April 1913 Charge is Basest of Lies, Declares Gantt [Last Updated On: February 21st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 29th April 1913 Factory Employee May Be Taken Any Moment [Last Updated On: February 21st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 29th April 1913 Factory Head Frank and Watchman Newt Lee are Sweated by Police [Last Updated On: February 21st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 29th April 1913 Former Playmates Meet Girl’s Body at Marietta [Last Updated On: February 21st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 29th April 1913 Guilt Will Be Fixed Detectives Declare [Last Updated On: February 21st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 29th April 1913 I Feel as Though I Could Die, Sobs Mary Phagans Grief-Stricken Sister [Last Updated On: February 21st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 29th April 1913 Is the Guilty Man Among Those Held? [Last Updated On: February 21st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 29th April 1913 Keeper of Rooming House Enters Case [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 29th April 1913 Loyalty Sends Girl to Defend Mullinax [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 29th April 1913 Negro Watchman is Accused by Slain Girl’s Stepfather [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 29th April 1913 Nude Dancers Pictures Upon Factory Walls [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 29th April 1913 Pastor Prays for Justice at Girls Funeral [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 29th April 1913 Seek Clew in Queer Words in Odd Notes [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 29th April 1913 Slayers Hand Print Left On Arm Of Girl [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 30th April 1913 Boy Sweetheart Says Girl Was to Meet Him Saturday [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 30th April 1913 City Offers $1,000 as Phagan Case Reward [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 30th April 1913 Clock Misses Add Mystery to Phagan Case [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 30th April 1913 Confirms Lee’s Story of Shirt [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 30th April 1913 Girl’s Death Laid to Factory Evils [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 30th April 1913 Great Crowd at Phagan Inquest [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 30th April 1913 Handwriting of Notes is Identified as Newt Lees [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 30th April 1913 Leo Frank’s Friends Denounce Detention [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 30th April 1913 Looks Like Frank is Trying to Put Crime on Me, Says Lee [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 30th April 1913 Machinist Tells of Hair Found in Factory Lathe [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 30th April 1913 Mother Prays That Son May Be Released [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 30th April 1913 Net Closing About Lee, Says Lanford [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 30th April 1913 Newt Lee on Stand at Inquest Tells His Side of Phagan Case [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 30th April 1913 Newt Lees Testimony as He Gave It at the Inquest [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 30th April 1913 Policeman Says Body Was Dragged From Elevator [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 30th April 1913 Reward of $1,000 Urged by Mayor [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 30th April 1913 Sergeant Brown Tells His Story of Finding of Body [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 30th April 1913 Sisters New Story Likely to Clear Gantt as Suspect [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 30th April 1913 Tells Jury He Saw Girl and Mullinax Together [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 30th April 1913 Tells of Watchman Lee Explaining the Notes [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 30th April 1913 Went Down Scuttle Hole on Ladder to Reach Body [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 30th April 1913 Witness Saw Slain Girl and Man at Factory Door [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 30th April 1913 Writing Test Points to Negro [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 1st May 1913 State Enters Phagan Case; Frank and Lee are Taken to Tower [Last Updated On: March 14th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 1st May 1913 Terminal Official Certain He Saw Girl [Last Updated On: March 14th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 2nd May 1913 Dorsey Puts Own Sleuths Onto Phagan Slaying Case [Last Updated On: March 14th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 2nd May 1913 Police Still Puzzled by Mystery of Phagan Case [Last Updated On: March 14th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 3rd May 1913 Analysis of Blood Stains May Solve Phagan Mystery [Last Updated On: March 14th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 4th May 1913 Dr. John E. White Writes on the Phagan Case [Last Updated On: March 14th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 4th May 1913 Gov. Brown on the Phagan Case [Last Updated On: March 14th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 4th May 1913 Grand Jury to Take Up Phagan Case To-morrow [Last Updated On: March 14th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 4th May 1913 Old Police Reporter Analyzes Mystery Phagan Case Solution Far Off, He Says [Last Updated On: March 14th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 4th May 1913 Slayer of Mary Phagan May Still be at Large [Last Updated On: March 14th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 5th May 1913 Coroners Jury Likely to Hold Both Prisoners [Last Updated On: March 14th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 5th May 1913 Crowds at Phagan Inquest [Last Updated On: March 14th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 5th May 1913 Frank on Witness Stand [Last Updated On: March 14th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 5th May 1913 Judge Charges Grand Jury to Go Deeply Into Phagan Mystery [Last Updated On: March 14th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 5th May 1913 Judge W. D. Ellis Charges Grand Jury to Probe into Phagan Slaying Mystery [Last Updated On: March 14th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 5th May 1913 Phagan Girl’s Body Exhumed [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 6th May 1913 Bowen Still Held by Houston Police in the Phagan Case [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 6th May 1913 Brother Declares Bowen Left Georgia in August [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 6th May 1913 Frank’s Testimony Fails to Lift Veil of Mystery [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 6th May 1913 How Frank Spent Day of Tragedy [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 6th May 1913 Newest Clews in Phagan Case Not Yet Public [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 6th May 1913 Phagan Case and the Solicitor Generals Power Under Law—Dorsey Hasnt Encroached on Coroner [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 7th May 1913 Employee of Lunch Stand Near Pencil Factory is Trailed to Alabama [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 7th May 1913 Lee is Quizzed by Dorsey for New Evidence [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 7th May 1913 Phagan Girls Body Again Exhumed for Finger-Print Clews [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 7th May 1913 Solicitor Dorsey Orders Body Exhumed in the Hope of Getting New