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File Name: 1916-09-02-pottle-flays-dorsey-for-leo-frank-speech-the-atlanta-journal.mp3
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The Atlanta Journal,
Saturday, 2nd September 1916,
PAGE 2, COLUMN 1.
Brands Fulton Solicitor as a Traitor for Appealing to Prejudice and Passion
(Special Dispatch to The Journal.)
ALBANY, Ga., Sept. 2. Addressing a large audience of Dougherty county citizens in this city Friday afternoon, Joseph E. Pottle, candidate for governor, replied to the Leo M. Frank speech which Hugh M. Dorsey was reported in the Atlanta Constitution to have delivered at Valdosta Thursday afternoon.
Mr. Pottle declared that Candidate Dorsey, driven to desperation and panic by the waning fortunes of his gubernatorial campaign, has at last revealed his bid for the votes of the people in its true and shameless light.
He declared that Candidate Dorsey has stripped his platform of all other planks and pretended planks, and has taken his eleventh hour stand upon the single plank of prejudice and passion.
He declared that every patriotic Georgian had hoped and prayed that Leo Frank would be forgotten, and that any man who now seeks to kindle anew the hatreds of that case is a traitor to his people and unworthy of their suffrage.
MR. POTTLE'S SPEECH.
Mr. Pottle Said:
"I have repeatedly charged on the stump that Hugh M. Dorsey is running for governor on a platform that is a sham, a pretense, and a fraud. I have charged that his candidacy was not really in good faith, as he pretends, based upon law enforcement and obedience to law, but that his real platform, as every thinking man in Georgia knows, involves a appeal to passion and prejudice based upon today's notorious criminal case which he is seeking to capitalize.
"If anything were needed to demonstrate the truth of this charge, it would be found in the speech which he is reported in the Atlanta Constitution to have delivered in Valdosta Thursday. In this speech he boldly and shamelessly appeals to the passions of the people and seeks to arouse anew their prejudices for the sole purpose of making political capital for himself.
"Every Patriotic Georgian had hoped and prayed that Georgia was through with the Frank case, and any man who would now seek to again fan into a flame the passion aroused by that case is a traitor to his people and unworthy of their suffrage.
"At last Mr. Dorsey has declared his true platform, a platform which every man who supports him or can read and write has known all along was the real basis of his appeal for votes. Many of my friends who are close supporters of his repeatedly stated to me that they believed it was the plan of Mr. Dorsey and his backers to make Frank the central tone of their part of his campaign, but so far as I am concerned I was loath to believe that a candidate for the high office of governor of Georgia would go so far as to openly and boldly admit that he is running on an issue so unworthy.
"BALD AND SHAMELESS ANSWER."
His only excuse for unmasking in this bold and shameless way is that there is an alleged conspiracy among his opponents, the newspapers of Georgia and practically everybody else who is opposing him in the race to defeat him.
"This excuse is a baseless pretense, born of his realization that his strength is fast waning. He knows that there is a coalition forming among his opponents, and that if there is any conspiracy against him at all it is on the part of the thinking, patriotic people of Georgia who desire to save the honor and good name of the state and who resent the palpable effort of Mr. Dorsey and his sponsors to run in on an issue so low, degraded and contemptible platform.
"His entire speech is a studied and laborious effort to stir again and to his advantage the passions of the people, and nowhere in the speech does he even attempt to answer the serious charges I have brought against him. He is making his campaign and staking his hope of election upon his ability to kindle anew the flames of hatred and passion aroused by the Frank case.
"I have charged that while solicitor general he took the money of the state and at the same time the money of the Louisville and Nashville railroad and brought a suit against the state in face of the constitution which he was sworn to support. This charge is still undenied, and he now attempts to break its force by crying out 'misrepresentation' by his opponents.
PEOPLE WANT AN ANSWER.
"The people of Georgia ask and are entitled to have an answer did he, or did he not, join the enemies of the state in their assault upon the Western and Atlantic railroad?
"If he did, he is unworthy to be governor; if he did not, he should say so.
"I have charged that his candidacy is sponsored by Tom Watson, a man who is notorious for the harsh enmity of the Democratic party, and who vilifies Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic nominee for president, and almost accuses him of treason, and at the same time attempts to dictate the nominee of the Democratic party for governor.
"Does he stand for or repudiate this conduct of his chief sponsor? The people are entitled to know and they demand an answer."