Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Journal
August 17th, 1913

Defense Has Attacked the State’s Case at Every Point, Considering No Detail Too Small to Raise a Reasonable Doubt Against It.

When the third long week of the trial of Leo M. Frank ended Saturday afternoon 203 witnesses had taken the oath and told the jury what they knew of the circumstances surrounding Atlanta’s greatest tragedy, the murder of Mary Phagan in the National Pencil factory on Memorial day, April 26. Of these witnesses thirty-four had testified for the state and 169 for the defense and among them all only one directly connects the factory superintendent with the crime. Jim Conley, the negro factory sweeper, is Frank’s accuser. He not only accuses the superintendent of murder, but adds the charge of perversion and it is through this charge that the state hopes to show a motive for the crime.

Center of Attack

Much of the most determined work done by the defense during the third week, just finished, has been concentrated upon the testimony given by H. F. Harris, secretary of the state board of health, and upon the testimony of C. B. Dalton, both of whom were introduced by the prosecution.

In attacking Dr. Harris’ testimony, the defense introduced several physicians who characterized Dr. Harris’ conclusion as guesses and said that they attached no importance to them and believed them to be without scientific foundation. It will be remembered that Dr. Harris’ testimony fixed the time of Mary Phagan’s death, in the opinino of the witness, at not more than 45 minutes after she ate her last meal of cabbage and bread at home and started for town to meet her death. This was based upon the stage of digestion attained by the contents of her stomach and arrested by death.

Dr. Harris testified further regarding other details which had convinced him that violence of some nature was inflicted upon the girl, and that she was rendered unconscious from the blow upon the back of her head, being choked to death later by cord around her neck. The defense assailed each of the conclusions, combating most vigorously the one that Mary Phagan was killed within a specified number of minutes after her last meal.

Witnesses from Walton county were introduced one after another to swear that they know C. B. Dalton and that they would not believe him on oath. Dalton’s own experiences with the criminal law were revealed, the defense lawyers securing his admissions of them. Dalton’s testimony was menacing to the defense because it purported to corroborate in incidental particulars the general story told by Jim Conley—whose evidence is the center of the whole attack by the defense.

Points at Issue

The state has sought to prove that Mary Phagan met her death in the metal room on the second floor of the pencil factory before 1 o’clock on April 26.

The defense has sought to refute this with testimony that it is impossible to determine the hour in which the girl died, and that there are chances that she met her death in another part of the building.

The state clings to the theory that the girl was struck on the head, rendered unconscious by falling against a piece of machinery, then was strangled to death by a cord.

The defense has put its witnesses up to testify that the wound on the back of the dead girl’s head may not have caused unconsciousness and that the manner in which she met death is a question which possibly no physician can answer correctly.

The state has sought to prove that Frank was the last person to see the girl alive. So far nothing has developed in the trial to show that the girl was seen after she drew her pay from the factory superintendent.

By the testimony of Monteen Stover, who swore that she found Frank’s office vacant at 12:05 o’clock on the afternoon of the tragedy, and waited five minutes, and left then without having seen or heard anyone, the state got before the jury the allegation that just after Mary Phagan was supposed to have entered the factory neither she nor the factory superintendent was seen around the office by the witness. On this too the defense directed a heavy attack, introducing witnesses who swear they saw Mary Phagan get off a trolley car as late as 12:10—thus tending to make immaterial Frank’s absence from his office while Monteen Stover was there.

The state has produced a witness (Conley) who says he heard a girl scream after Mary Phagan entered the factory, but this same witness says that Mary entered ahead of Monteen Stover, and the latter swears she entered at 12:05, and then too according to the defense’s witness Mary Phagan was seen outside of the factory after that time.

The state has sought to prove that violence was done the girl before her death. The defense has put its experts on the stand to swear that testimony that violence was done is only guess work; and many well known Atlantians witnesses have testified to the good character of Frank.

The state has sought to prove that when Frank went about to get lunch on the day of the tragedy he left immediately without eating, but the defense produces witnesses who swear that Frank remained in his home at least forty minutes at that time.

The state has sought to prove that the accused was very nervous on the day, following the tragedy, and that has admitted by the defense; like defense has put up witnesses who swear that Frank was not nervous on the night of the tragedy and did not become so until he was informed by the detectives that a girl had been murdered in his place of business.

Attack Is General

In every detail, no matter how minute, the defense had attacked the state’s case against Leo M. Frank. No particular been considered too small to the efforts of Attorneys Arnold and Rosser to a responsible doubt against it if they could and no particular had been too small for Solicitor Dorsey and his assistant Attorney Hooper to permit an attack upon it to go unchallenged and unresisted. From one angle then another, the defense aligned its bombardment, and at one angle then another, state’s attorneys have striven to fend off any damage in their case, impugning a witness when they could, striving to ridicule him or her, endeavoring to show interest, excessive for Frank, or other controlling motive have been on guard at every argument against the determined onslaughts of the attorneys for the accused.

Week’s Developments

Whether the defenses continued its attack on the testimony given by Dr. H. F. Harris that Mary Phagan died within a half or three quarters of an hour after calling for midday lunch and that there were evidences of violence immediately preceding death. Dr. Leroy Childs began the attack on the evidence of the secretary of the state board of health on Saturday week, and on Monday Drs. George Bachman, Willis Westmoreland, T. H. Hancock and J. C. Olmstead testified and were followed and substantiated on Wednesday by Dr. W. S. Kendrick.

In nearly every instance where a physician testified for the defense the testimony, or parts of it, as given by Dr. Harris was refuted. When the evidence give by the physicians for the defense is boiled down to an essence, it is up to the effect that in their opinion the statements by Dr. Harris that the girl died within the time limit set by him is but a mere guess, and that his testimony that violence preceded death is a second guess.

The jury heard medical testimony that it could be impossible for any physician to examine cabbage from the stomach of any patient and state the correct length of time the food had remained in the stomach. To substantiate this, several jars of partially digested cabbage taken from the stomach of several patients were exhibited to the jury with the statements of a physician that no one could tell exactly how long any of the exhibits had remained in the stomach.

Was Violence Committed?

Some of the evidence given by these physicians termed Dr. Harris’ statements that violence had been committed on the girls shortly before as a mere guess. It was testified that the distended condition of the blood vessels might have resulted from numerous causes.

It will be recalled that Dr. Harris testified that he examined parts of the body after nine days after death, and that Dr. J. W. Hurt, the coroner’s physician, testified he had made an examination prior to that by Dr. Harris. The jury was told that the first examination might have caused the conditions noted under microscope by the state board of health’s secretary. As to the distended condition of the blood vessels, it was testified that the injection of the examining fluid and several other causes might have produced the same conditions.

That Frank’s work on the financial sheet, which it has been testified required expert work running into decimals, could not have been done by any one committing such a crime as is charged to the factory superintendent immediately following the commitment, and the is to quote by the testimony of expert who were put on the stand. Joel Hunter, the last witness to inquiry Monday, gave his opinion that the work does on the made out on April 26 was the work of Leo M. Frank, and in substance was correct.

Dalton’s Story Eliminated

Twenty-two witnesses took the stand on Tuesday and six of them gave testimony impeaching C. B. Dalton, one of the witnesses put up by the State to corroborate Jim Conley in his testimony that he frequently acted as lookout for Frank on Saturdays and holidays when women visited the superintendent at the factory. Dalton was pictured by the witnesses as anything but a truthful witness. His past was exposed in the news and when he himself was recalled to the stand admitted portions of the testimony derogatory to his character.

These witnesses against Dalton were brought to Atlanta by the defense from places where Dalton had formerly lived. They told of his indictment by a grandy jury of a for a certain crime and stated that they would not believe him under oath. Dalton, it will be remembered, was expected to prove a strong witness for the state in its corroboration of the negro’s story. He admitted visiting the factory after work hours with certain women employees of the place and stated in the jury that Frank frequently had women visitors at the time he made his visits. His impeachment by witnesses from his further homes, eliminates, to a certain extent, his testimony as material.

The defense scored again on Tuesday when Miss Magnolia Kennedy was on the stand. Her testimony refuted that given by Helen Ferguson that she asked for Mary Phagan’s pay on the Friday before the murder and it was refused. Miss Kennedy works in the pencil factory and declares that she knew both Mary Phagan and Helen Ferguson. She told the jury that she followed the Ferguson girl to the pay window and that nothing was said about Mary Phagan’s pay. She also declared that she went out of the factory immediately behind Helen Ferguson and both walked on down the street in the same direction.

Cook Denies Affidavit

Minola McKnight, the negro cook in the Selig home where Mr. and Mrs. Frank live was also on the stand Tuesday and denied the truthfulness of her affidavit made to the police concerning the notions of the aroused immediately following the tragedy. The negroes declared that she had been forced to sign the paper and that most of the allegations were false.

Mr. and Mrs. Emil Selig, the father and mother-in-law of the secured, took the stand in defense of the factory superintendent on Tuesday and corroborated the statement made by Frank to the coroner concerning his moves on the day of the tragedy before and after the hour in which the girl met her death. They denied any knowledge of certain matters mentioned in the Minola McKnight affidavit, reflecting on the behavior of the accused on the Saturday of the tragedy and Sunday following.

Charles W. Bernhardt and Henry Wood were called to the stand to tell the results of their examinations of the Selig home and explain the blue prints of the home to the jury. Albert McKnight, husband of the Selig cook, had stated that he was sitting in the kitchen and saw Frank enter the dining room on the afternoon of the tragedy, go to the sideboard and leave without eating. According to export testimony it would be impossible for any one sitting in the kitchen at the point where the McKnight negro claims he was sitting to see the parts of the dining room as testified by him.

Character Evidence

On Wednesday the defense put the character of the accused to issue and no sooner had the character evidence started well when the real evidence started well when the real sensation of the week occurred in the court room. It was Frank’s mother, Mrs. Rae Frank, of Brooklyn, N. Y. who startled judge, jury, counsel, and spectators by shouting her denunciation of Solicitor General Hugh M. Dorsey when he asked a question of a character witness reflecting strongly on the character of the defendant.

John Ashley Jones, an insurance man, had been put up by the defense and had just told the court that after investigation, his company had found the character of the accused man to be good. When the solicitor began his cross-examination he asked several questions concerning the investigation made by the insurance company and then began a series of questions, all of which the witnesses answered to the negative, but caused the jury to lean forward and caused the mother of the accused man to give the so indignation by of denial, of a certain question the witness on the stand could answer in the negative.

The solicitor asked the witness if he never heard of Frank’s familiarity with little girls around the factory. To this Mrs. Rae Frank shouted: No, and you haven’t either!” Following new outrage, she left the room.

The solicitor used the names of several with whom he intimated the factory superintendent had been familiar. He is expected to call them in rebuttal to the witnesses who have testified for the state.

Can Dorsey Supply Link?

What evidence the solicitor has to use in rebuttal is indicated only by his questions to the witness Jones and by the sudden appearance in Atlanta of the former inmate of the Home of the Good Shepherd, in Cincinnati, in company with the police matron. The only evidence derogatory to the accused’s character was given by the negro Jim Conley who charged perversion to the factory superintendent. While the state was having its innings no evidence was given to corroborate this charge because the character of the defendant had not then been put in by the defense. Now that the defense put up witnesses to prove the accused’s good character, the state can put up testimony to prove the contrary.

It is understood that the solicitor will call the girl, who has just returned from Cincinnati, and other witnesses, who will be ready to blast the character of the defendant if they are asked the questions by the defendant’s own counsel.

Judge Roan permitted the solicitor to ask defense witnesses questions reflecting on Frank’s character Wednesday, and on Thursday refused a request of the accused’s counsel to have the questions stricken from the secured. The trial judge held that the prosecutor had a right to question character witnesses as to whether they had heard certain things derogatory to the defendant’s character.

Frank’s Story Corroborated

On Thursday the defense put up witnesses which by their testimony, accounted for the presence of Frank at almost every hour during the day of the tragedy. The story of his movements as he told it to the corner immediately after the murder was fully corroborated. He was trailed from his home in the morning to the factory, from his office over to Montag’s offices and back to the factory; from his office to where he took a car, and from the time he stepped from the car in front of his home until he left again to less than an hour. He was also seen on Whitehall street after getting off the car on his return to the office for his afternoon’s work.

The members of the card club whose party was being given at the Selig home on the night of the tragedy took the stand and accounted for his presence that night. The state has proven, and to a certain extent it is admitted by the defense, that Frank was nervous on Sunday after being informed of the murder. The state contends that this was the nervousness of a guilty man, while the defense contends that under the same circumstances most anyone would have been very much agitated.

Those who attended the card party on the night of April 26 declare that Frank was his natural self; that his actions indicated anything but nervousness, and that he sat in the hall and read for at least two hours during there visit to the Selig home. By this testimony the defense hopes to show that Frank had no knowledge of the crime until informed by the detectives and consequently not nervous until after he learned that a little girl had been slain in the factory of which he was superintendent.

Court Records Broken

When Thursday’s morning session of the trial exposed all court records for Georgia had been broken. The testimony from Wednesday night amounted to 600,000 words, enough matter to fill 500 columns of newspaper print.

One feature of the developments which stands out significantly in the loyalty of the defendant’s classmates from Cornell. Several of the young men who attended college with him came from their homes in the east to testify to his good character. With them came two professors at the university.

Friday was taken up with testimony by Atlantians hearing on the good character of Frank and by evidence given by factory employee against the character of Jim Conley, the negro who accuses Frank of the crime and who admits having disposed of the body after the girl’s death.

Members of Conley’s own race declared that they would not believe the negro on oath, that he could not be trusted and that from what they knew little dependence could be put in what he said. White women who knew both the negro and Frank told the jury that the negro was unreliable and that from what they knew Frank’s character was good.

Forty-one witnesses, many of them prominent Atlantians, bore testimony to Frank’s good character on Friday and were followed on the stand by the accused’s own mother. Mrs. Rae Frank, of Brooklyn, occupied the chair Friday afternoon and resumed it Saturday. Nothing of great interest was developed and resumed it Saturday. Nothing of great interest was developed by her testimony except that portion referring in the letter which her son wrote up the day of the tragedy and mailed to his uncle in New York. This letter was introduced as evidence. Its contents referred to Memorial day and to grand opera, in Atlanta.

Saturday’s Testimony

Fifteen girls who work or have worked in the pencil factory were on the witness stand Saturday and of the number, only one cast a slur on the character of the factory superintendent. Miss Irene Jackson, the daughter of Policeman A. W. Jackson, who has quit the employ of the factory since the murder, while under cross-examination declared that Frank had looked into the dressing room of the factory while some of the girls were in only half attire.

Solicitor Dorsey made an attack on the Pinkerton detectives Saturday while W. D. McWorth, one of the agency’s men was testifying concerning a bloody bludgeon found in the factory. The solicitor charged that the Pinkertons had not worked in harmony with the city police and held withheld evidence from them. Harlee Branch, a Journal reporter, was the last witness on the stand and court adjourned while he was under the solicitor’s examination. He told of Jim Conley’s re-enactment of the tragedy in the presence of detectives and newspaper men.

[Below is a transcription of this article’s inset]

A MILLION WORDS OF TESTIMONY

The trial of Leo M. Frank, charged with the murder of Mary Phagan, is believed to have broken at least three records in criminal prosecution in the south.

More witnesses have been called than in any other case on record, more actual time has been taken up in hearing testimony, and the transcript of evidence is the most voluminous, so far as known, ever taken in a criminal court south of the Mason and Dixon line.