Evidence [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 8th May 1913 Another Clew in Phagan Case is Worthless [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 8th May 1913 Black Testifies Quinn Denied Visiting Factory [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 8th May 1913 Boots Rogers Tells How Body Was Found [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 8th May 1913 Didnt See Girl Late Saturday, He Admits [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 8th May 1913 Frank Answers Questions Nervously When Recalled [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 8th May 1913 Frank of Nervous Nature; Says Superintendent Aide [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 8th May 1913 Girl Employe on Fourth Floor of Factory Saturday [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 8th May 1913 Grand Jury to Sift the Evidence in the Phagan Case Within the Next Few Days [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 8th May 1913 Inquest Scene is Dramatic in its Tenseness [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 8th May 1913 Lee Repeats His Private Conversation With Frank [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 8th May 1913 Leo Frank is Again Quizzed by Coroner [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 8th May 1913 Pinkerton Detective Tells of Call From Factory Head [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 8th May 1913 Police Still Withhold Evidence. Frank To Be Examined on New Lines [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 8th May 1913 Quinn, Foreman Over Slain Girl, Tells of Seeing Frank [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 8th May 1913 Stenographer in Factory Office on Witness Stand [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 9th May 1913 Best Detective in America Now is on Case, Says Dorsey [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 10th May 1913 Guard of Secrecy is Thrown About Phagan Search by Solicitor [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 11th May 1913 Caught Frank With Girl in Park, He Says [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 11th May 1913 Frank is Awaiting Action of the Grand Jury Calmly [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 11th May 1913 Mary Phagans Death Only Assured Fact Developed [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 11th May 1913 Weak Evidence Against Men in Phagan Slaying [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 12th May 1913 Burns Called into Phagan Mystery; On Way From Europe [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 12th May 1913 Phagan Case is Delayed [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 13th May 1913 Frank’s Life in Tower [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 13th May 1913 Mother Thinks Police Are Doing Their Best [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 13th May 1913 New Theory is Offered in Phagan Mystery [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 14th May 1913 Friends Say Franks Actions Point to Innocence [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 14th May 1913 Secret Hunt by Burns in Mystery is Likely [Last Updated On: March 28th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 15th May 1913 Burns Investigator Will Probe Slaying [Last Updated On: April 11th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 16th May 1913 $1,000 Offered Burns to Take Phagan Case [Last Updated On: April 11th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 16th May 1913 Burns Hunt for Phagan Slayer Begun [Last Updated On: April 11th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 16th May 1913 Secret Probe Began by Burns Agent into the Phagan Mystery [Last Updated On: April 11th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 17th May 1913 New Phagan Witnesses Have Been Found [Last Updated On: April 11th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 18th May 1913 Burns, Called in as Last Resort, Faces Cold Trail in Baffling Phagan Case [Last Updated On: April 11th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 18th May 1913 Burns Sleuth Makes Report in Phagan Case [Last Updated On: April 11th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 18th May 1913 Greeks Add to Fund to Solve Phagan Case [Last Updated On: April 11th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 19th May 1913 Burns Agent Outlines Phagan Theory [Last Updated On: April 11th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 19th May 1913 Burns Eager to Solve Phagan Case [Last Updated On: April 11th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 20th May 1913 Cases Ready Against Lee and Leo Frank [Last Updated On: April 11th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 21st May 1913 T. B. Felder Repudiates Report of Activity for Frank [Last Updated On: April 11th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 22nd May 1913 Grand Jury Wont Hear Leo Frank or Lee [Last Updated On: April 11th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 23rd May 1913 Dictograph Record Used Against Felder [Last Updated On: April 11th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 23rd May 1913 Felder Denies Phagan Bribe; Calls Colyar Crook and Liar [Last Updated On: April 11th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 23rd May 1913 Felder Denies Phagan Bribery; Dictograph Record Used Against Felder [Last Updated On: April 11th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 23rd May 1913 Frank Feeling Fine But Will Not Discuss His Case [Last Updated On: April 11th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 23rd May 1913 Here is Affidavit Charging Bribery [Last Updated On: April 11th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 23rd May 1913 Indictment of Both Lee and Frank is Asked [Last Updated On: April 11th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 24th May 1913 Beavers Says He Will Seek Indictments [Last Updated On: April 11th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 24th May 1913 Blease Ironic in Comments on Felder Trap [Last Updated On: April 11th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 24th May 1913 Colyar Called Convict and Insane [Last Updated On: April 11th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 24th May 1913 Colyar Held for Forgery [Last Updated On: April 11th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 24th May 1913 Dictograph Catches Mayor in Net [Last Updated On: April 11th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 24th May 1913 Dictograph Record Alleged Bribe Offer [Last Updated On: April 11th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 24th May 1913 Felder Charges Police Plot to Shield Slayer [Last Updated On: April 22nd, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 24th May 1913 Felders Fight is to Get Chief and Lanford Out of Office [Last Updated On: April 22nd, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 24th May 1913 Frame-Up Aimed at Burns Men, Says Tobie [Last Updated On: April 22nd, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 24th May 1913 Jones Attacks Beavers and Charges Police Crookedness [Last Updated On: April 22nd, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 24th May 1913 Mayor Admits Dictograph is Correct [Last Updated On: April 22nd, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 24th May 1913 Miles Says He Had Mayor Go to Room [Last Updated On: April 22nd, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 24th May 1913 Plot on Life of Beavers Told by Colyar [Last Updated On: April 22nd, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 24th May 1913 Strangulation Charge is in Indictments [Last Updated On: April 