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

8380 X. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS,

let able counsel and the glamour that surrounds wealth and
influence, deter you. I honor—but I honor the way they
went after Minola McKnight. I don’t know whether they
‘want me to apologize for them or not, but if you think that
finding the red-handed murderer of a little girl like this is
8 ladies’ tea party, and that the detectives should have the
manners of a dancing master and apologize and palaver,
you don’t know anything about the business, You have seen
these dogs that hunt the ‘possum bark up a tree or in a
stump, and when they once get the scent of the ‘possum, you
ean do what you like but they'll bark up that tree and they Il
bark in that stump antil they run him out, and so with old
John Starnes and Campbell. They knew and you know that
Albert McKnight would never have told Craven this tale
about what he saw and what his wife had told him except for
the fact thet it be true, and if you had been Starnes, you
would have been barking up that tree or barking in that
stump until you ran out what you knew was in there. That’s
all there is to it.

You have got the writ of habeas corpus that’s guaranteed
to you, go and get it; and if Mr. Haas had come to me Tues-
day morning and said ‘‘You direct the police’—on Monday
morning, when Frank was taken down into custody, and
said to me, ‘‘You direct the police to turn this man Frank
loose, he’s innocent,’’ I would have said ‘It’s none of my
business, I ran my office, they run their office,” and the next
time the police department, in an effort to serve the people
of this community, take a negro that they know and you
know and lock her up or what not, 171 not usurp the fune-
tions of the judge of these courts, who can tura her loose on
8 habeas corpus, and direct them to turn her loose or inter-
fere in any way in their business; I don’t run the police de-
partment of the City of Atlanta, I run the office of Solicitor
General for the term that the people have elected me, and
I'm taken to task because I went in at the beginning of this
thing and didn’t stand back

IT honor Mr. Hill. I am as proud of having sueceeded him