Sunday, 30th May 1915: Leo M. Frank Is Innocent And Jim Conley Is Guilty, Asserts Hooper Alexander, The Atlanta Constitution

Reading Time: 30 minutes [5495 words]

United States District Attorney Analyzes Testimony of Negro on Stand and His Three Affidavits. HIS STORY WAS INSPIRED BY GRILLING, HE SAYS Murder Notes Prepared by Conley in Basement, and Without Dictation by Anyone. Declares Attorney.

The innocence of Leo M. Frank, and the guilt of Jim Conley of the murder of Mary Phagan are asserted in a lengthy analysis of the Case, which has just been prepared by Hooper Alexander, United States District Attorney, and submitted to the Prison Commission.

Mr. Alexander declares he has undertaken this onerous task at the request of a number of members of the Bar, who knew of his stand on this Case, that he does it as a Service to Justice, and without the slightest hope of Reward.

"Conley's testimony is the one central overmastering Fact from which it is impossible for the Prosecution to escape," he says. "Conley's story is the most terrific piece of circumstantial evidence in this Case, and it is a piece of circumstantial evidence that cannot be put aside or ignored."

ALEXANDER'S LETTER.

Mr. Alexander's letter to the Prison Commission is, in part, as follows: "If it cannot be shown that Conley's testimony was the most impudent fabrication that ever gulled a Community, I shall ask for nothing. They cannot escape from Conley's story. Upon that story, I challenge the attention of all who love Truth and Justice."

"I go further than that. Until I prove it, I shall not call a single Witness for the Defense or state a single Fact that depends upon the testimony for the Defense. There were not less than twenty reputable Witnesses for the Defense who testified to Facts, any one of which, if true, makes Conley's story impossible."

"Surely, this Case presents some of the most remarkable features in Judicial Annals. Conley, confessedly, to save his own life, tells the most improbable and unreasonable story."

The Case Against Conley.

"The notes were written by a short, thick-set Negro, who, by his own admissions, has been in Prison seven or eight times, known to be of lustful and drunken proclivities, and who was at the time of the murder employed about the Factory, and of unsavory repute. Undeniably, the notes point to the Writer as the murderer, unless he can offer some reasonable, credible and consistent explanation."

Why Public and Police Were Deceived.

"If, in spite of the tremendous force of these circumstances, the public and the Police did believe Conley, the natural inquiry is why it was so."

"The murder was peculiarly aggravated. Innocent people were arrested both in and out of Atlanta upon the bare assertions of the most irresponsible people. To whomsoever the slightest rumor pointed, as the murderer, the Hearers of Reports believed that guilt attached. As a specimen of the recklessness of credulity, when Newt Lee was the object of suspicion, experienced experts in penmanship testified most positively that the notes were in Lee's Handwriting."

"During all this time, Frank, who was the last person known to have seen the victim, and Lee, who had discovered her body, were the most probable objects of suspicion. Suspicion gradually ripened into conviction. Many of the stories told that pointed to Frank, though utterly untrue, have never yet been corrected by the Police, who knew them to be false."

"The public began to lose patience with the Police, and charged them, with a lack of zeal. Conscious that they were indeed drawing upon their utmost energies in a sincere purpose to detect the murderer, the Police were sensible of the utter injustice of the attitude toward them."

Facts That Are Known.

"I have undertaken to demonstrate that the story which Conley told to break the force of this discovery was entirely false. To do so, it is necessary, that we have some certain and established Facts as land-marks by which to steer."

Fact No. 1.

"Mary Phagan left her home at 11:45."

Fact No. 2.

"Mary Phagan could not by any possibility have caught a car that was scheduled to reach Broad Street earlier than 12:07."

Fact No. 3.

"Monteen Stover was in the Factory at 12:05, and left it at 12:10. This is a Witness whose testimony as to time is exact and altogether credible. Nobody has expressed the slightest distrust of her veracity. The Solicitor in his Argument expressed implicit confidence in her truthfulness, and I accept it as a Fact beyond controversy that it was her purpose to tell the truth."