22nd, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 25th May 1913 Attorney, in Long Statement, Claims Dictograph Records Against Him Padded [Last Updated On: April 22nd, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 25th May 1913 Colyar Arrest Proper End to Plot of Crook [Last Updated On: April 22nd, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 25th May 1913 Colyar, Held as Forger, is Freed on Bond; Long Crime Record Charged [Last Updated On: April 22nd, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 25th May 1913 Dorsey to Present Graft Charges if They Stand Up [Last Updated On: April 22nd, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 25th May 1913 Ill Indict Gang, Says Beavers [Last Updated On: April 22nd, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 25th May 1913 Long Criminal Record of Colyar is Cited [Last Updated On: April 22nd, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 26th May 1913 Accuses Tobie of Kidnaping Attempt [Last Updated On: April 22nd, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 26th May 1913 Evidence Against Frank Conclusive, Say Police [Last Updated On: April 22nd, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 26th May 1913 Lay Bribery Effort to Franks Friends [Last Updated On: April 22nd, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 26th May 1913 Mason Blocks Attempt to Oust Chief [Last Updated On: April 22nd, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 26th May 1913 Mayor Eager to Bring Back Tenderloin, Declares Chief [Last Updated On: April 22nd, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 26th May 1913 Mayor Gives Out Sizzling Reply to Chief Beavers [Last Updated On: April 22nd, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 26th May 1913 Pinkerton Man Says Frank is Guilty [Last Updated On: April 22nd, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 26th May 1913 Will Take Charge of Graft to Grand Jury for Vindication [Last Updated On: April 22nd, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 27th May 1913 Burns Man Quits Case; Declares He Is Opposed [Last Updated On: April 22nd, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 27th May 1913 Felder Aide Offers Vice List to Chief [Last Updated On: April 22nd, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 27th May 1913 State Faces Big Task in Trial of Frank as Slayer [Last Updated On: April 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 27th May 1913 Suspicion Turned to Conley; Accused by Factory Foreman [Last Updated On: April 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 28th May 1913 Chief Beavers to Renew His Vice War [Last Updated On: April 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 28th May 1913 Conley Says Frank Took Him to Plant on Day of Slaying [Last Updated On: April 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 28th May 1913 Conley Was in Factory on Day of Slaying [Last Updated On: April 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 28th May 1913 Woman Writes in Defense of Leo M. Frank [Last Updated On: April 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 29th May 1913 Burns Joins in Hunt for Phagan Slayer [Last Updated On: April 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 29th May 1913 Conley Re-enacts in Plant Part He Says He Took in Slaying [Last Updated On: April 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 29th May 1913 Felder Bribery Charge Expected [Last Updated On: April 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 29th May 1913 Negro Conleys Affidavit Lays Bare Slaying [Last Updated On: April 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 29th May 1913 Ready to Indict Conley as an Accomplice [Last Updated On: April 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 30th May 1913 Negro Conley Now Says He Helped to Carry Away Body [Last Updated On: April 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 31st May 1913 Conley Star Actor in Dramatic Third Degree [Last Updated On: April 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 31st May 1913 Plan to Confront Conley and Frank for New Admission [Last Updated On: April 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 31st May 1913 Silence of Conley Put to End by Georgian [Last Updated On: April 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 31st May 1913 Special Session of Grand Jury Called [Last Updated On: April 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 1st June 1913 Confession of Conley Makes No Changes in States Case [Last Updated On: May 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 1st June 1913 Conley is Unwittingly Friend of Frank, Says Old Police Reporter [Last Updated On: May 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 1st June 1913 Conleys Story Cinches Case Against Frank, Says Lanford [Last Updated On: May 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 1st June 1913 Dorseys Grill Fails to Make Conley Admit Hand in Killing [Last Updated On: May 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 1st June 1913 Today is Mary Phagans Birthday; Mother Tells of Party She Planned [Last Updated On: May 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 2nd June 1913 5 to Testify Frank Was at Home at Hour Negro Says He Aided [Last Updated On: May 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 2nd June 1913 Beavers to Talk Over the Felder Row With Dorsey [Last Updated On: May 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 2nd June 1913 Negro Cook at Home Where Frank Lived Held by the Police [Last Updated On: May 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 3rd June 1913 Bitter Fight Certain in Trial of Frank [Last Updated On: May 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 3rd June 1913 Felder Says He Will Lay Bare Startling Police Graft Plans [Last Updated On: May 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 4th June 1913 Cooks Sensational Affidavit [Last Updated On: May 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 4th June 1913 Fain Named in Vice Quiz as Resort Visitor [Last Updated On: May 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 4th June 1913 Franks Cook Was Counted Upon as Defense Witness [Last Updated On: May 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 5th June 1913 Challenges Felder to Prove His Charge [Last Updated On: May 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 5th June 1913 Cook Repudiates Entire Affidavit Police Possess [Last Updated On: May 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 5th June 1913 I Know My Husband is Innocent, Asserts Wife of Leo M. Frank [Last Updated On: May 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 5th June 1913 Mother Here to Aid Frank in Trial [Last Updated On: May 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 5th June 1913 New Conley Confession Reported to Jury [Last Updated On: May 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 6th June 1913 Chief Says Law Balks His War on Vice [Last Updated On: May 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 6th June 1913 Report Negro Found Who Saw Phagan Attack [Last Updated On: May 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 7th June 1913 Defense Bends Efforts to Prove Conley Slayer [Last Updated On: May 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 7th June 1913 Defense Digs Deep to Show Conley is Phagan Girl Slayer [Last Updated On: May 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 7th June 1913 Mrs. Frank Attacks Solicitor H. M. Dorsey in a New Statement [Last Updated On: May 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 8th June 1913 Fair Play Alone Can Find Truth in Phagan Puzzle, Declares Old Reporter [Last Updated On: May 