When court adjourned Saturday afternoon thirty-four witnesses had been called by the state and 169 by the defense, a total of 203; for three weeks the jury had listened to testimony, having spent approximately 115 1-2 hours in court; and the evidence transcribed by the stenographers exceeded 875,000 words.

It is considered likely that before the end of the trial nearly 300 witnesses will have been called and the transcript will total considerably more than a million words.

One of the most remarkable features of the trial is the way in which the court stenographers have taken down the testimony. The defense, anticipating the need of having a copy of the official record in their possession as quickly as possible after a witness’ testimony has been taken down, engaged two extra stenographers to work with the two regular court reporters of the county. The four work in relays. One will “take” for an hour. He will then be relieved, and while another is writing down the questions of the attorneys and the answers of the witnesses he is either typing from his notes or reading from them into a dictophone. In the latter event an assistant takes the testimony as it is dictated by this device.

In this way the defense is able at any time to refer immediately to any part of the testimony which has already been given in the trial.

* * *

Atlanta Journal, August 17th 1913, “Summary of Frank Evidence at End of Week,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Constitution
August 24th, 1913

“What I had to say yesterday,” began Mr. Dorsey at the opening of Saturday morning’s session, “with references to character, I think I have demonstrated by law to any fair-minded man that the defendant is not a man of good character.”

“In failing to cross-examine these twenty young ladies who claim his character was bad, is proof, of itself, that if he had character that was good, no power on earth would have kept him and his counsel from plying countless questions in his behalf.”

“That’s common-sense, gentlemen, a proposition that is as fair and a proposition which I have already shown you by law that they had a perfect right to delve into his character. Also, you have seen their failure to cross-question these witnesses.”

“Whenever any man has evidence in possession and fails to produce it, the strongest presumption arises that it would he hurtful if they did produce it. Failure to present such evidence is a glaring Indictment. You need no law book to tell you that.”

“You know the reason, his able counsel did not ask these ‘hare-brained fanatics’ questions of the evidence they had presented against their client. You know it too well, they know it—they know it better than you. That’s why they did not question.”

“You tell me those good people from Washington Street came and said they never heard anything against Frank. Many a man has gone through life, without even his wife knowing his misfortune. It takes the valley to know a man’s life.”

Bad Character Demonstrated.

“That man has a bad character and it has been ably demonstrated. Often a man uses charitable and religious organizations to cover up his misdealings —sometimes to cover up his conscience—as Leo M. Frank has done by the B’nai B’rith, of which he is president”.

“Many a man has walked high in society and outwardly has appeared spotless, but who was rotten, clean rotten, inside. He has no character, I submit—gentlemen, he has none. His reputation for good – is among the people who do not know his real self”.

“David, of old, was a great character, until he sent Uriah to the front of battle, so that Uriah might be killed and David take his wife. Judah Iscariot, until he planted the betraying kiss upon the lips of the Lord Jesus, was a good character.”

 “Benedict Arnold had the confidence of all the people, until he betrayed his nation. Since that day, his name has been a synonym of infamy and disgrace”.  

Cites Wilde Case.

“Oscar Wilde, literary, brilliant, author of works that will go down for ages, the profoundest of which he wrote while in jail, had the companionship of himself and the son of a Marquis, broken up for criminal practice in which he indulged.”

“Wherever the English language is read the coolness and affrontery of Wilde, while he underwent cross-examination, will be the subject of history and admiration. He was a man of Frank’s type. Wilde will remain forever the type of pervert as is this man, who stands with the murder of Mary Phagan.”

 “Not even Wilde’s wife suspected he was guilty of perversion. He was sent to prison for three long years. He was a scholar, cool, calm. and, collected and his cross-examination is a worthy part of history.”

“Good character! Why, he came to America and lectured throughout the country. It was he who raised this sunflower from a weed. A man of rain, knowledge and physique, courage and bravery, but a sexual pervert.”

“Abe Ruef, of San Francisco, a man of Frank’s race, boss of his town, respected, honored, admired. But he corrupted Schmidt and corrupted everything he put his hand to. He led a life of heinous sin, ruining and debauching girls without end. Eventually his case terminated in the penitentiary.”

“Crime, gentlemen, doesn’t go only with the ignorant and poor. The ignorant like Jim Conley, commit the smaller crimes. A man of high intellect and wonderful, endowments commits the worst of crimes. For instance, look’ at McKuhn, mayor of Charlottesville, who slew his wife in the bathtub because he had tired of her. A jury of Virginia gentlemen sent him to a felon’s grave, his just deserts.”

Richeson Sent to Choir.

“Then, there was Richeson, a Boston preacher, who was engaged to one of the wealthiest and most attractive girls of his city. But, entanglement with a poor little girl who had been weak and pliant in his driving and lust-ridden hands, caused him to so far forget himself, as to put her in a grave.”

“All these cases are of circumstantial evidence, and, after conviction, in hope he would obtain pardon, he confessed, while a Massachusetts governor and jury were brave and dauntless enough to send him to the electric chair. Then, there were others, including Henry Clay Beattie, of Richmond, scion of splendid family, who took his wife, the mother of a 12-month-old baby, to shoot her in the automobile in which they were riding.”

“Yet, that man, gazing upon the blood of his slain mate, was cool and calm enough to joke with the detectives. Slush funds were raised, every effort possible was made to free him, but a courageous and honest jury of Virginia gentlemen sent him to death, thus putting this old Virginia citizenship on a high plane.”

“Beattie never confessed, that is true, but he left a note to be read after his electrocution, which he admitted his guilt.”

“Dr. Crippen, of England, man of worthy standing, killed his wife because of his infatuation for another woman, and put her body away, like this man Leo Frank put away little Mary Phagan’s, hoping it never would be discovered.”

“You, gentlemen, have the opportunity that comes to but few men. Measure up to It. Will you do it?”

“If not, let your conscience say why! Tell me as an honest man, why not?”

Attacks Frank’s Alibi.

“They say Frank has an alibi. Let’s examine It. In section 101 of the Georgia code you’ll find just what is an alibi. It involves the impossibility of the prisoner’s presence at the scene during the time of the crime. The range of evidence must reasonably exclude possibility of his presence”.

“In short, gentlemen, they must show you it was absolutely impossible for Frank to have been on the scene at the time Mary Phagan was killed. The burden is upon them. An alibi, unless properly substantiated, is worthless. I am going to show you why that this alibi is worse than no defense at all”.

“I once read an old darkey’s description of an alibi, and it was this:”

“‘Rastus, what’s an alibi?”

“’An alibi is somethin’ that show you was at the prayer meetin’ where you wasn’t, and not at the crap game where you was.’”         

“Turn around this table a minute—this alleged chronological table of Frank’s actions that day, and then turn it back to the wall where I want it to stay—face against the wall.”

“At 1 p.m. Frank leaves the factory. That’s mighty nice. Now, turn it back to the wall. Let it stay. It’s not sustained by evidence. Not even sustained by the statement of the defendant, himself. His story at police headquarters says he locked the door of the pencil factory at 1:10 o’clock and left the building. There’s your alibi. Punctured by the defendant’s own statement made when he did not know the value of time element in his case.”

“He never realized its importance until he went on the stand, and then he swore it was 1 o’clock when he left the building.”

A Sad Spectacle.

“The little Kern girl–God help her! —swore she saw him at Alabama and Whitehall streets at 1:10 o’clock; yet here’s his own statement that he left the factory at 1:10 o’clock.”

“You talk of sad spectacles, the saddest I’ve ever seen was the bringing of this little Kern girl, the daughter of a man who works for Sig Montag, to help free this red-handed murderer.”

“The jurors have a right to take into consideration the reasonableness of what any witness swears. Any man who looked at that little girl could see the untruth stamped clearly in her story.”

“If Frank had locked the door at 1:10 o’clock, how did she ever see him at Alabama and Whitehall streets at that time of day?”

“Mind you, she had never seen him but once, this daughter of a Montag employee. Yet, she comes here and tells you the unreasonable story she has told.”

“On this time proposition, I want to read this; It’s a speech of a wonderful man, a man to whom even the great and brainy Arnold and the big powerful Rosser would have doffed their hats—Daniel Webster: “

“’Time’s subdivisions,’ he says, ‘are all alike. No man knows one day from another or an hour. Days and hours are not visible to the senses. He who speaks of date or minute or hour of occurrence with nothing to guide him speaks at random.”

Other Discrepancies.

“Now, what else about this alibi”. Old man Sig Montag twisted and warped his words so as to sustain this man. For instance, Frank got down to the building at 8:26 o’clock, according to Holloway and others. Frank says he got there at 8:30. He arrived with a rain coat. They tried to make it appear that he did not have one.”

“I’ll venture the reason he borrowed Ursenbach’s rain coat was because he forgot the coat Jim Conley saw him with.”

“Mattie Smith says he left the building at 9:10 o’clock. Frank says he left at 9:30 o’clock. At 11 o’clock Frank returns to office, says the chronological alibi chart. In his own statement he swears it was 11:05 o’clock.”

“Move it up or down—move it anyway—do anything with it. Gentlemen, we’ve got to have an alibi some way or other.”

“12:12 p.m., says the chart, the time Mary Phagan entered the plant. Frank says Mary came at 10 minutes after Miss Hattie Hall left and she left at 12 o’clock. If persons were as accurate as Frank is in regard to time on the day Mary Phagan was killed, wouldn’t this old world be a glorious one. No trains missed, no appointments missed—no nothing but an entire world accurate on time.”

“Lemmie Quinn arrives, says the chart, from 12:20 to 12:22 o’clock. But Lemmie conflicts with Mrs. Freeman and the other lady who saw him at 11:45 a.m.”

 Here the solicitor was interrupted by Mr. Arnold, who arose saying:

“There is no evidence to that effect, Mr. Dorsey. The girls didn’t see him at the factory.”

“I don’t doubt that anyone didn’t see him,” retorted the solicitor.

Crowd Rules Arnold.

The crowd in the courtroom broke into a laugh that was well-nigh an applause.

Mr. Arnold said to the judge:

“Your honor, we can do without this crowd. If there is another such outbreak, I’ll move to clear the courtroom.”

“Lemmie Quinn was blowing hot and blowing cold” continued Dorsey, “and he was too anxious. I never saw a more eager man in my life. Is Jim Conley telling the truth or a lie? Jim says he saw Lemmie Quinn go up the stairs before Mary Phagan got there.”

“If this be true, why did Frank want to consult with his lawyers before he spoke at police headquarters?”

“Lemmie Quinn is the hardest man to pin down on a proposition I have ever encountered. He is the most anxious man; the most eager I have ever seen, unless it be old man Holloway. Can you tell me that an honest innocent man would first want to consult his lawyers before making his statement?”

“Let me read you what a great judge said, Judge Lochraine:”  

“’I don’t take mere words, even of witnesses. I take their acts.’”

“This table that the defense produces is a fraud on its face. It puts Quinn there from 12:20 to 12:22 o’clock, just the time that will suit the defense and its notorious alibi. Men, they are straining at a gnat.”

The Charges of Perjury.

“Let’s consider for a moment Arnold’s flippant charges of perjury.”

“You saw the witnesses. You heard what they had to say. Do you remember one Iady, who, almost hysterical, wanted to die for Frank? When did you ever hear of an employee who would be enamored of her employer that that she would die for him if the friendship that existed was merely platonic? I know that back of that willingness to put her neck in the noose meant for Frank there was something stronger, something more powerful than platonic love, don’t you? It must be a passion born of something beyond mere friendship. But he is married, and she is single; he is the employer and she is the employee!”­

“Take the little Bauer boy. Before he took that ride in Sig Montag’s automobile to the offices of Arnold and Rosser, he could remember details, but after that he suffered a lapse of memory. Before that, he could remember just where he laid his watch, but after that his mind went blank.”

“It reminds me of the South Georgia instance where everybody was gathered in the church praying for rain. They prayed and prayed, and after a while, the Lord sent a regular trash-mover, a gulley-washer. Then the preacher rubbed his chin a little and said, ‘I guess we must have over done it, just a leetle!”

“Don’t you know that Sig Montag must whispered in that boy’s ear, ‘You’ve overdone it, just a leetle?’”

“Does that look like perjury? Oh, how foolish, foolish, foolish!”

“How about that machinist, Lee?”

“He said he had seen in the possession of Schiff papers that he had signed. Then they brought papers up here written on a typewriter, and his name was not even mentioned in them. That’s the stuff they’re unloading on you!”

Claims Women Were Subborned. 

“Perjury? Let’s go further.”

“I have never seen a case where women have been suborned as in this case.”

“Take the stenographer, Miss Fleming. They put her on the stand, and we took her up on a line she didn’t expect.”

“Oh, we don’t mean to say that Frank tried to seduce or ravish every woman who came to the pencil factory. All of them would not have submitted to it. He knew whom to approach and whom not, until he met Mary Phagan. And she ‘called’ him.”

“How about flirting? She said she never saw or heard of any orders against flirting.”

Dorsey then read Miss Fleming’s account of Frank’s work at the office on Saturday morning.

“Now,” he continued, “she says that she saw Frank working on the financial sheet. She said that this was Frank’s business in the forenoons of Saturdays. She was questioned on this point time and time again, and was positive that she saw Frank making out the financial sheet.”

“Then Arnold Interrupted her and said. He didn’t have time to make the financial sheet on  Saturday morning, did he?”

“And she caught Arnold. She answered, ‘No.’”

“And was so nervous that he couldn’t let me finish, but he interrupted the witness with a most unfair question, and she took the bait and went under the bank with it.”

“I have read to you how positive she was about having seen Frank working on the financial sheet. Now look. Afterwards when she was about it she said that she had never made any such statement. I asked her whether she had said these things I have read you from the record, she said, ‘No.’”

“I tell you if you are going to turn men loose on such evidence as that, it is time to quit drawing juries in Fulton county.”

Why Frank Was Indicted.

“Why didn’t Rosser, Pat Campbell and Starnes take Newt Lee, Jim Conley, or James Gantt instead of this man? Because the evidence against them was only a film of cobwebs, but about Frank the evidence is composed of cables, and they are bound about him and he can’t break them. The erudite Reuben Rose Arnold and the dynamic Luther Zeigler Rosser, can not break them!”

“Circumstantial evidence is as good as any if it is the right sort. This evidence draws tightly around him and there is not a break in it.”

“Herbert Schiff said that Frank, who was behind with his work, went home and slept instead of making out the financial sheet, because he (Schiff) had not given him the data (pronouncing it ‘dotter,’ as Schiff had pronounced it).”

“Do you think that Leo M. Frank, with such a charming wife as he has, with all his friends; Frank, head of the B’nai B’rith, lover of cards and pleasure; do you think that he would go back to the factory on Saturday afternoon to make out that financial sheet just because he did not have the data in the morning. He made out that financial sheet in the morning.”

“I submit that this man made out that financial sheet on Saturday morning. I give no reasons because I don’t believe them necessary. But even if he made out the sheet on Saturday afternoon, don’t come to that belief because the sheet shows no nervousness.”

Why Frank Was Calm.

“Why, after the crime, he went to his home and in the bosom of his family he showed composure. He read the joke about baseball and laughed about it. He made so merry over it that he disturbed the card game which was in progress.”

“He had been making out financial sheets for six years, and do you mean to tell me that he had to wait for Schiff to tell him what to do before he could make that sheet?”

“He didn’t betray nervousness when he wrote for the police, did he? And right here. His mother identified that writing as that of her son, and yet when they put an expert, who knew Frank’s writing, on the stand to identify it, he was so afraid that he might do something to hurt this man that he wouldn’t identify it. Is that perjury?”