"Upon the absolute verity, in particular, of Monteen Stover's Statement, the whole Prosecution hangs. Until that Fact was ascertained, the Detectives had not the slightest hope of showing that Frank had varied anywhere from truth in the Statement which he gave them on the 28th of April. Knowing that Monteen Stover was in his Office at 12 o'Clock and five minutes, they asked him whether he was there the entire time, between his return from Montag's at 11 o'Clock and his going upstairs at 12:50. He answered 'Yes.'"

"From that moment, the Detectives never doubted their ability to fasten the Crime on Frank."

"The Prosecution has never sought to escape from the Fact that Monteen Stover was in the Office at 12 o'Clock and five minutes. It has been from the beginning, the backbone of their Case."

Persons Present in Factory.

"I have agreed to prove Frank's innocence by the State's own evidence. At 6:30, the day Watchman arrived; at 7 White and Denham, Carpenters, or Machinists, came and went up to the fourth floor and went to work on some repair job that had to be done. They were shortly followed by Alonzo Mann, the Office boy. At 8:39 or 8:45, Frank came. About 9 o'Clock Darley came. About 9:10 a young girl named Mattie Smith came. At 9:30, by the testimony of one Witness, or 9:40 by that of another, Darley left for the day, going off in Company with Frank to Montag's. Shortly before 11 o'Clock Miss Hattie Hall came. At 11 o'Clock Frank returned from Montag's and found Miss Hall in the Outer Office. Holloway says he left at 11:45."

"About 11:30, Mrs. White came in. She found Miss Hattie Hall there, writing on the typewriter. When Holloway left the Factory, he met Corinthia Hall and Emma Clark Freeman some 200 or 300 feet away, coming toward the Factory. In response to an inquiry from Mrs. White, as to whether she could see her husband, Frank called up the stairs to Mrs. Freeman, to tell White that his wife, was downstairs."

"Mrs. May Barrett and her daughter were there. Miss Barrett came downstairs, and she and her mother left. Mrs. White followed shortly after, leaving at 11:30. After her departure, there was no one else known to be in the building except Frank and Miss Hall. Denham and White were on the fourth floor."

"Let it not be forgotten here as one Fact of which the importance is now surely beginning to be manifest, that Mary Phagan left her home, two or three miles away, at 11:45; that Mrs. White left the Factory at 11:50; that Monteen Stover arrived at the Factory at 12:05, and that Mary Phagan reached a point on Forsyth Street, at least an eighth of a mile away, at 12:08, and that somewhere between 11:50 and 12:05, Miss Hall left."

"Mrs. White, returning at 12:30, found Frank standing in front of the safe in the Outer Office, and with his back to the door. She asked him for permission to go upstairs and see her husband. As Mrs. White went down the steps to the Street floor she saw a Negro man in the passageway."

"Albert Mc Knight testified that Frank was at home, a point at least two miles away, at 1:30. The movements of individuals have not heretofore been disputed. Every Statement that I have made on the subject comes from the State's Witnesses."

Evolution of Conley's Story.Concerning the methods of the Detectives, after midnight on the 29th of April the Detectives, Black and Scott, took Frank out of his bed, and induced him to talk with Lee, in the hope of extracting something. Frank did talk with Lee. He said exactly what the Detectives told him to say, and without result. It was widely published next day that Frank had been overheard talking with his partner in Crime, and the very words he spoke at Black's Dictation are still in the minds of many men, the ground of a persistent belief in his guilt.

On that day, after deliberating for six days over the peril that obviously threatened him from the discovery of his ability to write, he completed in his mind the fabric of a story that he even deferential to his Employees, though little acquainted among them.

He was manifestly of a highly nervous temperament, unusually susceptible to the suffering of others. It may be safely said that he was above the average in intelligence.