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 9th June 1913 Foreman Tells Why He Holds Conley Guilty [Last Updated On: May 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 9th June 1913 Rosser Asks Grand Jury Grill for Conley [Last Updated On: May 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 10th June 1913 Eyewitness to Phagan Slaying Sought [Last Updated On: May 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 10th June 1913 Indictment of Felder and Fain Asked [Last Updated On: May 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 11th June 1913 Asks Beavers to Investigate Affidavit [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 11th June 1913 Felder Returns Phagan Fund to Givers [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 11th June 1913 Plot Exposed, Says Felder, But Lanford Doubts Affidavit [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 11th June 1913 Police Hold Conley By Courts Order [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 12th June 1913 Face Conley and Frank, Lanford Urges [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 13th June 1913 Judge Roan to Decide Conleys Jail Fate [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 13th June 1913 Negro Freed But Jailed Again On Suspicion [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 14th June 1913 Sheriff Mangum Near End, Says Lawyer Smith [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 14th June 1913 State Takes Advantage of Points Known [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 16th June 1913 Colyar Returns Promising Sensation [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 16th June 1913 Dorsey Aide Says Frank Is Fast In Net [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 17th June 1913 Sensations in Phagan Case at Hand [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 18th June 1913 Rush Plans for Trial of Leo Frank [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 19th June 1913 Blow Aimed at Formby Story [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 20th June 1913 Frank Trial Will Not Be Long One [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 21st June 1913 Justice Aim in Phagan Case, Says Hooper [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 22nd June 1913 Arnold to Aid Frank [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 22nd June 1913 Jurors, Not Newspapers, To Return Frank Verdict, Declares Old Reporter [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 23rd June 1913 State Ready for Frank Trial on June 30 [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 23rd June 1913 Venire of 72 for Frank Jury Is Drawn [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 24th June 1913 Both Sides Called in Conference by Judge; Trial Set for July 28 [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 25th June 1913 Conley, Put on Grill, Sticks Story [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 26th June 1913 Stover Girl Will Star in Frank Trial [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 27th June 1913 Lanford and Felder Are Held for Libel [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 27th June 1913 New Frank Evidence Held by Dorsey [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 28th June 1913 Gov. Slaton Takes Oath Simply [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 28th June 1913 State Secures New Phagan Evidence [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 29th June 1913 Brilliant Legal Battle Is Sure as Hooper And Arnold Clash in Trial of Leo Frank [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 29th June 1913 Many Experts to Take Stand in Frank Trial [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 30th June 1913 Conley Tale Is Hope of Defense [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 1st July 1913 Colyar Indicted as Libeler of Col. Felder [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 1st July 1913 Colyar Not Indicted On Charge of Libel [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 1st July 1913 Frank Is Willing for State to Grill Him [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 1st July 1913 May Indict Conley as Slayer [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 1st July 1913 May Indict Conley in Phagan Case [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 1st July 1913 “No” Bill Is Returned Against A. S. Colyar [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 2nd July 1913 Findings in Probe are Guarded [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 3rd July 1913 Attempt by Colyar To Disbar Felder Is Halted; Tries Again [Last Updated On: May 27th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 3rd July 1913 Writ Sought In Move to Free Negro Lee [Last Updated On: June 15th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 4th July 1913 New Testimony Lays Crime to Conley [Last Updated On: June 15th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 5th July 1913 Application for Lee’s Release Delayed [Last Updated On: June 15th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 5th July 1913 Drop Ninth in Police Scandal [Last Updated On: June 15th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 5th July 1913 Liberty for Newt Lee Sought [Last Updated On: June 15th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 5th July 1913 Unbiased in the Flanders Case, Says Slaton [Last Updated On: June 15th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 6th July 1913 Application to Release Lee is Ready to File [Last Updated On: June 15th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 6th July 1913 New Move in Phagan Case by Solicitor [Last Updated On: June 15th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 6th July 1913 Phagan Case Centers on Conley; Negro Lone Hope of Both Sides [Last Updated On: June 15th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 7th July 1913 Lee’s Attorney is Ready for Writ Fight [Last Updated On: June 15th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 7th July 1913 Operations of Slavers in Hotels Bared [Last Updated On: June 15th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 8th July 1913 Attitude of Defense Secret [Last Updated On: June 15th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 8th July 1913 Girl Tells of Life in Slavers’ Hands [Last Updated On: June 15th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 8th July 1913 Grants Right to Demand Lee’s Freedom [Last Updated On: June 15th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 8th July 1913 Police Hunt Principals in Expose [Last Updated On: June 15th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 8th July 1913 Refused by Brown, Mangham Now Asks Slaton for Pardon [Last Updated On: June 15th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 8th July 1913 State Sure Lee Will Not Be Released [Last Updated On: June 15th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 9th July 1913 Girl Springs Sensation in Phagan Case [Last Updated On: June 15th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 9th July 1913 New Evidence in Phagan Case Found [Last Updated On: June 15th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 9th July 1913 Sensations in Story of Girl Victim [Last Updated On: June 15th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 10th July 1913 Beavers in Speech Warns Policemen to Keep Out of Dives [Last Updated On: June 15th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 10th July 1913 Beavers’ War on Vice is Lauded by Women [Last Updated On: June 15th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 10th July 1913 Chief Expects Arrests in Vice Probe [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 10th July 1913 Says Conley