“The frivolity that Frank showed at his home was just the sort of frivolity that Henry Clay Beattle showed beside the automobile in which was the blood of his wife!”

“I’ll tell you something this man did do on Saturday afternoon. You remember how Jim Conley told about Frank’s looking at the ceiling and saying, ‘I have rich relatives in Brooklyn. Why should I hang?’ he wrote that letter to his rich uncle and his people in Brooklyn that afternoon.”

“They say his people in Brooklyn were not rich. His uncle is rich, and he thought that he was in Brooklyn that afternoon when he wrote that letter and said what he did.”

Dorsey picked up the letter.

“Listen to this. ‘How are the dear ones in Brooklyn?’ Does that sound like he thought his uncle was in Brooklyn, or not?”

A Betraying Line.

“Now, here’s a line that if you know anything about the conduct of a guilty conscience, you will know was written in the afternoon when Frank knew the body of Mary Phagan was lying in that basement where he had it put.”

“He wrote: ‘It has been too short a time since you left for anything startling to happen!’ ‘Too short! Too short! Startling!’”

“Do you tell me, honest men, that line did not come from a guilty conscience? What do you think of that, honest men?”

“Now, do you think the rich uncle cared any anything about this line? An eminent authority says that extravagant language is the earmark of fraud.”

“Today was Yondif—holiday— and the thin gray line of veterans is growing thinner each year.’”

“This from Leo M. Frank, the statistician, to a man who cared not for the thin gray, but for the dividends the factory was paying!”

“There’s nothing new in the factory to report,” he writes.

“Ah, but there was something new, but for the dividends the factory was paying!”

“There’s nothing new in the factory to report,” he writes.

“Ah, but there was something new, and there had been time enough for something startling, and there had been enough for something to happen! It had happened in the space of thirty minutes! Oh, me! The time was not too short!”

“Yes, his people lived in Brooklyn and Jim Conley would not have known they lived in Brooklyn unless he had heard Frank say so. They may not be rich, but they have a cold $20,000 lying away on interest! And they have no business worth I don’t know how much!”.

Frank’s Wire to Montag.

“Let’s read that wire Frank sent to Montag.”

“’You may have read,’ it says, ‘of a pencil factory girl found dead—Found dead—in factory? In factory? No! Where? ‘In cellar of factory!’ That’s what he says. Why? He knew where he had put the body of that girl and that picture was in his mind when he sent that wire.”

“He knew he would be arrested unless the police were corrupt, and he didn’t want Montag to be unprepared.”

 “But Pat Campbell was not corrupt! John Black was not corrupt! Rosser was not corrupt! Starnes was not corrupt! And he was arrested!”

“Listen to what Frank said when he wanted to put the rope around the neck of Newt Lee and James Gantt:”

“Police will eventually solve it!”

“Oh, they did solve it!”

“’Assure my uncle,’ he says. ‘I’m all right if he should inquire. Our company has the case well in hand.’”

“Maybe he did think that when he got this follow Scott. There’s an honest man for you! If there was a slush fund in this case—I don’t know that there was—but if there was one, Scott could have got it. But Scott said that he was going to work this case hand-in-hand with the police.” That’s what Frank wanted them. He wanted Scott to work hand-in-hand with the police. He wanted to know what the police wore doing.”

“Then came Herbert Haas—and he’s nobody’s fool—and suggested to Pinkerton detective Harry Scott that he let them have all the evidence he found before he let the police have it. If Harry Scott had fallen for that, things might have been different.”

Recognize Weakness of Case.

“Talk about your expert, Hunter? He’s not nearly so smart as Frank. Leo M. Frank is as smart as either of his lawyers. Frank realized that weakness of his case. He wrote that statement himself, I’ll bet.”

“Frank, in his statement, had to drag in a lot of stuff that was not evidence and he would have dragged in more if we had not stopped him.”

“And do you ‘remember about the blood? The machinist Lee said that Duffy held out his finger and let that blood spurt from it. Why should he have done that. Isn’t the first and most natural thing to grab that finger and tie it up?”

“Miss Rebecca Carson said that she saw Frank and Jim Conley on the fourth floor Tuesday morning before the arrest. That was the morning that Frank said to Jim, ‘Jim, you be a good boy.”

“According to their own witness, Jim and Frank were just where Jim said they were that morning.”

“Mrs. Carson, mother of Rebecca, when asked about seeing blood spots was very particular to ask what blood spots and where. Then she said that she never saw any blood spots on the second floor, because she didn’t want to see anything like that.”

“Miss Small corroborates Conley’s story. She said that she saw Frank and Jim on the fourth floor of the factory about 9 o’clock on that Tuesday morning.”

“Why was Frank there?”

“He wanted to see if Jim was keeping the secret. Arnold said that this is a dirty suggestion. It is dirty. It is more than that; it is infamous. Yet there sits today Leo M. Frank trying to put that rope around the neck of another.

Upholds Detective Department.

“The only thing in this entire case that is at all to the discredit of the police department,” continued Mr. Dorsey, “is that they were afraid on account of the influence and position of Leo Frank to put him in a cell like they did Lee and Gantt. That’s the only thing against them.” 

“If my friend, John Black, over there had gone after Leo Frank like he went after Newt Lee, there would probably, very probably, have been a confession and no necessity for this long and tedious trial.”

“You,” he continued, turning to Frank, “you called for Haas, and you called for Rosser and you called for Arnold, you had to have the very best legal talent that the state afforded, and it took their combined efforts to keep up your nerve.”

“You know I’m telling the truth,” continued Mr. Dorsey, again addressing himself to the jury.”

“There Is only one thing, I tell you, that is to the discredit of the police and that is they were swayed by learned counsel and the glamor of wealth, and treated with too much consideration this man who had snuffed out the life of the poor little girl.”

“I honor, although I had nothing to do with it, I honor the way they went after Minola McKnight and the way in which they got her affidavit. Gentlemen, the getting of evidence in a big murder case like this is no Job for a man with the manners of a dancing master. You’ve got to get on the job like a dog after a ‘possum and you’ve got to tree that ‘possum and keep on barking up that tree until you show he’s there.”

“You know that Albert McKnight, the woman’s husband, would not have told Craven and Pickett any such tale unless it was true.”

“So these detectives knew that, too, and they hung around and they barked up that tree until they got the evidence that was there. Talk about illegally holding that woman. Why they had the habeas corpus if they had wanted. To get her out. That’s what it was made for. I certainly had nothing and could have had nothing to do with freeing her.”

What He Would Have Told Haas.

“If Herbert Haas had come to me on the Tuesday after the murder and told me he wanted me to get Frank out, I would have told him that I was running my office and not the police department. I would have added that the habeas corpus was intended for is that; oh, I don’t know. I wouldn’t have insulted a lawyer like that. He would have known about the habeas corpus.”

“Well, they have taken me to task, too, for the way in which I went early into the case. Well, I mean the memory of the late Charlie Hill; I’m as proud of being his successor in the solicitor’s office as I am that the people elected me to that high office, but I tell you gentlemen, I’m going to pattern myself after no man; I’m going to pattern myself after the dictates of my own conscience.”

“If I’m proud of anything in this case, I’m proud that I went into this case with the detectives when I did and sought with them to find the real murderer of the little girl, and that, too, when your influence was pouring letters into the grand jury in an effort to try and hang an innocent man —negro, even though he was.”

“I’m glad I stuck it out and kept them from indicting that innocent man, and I’m going to stick it out as long as I’m in office and if you don’t like it, the only way to do is to remove me, because I’m doing what I think is right.”

No Evidence of Perjury.

“Now they have talked about perjury. Well, let’s not say that everybody in this case have been liars, when wo have no reason or evidence to accuse everybody of boring liars”.

“Was Jim Conley a liar?”

“Let’s look at some of the things he says and let’s look at the many times the little and apparently unimportant details of his statement are corroborated by other witnesses. Mrs.

Small, time and again, in her testimony, corroborates the things Jim told of as happening that Tuesday morning in the pencil factory. Well, now, let’s take one of their witnesses: Take Mrs. Carson, mother of Rebecca Carson, the forewoman, whom witnesses swear went into the women’s dressing rooms with Frank. Mrs. Carson swore on the stand that she did not go back and look at the spots of blood on the second floor. 

“You know why she swore that? Well, there had been too many of those employees admitting to going back there, and the defense did not want to make it appear that the spots caused any stir up there, so by the time Mrs. Carson came, employees began to say that they had paid no attention to the spots.”

“Well, we asked Mrs. Small If she went to look at them, and she said that she did, and we asked who went with her, and she did say that Mrs. Carson did, and we asked her how she knew, and she said she remembered because she and Mrs. Carson had gone back there after the others had left, and at a time when they could get plenty of time to look at the spots.”

“If this is founded on perjury, if the defense claims it is, then it’s simply a case of pot calling the kettle black, and I haven’t dealt in glittering generalities, either, in making my charges.”

“When evidence or testimony was wanted in any particular phase of this case, there has never been the time when some witnesses or witnesses did not come forward and testify to what was needed, and they’d have you believe those witnesses came willingly, and that there was no slush fund.”

Notes Fix Crime on Frank.

“Now, gentlemen, I want to discuss with you briefly these letters, he continued, taking up the two notes found near the dead girl’s body. If they are not the order of an overruling Providence, then I will agree with the defense that they are naught but folly. The pad and paper usually found in Frank’s office was used, and this man Frank, trying to fasten the crime on another, has indelibly fixed it upon himself.

“The pad, the paper, the fact that he wanted notes, all that goes to show Frank as the man. Tell me, if you can, that a negro over lived who, after killing and robbing or assaulting a girl, would take time before leaving to write these notes.”

“These notes wore folly! Yes, as Judge Bleckley once said, ‘All crime is a mistake and what proof have we that a man who has made a big mistake will not make little ones in trying to hide the first?’”

“Then, there’s another thing that makes against Frank. He said here that when the little girl asked him if the metal had come, that he told her no; and yet, when he had not had time to think about how it would sound, or when he first talked he said he told her that he did not know.”

“There’s a big difference there, gentlemen. For Frank to have told the little girl that he did not know would have sent her back to the metal room to see for herself, but to have told her no, that it had not come, would have sent her on out of the building. Frank did not want to give us here any reason to suspect that the child ever went back there to that metal room.”

Use of the Word “Chat.”

“Then, another thing: How could Starnes and Campbell, or even Chief Lanford, know that Conley, when he told them about Frank’s saying ‘chat,’ when he referred to taking girls and women to his office, was using the same word that Frank used here in his statement four times in the short period between the time he started speaking and the time the jury went out for a few minutes recreation? You noticed, too, that he didn’t use the word ‘chat’ when he started again.

“I tell you Mr. Arnold is a man of keen foresight, and he knows what a thing sounds like, and he sought to parry the blow before I even started talking that I am now trying to deliver.”

“Tell me, if you will, that Conley, when he finished his evil work on that little girl, would have dragged the body way back to that corner of the basement. It meant nothing to him whereabouts in the basement the body lay.”

“But it was the white man—the superintendent of the factory—who knew that it would never do for that body to be found in the metal room.”

“Again, in these murder notes you find the words, ‘The long, tall, black nigger did it.’ Well, when did Conley ever say ‘did.’ Old Jim was up here on the stand, and every time he used that verb at all he said, ‘I done it,’ or ‘he done it.’ It was never ‘I did it,’ with Conley, but always, ‘I done it.’

“Tell me, if you can, that these letters, which are a ‘plant’ as sure as was the club and the bloody shirt found at Newt Lee’s house, were ever thought out by an ignorant negro like Jim. Conley couldn’t have done it if he’d had Starnes, and Rosser, and Campbell and Black, and even Chief Lanford, to aid him. It was a smarter man than this negro, it was a smarter man than these detectives, who laid this plot which it appeared would free him, but which really inculpated him.”

“You tell me that Conley wrote those words; well, when this man was arrested and when he knew Conley was arrested and that Conley, infamously told to keep quiet, was not telling anything, did he even hint to the police that Jim Conley writes?”

“These notes were written to protect the white superintendent and they were dictated by the man who sent the telegram to Sig Montag in New York, asking him to tell his uncle that a girl had been killed in the factory cellar and that the police would eventually solve the mystery and that he was all right.”

The Statement of a Guilty Man.

“Now, I want to take up that statement of Frank’s, that statement that it was said was strong enough to carry him to acquittal, by proving his innocence. I tell you: that was the statement of a guilty man and a statement that was cunningly constructed to fit around the chain of circumstances that showed up.”

“You notice, Frank never admitted being anywhere except when It was proven on him, “There was nothing he admitted except what he knew could be proved.”

Mr. Dorsey then read a number of authorities on circumstantial evidence and showed where the comparison of circumstantial evidence to a chain, no stronger that the weakest link, had been rejected and the comparison of it to a rope where when all webs are twisted together it will hold and where a  few webs may be weak or break and not despoil the rope of its holding power, had been accepted.”

“Frank’s statement was a brilliant one,” he continued, “and if you believe it and follow it blindly, there is only one thing you can do and that is to turn Frank loose.”

 The solicitor then read the law upon the statements made by defendants In murder cases and made various comments and cited a number of author.

“This man (Frank) says” he continued, “that he sat in his office, checking off the money that was loft from the payroll; he was careful, mind you, not to say he was checking over the cash.”

“Out of the money left from that $1,100 payroll and the amount of cash that was kept for various incidentals, don’t you see there was enough money to make up the amount he offered Jim Conley when he asked him to burn the body and that he afterwards took back when Jim said he would not burn it unless Leo went with him.”

“Jim Conley refused to burn the body by himself. Had Jim Conley started to do that and the black smoke rolled out of that chimney, Leo Frank would have soon been down there with these same detectives and what chance would the negro, have had?”

Another False Statement.

“Old Conley took no chance, he was willing to write the notes to put by the side of the body, but drunk or sober, as you will, he was too wise to go down to the basement by himself and burn that body.”

 “Then again, in his statement, Frank says that no one came into his office that Friday before the murder and asked for their own or anyone else’s pay envelope. Well, here is this little Helen Ferguson, the friend and running mate of little Mary Phagan, who swears to us that she did go there and ask Frank for her own and Mary’s pay envelope and that she did it because she knew Mary did not intend to come down, the next day!”

“Oh, they’ve told about plots and conspiracies; I’ll tell you about one. I’ll show you that in this man’s lustful heart there was a plot to undo this little girl, not a plot to murder her; oh, no, he did not want to take her life, he wanted to use her to satisfy his passion.”

“In March, little Willie Turner, a plain country boy, tells us he saw Frank with his arm around Mary and that she was trying to escape and to leave him and go to work, but that he kept on talking to her and told her he was the superintendent In that factory, thus using his position to coerce her to his own ends.”

“You can’t tell me that a brilliant man like him could pass her machine every day and she as pretty and attractive a little girl as she was and as bright, and then he not learn to know who she was. You can’t tell me that this man with the brain he’s got could have helped make out the pay roll for fifty-two times in a year and then been so little familiar with the name as to have to look on the time book to find out If a girl by the name of Mary Phagan ever worked there. You can’t tell me Wille Turner lied when he said he saw Frank talking to the little girl, and you can’t tell me that little Dewey Hewell, the little girl brought here from the Home of the Good Shepherd in Ohio, who, despite her reputation, probably caused right there in that factory, is of tender years and would hardly make up a story like that, was Iying when she said she saw Frank talking to Mary Phagan.”