Nothing in the Record, except Conley's testimony, and Dalton's, suggested that he ever showed anything like familiarity with other people. Conley represents Frank as in the habit of degraded practices. To prove it, the State called a Witness named Dalton, of whom eleven Witnesses testified they would not believe him on his Oath. The very story that he undertook to tell was intended to associate himself with happenings of the most unspeakable and degraded sort.

Frank had asked Conley, according to Conley's story, to come there that day and 'watch' for him. Yet he didn't watch. Frank 11:50 until 12:10, during which interval, according to Conley's story, the murder took place, two people came in and went up to the Office without interruption by Conley, one of them just before, and the other just after Mary Phagan came. But in his testimony, he says that his Agreement with Frank was, that as soon as the expected visitor came, Frank would stamp his foot in order that Conley might lock the door. He not only says that he did not do anything to prevent interference, but that he heard Mary Phagan scream, and that, after that, he saw Monteen Stover come in and go up, and never lifted a hand to give warning.

If Conley's story is true, why did he not lock the door? Why did not Frank stamp? The girl came before 12:05. The blow which we are asked to believe produced unconsciousness must have taken place very close to 12 o'Clock. Mrs. White was there at 12:30, and it was impossible for her to have gotten in unless she came, before the door was locked. When she came, Frank was in his Office, attending to Office work, and, if Conley tells the Truth, the door had not yet been locked. We are seriously asked to believe that Frank undertook the contemplated wrong without having the door fastened, and knowing that visitors were liable to arrive at any moment, and were, in Fact, arriving constantly.

### Conflict With Affidavit.

1. What became of the mesh-bag was a vitally important question. On the 29th of May, Conley said nothing about seeing the mesh-bag. On the Stand, he gave an elaborate Statement of seeing it on Frank's desk, and of Frank hiding it in the safe. This is pure invention by a Witness who has found himself a hero in the estimation of Auditors who seem to him prepared to believe anything he tells.

2. I select now a variance of a different type. On May 29, he did not say a word about Frank's wanting him to burn the body. On the Witness Stand, he told an elaborate story, to that effect. This was the result of suggestion.

The Detectives did their utmost to make him say that the plan was to burn the body. It was one of their numerous theories that they tried so diligently to make him sustain them in. It grew and developed, and, at the trial, he told an elaborate story about that. The Fact stares us in the face that we are about to put a man to Death on the testimony of a Witness whom it is essentially dangerous to believe, because no man can be sure now that, if he testified again, he would not tell a wholly different story.

3. On the 29th of May, Conley told the Detectives that when he got down to the basement, he and Frank took the body off the elevator together and laid it on the ground; that Frank then went up the ladder to watch and see if anybody was coming.

In his testimony, he tells us that when they got to the basement, they took the body out of the elevator, and I opened the cloth and rolled her out there on the floor, and says not a word, about taking the body back, to the sawdust pile on his shoulder or any other way.

This change in the story was not invented to explain why the bed ticking was not found on the trash pile, where the hat and the shoes were found, though certainly that question needs to be answered now.

A doctor who had testified that the condition of the body the scratches and punctures on the face the dirt and the mouth and eyes showed that it had been dragged over dirt and cinders. The floor was covered with these materials. If Conley left the body at the elevator, it would be an easy inference that frank went back in the afternoon and did the dragging.

### When Did Mary Phagan Come?

In respect to the time of Mary Phagan's arrival, the State is faced by a serious dilemma. Conley story not only has her there before Monteen Stover, but has the murder consummated before that time. On the other hand, the evidence of Monteen Stover, who is highly commended by the Solicitor and Argument, is that she herself got there at 12:05.

I think Mrs. White's story is true. She says she left there at 11:15 and left Miss Hattie Hall there at work. Is that to be denied now by the State? I hope not. Graham and Tillander were there when she came, and she talked there after that for 15 minutes with Mr. White. I think Graham and Tillander were slightly mistaken in their time. They say they got there at 11:40. If that is correct, Mrs. White could not have left till 12. She says she left about ten minutes before that, at 11:50, and that seems reasonable. Miss Hattie hall could hardly have closed up her work and got away much before 12, if anything. Say she left at 11:55. Conley says Quinn came in before Mary Phagan and that Monteen Stover came afterwards. These things cannot be made to 'fit.' They are impossible. Now what is the explanation? Mine is that Conley's whole story was a fabrication, built up from the necessity that grew out of discovery that he was the author of the murder notes. What is the state's explanation?