Confessed Slaying [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 11th July 1913 Girl Tells Police Startling Story of Vice Ring [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 11th July 1913 Mincey’s Story Jolts Police to Activity [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 11th July 1913 Slaying Charge for Conley Is Expected [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 12th July 1913 Conley Kept on Grill 4 Hours [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 12th July 1913 Dragnet for ‘Slavers’ Is Set [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 12th July 1913 Five Caught in Beavers’ Vice Net [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 12th July 1913 Parents Are Blamed for ‘Slavery’ [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 12th July 1913 Says Women Heard Conley Confession [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 13th July 1913 Affidavits to Back Mincey Story Found [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 13th July 1913 Indictment of Conley Puzzle for Grand Jury [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 13th July 1913 Seek Negro Who Says He Was Eye-Witness to Phagan Murder [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 14th July 1913 Girl Bares New Vice System [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 14th July 1913 Mincey’s Own Story [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 14th July 1913 Prosecution Attacks Mincey’s Affidavit [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 14th July 1913 Vice Pickets Posted at Hotels [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 15th July 1913 Holloway Corroborates Mincey’s Affidavit [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 15th July 1913, Atlanta Police Close 2 Rooming Houses, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: July 3rd, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 15th July 1913 White Men Fined in War on Negro Dives [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 15th July 1913 Woodward Aids Chief in Vice Crusade [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 16th July 1913 Dorsey Adds Startling Evidence [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 16th July 1913 State to Fight Move to Indict Jim Conley [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 17th July 1913 Dorsey Blocked Indictment of Conley [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 17th July 1913 Mayor and Broyles in War of Words [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 17th July 1913 Mayor Asked to Probe Action of Police [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 17th July 1913 Woodward Enemy to Society, Says Recorder Broyles [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 17th July 1913 Youth Accused in Vice Ring on Trial [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 18th July 1913 Detectives Working to Discredit Mincey [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 18th July 1913 Woodward-Broyles Breach Widens [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 19th July 1913 Dorsey Resists Move to Indict Jim Conley [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 19th July 1913 Natural Crank, Mayor’s Shot at Broyles [Last Updated On: July 1st, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 20th July 1913 Attorney for Conley Makes a Statement [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 20th July 1913 Counsel of Frank Says Dorsey Has Sought to Hide Facts [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 20th July 1913 Dorsey Fights Movement to Indict Conley [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 20th July 1913 Mincey Ready to Tell Story to Grand Jury [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 20th July 1913 Mincey Story Declared Vital To Both Sides in Frank Case [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 21st July 1913 Doctor And Girl Are Taken On Vice Charge [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 21st July 1913 Four Women Caught In Vice Net Escape From Martha Home [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 21st July 1913 Grand Jury Meets to Consider Conley Case [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 21st July 1913 Protest of Solicitor Dorsey Wins [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 22nd July 1913 Defense Asks Ruling on Delaying Frank Trial [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 22nd July 1913 Grand Jury Defers Action on Conley [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 22nd July 1913 Story of Phagan Case by Chapters [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 23rd July 1913 Conley is Confronted with Lee Dorsey Grills Negroes in Same Cell at Jail [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 23rd July 1913 Lanford Ridicules Bludgeon Evidence [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 23rd July 1913 Second Chapter in Phagan Mystery [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 24th July 1913 Frank Trial Delay up to Roan [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 24th July 1913 Let the Frank Trial Go On [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 24th July 1913 Third Chapter in Phagan Mystery [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 24th July 1913 Veneir is Drawn to Try Leo M. Frank Monday [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 25th July 1913 Witnesses for Frank Called [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 26th July 1913 Chapter 5 in Phagan Case [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 26th July 1913 Pinkerton Chief Scored by Lanford [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 26th July 1913 Present New Evidence Against Frank [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 27th July 1913 Brewster Denies Aiding Dorsey in Phagan Case [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 27th July 1913 Defense Claims Conley and Lee Prepared Notes [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 27th July 1913 Every Bit of Evidence Against Frank Sifted and Tested, Declares Solicitor [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 27th July 1913 Frank Fights for Life Monday [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 27th July 1913 Frank Watches Closely as the Men Who are to Decide Fate are Picked [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 27th July 1913 Phagan Case of Peculiar And Enthralling Interest [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 27th July 1913 Pinkerton Men Brand Lanford Charges False [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 27th July 1913 Prominent Atlantans Named On Frank Trial Jury Venire [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 27th July 1913 Public Demands Frank Trial To-morrow [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 27th July 1913 State Bolsters Conley [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 27th July 1913 Trial to Surpass in Interest Any in Fulton County History [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 27th July 1913 Venire Whipped Into Shape Rapidly; Negro Is Eligible [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 27th July 1913 Work of Choosing Jury for Trial of Frank Difficult [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 28th July 1913 Frank, Feeling Tiptop, Smiling and Confident, is Up Long Before Trial [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 28th July 1913 Frank Jury [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 28th July 1913 Jury Complete to Try Frank [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 28th July 1913 Mary Phagan’s Mother Testifies [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 