“You can’t tell me Gantt was lying when he said Frank knew Mary Phagan, and you want to remember another thing—Frank said to Gantt, ‘You seemed to know this girl pretty well.’ How did Frank know that Gantt knew her pretty well, if Frank did not know her himself?”

Proclaims Belief in Plot.

“I’m prepared, knowing that man’s character as I do, to believe that passion had seized him way back there in March and that he plotted to take advantage of this little factory girl. Mr. Rosser quoted from Burns in his speech, and I can quote from Burns, too, and it will show you something on the case.”

Here the solicitor quoted a passage from Burns, beginning, “There’s no telling what a man will do.”

“You can’t tell me that all these people have lied,” continued the solicitor.

“I would not be at all surprised if Frank did not begin to covet this girl back there in March when she first came to work on this floor. I would not be at all surprised if he did not get worried about this lanky Gantt, this man from the same country place where she had come from, this man who knew her people: and I would not be surprised If he did not discharge Gantt not for the $1 shortage, which Gantt said he would give up his job before he’d pay, but because he thought Gantt would be in the way of his vile purpose.”

“I would not be at all surprised if when Frank and Schiff checked up the pay roll that Friday afternoon and Frank saw that Mary Phagan had not got her money, that he did not slip out and make arrangements with Conley, knowing that the girl would have to come on Saturday morning to get her money.”

“I would not be surprised if he did not deliberately refuse the money to little Helen Ferguson, because he wanted to bring Mary Phagan there on Saturday.”

“Jim Conley tells us that Frank slipped up to where he was on Friday afternoon and told him to come back Saturday morning, and old Conley says, ‘I done it,’ not ‘I did it.’

Looked Far Into Future.

“This thing of passion,” continued the solicitor, “is a great deal like fraud, and libertines look far into the future. It’s probable that the man whose character was torn and whose attorneys feared to cross examine witnesses, who swore against his character, began in March to plot and plan to get this girl in his power, because he could not control the passion that consumed him.”

“You try to tell a jury compared of honest men that you didn’t know Mary Phagan,” continued the solicitor, turning towards Frank, “and do you expect them to believe that?”

“Tell me,” he continued, “that Helen Ferguson lied, that this little girl was suborned by the Atlanta detectives to come here and swear to a lie, and that’s the little girl they called a ‘hare-brained fanatic.’”

Mr. Dorsey then read from Frank’s statement to the jury where he had used the word “chat” in four different places.

“Mr. Arnold says,” he continued, “that negroes regularly pick up the words and phrases of their employers, and certainly Frank must have been associated with Jim Conley a great deal to get this word chat from him.”

“Well, Frank. also says that Miss Hall left when the whistle blew for 12 o’clock. Well, do whistles blow on holidays? I don’t know, I’ll leave that for the jury to decide.

“Then Mrs. White says that when she came up that Frank, who was in his office pulling up some pay envelopes, jumped when he saw her. Why, no wonder he jumped, for that little girl was lying back in the metal room then, and he hadn’t had a chance to dispose of the body. He found out that Mrs. White wanted to see her husband, and this time he did not call for the husband. He sent the woman up to the fourth floor. After a while he goes up there and makes out he’s in a big hurry to get away, and he gets her out. He knows that the men have had their lunch and will be working there the greater part of the afternoon”.

“Well, Mrs. White comes down the steps and passes the office. Is Frank ready to leave? Has he got on his hat and coat? No; he’s not in a hurry then, not at all. He’s got to wait there to get rid of that body.”

Addresses Himself to Frank.

Here, Mr. Hugh M. Dorsey gradually drifted in the use or the second person in his talk and seemed to be addressing himself to Leo M. Frank instead of to the jurors:

“You went tiptoeing right back to see if everything was all right, and then you signaled Conley,” he continued, “and you soon learned, by what Conley said about not seeing a certain girl go back down the steps, that you were given away, and so you sent him back to get the body. ‘There was no blood there where you hid the girl. The blow was not sufficient, and no blood was there until Conley dropped the body and caused, it to spatter out.

“No, you had struck the girl and gagged her and assaulted her and then you went back and got a cord and fixed the little girl, whom you had assaulted, when, thank God, she would not yield to your proposals.”

“You got that cord because you wanted to save your reputation—you had no-character—you wanted to save your reputation among the good people of Rabbi David Marx’s church and among those in the B’nai B’rith, and you wanted to save your reputation among the masses and the Montags.”

“Oh, you knew that dead men tell no tales, you knew it, but you forget that murder will out. Oh, had that little girl lived to tell the assault made on her in that factory, there would have been a thousand men in Atlanta who would have not have feared your wealth, and your power and relatives, rich and poor, but who would have stormed the jail and defied the law in taking vengeance on you. It is not right that it should be so, people ought to wait for fair courts and honest juries to decide these things, but they don’t and you knew it then.”

‘I wouldn’t be a bit surprised that if Frank hadn’t put Mary Phagan’s handbag in the safe it would have turned up just the same as the painted envelope and blood spots the Pinkertons found on the first floor.’

“This cloth that was found around her throat was torn from her own upscale clothing and placed over her mouth for a gag, while Frank tiptoed back to his office for the cord with which to strangle her.”

Describes Death of Girl.

“When she did not yield to his lust that was not like that of other men, he struck her. They scuffled. She fell against the machine. Her brain lapsed into unconsciousness.”

“They say he had no marks on his person—he did not give her time to inflict marks. Durrant had no marks.”

“There never was such a farce as this attempt by Frank’s able counsel to disprove the fact that  the spots found on the second floor were blood stains. They bring in this perjurer Lee. He says it wasn’t. Who is this Lee?”

“You know it was blood and that it was the blood of Mary Phagan, because its location corresponds with the spot where Jim Conley says he dropped the body.”

“Barrett discovered the blood and hair long before any reward was ever offered. The hair was identified by Magnolia Kennedy, their own witness.”

“When it became apparent that too many persons saw Frank go to the elevator box and get the key, old man Holloway, who lied and betrayed us, perjured himself in a story about having opened the box, himself.”

Says Holloway Perjured Himself.

“Holloway perjured himself either to obtain acquittal of his boss or to get the reward for the conviction of Jim Conley, ‘his nigger.’ I say that Barrett stands as an oasis in a mighty desert for truth and veracity, although, his own job be in jeopardy. Barrett told the truth. If there is a man in town who rightfully deserves a reward, it is that poor employee of the pencil factory who had courage to tell the truth.”

“Compare him with Holloway.”

“Neither did Barrett make his discoveries on May 16. His find has no resemblance whatever to a plant.”

“But you could wipe Barrett completely out of the case and have an abundance of ground on which to convict.”

“Mrs. Jefferson saw the blood and so did Mel Stanford. It was not there Friday, because Stanford swept the floor and is positive he did not see It.”

“Jim Conley saw Mary Phagan go up and never come down. She was killed where Jim Conley found her and her body was put where Frank wrote in his telegram: ‘In the cellar.’”

“Darley and Quinn saw the blood spots. Sometimes, you know, we have to go into the camp of the enemy for ammunition. The handsome Darley was tied up by an affidavit. It was a hard pill for him, but he had it to swallow, and he admitted having seen the blood that so glaringly accused his boss.”

“To cap it all, Dr. Claude Smith saw the blood, and, upon analyzing it, found there were blood corpuscles disporting the argument of the defense that it was paint.”

“Their own witnesses, Herbert Schiff, Magnolia Kennedy and Wade Campbell all saw this blood and admit having seen it.”

New Richmond in Field.

“Frank and his friends found that Harry Scott didn’t manipulate to suit them. They got some new Richmonds and put them in the field. Where are they now, these men who found the club and blood spots and planted envelope?”

“Where is Pierce, the Pinkerton head? Echo answers “Where?”

“Where is McWorth, who helped find them? Echo answers ‘Where?’”

“All detectives, Starnes, Black, Campbell, Rosser, Scott every one of whom searched in vicinity of the scuttle hole, say they could see no blood spots nor club nor envelope.”

“Don’t you know that if they had not been planted and had been there after the murder. Holloway and others of his ilk would have been only too glad to have reported It to their superintendent in prison.”

“Why, only a few days after the murder, a general clean-up was or ordered by insurance authorities. None of the cleaners found the blood nor the club nor the envelope on the first floor. Why? Because they weren’t there.”

Evidence All Planted.

“The club and spots and envelope are purely in keeping with the planting of Newt Lee’s bloody shirt.”

“Boots Rogers saw Frank take out the clock slip that morning and say that it was accurate. But, later, when the shirt was planted, this graduate of Cornell, this man so quick of figures, saw that Newt Lee wouldn’t have had time to go home and change his shirt, so he accordingly changed his figures and altered his statement.”

“But, the man who planted the shirt did his job too well—he got a shirt too clean and smeared blood on both sides.”

“And, more about this club—Dr. Harris and Dr. Hurt both say that the wound in Mary Phagan’s head could not have been inflicted by this planted club. It was too large, too round.”

“They harp on this Minola McKnight business. Isn’t it strange that Minola, herself, should tell such a story to her husband, then corroborate it in a sworn and written statement.”

“Are we going to swallow all this stuff of Mrs. Selig’s without knowledge of human nature?”

“Minola, in presence of her counsel, made that statement and swore to it. Gordon would not have been worthy of the name of lawyer had the story not been true and he had not said:”

“’Minola, don’t put your name to that story unless it be true.’”

“If the statement wasn’t true, Gordon, her lawyer, would not have sat there without raising a hand, knowing, well knowing, that his client could be sent to the penitentiary for false swearing.”

“The reason Minola made that affidavit was because it was the embodiment of the truth, the pure truth.”   

It was at this point that Judge Roan recessed until Monday, on account of the exhausted condition of Mr. Dorsey.

* * *

Atlanta Constitution, August 24th 1913, “Solicitor Reasserts His Conviction of Bad Character and Guilt of Frank,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

Atlanta Constitution
August 26th, 1913

As the big bell in the Catholic church tolled the hour of 12 o’clock Solicitor Dorsey concluded his remarkable plea for the conviction of Leo Frank with the dreadful words— “Guilty, guilty, guilty!”

It was just at this hour, more than four months ago that little Mary Phagan entered the pencil factory to draw her pittance of $1.20.

The tolling of the bell and the dread sound of the words cut like a chill to the hearts of many who shivered involuntarily.

It was the conclusion of the most remarkable speech which has ever been delivered in the Fulton County courthouse—a speech which will go down in history stamping Hugh Dorsey as one of the greatest prosecuting attorneys of this age.

Arnold Makes Protest.

Only after Attorney Reuben R. Arnold had registered a vigorous protest against the action of the spectators, who clapped their hands in tumultuous applause as Solicitor Hugh Dorsey entered the courtroom. Monday morning the solicitor was allowed to continue his speech, which was interrupted by adjournment Saturday.

When court convened at 9 o’clock, there were more people outside of the courthouse unable to gain admission, than there were inside, and about two minutes before the hour of opening court, a roar of cheers told the spectators inside that the solicitor general was coming. His entrance was the signal for the outbreak of approval of his wonderful effort Saturday.

Mr. Rube Arnold immediately protested and declared that “such outbreaks had no place in a court of justice. “

“Mr. Sheriff,” said Judge Roan from the bench when order had been restored, “I see that there is a large crowd in here and that many of them do not seem to understand what is required of them in a courtroom. If there Is the least disturbance after the jury comes in, I want you to clear the room of all but officials.”

“We don’t want to spoil the work of four weeks by any unseemly actions at this time and we are not going to allow such disturbance.”

The jury was then brought in and the solicitor took up his speech. Mr. Dorsey’s voice was hoarse when he started and it seemed as though he had received no refreshment from the rest over Sunday. Like a long distance runner who has kept a hard pace during the race and who at the finish, is staggering toward the goal line and “running on his nerve,” the solicitor renewed his attack on the defense.

As he went on his throat seemed to get better and his vocal cords appeared to loosen up. He was continually harassed during the morning, however, by Attorneys Arnold and Rosser, who declared he was making false statements and that parts of his speech were “improper and insulting”.

“Gentlemen of the jury,” began the solicitor, “I am even more exhausted this morning than I was Saturday. My throat is in such shape that I fear I cannot finish this case or do Justice to it.

“Had we, not an adjournment Saturday, I might have finished and his honor might have charged you, no that you might have brought In your verdict this morning and been free.”

Renews Attack on Statement.

“When I was compelled to stop Saturday, I was. in the midst of a brief analysis of the statement of this defendant. I am not going into an exhaustive analysis of that, because it is not necessary and It would inconvenience you uselessly, and two, I haven’t the strength to carry it out.”

“There are, however, certain parts of the defendant’s statement that merit consideration. He stated to you, after his honor had ruled out our evidence, that his wife visited him at police headquarters and that after he consulted with Rabbi Marx that he decided it would be best not to have his dear wife run the line of snapshooters, interviews of reporters and quizzing of detectives.”

“Well, Frank tells you his wife actually came there and that he would not let her come there again. He says she was brought by her two brothers-in-law and Rabbi Marx. Yet, Frank makes no attempt, to prove by them, that his wife was there. He wants you to believe it, from his own, unsupported statement.” 

“There is no evidence anywhere that she ever went to see her husband at the station house, and I tell you, gentlemen of the jury, that a true wife ever lived who would refuse to go to see her husband when he was in such trouble as that, provided she believed him innocent. No wife, believing her husband innocent, would hesitate to face snapshotters, interviewers, or detectives to get to see her husband.”

Defense Attorneys Object.

“Your honor,” interrupted Mr. Arnold, “we have sat here and listened to one of the most unfair speeches I have ever heard and we have kept silent, but we do object to this unwarranted attack on the defendant’s wife.”

“Solicitor Dorsey submitted that part of Frank’s statement to the jury where he claimed that his wife did visit him at the police station, then he submitted that the defense had not tried to prove it by other witnesses, and declared that he was making no attack on the wife, but merely stating why she had not visited her husband,” Judge Roan allowed him to go on.

“Let the galled jade wince, we-—” began the solicitor in a powerful voice, which he apparently did not have when he began his argument.”

“Now, your honor, I do object to that,” interrupted Mr. Arnold, “when we make a legal objection to the solicitor’s statements, he has no right to say, ‘Let the galled jade wince.’”

Attorney Rosser also registered an objection.

The solicitor was allowed to go on with his speech and the defense made a formal objection to the court against that part of it.

Mr. Dorsey then took up another feature of Frank’s statement.

“Frank said that Conley could write and he adds, ‘I have received too many notes from him asking to borrow money for me not to know that.’ Frank also corroborates Conley’s statement in regard to the watch which Conley was buying on the installment plan and Frank says he gave the information to the police that Conley could write and the police and detectives have told you that he did not and Harry Scott, Mr. Franks’ own detective, has told you that Frank never gave him this Information.”

“If Frank knew, as he says he did, that Conley could write, why didn’t he tell the police that? Scott declares to you that Frank never mentioned the subject.”

“Gentlemen, it was only when the detectives, after laborious effort and despite Frank’s silence, found out that the negro, who was denying he could write, could really do so, that they obtained from him his first affidavit in which he told part of the things that happened that day.”

“Frank says to you that he knew Conley could write. Then why did he not tell the police of that fact, when he knew that the murder notes were believed to be the key that would unlock this mystery?”

Dorsey Turns to Frank.

“By your own statement,” continued the solicitor, addressing, Frank, “you saw the notes at the station house that Sunday morning, April 27, when the body was found, and you said not a word about knowing that Conley could write; you never said it then and you never did tell it to the police authorities, and yet you knew that the notes tried to place the blame on a negro.”