### Interruption by Visitors.

The visit of miss Corinthia Hall and Miss Emma Freeman took place before 12 o'Clock. The left before Mrs. White left, most probably about 11:45. There are a dozen Witnesses to that effect. In his Argument, the Solicitor himself says they left just about the time I state.

In Conley's account of what happened, he fixes the time of his coming upstairs as very shortly before 1 o'Clock. After he had been back, at Frank's Command, and found the dead body, he came forward to the head of the steps where frank was waiting for him, and it was 12:56. After that, he says they took the body down and concealed it and came back and sat down in the Office to arrange for a subsequent Program. Then it was that Frank exclaimed, looking out toward the stairway: 'My God, here is Emma Clarke and Corinthia Hall,' and proceeded to hide calmly in the wardrobe, during a visit that commonly fixes as lasting somewhere from seven to eight minutes.

If the Prosecution made any effort to reconcile this discrepancy, it has escaped my attention. Conley says he was keenly on watch from 11 o'Clock until 12. He says he saw Darley then, though, in Fact, Darley left at 9:40.

### Conley's Statements As to Time.Conley says that after he went up, he was told by Frank that he had hurt a little girl, and to go back there and bring her forward. As he came back, it was 12:56. That hour was in every statement Conley made. The subsequent transactions ended at 1:30 when Conley left, Frank being still in his office.

The story, as told on May 28, cannot be read aloud in less than eight minutes, and it leaves out the whole story about carrying and hiding the body. Interpolate this account from the direct narrative of May 29, and it takes four minutes more to read. Here are incidents narrated which it takes twelve minutes to read. There is not an important thing stated that would not require from ten to fifty times as long to do as to tell about.

Time Needed For Writing. The time needed for the writing alone would have consumed more than the 34 minutes. Conley says it took him 2 or 3 minutes. When we bear in mind that he says he wrote the first note 3 times, I submit that it would take a rapid penman longer. Literate people write very slowly, and the notes in question give ample evidence that they were painfully written. There were 113 words written, and if the minimum of time estimated by the witness be used (6 minutes), it required well over an hour and a quarter for nothing but the writing. Writing the words myself, at a rate that I estimate from my observation of Negroes as penmen, such a writer would take the bare writing consumed something over 25 minutes.

Mc Knight's Testimony. Vile as Mc Knight's character seems to have been, the State ought not to hang Frank on part of what he says and repudiate the rest. Frank was at the factory at the time the State says he committed the crime. He did introduce numerous and respectable witnesses to prove his whereabouts during the whole time testified to by Conley. But the solicitor indicates a high opinion of Mc Knight. And yet, Mc Knight's testimony agrees with and sustains the white witnesses perfectly on this question. The evidence of Mc Knight was that Frank was at home at 1:30, the very hour that Conley says he left him at the pencil factory. The solicitor did not meet this unavoidable issue. On page 65 of this argument, he indicated his opinion that the defense had failed to break down the testimony of Mc Knight.

There had never been a hint in any of Conley's stories that Frank had been guilty of shameful practices, or that Conley had been his abettor. Conley did not know, according to this story, why Frank wanted him; and, while the fact that Frank did want him suggests premeditation when we read the story, there was nothing said to Conley, as he tells it, that gave him the slightest hint that a meeting was involved. On the witness stand, it was all prepared and ready. When he goes upstairs, it is after arrangements made to watch, with full knowledge that a liaison was intended, and full vision of the entrance of the victim. So skillfully was the story altered now that Frank asks him, "Did you see a little girl," etc. And Conley tells him, "I saw two come up and only one go down." Had the story stayed as it was, there could have been no explanation for the confession.