29th July 1913 After Rosser’s Fierce Grilling All Negro, Newt Lee, Asked for Was Chew or Bacca-AnyKind [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 29th July 1913 Defense Wins Point After Fierce Lawyers’ Clash [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 29th July 1913 Lee’s Quaint Answers Rob Leo Frank’s Trial of All Signs of Rancor [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 29th July 1913 Tragedy, Ages Old, Lurks in Commonplace Court Setting [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 30th July 1913 Defense Plans Sensation, Line of Queries Indicates [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 30th July 1913 Flashes of Tragedy Pierce Legal Tilts at Frank Trial [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 30th July 1913 Frank’s Mother Pitiful Figure of the Trial [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 30th July 1913 Gantt Has Startling Evidence; Dorsey Promises New Testimony Against Frank [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 30th July 1913 Rosser’s Examination of Lee Just a Shot in Dark; Hoped to Start Quarry [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 31st July 1913 Collapse of Testimony of Black and Hix Girl’s Story Big Aid to Frank [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 31st July 1913 Crimson Trail Leads Crowd to Courtroom Sidewalk [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 31st July 1913 Holloway Accused by Solicitor Dorsey of Entrapping State [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 31st July 1913 Red Bandanna, a Jackknife and Plennie Minor Preserve Order [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 31st July 1913 Scott Trapped Us, Dorsey Charges; Pinkerton Man Is Also Attacked by the Defense [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 31st July 1913 State Balloon Soars When Dorsey, Roiled, Cries ‘Plant’ [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 1st August 1913 Conley Takes Stand Saturday [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 1st August 1913 Defense Not Helped by Witnesses Accused of Entrapping the State [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 1st August 1913 Dorsey Unafraid as He Faces Champions of the Atlanta Bar [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 1st August 1913 Girl Slain After Frank Left Factory, Believed to be Defense Theory [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 1st August 1913 Sherlocks, Lupins and Lecoqs See Frank Trial [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 2nd August 1913 Defense Threatens a Mistrial [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 2nd August 1913 Frank Juror’s Life One Grand, Sweet SongNot [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 2nd August 1913 Roan Holding Scales of Justice With Steady Hand [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 2nd August 1913 State Hopes Dr. Harris Fixed Fact That Frank Had Chance to Kill Girl [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 2nd August 1913 Will 5 Ounces of Cabbage Help Convict Leo M. Frank? [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 3rd August 1913 Conley to Bring Frank Case Crisis [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 3rd August 1913 First Week of Frank Trial Ends With Both Sides Sure of Victory [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 3rd August 1913 Leo Frank’s Eyes Show Intense Interest in Every Phase of Case [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 4th August 1913 Boiled Cabbage Brings Hypothetical Question Stage in Frank’s Trial [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 4th August 1913 Conley’s Story In Detail; Women Barred By Judge [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 4th August 1913 Dorsey Tries to Prove Frank Had Chance to Kill Girl [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 4th August 1913 Dramatic Moment of Trial Comes as Negro Takes Stand [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 4th August 1913 Envy Not the Juror! His Lot, Mostly, Is Monotony [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 4th August 1913 Frank Calm and Jurors Tense While Jim Conley Tells His Ghastly Tale [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 4th August 1913 Frank Witness Nearly Killed By a Mad Dog [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 4th August 1913 Jim Conley’s Story as Matter of Fact as if it Were of His Day’s Work [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 4th August 1913 Jurors Strain Forward to Catch Conley Story; Frank’s Interest Mild [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 4th August 1913 Ordeal is Borne with Reserve by Franks [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 4th August 1913 Rosser’s Grilling of Negro Leads to Hot Clashes by Lawyers [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 5th August 1913 Conleys Charge Turns Frank Trial Into Fight To Worse Than Death [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 5th August 1913 Many Discrepancies To Be Bridged in Conleys Stories [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 5th August 1913 Mrs. Frank Breaks Down in Court [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 5th August 1913 Rosser Goes Fiercely After Jim Conley [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 5th August 1913 Traditions of the South Upset; White Mans Life Hangs on Negros Word [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 6th August 1913 Accuser of Conley is Ready to Testify [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 6th August 1913 Can Jury Obey if Told to Forget Base Charge? [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 6th August 1913 Conley Swears Frank Hid Purse [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 6th August 1913 Crowd Set in Its Opinions [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 6th August 1913 Dorsey Accomplishes Aim Despite Big Odds [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 6th August 1913 Judge Will Rule on Evidence Attacked by Defense at 2 P.M. [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 7th August 1913 Jim Conley, the Ebony Chevalier of Crime, is Darktowns Own Hero [Last Updated On: July 30th, 2024] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 7th August 1913 Roans Ruling Heavy Blow to Defense [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 7th August 1913 State Ends Case Against Frank [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 7th August 1913 Trial as Varied as Vaudeville Exhibition [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 7th August 1913 Trial Experts Conflict on Time of Girls Death [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 8th August 1913 Bits of Circumstantial Evidence, as Viewed by State, Strands in Rope [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 8th August 1913 Scott Put Conleys Story in Strange Light [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 8th August 1913 State, Tied by Conleys Story, Now Must Stand Still Under Hot Fire [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 8th August 1913 Witnesses Attack Conley Story [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 9th August 1913 Absence of Alienists and the Hypothetical Question Distinguishes Frank Trial [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 9th August 1913 Confusion of Holloway Spoils Close of Good Day for the Defense [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 9th August 1913 Daltons Testimony False, Girl Named on Stand Says [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 9th August 1913 Exposure of Conley Story Time Flaws is Sought by Defense [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 