“Well, I won’t discuss that further, it’s not necessary,” continued the solicitor. He then took up another phase of the statement made by the defendant.”

“Frank tells you in regard to that visit Conley made to the jail with the police, when Conley wanted to confront him that he did not see Conley because he wanted first to get permission of his attorney, Mr. Luther Z. Rosser, who was trying a case at Tallulah Falls that day, and he says that if he could have got Mr. Rosser’s permission, that he would have seen Conley or anybody else that day, but I tell you, gentlemen, that Mr. Rosser got back from Tallulah in a few hours, and yet Frank never did see Conley.”

“I tell you, gentlemen of the jury, that if you have got sense enough to get out of a shower of rain, you know that never in the history of the Anglo-Saxon race and never in the history of the African race in this country, did a negro accuse a white man and that white man, with Anglo-Saxon blood in his veins and claiming innocence, refuse to confront him.”

“I’ll tell you something else, no lawyer, astute as is Mr. Rosser, would refuse to let his client confront an accuser like that if he knew in his heart that his client was innocent.”

“WINS BIG CASE – SOLICITOR HUGH M. DORSEY”

“If a negro ever accuses me, I tell you that I will confront him and there’s no lawyer who can stop me, and even if I would wait for my lawyer’s return, I would confront my accused, as soon as he did get back.”

Rosser Again Interrupts.

“You say you never knew until you came to court, what Conley had sworn against you,” continued the solicitor, turning to Frank, “but you could have known if you had wanted to confront your accuser.”

Mr. Rosser entered an objection here, making the statement that Conley had made so many affidavits that Frank would not have known what he would swear to the courtroom, even if he had talked to him.

“Oh, well,” retorted Mr. Dorsey, “you can object all you want to, but I am going to put it up to the jury and they can decide about It. You can object all you want to.”

“He’s outside the rule, your honor,” shouted Mr. Rosser.

“I’m not outside the rule and they (the defense) see the force they think they can make by such objections.”

“Well, that’s out of order,” retorted, Mr. Rosser.

“Well, if they (pointing to the defense) don’t see the force of it all, they (pointing to the jury) do.”

“Well, now, your honor, I submit he’s out of order and he ought to be ruled out,” said Mr. Rosser.

Judge Roan allowed the solicitor to go on.

“This man, Frank, a white man, a graduate of Cornell, a man of a brilliant mind and of refined feeling, on the flimsy pretext that his counsel was out of town, refused to meet Conley and when his counsel came back he would not allow it.”

“Would you tell me, gentlemen of the jury, that you would let a man of black skin accuse you and yet were Innocent, that you would let Rosser or anybody else keep you from confronting him and nailing the lie?”

“No lawyer ever lived who would keep me, if I were wrongfully accused, from confronting my accuser, be he black or white!”

Again Turns On Frank.

“Then you,” (he pointed to Frank) “went and interviewed Newt Lee at 12 o’clock that April 29 and what did you do? Did you act like a man who did not know the truth and who wanted to learn it? Did you go into the room and take up the questioning of the negro in a way to get something out of him, out of him, the man you would have hung in order to save your reputation on Washington Street and in the B’nai B’rith?”

“According to Lee, you never questioned him, but you hung your head and told him that if he kept telling the story that he told then, and later told on the stand, that he and you would both go to hell. Now, you try to fix that up by saying that your detective Harry Scott and old John Black told you to do that and concocted against you and lied on you that Tuesday night.”

Adding to His Crime.

“The reason Frank never questioned Newt Lee, continued the solicitor, turning to the jury, “was because Frank knew who was guilty and he knew that he was already adding to the infamous assault and murder of the girl, an attempt to send this negro to the gallows in order to save his own neck.”

“Listen to this and note how smoothly that statement of Frank’s was fixed up, so that when we came back to rebut it that the technical laws would stop us. Frank told you that the detectives stressed the point that couples must have been allowed to go into the building by Newt Lee at night.”

“Now, Newt Lee was only there three weeks before the murder and the detectives really stressed the point that couples might have been let in there at night and they did not confine the time to the short time Lee was there as nightwatchman, as Frank said they did, and thus saved himself from impeachment.”

Mr. Dorsey then read Frank’s statement in regard to the spots found on the second floor by Christopher Columbus Barrett and said to have been blood spots, and the solicitor stressed that part, where Frank said that accidents were frequent there and that many of them were never even reported, and that the girls often carried buckets of red varnish by that place and that it frequently applied there.

No Chemists Introduced.

“If you claim that the spots were not of blood, in the name of fair play and decency, why didn’t you bring one chemist here to sustain your claim?” 

“’That was blood and the white haskoline substance had been smeared over it!’

“Important! There is no more important thing in this case to you, than to show that there was no blood on the second floor, but that the spots were only of red varnish, with haskoline over them.”

“The Gentlemen of the jury, are you going to believe this one statement when they could get no chemist to come here and stultify himself and when Dr. Claude Smith, city bacteriologist, tells you from his chemical analysis that it was blood and when scores of employees say that it was.

“This defense has no defense,” shouted the solicitor, “they have resorted to abuse, and they have fluttered around, but never alighted anywhere!”

“In this particular instance, they grab at varnish, they grab at cat’s blood, rat’s blood and mouse blood, and at blood from finger cuts.”

The solicitor then took up Frank’s statement about the possibility of the girl having been pushed down the chute in the rear of the building or thrown down the scuttle hole in the part formerly occupied by the Clarke Wooden Ware company.

Some Improbable Things.

“Why would that negro Conley, even if he had murdered the girl with that bloody club they claim to have found there, why would he have tied the cord around her neck and why would he have tied the clothing around her neck?”

“Why did old man Holloway say, ‘That’s my nigger,’ when he saw Conley ‘washing a shirt, and why was it that after fifteen days when the second squad of Pinkertons were searching the factory, that blood was found near the elevator shaft, more blood than it has been shown the girl lost?”

“Why was it that when Frank read in the morning paper that Barrett had discovered the blood spots on the second floor, that he, the superintendent, who had been anxious to solve the mystery had telephoned three times for Schiff to hire the Pinkertons, did not go back to see those spots until Lemmie Quinn came after him.

“That was a strange way for an innocent superintendent to do. And there is no evidence to show that Frank ever did go back there and look at those spots. Why? I’ll tell you why; if there was any spot on earth where this man did not want it to be known that blood had been found, it was on the second floor, where, according to his own statement, he was working at the time the girl was killed.”

“Frank also tells us that he visited the morgue twice on the day the body was found and if he went there and saw the body that morning and it tore him up as he says it did, why, except for the answer I’m going to give you, did he go back that afternoon and look at the body.”

“He didn’t see the body the first time.”

“That statement is a misstatement of facts. All the witnesses said they did not know whether or not Frank saw the body,” interrupted Reuben Arnold.

“Well, I’ll not quibble over the matter, retorted the solicitor. “If Frank did look at the body, and there’s no evidence to show he did, he gave it just a glance as the light was flashed on and then he turned and went into another room.”

Reference to Record.

“He never went into another room: the evidence don’t show that,” objected Mr. Rosser.

“It certainly does” replied the solicitor, “you look and see if it don’t”.

“Well, gentlemen,” said Judge Roan, “look the matter up and decide it.”

The defense made no motion to do so in order to sustain their claim and the solicitor, took advantage of that at once.

“Look it up: I challenge you to look it up!” Dorsey shouted.

“Well, we don’t have to look It up, even if he does challenge us to,” said Mr. Arnold in a quiet tone.

“Gentlemen, I’ll look It up myself, said Judge Roan who then turned and requested Leonard Haas, partner of one of Frank’s lawyers, to favor him by looking the matter up.”

“I tell you that there is no evidence that Frank ever looked at the girl that morning and that if he did look at her, as the defense claims, it was just a glance, and not sufficient to allow him to identity her as the girl he had paid off the day before,” Mr. Dorsey continued.

“The real reason why Frank went back to the morgue that Sunday afternoon was because he wanted to put his ear to the ground and learn if there was a whisper of his guilt going around.”

“The witnesses say Frank was nervous that morning and Frank says so, too, and declares that the auto ride and the sight of the dead girl caused it, and yet he goes back like a hog to his wallow. I tell you, and you know it, that Frank went back there that Sunday afternoon to learn if there was a hint anywhere of his guilt.”

At this point, Attorney Rosser interrupted and declared that on cross-examination “Boots” Rogers had testified that Frank went towards the curtains across the hall, but that he only surmised that he went into the room beyond them.

“Well, the proposition is,” replied Mr. Dorsey, “that Frank gave a glance at the girl’s body and turned away. He wanted to get out of the sight of the officers.”

“The evidence does not show that,” replied Mr. Rosser.

“Well, I won’t quibble with you; I’ll throw you that sop,” flung back the solicitor, and turned to discuss another part of Frank’s statement.

The Actions of a Guilty Man.

“Gentlemen,’” he said, “I tell you that on that Saturday night, after he had murdered the little girl, Frank’s actions in trying to break up the card party, were the actions of a guilty man. That laughter when he went into the room and showed the guests a funny story was the laughter of a guilty man.”

“If Frank, too, was so quiet and composed in the Selig home where the murder was a matter of indifference, why was he so nervous before the officers? Why was he so nervous when he tried to run the elevator that Sunday morning?”

“Frank says,” continued Mr. Dorsey, “’ I went to the office and looked on the payroll and saw that a girl named Mary Phagan really did work there and that she was due to have been paid $1.20,’ and Frank might have added, ‘I followed her back into the metal room when she came for that money and when she refused my proposals, I struck her and then I choked her with that cord to save my reputation.’”

Mr. Dorsey then gave a minute description of the blackened and dirt-covered condition of the girl’s face and body and declared that Frank in the casual glance he gave her that Sunday morning could never have identified her as the girl he had paid off the day before.

Did Detectives Lie?

“Do you believe that Rogers and Black, who have no interest in this case, other than to see justice done, would have perjured themselves in order to hang this man?” he asked the jury.

“Do you believe that Starnes has perjured himself, too? Well, Starnes tells you that when he called up Frank and told him he was sending an auto for him that Frank asked if there had been a fire, or if Newt Lee had reported anything wrong, but that nothing was about a tragedy. When Black and Rogers met Frank at his house they tell us he asked right away if there had been a tragedy, and we know that later he tried to claim that Starnes had mentioned this in the talk over the telephone. It was merely Frank’s guilty knowledge that made him mention tragedy.”

“Then Lee says that when Frank called him up that Saturday night, a thing he had never done before, Frank did not ask if Gantt had gone and did not mention Gantt’s name, but asked if anything had happened at the factory—if anything had happened.”

“Frank tells us that he asked about Gantt’s being there.”

“You can’t tell me, gentlemen of the jury, that with all these things piled up against this man, that there is nothing but prejudice and perjury in this case.”

“You remember that Frank made Lee go upstairs with Gantt that Saturday afternoon, and even Lee would not let Gantt into the factory, until Frank consented. Lee was true to his orders.”

“Now, why did Frank want to keep Gantt out of that factory, unless it was that he did not want Gantt around where he might talk to Mary Phagan at the time when he was plotting her downfall?”

“Would you convict this man on this and on that? No, but you can weave a rope out of all these strands that will send him to the gallows. No one of these strands would do that, but all together they make such a strong case that there is no room for reasonable doubt; no room for any doubt.”

“Frank says in his first affidavit that he stayed in his office during certain hours that Saturday. He did not know the time that his own detective, Harry Scott, had found little Monteen Stover and been told by the girl that she had gone into the office at 12:05, and found no one there.”

“Then Frank, seeing the importance, declared that he might have stepped out of the office for some little errand and then forgotten about it.”

Pays Tribute to Scott.

Mr. Dorsey turned aside here to pay a tribute to Harry Scott, and in it, he was careful to pay no tribute to the other Pinkertons. A moment later he accused the others of “running with the hare instead of the hounds.”

“Scott asked Frank if he was in his office from the time he came back until Mary Phagan came, and he said yes, and then Scott asked if he was there from 12 o’clock until Mary Phagan came, and he  declared he was, and then Scott asked him if he was in his office all the time from the occasion when he went upstairs after Mrs. White, until he left for lunch, and again he answered yes.”

“It was only when Frank realized that the little Stover girl had come up there and he was not there, that he tried to hedge by declaring that he might have gone out for a moment and not remembered it afterward.”

“Not until be recognized the wonderful truth and ability in Scott and his adherence to duty did Frank shut him out from his councils.”

“Gentlemen, you have the power to find a guilty man, innocent or guilty. No potentate is more powerful than the American jury. In the secrecy of the jury room, you can write a verdict that outrages humanity, but your consciences will control you, and only by doing your duty can you ever afterward have your own self-respect.”

The Testimony of Kelley.

 “The defense has already talked about the time element and tried to break down little George Epps because he did not have a watch, and they tried to impeach George Kenley, the motorman, because he knew the little girl, and felt down in his heart that he knew who killed her.”

“There is one state’s witness, however, against whom there has been no breath of suspicion, and he is Mr. Kelly, a street car man, who rode with Mathews that day, and who knows him, and knew the girl, and he declares that she never rode around to Hunter street as Mathews claims.”

“Mr. Rosser says he doesn’t care about the cabbage and the statements made about it. I tell you, and I don’t go back on my raising when I do, that cabbage is good food and that there is no better food than cabbage, cornbread and buttermilk.”

“It would not surprise me” he added, “if these astute gentlemen on the defense did not go out and bring in all these general practitioners they used, solely because they happened to be the family physicians of some of the jurors, and for the effect they thought it would have on you.”

Defense Makes Objection.

“That’s grossly unfair and improper,” interrupted Mr. Arnold in an appeal to Judge Roan.“

“And it’s insulting,” added Mr. Rosser; “insulting to us and to the jury.”

“I want your honor to rule that out and to reprimand the solicitor,” continued Mr. Arnold.“

“I did not say that it was a fact, but I said that it might be so and would not surprise me if it was and I’ve got a right to say that,” answered Mr. Dorsey. “The fact that they went out and got general practitioners instead of getting experts goes to show that.”

“You may state that you think such was the case, Mr. Dorsey, but not that it is,” ruled Judge Roan.

“I thought so!” shouted Solicitor Dorsey to the jury.

“Now, your honor, he’s got no right to shout, ‘I thought so.’” Mr. Arnold declared heatedly.

Judge Roan upheld the solicitor; however, ruling that he had a right to say that he had thought that he would be upheld in the former argument.

“I can’t see any other reason in the world,” continued the solicitor, “for their going out and dragging in a lot of general practitioners and surgeons instead of experts competent to testify, unless they were seeking for the effect that the testimony of their family physicians might have on some of the jurors”.

Mr. Arnold here had the court stenographer enter on the record his formal objection to the statement and the solicitor went on.

“You can’t tell me that Childs, a general practitioner, this man from Michigan, with only seven years’ experience, can put his opinion up against that of Dr. Harris, the eminent secretary of the state board of health.”

“Before you or anybody can set aside the evidence of this man, Dr. Harris, and take the opinion of the man from Michigan, or of the pathologist from Alsace-Lorraine, who did not know the name of the first step in the digestive process, you’ve got to have better evidence than was shown here.”

Attack on Hancock.

“You can’t tell me that Dr. Hancock, who saws bones for the Georgia Railway and Power company, knows more than Dr. Harris does.”  

