Monday, 9th March 1914: New Frank Evidence Is Fought By Dorsey, The Atlanta Georgian

Reading Time: 11 minutes [1956 words]

That Solicitor Hugh Dorsey is laying careful plans to fight any so-called new evidence which the defense of Leo M. Frank may introduce in the extraordinary motion for a new trial before Judge Ben Hill became known Monday.

The Solicitor is working in cooperation with city detectives, getting up evidence to attack the repudiations of trial testimony made public recently. It also was reported on apparently good authority that sensational charges would be the outgrowth of the work of the Solicitor General and the detectives.

Frank Appears Content.

Frank, in his cell Monday, appeared to be content with the drift his case was taking and to view with particular cheer the discoveries concerning the death note showing that it was written on paper used for a requisition three years before the time of the murder and thrown into the basement of the factory.

The arrival of Burns was awaited with interest, but was not expected until later in the week.

Frank's lawyers were busy Monday putting into shape the new evidence to be presented to Judge Ben Hill in the extraordinary motion.

While the motion will contain a great mass of evidence set forth as "newly discovered," it is more than likely that the principal point the mainspring of the new battle will be the date on which a certain pad of paper, used by Conley to write the "murder notes" on, was used previously for its more regular office of transcribing factory orders.

Old Pad Was Used.

The defense will try to show that the pad on which Conley wrote the murder notes could not have been taken by Frank (as Conley stated) "from his desk," because it was an old pad, used up not later than 1909, while H. F. Becker was master mechanic. Containing merely the carbon duplicates of old requisitions, it would not have been in Frank's office, but down in the basement with other waste paper.

In fact, the discovery has been made that just below the second line of Conley's straggly writing, there appears the faint imprint in carbon of a bold and characteristic hand the traces of the signature of H. F. Becker, who left the factory months before the murder of Mary Phagan, but who was there in 1909, at the time the defense will contend the order blanks were used.

The blanks themselves, in fact, were dated for some year previous to 1910, as the blank date was "190 " instead of "191 " as it would have been for the later issue.

Old Copies in Waste Paper.

The defense contends that the old carbon copies of Becker's order blanks had been carried to the basement as waste paper and will attempt to show, in the plea for a new trial and in the trial itself, if granted that it was in the basement, near the body of his victim, that Jim Conley hurriedly procured the old order blanks. After a slovenly attempt to erase the carbon traces, he inscribed the straggling characters that placed the blame on some "long, tall, black negro" the antithesis of short, stocky, "ginger-cake" Jim Conley.

For the rest of the "new evidence," there is the repudiation of Albert Mc Knight, that of Nina Formby and George Epps, and the statement of Mrs. Ethel Harris Miller that she saw Frank at the corner of Whitehall and Alabama streets at the time he was supposed by the State to have been helping Conley to dispose of Mary Phagan's body.

Then there is an affidavit by Helen Ferguson, a friend of Mary Phagan, who says she was frightened by Jim Conley, drunk and insulting, the week before Mary Phagan was killed.

Frank, in a statement composed by himself at the Tower, has gone fully into the points on which the State based its case against him, and, in a list of seventeen replies made to suggested queries, has made a careful effort to show injustice and prejudice in connecting him with the murder of Mary Phagan.

Frank begins with the fact that he let Newt Lee, the watchman, have that Saturday afternoon off from his work, follows with the writing of the mysterious notes, comments on his refusal to see Jim Conley after his arrest, and finishes by explaining what he means by the terms "prejudice and persecution."

"It is nothing to say that Newt Lee was let off 'for the first time' since he had been employed as watchman," said Frank. "Lee had been employed only two weeks, so anything, almost, that might have been done for him would necessarily be 'for the first time.'"

Didn't Insist on Lee Going.

"As a matter of fact, I told Newt he could have the afternoon off if he chose, as I was going to be there myself. I had planned to go to a ball game that afternoon, but, on account of the press of work, I called off the engagement when I was at luncheon at home. I returned to the factory and told Lee he could take the afternoon off, but must be back at 6 o'clock. I did not insist that he go. I did not care whether he went or stayed."

Frank then took up the possibility of Mary Phagan's having been killed in another part of the factory than the metal room while he was in the building without him hearing anything to make him suspicious.