9th August 1913 Heres the Time Clock Puzzle in Frank Trial; Can You Figure It Out? [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 9th August 1913 State Attacks Frank Report [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 10th August 1913 Case Never is Discussed by Frank Jurors [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 10th August 1913 Conley, Unconcerned, Asks Nothing of Trial [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 10th August 1913 Dalton Sticks Firmly To Story Told on Stand [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 10th August 1913 Frank or Conley? Still Question [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 10th August 1913 Frank Struggles to Prove His Conduct Was Blameless [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 10th August 1913 Interest in Trial Now Centers in Story of Mincey [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 10th August 1913 Mary Phagans Mother to be Spared at Trial [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 10th August 1913 One Glance at Conley Boosts Darwin Theory [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 10th August 1913 Phagan Trial Makes Eleven Widows But Jurors Wives Are Peeresses Also [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 10th August 1913 Study of Frank Convicts, Then It Turns and Acquits [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 11th August 1913 Defense Bitterly Attacks Harris [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 11th August 1913 Deputy Hunting Scalp Of Juror-Ventiloquist [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 11th August 1913 Grief-Stricken Mother Shows No Vengefulness [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 11th August 1913 Interest Unabated as Dramatic Frank Trial Enters Third Week [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 12th August 1913 Attacks on Dr. Harris Give Defense Good Day [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 12th August 1913 Frank Trial Witness is Sure, At Least, of One Thinga Good Ragging [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 12th August 1913 Peoples Cry for Justice Is Proof Sentiment Still Lives [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 12th August 1913 State Charges Premeditated Crime [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 13th August 1913 Both Sides Aim for Justice in the Trial of Frank [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 13th August 1913 Franks Mother Stirs Courtroom [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 13th August 1913 State Calls More Witnesses; Defense Builds Up an Alibi [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 14th August 1913 Defense Slips Load by Putting up Character of Leo Frank as Issue [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 14th August 1913 State Fights Franks Alibi [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 14th August 1913 State Wants Wife and Mother Excluded [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 14th August 1913 States Sole Aim is to Convict, Defenses to Clear in Modern Trial [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 14th August 1913 Steel Workers Enthralled by Leo Frank Trial [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 15th August 1913 Frank Prepares to Take Stand [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 15th August 1913 Testimony of Girls Help to Leo M. Frank [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Friday, 15th August 1913 What They Say Wont Hurt Leo Frank; State Must Prove Depravity [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 16th August 1913 Girls Testify For and Against Frank [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 16th August 1913 Many Testify to Franks Good Character [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 16th August 1913 Mothers Love Gives Trial Its Great Scene [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Saturday, 16th August 1913 Statement by Frank Will Be the Climactic Feature of the Trial [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 17th August 1913 Supreme Test Comes As State Trains Guns On Frank's Character [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 18th August 1913 Leo Frank Testifies [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 19th August 1913 Jim Conley To Be Recalled [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 20th August 1913 State Closes Frank Case Near Jury Defense Begins Its Sur-rubettual. Hopes To Conclude Quickly [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 21st August 1913 Mass Of Perjuries Charged By Arnold Centers Hot Attack On Conley. Ridicules Prosecution Theory [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Sunday, 24th August 1913 Dorsey Demands Death Penalty For Frank In Thrilling Closing Plea [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 25th August 1913 Frank Case To Jury Today Leo, Frank On His Way From Jail To Court [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Tuesday, 26th August 1913 Frank, Guilty On First Ballot [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Wednesday, 27th August 1913 Fight Begun To Save Frank Motion For New Trial Follows Death Sentence [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Thursday, 28th August 1913 Reply Made To Frank's Attack [Last Updated On: December 6th, 2023] [Originally Added On: December 1st, 2023]
- Monday, 1st September 1913: Scent Phagan Case In Woman’s Cries Building Ransacked, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: November 23rd, 2024] [Originally Added On: November 23rd, 2024]
- Tuesday, 2nd September 1913: Mystery At Frank's Pencil Plant Solved, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: November 23rd, 2024] [Originally Added On: November 23rd, 2024]
- Wednesday, 3rd September 1913: Big Tasks Await Slaton’s Return, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: November 23rd, 2024] [Originally Added On: November 23rd, 2024]
- Friday, 5th September 1913: Conley To Face Misdemeanor Charge Only, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: November 23rd, 2024] [Originally Added On: November 23rd, 2024]
- Sunday, 7th September 1913: Dorsey Sure He Can Break Frank Claim Of Jury Bias, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: November 23rd, 2024] [Originally Added On: November 23rd, 2024]
- Monday, 8th September 1913: Medical Student Is Held As Swindler, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: November 23rd, 2024] [Originally Added On: November 23rd, 2024]
- Tuesday, 9th September 1913: Jim Conley Indicted For Part In Phagan Killing, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: November 23rd, 2024] [Originally Added On: November 23rd, 2024]
- Thursday, 11th September 1913: Judge Roan Picked To Get Appointment To New Judgeship, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: November 23rd, 2024] [Originally Added On: November 23rd, 2024]
- Friday, 12th September 1913: Roan Likely To Be Named In 30 Days, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: November 23rd, 2024] [Originally Added On: November 23rd, 2024]
- Saturday, 13th September 1913: Attorneys Jab At Each Other's Face In Broyles' Court, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: November 23rd, 2024] [Originally Added On: November 23rd, 2024]
- Sunday, 14th September 1913: Professor Beavers To Teach Etiquette, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: November 23rd, 2024] [Originally Added On: November 23rd, 2024]
- Monday, 15th September 1913: Express Theft Arrest Due By Nightfull, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: November 23rd, 2024] [Originally Added On: November 23rd, 2024]