“You can’t tell me that Olmstead, a general practitioner, knows more than does this expert in the service of the state.”

“You can’t tell me that Dr. Kendrick, popular as he is, and who tells you he has not opened a book on the subject in ten years, should be taken in preference to Dr. Harris.”

 “You can’t tell me that these men can stand up before Dr. Harris, or before Dr. Clarence Johnson, the eminent stomach specialist, who backs him up; or before Dr. George M. Niles, another stomach specialist, who also agrees with him. They can’t stand against Dr. John Funke, expert pathologist, who agrees with Dr. Harris.”

“Why, gentlemen of the jury, Hancock Is so gangrened with prejudice that when I showed him this book (The American Medical Journal) he declared it a book made up by quacks.”

“Why, Dr. Willis Westmoreland was so bitter and so prejudiced against Dr. Harris that he told us that the board of health had found him guilty of scientific dishonesty, and the records showed that they had not done any such thing, and that Dr. Westmoreland had got mad because he could not run the board and had resigned.

Nervousness Not Natural.

“Well, I want to take up the question of Frank’s nervousness again. You remember that on that afternoon of Memorial Day that Newt Lee, who had been told to come early, came back like the dutiful darky he was, and found Leo Frank washing his hands. Frank was waiting there then for Jim Conley to come and burn the body and Frank did not want Newt around, so he made Newt go out into town, and that when Newt told him he was sleepy and wanted to find a comfortable corner anywhere in the building.”

“Frank wanted to get Lee away so that when Conley came back, as he had promised he would do, they could burn the body and the police might never solve that Phagan mystery; and might never know that the girl had ever entered the factory that day.”

“You remember, too, that when Frank was going out later that he almost ran into Gantt at the door and that Lee says Frank jumped and Gantt says he was nervous. Gantt said he wanted to go up and get a pair of shoes that he had left there and Frank told him that he had seen a boy sweeping out a pair and Gantt had replied that he had left two pair and would go up and see if he could not get the other pair. You remember also that Gantt went up there and found both pair of shoes and that this very fact showed that Frank was merely making up something to keep the man from going Into the building if possible.”

“And, when Frank sent for Attorney Rosser, he wanted him because his conscience needed somebody to sustain it. He got Haas and Darley for the same reason.”

“Now, we went into the camp of the enemy to get Darley, who has told openly of Frank’s nervousness. Darley says Frank trembled like an aspen leaf. He told me when he made his affidavit that Frank was completely unstrung, but, when he got on the witness stand, he changed It to ‘almost.’”

“Frank’s nervousness was produced by one cause only, the consciousness of his infamous crime. Old man Newt Lee says that when he went back that afternoon, he found the inside door locked, something he had never found before. Newt also says that night when he went down into the basement, he found the light flickering low. Do you think for a minute that Jim Conley would have turned down that light? No. But, I tell you that Frank did it when he found Conley was not coming back to burn the body.”

“He didn’t want anyone to discover the body until he found time to dispose of It.”

“It was fear pulling at his heartstrings, fear and remorse. Spectral shadows flitted before him—shades of the body, the prison, this trial, the gallows, a murderer’s grave.”

Leaving Conley Out.

“You may leave Jim Conley entirely out of this case and you still have a course of conduct that shows this man’s guilt.” 

“Is Dalton a low-down character? If so, isn’t he then just the kind of man a person like Frank would consort with when his dual character was predominant.”

“I tell you that today he is a man of utter integrity, although he may, at times, be tempted to step aside with a woman who has fallen as low as Daisy Hopkins.”

“We sustained him by scores of witnesses, good and substantial men. We corroborated the statement that he had been seen to go into the factory with women. We corroborated Dalton almost in whole.”

“Lawyer Rosser says he would give so much to know who dressed up Jim Conley. If you, Mr. Rosser, had wanted to know half so much about Jim Conley being dressed up as you did to find faults with Dalton’s past, you could have learned very easily.”

Why Conley Was in Jail.

“Let’s see something about what William Smith, Jim Conley’s attorney, has set up about the rule which Judge Roan gave in regard to Conley’s imprisonment. The police, be it understood, may be no better than the sheriff of our county, but they are just as good.”

“Smith says that Conley, in the police station, is perfectly safe from a standpoint of physical welfare, and that, under such imprisonment, is far safer. No one has been allowed to see him. He has been protected from physical harm and false claims. He says that plans have been laid detrimental to the carrying out of justice so far as Conley is concerned.”

“Sufficient inside guards were not provided in the Tower. Only one man was paid to guard the entire five stories which contain twenty cell blocks. Friends of Frank were allowed to pour into the jail in a steady stream, many of whom were admitted indiscriminately into Conley’s cell. Newspaper men and others say, Smith, was admitted constantly in Conley’s cell. One man offered sandwiches and liquor to the negro.”

“Our proof of general bad character sustains Jim Conley. Our proof of general bad character as to lasciviousness sustains Jim Conley.”

“Their failure to cross-examine our character witnesses sustains him. Frank’s relations with Rebecca Carson sustains him. Your own witness, Miss Jackson, sustains him. Miss Kitchens, of the fourth floor, sustains him.”

“Lemmie Quinn, their dear Lemmie, sustains him. Daisy Hopkins and Dalton sustain him. The blood spots, the statement of Holloway and Boots Rogers relative to the open elevator box sustain him. Albert McKnight and Minola McKnight’s repudiated affidavit sustain him.”

“The existence of the notes sustains him. No negro in history of the negro race ever wrote a note or letter to cover up his crime.”

“The diction of the notes in ‘did’ and ‘done’ sustain him.”

Attorney Rosser entered an objection to this statement, arguing that in many places Conley had used the word ‘did’ in his statement.

“I have heard Conley’s whole statement and I say the jury has heard that every time it was put to him, he used the word ‘done’ instead of ‘did.’ I want to see the physiognomy of the man who took these notes. I also want his original notes.”

Judge Harvey J. Parry, the expert stenographer who had taken most of Conley’s statement, stated that the character for “did” is so different from that “done.” That it would have been impossible for the stenographer to have made a mistake.

“Very well, then,” said the solicitor, “you have said in your own argument Mr. Rosser that one thing a negro would do under any circumstances would be to absorb the words and expressions of a white man.”

“Jim Conley is sustained by Frank’s statement relating to his relatives in Brooklyn.”

“When Jim was on the stand, Rosser questioned him about Mincey. Where is this Mincey?  Echo answers: ‘Where?’ These men knew his perjuring, trying was so diabolical. It would have sickened the jury’s mind. The absence of Mincey is a powerful support of Jim Conley’s story.”

“Every circumstance in this case that this man killed this girl! Extraordinary? Yes! But as true as the fact that Mary Phagan is dead.”

“She died a noble death. Without a splotch or blemish upon her, a martyr to the virtue she protected the extent of death in saving it from her employer.”

“Your honor, I have done my duty — I have no apologies to make. There will be but one verdict, guilty, guilty, guilty.”

There was a melodious blast of noon whistles. The courtroom was still. The whistles rang out over a working city at the exact. hour Mary Phagan several weeks ago stepped into the pencil factory to her death. The solicitor’s speech was done.

* * *

Atlanta Constitution, August 26th 1913, “As Bells Tolled, Dorsey Closed Magnificent Argument Which Fastened Crime on Frank,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Constitution
August 23rd, 1913

In a quiet yet concentrated tone Attorney Luther Zeigler Rosser, Friday morning at 9 o’clock made the final plea of the defense for the life of Leo Frank.

The beginning of the speech was impressive, it was almost whispered at times, but the voice that delivered it rose above the maze of ozonators and electric fans, and seemed to carry a body message about it. The life of a man was at stake and the message, pleading for his life, was opened almost as a prayer—the subject being fate.

Later on, Mr. Rosser was more vigorous in his methods; he branched from the quiet even tones, and dealt with the ugly features of the case; he told a fib so risqué that probably no other lawyer in the state would have told it in the courtroom, and he talked in plain words of plain facts.

“‘Gentlemen of the jury, all things come to an end,’ he began in a quiet voice, and he leaned over the railing of the jury box and seemed not to address one, but all of the jurors.”

“With the end of this case has almost come the end of the speakers and but for that masterly effort of my brother Arnold, I almost wish it had ended with no speaking. My condition issues that I can say but little; my voice is husky and my throat almost gone.

“But for my interest in this case and my profound conviction of the innocence of this man, I would not undertake to speak at all.”

“I want to repeat what my friend, Arnold, said so simply. He said this jury is no mob. The attitude of the juror’s mind is not that of the mind of the man who carelessly walks the streets. My friend, Hooper, must have brought that doctrine with him when he came to Atlanta.”

“I want to repeat what my friend, Arnold, said so simply. He said this jury is no mob. The attitude of the Jurors mind is not that of the mind of the man who carelessly walks the streets. My friend, Hooper, must have brought that doctrine with him when he came to Atlanta.”

“We walk the street carelessly and we meet our friends and do not recognize them; we are too much absorbed in our own interests. Our minds wander in flights of fancy or in fits of reverence; we may mean no harm to ourselves, nor to our friends, but we are careless. No oath binds us when we walk the streets.”

Defines Duty of Jury.

“Men, you are different, you are set aside; you ceased when you took your juror’s oath to be one of the rollicking men of the streets, you were purged by your oath.”

“In old pagan Rome the women laughed and chattered on the streets as they went to and fro, but there were a few – the Vestal Virgins – they cared not for the strife of the day.”

“So it is with you men, set apart; you care not for the chatter and laughter of the rabble; you are unprejudiced and it is your duty to pass man’s life with no passion and no cruelty, but as men purged by an oath from the careless people of the streets. You are to decide from the evidence, with no fear of a hostile mob and no thought of favor to anyone.”

“What suggesting comes into a man’s mind when he thinks of a crime like this? And what crime could be more horrible than this one? What punishment too great for the brute in human form who committed it and who excited this community to a high pitch?”

Mr. Rosser then launched forth into a description of the horrible crime perpetrated in the factory basement and of the sweet young girl.

He was still talking in the quiet, clear tones he started out with.

“Since 1908 the National Pencil factory has employed hundreds of girls and women and also of men, and not all of the girls and women, not all of the men have been perfect.” he continued, “but you can find good men and women in all strata of life, and yet the detectives, working with microscopes and with the aid of my friend, Dorsey, excited almost beyond peradventure, found only two to wear against Frank.”

Decries Dalton and Conley.

“They found Dalton and they found Jim Conley. Well, I’ll take up Conley at a more fitting time, but Dalton, who is Dalton?”

“God Almighty writes on a man’s face and he don’t always write a pretty hand, but he writes a legible one. When you see Dalton you put your hand on your pocketbook.”

“When Dalton took the stand Mr. Arnold and I had never had the pleasure of seeing his sweet countenance before, but Mr. Arnold leaned over and whispered in my ear, ‘There’s a thief if there ever was one.’”

“I smelt about him the odor of the chain-gang and I began to feel him out. I asked him if he had ever been away from home for any length of time, and he knew at once what I meant and he began to dodge and to wriggle, and before he left the stand I was sure he was a thief.”

“Dalton was on, three times in Walton county and then in another county where he probably went to escape further trouble in Walton, he got into trouble again. It wasn’t just the going wrong of a young man who falls once and tries to gel over it, but it was the steady thievery of a man at heart a thief.”

“Of course, Dalton comes here to Atlanta and reforms. Yes, he joined a Godly congregation and persuaded them that he had quit his evil ways. That’s an old trick of thieves and they use it to help their trade along.”

“I believe in the divine power of regeneration; I believe that you can reform, that there’s always line to turn back and do right, but there’s one kind of man who I don’t believe can ever reform. Once a thief, always a thief.”

“Our Master knew it; He recognized the qualities of a thief; You remember when they crucified Him and He hung on the cross there on the hill. Well, He had a thief hanging beside Him and He said to that thief, ‘This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.’”

“He didn’t dare say ‘tomorrow;’ He knew He’d better say ‘today’, because by tomorrow that thief would be stealing again In Jerusalem.”

Dalton a Disgrace to His Race.

“Dalton disgraced the name of his race and he was a thief and worse, it there can be, and yet he joined the church. He joined the church and he’s now a decent, believable man. Well, you remember how brazenly he sat here on the stand and bragged of his ‘peach;’ how indecently he bragged of his fall; how he gloated over his vice.”

“He was asked if he ever went to that miserable, dirty factory basement with a woman for immoral purposes and he was proud to say that he had.”

“Gentlemen, it was the first time Dalton had ever been in the limelight. It was the first time decent, respectable white men and women had ever listened to him with respect, let alone attention.”

“When he was asked about that, if he was guilty, if he had fallen, he might have declined to answer, might have hung his head in shame, as any decent, respectable man would have done, but instead, he bragged and boasted of it.”

“When Conley was asked what sort of a woman, Frank had so brazenly and braggingly said he did not know, that he himself had such a peach there that he could not take his eyes off her to look at Frank’s woman.”

“Well, you have seen Dalton’s peach; you all have seen Daisy.”

Conley’s Story Different.

“Conley tells a different story. He says Frank took the peach (that lemon) for himself and that Dalton had to get him another woman.”

When Mr. Rosser referred to Hopkins as “that lemon” he made a face that caused even the tired jurors to smile and that almost convulsed the court room.

“I’m not saying that we are all freedom of passion, that we are all moral and perfect, but at least the decent man don’t brag of having a peach.”

“Well, if you believe Dalton’s story, and let’s presume it true now. If you believe it, he went into that scuttle hole there at the factory with Daisy.”

“Dalton took that woman into the factory, into a dirty, nasty, fetid hole where no decent dog or cat would go and there he satisfied his passion. That’s what he told us.”

“Well, I thought I’d heard of partisanship before I came here. I thought I knew what the world meant, but I didn’t. I never did until the solicitor whose sworn duty it is to protect the innocent as well as to punish the guilty, was checked in this court and then told the judge, ‘I’ll go as far as you’ll let me.’

“I guess only the Infinite checked him outside of the court and as for these detectives here; well, I guess the infinite had to stretch a little bit when they got going good.”

“Well, Dalton told us he went there about 2 o’clock one Saturday afternoon last year and of course, at that time the Clarke Wooden Ware company occupied the lower floor and used the same entrance that the National Pencil company did, and Frank was at lunch and knew nothing of Dalton’s visit.”

“Of course Dalton left an oogy trail behind him; wherever he went he did that. You can so feel it in this court room.”

Raps Four Detectives.

“Of course, too, Dalton may have gone into the pencil factory that day and left his oozy, slimy trail there, but otherwise there’s nothing against the factory, and you know there’s not, for our great quartet—Starnes and Campbell and Black (Oh, how I have Black. I always want to put my arms around him whenever I think of him) and Scott, for he was with that crowd; they tried their very best to find something that would show that factory up as a vile hole.”

“Well, there’s another reason that proves conclusively that it was not the assignation place Dalton and Conley name it.”

“It has always been wrong for men and women to commit fornication and adultery, but it’s always been done and the world, as long as It was done decently and quietly and not bragged about and blazoned forth in public places, has rather allowed it to go unchecked, but it’s not so now.”

“My good friend, Beavers, has written a new Decalogue”.

“The reason is that the ‘immoral’ squad? —oh, is that it? Is it the ‘immoral’ squad? or what is it? Oh, I know, the ‘vice squad,’ that’s it. I nearly called those dear men immoral, didn’t I? Well, the vice squad has searched the town and they’ve dug into this hole and that and they’ve uncovered many a haunt and hiding place until they’ve run out every lascivious woman in town.”