"Mary Phagan may have been attacked on the steps as she went down. That, in fact, is my theory of the crime. She might have been attacked in such a way that she made no outcry. Even if she did, my office was 70 feet away. Halfway down the stairway a heavy door was kept closed. The thick flooring, plastered underneath, was between me and the room below. The two windows on my floor, opening on the street, were open, allowing a large volume of noise to come in. I was immersed in work, not being on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary to happen. Also, please remember that Lemmie Quinn was in my office within three to five minutes after Mary Phagan received her pay envelope, talking to me."

"As to the wording of the notes, and the suggestion that they might have been written by a negro from substance suggested by a white man, I have this to say."

Dictation Theory Silly.

"The very idea of writing such notes and putting them beside the body to divert suspicion was the idea of a drunken, ignorant negro. The whole dictation theory is silly. And it should be remembered that it was I who directed attention to the fact that Conley could write. I did this as soon as I heard that Conley had denied being able to write."

"Another point has been called into question frequently, and the prosecution tried to make much of it. It was said that I gave one time at the Coroner's inquest for the arrival of Mary Phagan at the office and another at the trial. This is not true. At the inquest I said: 'It is pretty hard to give the exact time, but she got there, as nearly as I can remember, between 12:10 and 12:15 o'clock.' At the trial I said: 'Miss Hattie Hall finished the work and started to leave when the 12 o'clock whistle blew. She left the office and returned, it seemed to me, almost at once, calling into my office that she had forgotten something. Then she went away for good. To the best of my recollection, it was some ten or fifteen minutes after she left that the girl, whom I afterward found out to be Mary Phagan, came into my office and asked for her pay envelope.'"

"And let me say right here that if I had been guilty of this crime, nothing on earth would ever have induced me to admit that I had seen and talked with Mary Phagan only a few moments before the time when the prosecution claims she was killed. If, therefore, I did not hesitate to say that I had seen her and talked with her, what object could I have had in misstating the time?"

Didn't Hurry Mrs. White.

Concerning the assertion of the State that Frank was eager to get Mrs. White out of the factory, and that he did not mention in his statement to the police that Lemmie Quinn had been in his office, he says:I was in no hurry to get Mrs. White or anyone else out of the factory that afternoon. I merely told her that she would have to go unless she wanted to be locked in with the two workmen then at work on the fourth floor, as I was going home to lunch and was going to lock up the factory. I said nothing about haste.

As to the visit of Lemmie Quinn, and my failure to mention it to the police, the matter simply had slipped my mind, although it was a circumstance favorable to me. As soon as Quinn referred to the fact himself, I recalled it at once. So far from telling him to say nothing to the police until I had consulted with my lawyers, I told him to tell the truth. I told him I would report the fact to my lawyers, and I did so, because I was not certain just what the police were claiming at that time, and did not know what bearing Quinn's visit would have as evidence.

And here is a point that has been talked about as much, probably, as any other in the trial. Again and again it has been asked, "If Frank was innocent of any misconduct, why did not his lawyers cross-examine the character witnesses put on by the State, who swore that his character was bad?"

This is what Leo Frank says himself: "My experience with Dalton, the first character witness against me, had given me and my attorneys fair warning what to expect from the so-called character witnesses. Here was a man upon whom I never had laid eyes before he took his seat in the witness chair, and of whom I had never heard, and yet he swore solemnly to acts and doings with me that were utterly and absolutely untrue and without the slightest foundation."

"My lawyers decided that if they cross-examined these so-called character witnesses against me, it would merely be a way of allowing these hostile people to tell all they had heard about me in the way of vile slander not what they knew, which was nothing. My lawyers felt that these witnesses had been loaded with slanders about me just for the purposes of cross-examination. They did not want to give them the chance to repeat malicious tales against me which they had no opportunity to investigate or answer."

As to the terms "prejudice" and "persecution," Frank asserts that the prosecution of himself became persecution from the moment of discovery of a "negro brute" with knowledge of the crime, admitting that he wrote the notes found by the dead girl's body, after steadily denying that he could write at all, and finally, after "repeated visits by detectives and the Solicitor," inventing a "preposterous and unbelievable tale," putting the crime on the man previously arrested in order to save his own neck.

"And as for prejudice," said Frank, "I should say that the influence of prejudice was evident from the moment that it was sought to convict me, at all costs, after it was shown that another had full opportunity to commit the crime."

PAGE 2, COLUMN 2

NEW EVIDENCE FOUND

BY FACTORY FOREMAN

Lemmie Quinn, foreman of the National Pencil Factory, who discovered that the murder notes were written on a pad used in 1909.