The crime was committed in 1913. Conley says one page of the notes came off a brownish scratch pad on Frank's desk. It carries on its face the unanswerable proof that it was a carbon sheet. Its date line, "190 ," is demonstration that it was long out of date. It had been used and torn off the pad. The number of the order is on it, and legible. The autograph of the man who signed the order can still be deciphered, "H.F. Becker." Becker left the factory in 1912. He was the custodian of these temporary carbon memoranda. The order was filled in September, 1909. The old papers out of Becker's desk were emptied in the basement. By the testimony of Officer Dobbs, he found the pad that the white note came from, but he found no pad for the yellow sheet. By the silent evidence of things, witnesses that cannot lie, you read the story of the notes, and see their preparation by Conley in the basement.

Conclusion. I have finished the proof. There is plenty more. But it is enough. Gentlemen of the board, as I understand it, the defendant asks only commutation. He asks but an opportunity to vindicate his honor. As a private citizen of Georgia, deeply concerned for her honor, I think you ought to advise the governor to grant the commutation. If Leo Frank is hung, an innocent man will die, but it is the State will suffer shame, and the day will come when a great revulsion of feeling will follow. Grant his prayer. Advise the governor in terms of wisdom, justice, and moderation.

PAGE 4, COLUMN 1

DORSEY TELLS WHY

HE OPPOSES PLEA

FOR COMMUTATION

His Letter to State Prison

Commission and That of

Mary Phagan's Mother

Are Made Public.

PROMINENT ATLANTANS

MAKE PLEA FOR FRANK

Protest Mass Meeting Call-

ed at Marietta-Gwinnett

Delegation Opposed Co-

lumbus Urges Clemency.

FRANK DEVELOPMENTS.

Solicitor's letter to Prison Commission opposing commutation, made public.

Mrs. J. W. Coleman, mother of Mary Phagan, sends letter to board protesting clemency.

Leading members of Atlanta Bar and other prominent Georgians urge commutation.

Columbus to send delegation to Atlanta to make plea for prisoner.

Gwinnett delegation visits solicitor's office to protest change in sentence.

Mass meeting called in Marietta to protest against clemency.

Delegations from Georgia cities and from outside state coming to help Frank.

A delegation of citizens from Gwinnett County, who visited Solicitor General Hugh M. Dorsey Saturday afternoon to deliver a petition from residents of their community protesting against the plea for commutation for Leo M. Frank, occasioned the following statement from Mr. Dorsey: "Thousands of names have been sent to me in protest. The country would be surprised at the number of Georgia people who oppose commutation." Mr. Dorsey Saturday made public the reply he sent to R. E. Davison, chairman of the State Prison Commission, in which he urged that the law be allowed to take its course. Saturday afternoon, he was in conference with Detectives John Starnes and Pat Campbell, investigators on the Frank case, and the officials named in the indictments as prosecutors of Leo Frank.

DORSEY

NONCOMMITTAL.

Asked if he was planning some new move in the case, he replied: "I have nothing to say at present." The delegation from Gwinnett was headed by H. M. Lively, a merchant of Norcross, and T. F. Walker, a manufacturer of that place. The petition presented to the solicitor general had been circulated in and around Norcross and contained 165 names of residents, some of them women. The name of O. O. Simpson, mayor of Norcross, and one of Gwinnett's influential residents, was signed to the petition. Mr. Lively informed the solicitor that a petition pleading for commutation, circulated in Norcross, had only six names. A short address of acknowledgement was made by Dorsey to the delegation, in which he said that he appreciated the attitude of the Gwinnett citizens "in upholding the law's course," and in "protest against a move to obstruct the course of the law." Mr. Dorsey, when questioned by reporters, refused to give out other petitions that have come to him from various parts of the state. It happened that a reporter was in the anteroom of his offices at the time the delegation from Gwinnett appeared. "The others will be made public at the opportune moment," was his only statement.