“You reckon Schiff and Darley and Quinn would be out of jail now if that place was what they claim it was, if it was a house of ill fame?”

Mr. Rosser here entered into a eulogy of the character, life and morals of N. V. Darley, Herbert G. Schiff, Lemmie Quinn and Wade Campbell, all employees of the factory and associates of Frank.

Defends Factory Conditions.

“I’ve got a better reason than any I’ve yet told, for declaring that conditions were decent at the factory. You know, I know the working people of this state and this city. I’ve always worked with my head and it’s never been my good fortune to be one of the working people, but there are no silken ladies in my ancestry, nor are there any dudish men.”

“I know the working men and the working women, because that blood runs in my veins, and if any man in Atlanta knows them I do, and I tell you that there are no 100 working girls and women in Atlanta who could be got together by raking with a fine-tooth comb who’d stay there at that factory with conditions bad as they have been painted, and there are no 100 working men here so thin blooded as to allow such conditions there.”

Mr. Rosser here turned his attention to a discussion of Frank’s statement to the jury, and declared that it was Frank’s handiwork only, and that neither he nor Mr. Arnold knew what Frank was going to say when he got on the stand.

“Look at the statement this man made to you, and it wins his statement, not mine. I can prove that by the simple reason that I haven’t got brains enough to have made it up, and Mr. Arnold (though he’s got far more brains than me), he could not have made it. Mr. Arnold might have given it the same weight and thickness, but not the living ring of truth.”

Frank’s Character.

“Now another thing, We didn’t have to put Frank’s character up, If we hadn’t the judge would have told you Frank must be presumed to have a good character and that you did not have the right to ask that question about him, but we thought you were and we put it up and see what a character the man has.”

“There’s not a man in the sound of my voice who could prove a better character. Of course, I mean from the credible evidence,” not that stuff of Conley’s and Dalton’s.”

“But you say, some people, some former employees swore he had a bad character. Well, I’ll tell you about that later.”

“You know that when you want to you can always get someone to swear against anybody’s character. Put me in his place and let my friend, Arnold, be foolish enough to put my character up and there’d be plenty of those I have maybe hurt or offended as I have gone through life, who’d swear it was wrong and I believe I’ve got an ordinarily good character.”

“Why you could bring twenty men here in Fulton county to swear that Judge Roan, there on the bench, has a bad character. You Know that he’s had to judge men and sometimes to be what they thought was severe on them, and he’s naturally made men hate him and they’d gladly come and swear his character away.”

“But if the men and women who live near him, the good and decent men and women, who live near him and knew, came up and said his character was good, you’d believe them, wouldn’t you?”

Misguided Little Girls.

“Well, gentlemen, the older I get the gentler I get and I wouldn’t think or say anything wrong about those misleading little girls who swore Frank was a bad man. I guess they thought they were telling the truth.”

“Well, did Miss Myrtis Griffin really think Frank a vicious man and yet work there three years with him? Don’t think she heard things confuse him after the crime was committed and that when she got up there and looked through the heated atmosphere of this trial she did not see the real truth?”

“And Miss Maggie Griffin, she was there two months, I wonder what she could know about Frank in that time.”

“There was Miss Dunnagin and Miss Johnson and another girl there about two months, and Nellie Potts, who never worked there at all, and Mary Wallace, there three days, and Estelle Wallace, there a week and Carrie Smith, who like Miss Cato worked there three years.”

“These are the only ones in the hundreds who have worked there since 1908 who will say that Frank has a bad character. Why you could find more people to say that the Bishop of Atlanta, I believe, had a bad character than have been brought against Frank.”

“Well, you noticed they were not able to get any men to come from the factory and swear against Frank. Men are harder to wheedle than are Iittle girls.”

“Does anybody doubt that if that factory had been the bed of vice, that they call it, that the long-legged Gantt would have known of it? They had Gantt on the stand twice, and well, you know Gantt was discharged from the factory, of course you weren’t told why in plain words, but you all know why. Well, Frank is not like by Gantt and Gantt would have loved to tell something against his former employer, but he couldn’t?

Sums Up Character Charges.

“If they have any further suspicions against this man, they haven’t given them, either because they are afraid or are unable to prove their suspicions, if they have such suspicions, though, and are doing you a worse injustice.”

“What are these suspicions that they have advanced thus far?”

“First, Miss Robinson is said to have said that she saw Frank touching Mary Phagan how to work. Dorsey reached for it on the instant, scenting something improper as is quite characteristic of him. But Miss Robinson denies it. There’s nothing in it, absolutely nothing.”

“Then they say he called her ‘Mary.’ Well what about it? What If he did? We all have bad memories. If you met me on the street six months ago, can you recall right now whether you called me Luther or Rosser?”

“The next is Wille Turner—poor little Wille! I have nothing against Willie. He seems to be a right clever sort of a boy. But just think of the methods the detectives used against him—think of the way they handled him, and think of the way Dorsey treated him on the witness stand. He says—Willie does—that he saw Frank talking to Mary Phagan in the metal room. What does it show if he did such a scenario?”

“I can’t see for the life of me where it indicates any sign of lascivious lust.” 

Incident Was Public.

“Does what Willie Turner saw, taking for granted he saw it, show that Frank was planning to ruin little Mary Phagan? Does it uphold this plot my friend Hooper had so much to say about?”

“Even with that—considering Wille Turner did see such a thing, there’s one fact that takes the sting out of it. He saw it in broad daylight, Frank was with the little girl right in front of Lemmie Quinn’s office in an open factory, where there were a lot of people and where the girls were quitting their work and getting ready to go home to dinner.”

“It wasn’t so, though, and Frank never made any improper advances to this little girl. Let me tell you why, Mary Phagan was a good girl, as pure as God makes them and as innocent. She was all that, and more. But, she would have known a lascivious advance or an ogling eye, the minute she saw it, and the minute this man made any sort of a move to her, she would have fled instantly to home, to tell this good father and mother of hers.”

“Then next, they bring Dewie Hewell, who says she saw Frank with his hand on Mary’s shoulder. That’s all right, but there is Grace Hix and Helen Ferguson and Magnolia Kennedy who contradict her and say Frank never knew Mary Phagan. You can say all you please about such as that, but there is one fact that stands out indisputable. If that little girl had ever received mistreatment at the pencil factory, no deer would have bounded more quickly from the brush at the bay of dogs, than she would have fled home to tell her father and mother.” 

Laughs at Hooper’s “Plot”.

“Now, my friend Hooper from the Wiregrass says Gantt was a victim of this plot by Leo Frank against Mary Phagan. I don’t doubt that this ‘plot’ has been framed in the sound of my voice. Hooper says Frank plotted to get the girl there on the Saturday she was killed—says he plotted with Jim Conley. Jim says Frank told him at 4 o’clock Friday afternoon, to return on the next morning. How could Frank have known she was coming back Saturday. He couldn’t have known. He’s no seer, no mind-reader, although he’s a mighty bright man.”

“It is true that some of the pay envelopes were left over on Friday, but he didn’t know whose they were. Helen Ferguson says that on Friday she asked for Mary Phagan’s pay and that Frank refused to give it to her, saying Mary would come next day and get it herself. Magnolia Kennedy swears to the contrary. You have one or the other to believe.”  

“Consider, though, that this be true! How would Frank know who would be in the factory when Mary Phagan came? How did he know she was coming Saturday? Some envelopes went over to Monday and Tuesday. How would he know whether she would come on Saturday or either of these latter days?”

“Now, what else have they put up against this man?”

Says Nervousness Was Natural.

“They say he was nervous. We admit he was. Black says it. Darley says it. Sig Montag says it—others say it! The handsome Mr. Darley was nervous and our friend Schiff was nervous. Why not hang them if you’re hanging men for nervousness! Isaac Haas—old man Isaac— openly admits he was nervous. The girls—why don’t you hang them, these sweet little girls in the factory—all of whom were so nervous, they couldn’t work on the following day?”

“If you had seen this little child, crushed, mangled, mutilated, with the sawdust crumbled in her eyes and her tongue protruding, staring up from that stinking, smelling basement, you’d have been nervous, too, every mother’s son of you. Gentlemen, I don’t profess to be chicken-hearted. I can see grown men hurt and suffering and I can stand a lot of things without growing hysterical, but l never walked along the street and heard the pitiful cry of a girl or woman without becoming nervous. God grant I will always be so.”

“Frank looked at the mangled form and crushed virginity of Mary Phagan and his nerves fluttered. Hang him! Hang him!”

Other Suspicious Circumstances.

“Another suspicious circumstance. He didn’t wake up when they telephoned him that morning the body was found. That might depend on what he ate that night; it might depend on a lot of other things. Some of us wake with the birds, while others slumber even through the tempting call of the breakfast bell. Would you hang us for that?”

“Then, they say he hired a lawyer and they call it suspicious—mighty suspicious. They wouldn’t have kicked at it if he had hired Rube Arnold, because Rube has a good character. But they hired me and they kicked and yelled ‘suspicious’ so loudly you could hear all the way from here to Jessup’s cut.”   

“I don’t know that I had ever met Frank before that morning, but I had represented the pencil factory, previously. And as to their employing me, it’s this way:

“There’s no telling what was floating around in John Black’s head that morning. They sent men after Frank and there was no telling what was likely to happen to him. They were forced to do something in his own defense.  And, as a result, the slate’s worst suspicion is the fact that they employed me and Herbert Haas.”

“Now, gentlemen, let’s see what there is in it: I have told you that twice on that Sunday, he had been to police headquarters without counsel, without friends. The next day they adopted new methods of getting him there and sent two detectives for him. John Black had said he had been watching Frank, and woe to him who is haunted by the eagle eye of dear old John.”

Takes Shot at Chiefs.

“They took him to police station Monday—took him I say. The police idea was to show their fangs. He was under arrest, that’s an undisputed fact. they had him at police station, Chief Lanford, in his wanted dignity, sitting around doing nothing, letting Frank soak. Beavers, the handsome one, was doing the same.”

“Frank didn’t call for friends or lawyer. He didn’t call for anything. If he had known what he was up against, though, in this police department of ours, he’d probably have called for two lawyers—or even more.”

“But old man Sig Montag, who has been here a long time, knew this old police crowd and he knew their tactics. He was well on to their curves. He knew what danger there was to Frank. He called up Haas. Haas didn’t want to come to the police station—he had a good reason.”

“Sig went to police station and was refused permission to see Frank. Now, I want you to getl that in your mind. A citizen—not under arrest, as they say— held without the privilege of seeing friends, relatives or counsel. It was a deplorable state of affairs. What happened?”

“Haas went to the phone and called an older and more experienced head to battle with this police iniquity. Why shouldn’t he? Dorsey sees in this harmless message a chance. He snaps at it like a snake. Dorsey Is a good man—in his way. He’ll be a better man, though, when he gets older and loses some of his present spirit and venom.”

“There are things he has done in this trial that will never be done again. Gentlemen, I assure you of that.”

Why Detectives Were Employed.

“Did Frank do anything else suspicious? – Yes! Two others, according to Hooper from the Wiregrass. One of which was the employment of a detective agency to ferret out this horrific murder that had been committed in his factory building. Why? Under what circumstances?”

“I’ll tell you.”

“Frank bad been to police station and had given his statement. Haas was the man who telephoned me and who employed me—not Frank. I went lo police headquarters and was very much unwelcomed. There was a frigid atmosphere as I walked in. I saw Frank for the first time in my life. I said: ‘What’s the matter, boys?’. Somebody answered that Mr. frank was under arrest. Black was there, Lanford was there. Neither took the pains to deny that he was under arrest.”

“Somebody said they wanted Mr. Frank to make a statement, and I advised him to go ahead and make It. When he went into the office, I followed. They said: ’We don’t want you’. I replied that whether they wanted me or not, I was coming, anyhow. I had a good reason, too, for coming. I wanted to hear what he said so they couldn’t distort his words.”

“While we were in the room a peculiar thing happened. Frank exposed his person. There were no marks. It said that it was preposterous to think that a man could, commit such a crime and not bear some marks. Lanford’s face fell.”

“Why didn’t Lanford get on the stand and deny it? Was it because he didn’t want to get into a loving conflict with me? Or did he want to keep from re-opening the dark and nasty history of the Conley story and the Minola McKnight story that are hidden in the still darker recesses of police headquarters?”

“Frank makes his statement and is released. He goes back to the pencil factory, assuming that suspicion has been diverted from him. He thinks of the horrible murder that has been committed in his plant. He telephones Sig Montag about hiring a detective agency to solve the crime. Sig advises him to do it.”

A Horrible Situation.

I don’t believe there is any detective living who can consort with crooks and criminals and felons, scheme with them, mingle with them and spy on the homes of good people and bad who can then exalt his character as a result. He absorbs some of the atmosphere and the traits. It is logical that he should. But, even at that they’ve got some good men in the detective and police department.

“Old man Sig Montag said hire a detective and Frank hired the Pinkertons. Harry Scott came and took Frank’s statement and said:

“’‘We work in co-operation with the city police department.’”

“Now, isn’t that a horrible situation—going hand in glove with the police department? But, it’s a fact. Just as soon as Scott left Frank, he walked down, arm in arm with John Black, to the nasty, smelly basement of the pencil factory.”

“What did that mean?”

“It meant a complete line-up with the police. It meant if the police turn you loose, I turn you loose. If the police hang you, I hang you!”

Gentlemen, take a look at this spectacle, if you can.”

“Here is a Jewish boy from the north. He Is unacquainted with the south. He came here alone and without friends and he stood alone. This murder happened in his place of business. He told the Pinkertons to find the man, trusting to them entirely, no matter where or what they found might strike. He is defenseless and helpless. He knows his innocence and is willing to find the murderer.”

“They try to place the murder on him. God all merciful and all powerful, look upon an scene like this!”

“Anything else? Yes. Look at this.”

Time Slip Incident.

“I do not believe my friend who preceded me intended to do this.”

“I refer to the incident about the time slip. I have to use harsh words here, but I don’t want to. This seems to me the most unkindest cut of all. They say that that time slip was planted. They say the shirt was planted.”

“Gentlemen, is there any evidence of this? Let’s see about this statement.”

“Black and somebody else. I believe, went out to Newt Lee’s house on Tuesday morning and found the shirt planted.”

“In the bottom of a barrel. They brought the shirt back to the police station and Newt said the shirt was his.”

Dorsey objected to this, claiming that the evidence was not that Newt said the shirt was his.

“Oh, well,” continued Rosser, “It is the evidence, but we’ll take his view of it. He says that it looked like Newt’s shirt. Newt Lee had been hired at the factory but three weeks, yet they want you to believe that they found a shirt like the old man had and went out to his house and put it in a barrel.”

“One thing is wrong. The newspapers and others. I am afraid, think this is a contest between lawyers. It is not. God forbid that I should let any such thing enter into this case when this boy’s life is at stake.”

Things Hard to Understand.

“There are several things I don’t understand about this case, and never will.”

“Why old man Lee didn’t find the body sooner; why he found it lying on its face; how he saw it from a place he could not have seen it from.”

“I was raised with niggers and know something about them. I do not know them as well as the police, perhaps, for they know them like no one else. But I know something about them.”

“There must have been a nigger in the crime who knew, about it before Newt Lee or anyone else. I am afraid Newt knew. Yet, if he did, he is one of the most remarkable niggers I ever saw and I wish I had his nerve. There were things you did to him (referring to the detectives) for which you will never be forgiven. You persecuted the old nigger and all you got was ‘Fo’ God I don’t know.”