- Tuesday, September 16th, 1913: No Judge To Try Fulton Docket, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: August 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: February 3rd, 2024]
- Wednesday, September 17th, 1913: Jim Conley To Fight Felon Charge Bitterly, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: August 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: February 3rd, 2024]
- Wednesday, 17th September 1913 Say Partee Shot In Self-defense [Last Updated On: February 17th, 2024] [Originally Added On: February 17th, 2024]
- Monday, 22nd September 1913 Judge Roan Not To Hear Frank Trial Motion [Last Updated On: April 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: March 31st, 2024]
- Wednesday, 24th September 1913 Detective Black Not Blamed For Fighting [Last Updated On: April 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: March 31st, 2024]
- Thursday, 25th September 1913 Recall To Apply To All Big Offices [Last Updated On: April 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: March 31st, 2024]
- Friday, 26th September 1913 Judge Roan To Hear Arguments Asking Retrial For Frank [Last Updated On: April 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: February 29th, 2024]
- Sunday, 28th September 1913 Judge Hill May Hear Frank Case [Last Updated On: April 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: February 29th, 2024]
- Monday, 29th September 1913 Delay On Frank Hearing Seems Unavoidable [Last Updated On: April 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: February 29th, 2024]
- Tuesday, 30th September 1913 Frank Ready For New Fight Rosser Ready. Roan Will Hear Frank Argument [Last Updated On: April 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: February 29th, 2024]
- Wednesday, 1st October 1913: Rosser Ready Roan Will Hear Frank Argument, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: August 9th, 2024] [Originally Added On: August 9th, 2024]
- Thursday, 2nd October 1913: Ask New Frank Trial On 115 Counts Many Errors Laid To Court; Charge Made Of Jury Intimidation, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: August 9th, 2024] [Originally Added On: August 9th, 2024]
- Friday, 3rd October 1913: Frank Trial Juror Denies Charge Of Bias, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: August 9th, 2024] [Originally Added On: August 9th, 2024]
- Saturday, 4th October 1913: Sensational Charge In Frank Case, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: August 9th, 2024] [Originally Added On: August 9th, 2024]
- Sunday, 5th October 1913: Governor Slaton Personally Investigates And Verifies The Circulation Of The Georgian And Hearst’s Sunday American, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: August 9th, 2024] [Originally Added On: August 9th, 2024]
- Sunday, 5th October 1913 Indefinite Respite Is Given Frank As Juror Charges Flood [Last Updated On: April 5th, 2024] [Originally Added On: February 29th, 2024]
- Monday, 6th October 1913: Frank Given Indefinite Respite, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: August 9th, 2024] [Originally Added On: August 9th, 2024]
- Tuesday, 7th October 1913: Dorsey At Work To Combat Charge, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: August 9th, 2024] [Originally Added On: August 9th, 2024]
- Wednesday, 8th October 1913: Both Sides Confident In Frank Case, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: August 9th, 2024] [Originally Added On: August 9th, 2024]
- Thursday, 9th October 1913: Postponement In Frank Case Made Certain, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: August 9th, 2024] [Originally Added On: August 9th, 2024]
- Friday, 10th October 1913: Hawthorne Ready To Leave Prison, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: August 9th, 2024] [Originally Added On: August 9th, 2024]
- Saturday, 11th October 1913: Frank Lawyers To File More Depositions, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: August 9th, 2024] [Originally Added On: August 9th, 2024]
- Sunday, 12th October 1913: Governor Slaton Personally Investigates And Verifies The Circulation Of The Georgian And Hearst’s Sunday American, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: August 9th, 2024] [Originally Added On: August 9th, 2024]
- Monday, 13th October 1913: Attack Is Renewed On Frank Juror, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: August 9th, 2024] [Originally Added On: August 9th, 2024]
- Tuesday, 14th October 1913: Dorsey Gathers Proof Against Bias Charges, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: August 9th, 2024] [Originally Added On: August 9th, 2024]
- Wednesday, 15th October 1913: Dorsey Gathers Proof Against Bias Charges, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: August 9th, 2024] [Originally Added On: August 9th, 2024]
- Thursday, 16th October 1913: Dorsey Back With New Affidavits More Delay In Appeal Fight Likely, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: August 9th, 2024] [Originally Added On: August 9th, 2024]
- Friday, 17th October 1913: Sparta Citizens Attack Frank Trial Juror, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: August 9th, 2024] [Originally Added On: August 9th, 2024]
- Saturday, 18th October 1913: Way Clear For Frank Battle, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: August 9th, 2024] [Originally Added On: August 9th, 2024]
- Sunday, 19th October 1913: Frank To Fight On Wednesday For New Trial, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: August 9th, 2024] [Originally Added On: August 9th, 2024]
- Monday, 20th October 1913: Way Clear For Frank Battle, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: August 9th, 2024] [Originally Added On: August 9th, 2024]
- Tuesday, 21st October 1913: Fisher Under Third Degree Shirley's Accuser In Cell, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: August 9th, 2024] [Originally Added On: August 9th, 2024]
- Wednesday, 22nd October 1913: Man Higher Up Sought In Fisher Plot, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: November 23rd, 2024] [Originally Added On: November 15th, 2024]
- Thursday, 23rd October 1913: Judge's Admissions Help Frank's Chance, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: November 23rd, 2024] [Originally Added On: November 15th, 2024]
- Friday, 24th October 1913: Disputes Block Frank Speech, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: November 23rd, 2024] [Originally Added On: November 15th, 2024]
- Saturday, 25th October 1913: Atlanta's Prejudice As Bitter As Russia's Declares Attorney, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: November 23rd, 2024] [Originally Added On: November 15th, 2024]
- Sunday, 26th October 1913: Lawyers In New Battle Over Life Of Leo Frank, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: November 23rd, 2024] [Originally Added On: November 15th, 2024]
- Monday, 27th October 1913: Henslee Is Attacked As Cold Plotter, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: November 23rd, 2024] [Originally Added On: November 15th, 2024]
- Tuesday, 28th October 1913: Ridicules All Claims Made For Frank, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: November 23rd, 2024] [Originally Added On: November 15th, 2024]
- Wednesday, 29th October 1913: Negro's Statement Legal Evidence, He Says; State Closes, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: November 23rd, 2024] [Originally Added On: November 15th, 2024]
- Thursday, 30th October 1913: Frank Alibi Upheld By Rosser In Closing, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: November 23rd, 2024] [Originally Added On: November 15th, 2024]
- Friday, 31st October 1913: Roan Keeps Frank Decision Secret, The Atlanta Georgian [Last Updated On: November 23rd, 2024] [Originally Added On: November 15th, 2024]