DORSEY'S

LETTER.

Mr. Dorsey's letter to the Prison Commission is as follows: "Atlanta, Ga., May 22, 1915. Mr. R. E. Davison, Chairman Prison Commission of Georgia. Dear Sir: In re: Application of Leo M. Frank for Commutation of Death Sentence."In acknowledging receipt of notice of the pending application for executive clemency in behalf of the above stated party, convicted of murder at the July, 1913, term of Fulton Superior Court, and in reply to your communication on the same subject dated May 17th, 1915, I beg to say that I have no objection to the date assigned by you for the hearing of the application.

As Rule 5 of the 'Joint Rules established by the Governor and the Prison Commission Governing Applications for Executive Clemency' requires the papers submitted to your board to include expressions of opinion as to the merits of the application from the judge or solicitor general who tried the case, when obtainable, and as Judge Roan, now deceased, presided as judge upon the trial, I assume that your notice of the assignment of the hearing is intended to invoke written expression, required by the rule, as to the merits of the pending application of Frank for executive clemency.

The petition recites the filing with the Prison Board of four copies of the brief of the evidence introduced at the trial upon which the conviction of the prisoner was based.

The records of the motion for new trial, which was overruled by the trial judge, and of the decision of the Supreme Court of Georgia affirming the judgment; the extraordinary motion for a new trial which was likewise overruled by the judge of Fulton County Superior Court; the decision of the Supreme Court of Georgia affirming that judgment; the motion to set aside the verdict of the jury, overruled by Judge Benjamin H. Hill, and the decision of the Supreme Court of Georgia affirming said decision; the writ of habeas corpus denied by Judge W. T. Newman, of the United States District Court, and the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States affirming that judgment, are doubtless part of the record that will be considered by you, and if not, can be furnished by me upon request, for your consideration.

The records present the details of the crime for the commission of which Frank was convicted by the courts of this county, and illustrate the conditions and circumstances under which the crime was committed.

No New Evidence.

I do not understand the application for executive clemency to set up any newly discovered evidence, or other grounds not heretofore considered and finally adjudicated by the various judges of all the courts, state and federal, which have declined to interfere with the verdict of the jury finding Frank guilty of the murder of Mary Phagan.

It is, therefore, an application for the amelioration of the penalty of a crime for the commission of which the courts have finally adjudicated the applicant guilty. Indeed, the application does not pray for a pardon, but in express terms asks that the applicant be punished by life imprisonment instead of the penalty imposed by the trial court.

The facts and circumstances surrounding the commission of the murder of Mary Phagan do not invoke the exercise of the law to one who has been finally convicted of the crime.

I do not believe that the education, opportunities and influence of the applicant or the importunities of his friends should be permitted to affect the expression of an official opinion, and I confess myself unable to find in the record of this case a single ground upon which to justify the solicitor general, charged with the enforcement of the law, in asking that the decrees of the courts shall be overridden by the governor, the chief executive, upon whom also the constitution of the state enjoins the sacred obligation to take care that the laws are faithfully executed.

The very fact that the conviction of the applicant by a jury of twelve citizens has been affirmed by the judges of all the courts, state and federal, by whom the case has been reviewed, despite the circumstances of the defendant and the unusual and indefatigable exertions of his influential friends in and out of Georgia, confirms my sincere respect for the integrity of our courts and justifies my deep conviction that in this case the ends of justice have been accomplished by the processes of the law.

If there should be matters not disclosed by the record where my information of the files of my office can serve you in the consideration of the application, I am subject to your commands. With respect, I am yours truly,

(Signed) "HUGH M. DORSEY,"

"Solicitor General, Atlanta Judicial Circuit."

MOTHER PROTESTS.

A protest against commutation for Leo M. Frank has been mailed to the Prison Commission by Mrs. J. W. Coleman, mother of Mary Phagan. The letter will reach the chairman of the Prison Board on Monday morning about the time the hearing begins. Mrs. Coleman, through her attorney, James L. Key, is suing the National Pencil Factory, in which the girl was slain, for $10,000 damages.

It has not been definitely decided as yet whether or not Attorney Key will, in behalf of Mrs. Coleman and her husband, appear before the Prison Commission during the hearing to oppose commutation.

Mrs. Coleman's letter in full follows:

"Hon. Prison Commissioners of Georgia. Dear Sirs: I am advised by the newspapers and the Solicitor General's Office that you will pass upon the application of Leo M. Frank for a commutation of sentence Monday, May 31."

"I beg to state that I have watched this case very closely from the beginning. I heard all of the evidence and have read all the later developments. I am thoroughly convinced that Leo M. Frank is responsible for the death of my daughter."

"In this matter I have no bitterness, but I feel that the penalty that the law has imposed is not too severe. The fact that Frank and his friends have had a great deal of money to spend and have had a great deal of influence at home and abroad should have no effect on this case."

"Very sincerely,"

"MRS. J. W. COLEMAN"

Atlanta, Ga., May 29, 1915.

URGE CLEMENCY.

Appeals for commutation for Frank were sent to Governor Slaton Saturday by Attorney Jack J. Spalding, of Atlanta; T. J. Simmons, of Gainesville, associate president of Brenau College; Judge J. L. Sweat, of Waycross, and Rabbi David Marx, of Atlanta.

Rabbi Marx denied the stories to the effect that Frank's domestic affairs were not tranquil, and stated that he and his wife lived together happily. He likewise denied the report that Mrs. Frank had refused to visit her husband when he was first arrested.

Among other Georgians who appealed to the governor were Judge J. L. Sweat, of Waycross; Rev. O. M. Sutton, College Park; Attorney J. B. Murrow, Tifton; J. H. Johnson, Decatur; George W. Head, Tunnel Hill; Dr. and Mrs. J. W. Greene, Tunnel Hill.

HEARING MONDAY.

The hearing on the Leo M. Frank appeal begins Monday morning at 10 o'clock. An effort will be made, it was said last night, to hold the sessions in the chambers of the commission, adjoining the executive offices on the third floor. The audience will be so great, however, that sessions may be held in the hall of representatives.

The hearing is expected to require at least three or four days, possibly the entire week.

FAVOR CLEMENCY.

Marietta, Ga., May 29. (Special.) A delegation of about two dozen prominent Columbus citizens, including Mayor John C. Cook, Sheriff J. A. Beard, Judge Henry K. Gammon, Judge A. W. Cozart, Representative Ed Wohlwender, Dr. L. R. Christie, pastor of the First Baptist Church; Dr. J. T. Moncrieff, city health officer, and others prominent in business and professional life will go to Atlanta on Monday morning to appear before the State Prison Commission in behalf of Leo M. Frank's application for commutation of death sentence to life imprisonment. An informal meeting of citizens was held this afternoon, as a result of which this delegation was appointed to go to Atlanta.

PROTEST COMMUTATION.Marietta, Ga., May 29. (Special.) A mass meeting has been called at the Marietta Courthouse for Monday night to protest against the Commutation of the Leo Frank Sentence. It is understood the Promoters of the meeting will ask that all outside influence be unnoticed by the Pardon Board and the Governor and the body be left to act on the Facts as presented in the evidence, regardless of what other people and States may ask.

PLEAD FOR FRANK. Delegation from Chicago and other points outside Georgia and from Savannah, Macon and other Cities in the State are coming to Atlanta for Monday's Hearing to plead for the Prisoner.

800,000 SIGNATURES. New York, May 29. A Petition with 800,000 Signatures for Commutation of the Death Sentence of Leo M. Frank was sent tonight by the anti-Death Committee of the Women's Peace Society, to Governor Slaton, of Georgia: Miss Elberta K. Shipley, Chairman of the Leo M. Frank Petition Committee, sent a letter to the Governor, recounting the work the Committee has done "in the cause of Justice and Humanity, and requesting the Commutation of Frank's Sentence."