“I don’t believe he killed her, but I believe he knows more than he told.”

“The first things he said was about Gantt. He knew Gantt and believed he was there to do him dirt.”

Why Frank Jumped.

“But they say now that he jumped back. Suppose he did jump back. Look at the boy (Luther Rosser is referring to Frank.) If you put a girl the size of Mary Phagan in a room with him, she could make him jump out of the window.”

Here Rosser entered into a long eulogy on Frank and the Jewish people. Then he continued:

“Suddenly this boy stepped out in front of this giant of a Gantt, and he jumped back. Dorsey would have done the same thing; Newt Lee would; Jim Conley would, and I would, as big as I am.”

“Here is another suspicious thing. Newt Lee came to the factory at 4 o’clock, and Frank sent the old man away. It was suggested that he was afraid the nigger would find the body, yet when he came back at 6 o’clock, Frank let him stay at the factory, when he knew that in 30 minutes, if Newt was on the Job he must go into the basement where they say Frank knew the body was.”

“They say he was laughing at his home. If he had known of the crime of which he would be accused, that laugh would have been the laugh of a maniac to be ended by the discovery of the body.”

“Another suspicious thing. You Know that he was in the factory, but it turns out that he was not the only one. If the corpse was found in the basement and he was the only one in the building, then there might be some basis. But he was in an open room and there were workmen upstairs.”

“My little friend tried to dispute that. That wasn’t all. Conley was also there, and it came out yesterday that there was also another nigger — A lighter nigger than Conley—there. What scoundrels in white skin were in the building and had opportunity to commit the crime, God only knows.”

Conley of Lowest Type.

“The thing that arises in this case to fatigue my indignation is that men born of such parents should believe the statement of Conley against the statement of Frank.

Who is Conley? Who was Conley as he used to be and as you have seen him? He was a dirty, filthy, black, drunken, lying nigger. Black knows that. Starnes knows that. Chief Beavers knows it.

“Black got all bailed up in his statement. Scott meant to tell the truth. He might find a flea if he had a spy glass.”

“I asked Scott if this nigger looked like this when they got him. He said, “No.”

“’You slicked him up, did you?’ I asked.”

“He said they did.”

“Who was it that made this dirty nigger come up here looking as slick as an onion. Why didn’t they lot see him as he was?”

“I don’t suppose Dorsey meant to be this thing unless he got green-eyed and forgot his raisin. They shaved him, washed him and dressed him up.”

“The only evidence you have, gentlemen, is the word of this Conley.”

A Terrible Accusation.

“Gentlemen of the jury.” said Attorney Rosser slipping his nose glasses on as the jury came in from the noon recess and took their seats in the box, “Gentlemen of the jury, the charge of moral perversion against a man is a terrible thing for him, but it is even more when that man has a wife and mother to be affected by it.”

“Dalton, even Dalton, did not say this against Frank. It was just ConIey. Dalton, you remember, did not even say that Frank was guilty of wrong-doing as far as he knew. There never was any proof of Frank’s alleged moral perversion, unless you call Jim Conley proof.”

Couldn’t Find Witnesses.

“None of these niggers ever came up and said Conley was there and that they were with him. Starnes— and Starnes could find a needle in a haystack, but the Lord only knows what he’d do in an acre—he could not find any of these niggers.”

“Conley says he played games of dice down there and Conley, oh, he calls himself not ‘Jim,’ as you’d expect the ignorant negro to do, but he calls himself ‘James’ and he never ‘shot craps, played games of dice.’

“In Conley’s old time days, I guess he was ‘Jim’ Conley and ‘shot craps.’ Oh, the day when some sinister man showed him better than that.”

“Well, it does look like some nigger would have come up and told that he saw James on Peters street that day or that he played games of dice with James in some drinking place. It looks like the detectives could have got them, you know, if there is anything an Atlanta detective does know, it’s a Peters street negro.”

“Well, there was ‘Snowball,’ poor ‘Snowball’; you reckon he (pointing to Frank), made the detectives suspect ‘Snowball’?

“They don’t have to be made to suspect anybody or anything, as Charlie Hill said one time when he was solicitor, the Atlanta police are worse than a horsefly.”

“Well, I don’t guess anybody suspected ‘Snowball’; he didn’t work there, they brought him from foreign parts so to speak. Snowball says Conley lied about Frank’s telling him when he heard it, to watch for him, and ‘Snowball’s’ just a plain African and if he could have pleased the police, he would have done it.”

He Would “Join” or Leave Town.

“If I was a nigger,” continued the speaker in an impressive town, “I’d join the police or I’d leave town.”

“Well, I’m sorry for ‘Snowball;’ he’ll melt under the wrath of Black and Starnes and Campbell.”

“Then there was that old negro drayman, old McCrary, that old peg-legged negro drayman, and thank God he was an old-timer, ‘fo’ de war nigger. You know Conley, wishing to add a few finishing trimmings to his lines, said that old McCrary sent him down In the basement that Saturday morning and when the old darky was put on the stand he said simply, “No, boss, I never sent him down thar.”

“Well, everywhere you go you find that Conley lied. He says he watched there one Saturday last year between 2 and 3 o’clock. Well, Schiff says he didn’t and so does Darley and Holloway, the latter guaranteed by the state, and the little office boys, nice looking little chaps from nice families, they all say he didn’t. Cut out Conley and you strip the case to nothing.”

“Did you hear the way Conley told his story? Have you ever heard his story? Have you ever heard an actor, who knew his Shakespearean plays, his ‘Merchant of Venice’ or his ‘Hamlet’. He can wake up at any time of the night and say those lines, but he can’t say any lines of a play he’s never learned.”

“So it was with Conley. He could tell the story of the disposition of the girl’s body and he knew it so well he could reel it, off backward or forward, any old way, but when you got to asking him about other things, he always had one phase, ‘Boss, Ah can’t ‘member dat.’’”

Intimates Story Was Fixed Up.

“They say Conley could not have made up that story. Well, I don’t know about that. There is something queer in the whole thing, you know.”

“I couldn’t climb that post over there, gentlemen, I mean I couldn’t go very far up it, but If I had Professor Starnes, and Professor Black, and Professor Campbell and Professor Rosser. and then Dean Lanford to help me, I’d go quite a way up.”

“Ah, there’s the ‘dean’ now: school will begin,” said Rosser, pointing to where he had just noticed Detective Chief Newport Lanford, who had quietly entered the courtroom a few moments previously.”     

“Well, they took a notion Mrs. White had seen the negro and they carried Mrs. White there to see him and he twisted up his features so that she couldn’t recognize him.”

Says Detectives Cursed Conley.

“Next, they learned Conley could write, Frank told them that, you know. Well, I don’t mean to be severe, but they took that negro and they gave him the ‘third degree.’ I’d hate to get the ‘fourth degree.’”

“Black and Scott, they cursed him, ‘You black scoundrel, they yelled at him, ‘you know that man never had you come there and write those notes on Friday!’”

“And the poor nigger, understanding and trying to please, said, ‘Yes, boss, dat’s right, ah was dere on Saturday.’”

“And so they went on and got first one affidavit and then another out of him. Well, Scott and Black had him then, and Conley was only in high school. I don’t know whether to call Scott and Black ‘professors’ or not.”

“Scott says, ‘We told him what would fit and what would not.’ And it was ‘Stand up, James Conley and recite; when did you fix those notes, James?’ and James would answer that he fixed them on Friday, and then the teachers would tell James he was surely wrong; that he must have fixed them on Saturday, and James would know what was wanted and would acknowledge his error. Then it would be, ‘That’s a good lesson, James; you are excused, James.’”

“Now, I’m not guessing in this thing; Scott told it on the stand, only, in not so plain words. So it was that when this negro had told the whole truth that they had another recitation.”

The Finishing Touches.

“Was it fair for two skilled white men to train that negro by the hour and by the day and to teach him and then get a statement from him and call it the truth?”

“Well, Professors Black and Scott finished with him, and they thought “Conley’s education was through, but that nigger had to have a university course!”

“Scott,” Mr. Rosser shouted, “you and Black milked him dry, you thought you did, anyhow, but you got no moral perversion and no watching. In the university they gave a slightly different course. It was given by Professors Starnes and Campbell (oh, I wish I could look as pious as Starnes does) and Professor Dorsey helped out, I suppose. I don’t know what Professor Dorsey did, only he gave him several lessons and they must have been just sort of finishing touches before he got his degree.

“Well, in the university course they didn’t dare put the steps In writing, as they had done in the high school, it would have been too easy to trace from step to step, the suggestions made, the additions and subtractions here and there.”

“Prof.” Dorsey’s Innings.

“Well, Professor Dorsey had him seven times, I know that, but God alone knows how many times the detectives had him. Was it fair to take this weak, pliable negro and have these white men teach him one after another? Who knows what is the final story that Conley will tell? He added the mesh bag when he was on the stand.”

“I don’t care about that row between the doctors and that was the funniest thing that ever came into a courtroom; they will have their little rows and let’s forget it.”

“Dr. Harris, he thought he was telling the truth about the time the little girl died, and he’s a clever boy. His father admitted me to the bar. I guess that’s about all the old man wasn’t proud of.”

“Well, then, there’s another thing; who ever heard of a normal stomach, like these experts talk of? No two people in this room have normal stomachs and none here have some sort of defect. You might as well ask us to have perfect noses and cite mine as the perfect one.”

Frank Not Guilty Man.

“Well, let Harris have his little theory and let him hang on to it. And rub it, if he wants to, like a boy rubs his pet cat. I don’t care if the little girl died in a half hour or three quarters of an hour after she ate. The thing is, this man didn’t kill her.”

Here Mr. Rosser look up the chart and from it argued that Mary Phagan had reached the factory at approximately twelve minutes after 12 o’clock and that it must have been after Monteen Stover had gone. To prove this he cited the statements of W.M. Mathews and W.T. Hollis, street car men called by the defense, and George Eps, the little newsie, called by the state, and also the street car schedule.”

“But,” said he, “supposing that she was there at 12:05, as I believe the state claims, then  Monteen Stover must have seen her. I don’t see how they could have helped meeting. But suppose she got there a moment after Monteen Stover left, then Lemmie Quinn was there at 12:20 and he found Frank at work.”

Could Frank have murdered a girl and hid her body and then got back to work with no blood stains on him in less than fifteen minutes?”

“If Frank is guilty, he must have, according to Conley, disposed of the body in the time between four minutes to 1 and 1:30. There can be no dispute about this; it’s Conley’s last revelation.”

“If Frank is guilty he was at his office between four minutes to 1 and 1:30, but who believes that story?”

“Little Miss Kern saw him at Alabama and Whitehall at 1:10, and 1:20. Mrs. Levy, honest woman that she is, saw him get off the car at his home corner, and his wife’s parents saw, and they all swear he was there at 1:20, and then if you are going to call them all perjurers and believe Jim Conley, think what you must do, think what a horrible thing you must do—you must make Minola’s husband a perjurer, and that would be terrible.”

The Blackest of All.

“You know about that Minola McKnight affair. It Is the Blackest of all. A negro woman locked up from the solicitor’s office, not because she would talk—she’s given a statement—but because she would not talk to suit Starnes and Campbell, and two white men, and shame to them, got her into it.”           

“Where was Chief Beavers? What was he doing that he became a party to this crime? Beavers, who would enforce the law; Beavers, the immaculate!”

“Starnes said he had to confer with Mr. Dorsey twice before he could get the woman out of the station house.”

 “Believe Frank was in the factory if you can at 1:30; throw aside all the respectable people and swear by Conley. Well, I know the American jury is supreme, that it is the sovereign over lives; that sometimes you can sway it by passion and prejudice, but you can’t make it believe anything like this.”

“Neither prejudice, nor passion, wrought by monsters so vile they ought not to be in the courtroom, could make thew believe it.”

“Well, there’s another point, they said that there was a certain man, named Mincey, whom we called as a witness but did not use. Well, the only use we would have had for Mincey was to contradict Conley, and as soon as Conley got on the stand he contradicted himself enough without our having to go to the trouble of calling on witnesses to do it. If we’d put Mincey up there, would have been a day’s row about his probity and what would have been the use—Conley said time and again that he had lied time and again.”

Wants Only The Truth.

“Gentlemen,” continued Mr. Rosser, “I want only the straight truth here, and I’ve yet to believe that the truth has to be watered and cultivated by these detectives and by seven visits of the solicitor general. I don’t believe any man, no matter what his race, ought to be strict under such testimony. if I was raising sheep and feared for my lambs, I might hang a yellow dog on it. I might do it in the daytime, but when things got quiet at night and I got to thinking I’d be ashamed of myself.”

“You have been overly kind to me, gentlemen. True you have been up against a situation like that old Sol Russell used to describe when he would say, “Well I’ve lectured off and on for forty years, and the benches always stuck it out, but they was screwed to the floor.” You gentlemen have been practically in that fix, but I feel, nevertheless, that you have been peculiarly kind, and I thank you.” 

Here Mr. Rosser ended his five hour speech.

* * *

Atlanta Constitution, August 23rd 1913, “Rosser Makes Great Speech for the Defense; Scores Detectives and Criticizes the Solicitor,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Constitution
August 20th, 1913

E. H. Pickett, an employee of the Beck & Gregg Hardware company, and the man mentioned by Roy Craven on the witness stand, was next put up as a witness for the state.

He corroborated what Craven said and through him the state made an open fight to impeach Minola McKnight and also to contradict Mrs. Emil Selig, who, on cross-examination, denied the conversation she is said to have had with the cook in urging her to keep quiet about what she had seen at the Frank home.

“Were you present when this affidavit of Minola McKnight was signed?” asked Mr. Dorsey.

“Yes!”

“Who signed it?“

“Minola McKnight.”

“Did you talk to her before she signed it?”

“Who was present before she signed it?”

Present When She Signed It.

“Detectives Campbell and Starnes, Roy Craven, George Gordon, the woman’s lawyer; Albert McKnight, her husband, and myself,” said Pickett.

“Tell us what she said just before she signed the paper?” said Mr. Dorsey.

“We asked her about what Albert had told us and at first she refused to talk, and then she denied It all. After a few minutes she admitted a few of the things Albert had told us she had told him.”

“What were some of the first things she admitted?”.

“She first acknowledged that she had been cautioned by Mrs. Emil Selig to keep her mouth shut about what she had seen and heard in the Frank, or Selig home, then she acknowledged that she had been given a little more money than her usual pay”.

“Then the woman got hysterical again and declared she would not talk before the detectives and they went out of the room,” Pickett continued. “Finally she told us that she had been cautioned not to tell anything that she knew, but that what Albert had told us was true, continued Pickett.

“Mr. Craven then began to write in long hand her statement, as we had no stenographer there then.”

“Does this affidavit contain anything that the woman did not say?” asked Mr. Dorsey.

“It does not,” replied Pickett.

Mr. Rosser objected to that.

Part of Affidavit All Right.

Judge Roan then stated that he would not rule out the entire affidavit, but that if there was anything irrelevant in it, he would have to rule that out.

“For instance,” said the judge, “if the affidavit contains a statement about a conversation between Mrs. Frank and her mother-in-law made when Leo Frank was not present, that part could not go in evidence.”

“I want to go over with this witness everything that is held relevant,” Mr. Dorsey announced.  “All right,” replied Judge Roan.

“What did Minola first say in regard to Frank and his dinner?”

“She first declared he ate dinner,” Pickett replied.

“What did she say later?”

“Later she admitted that Frank ate no dinner.”

“What did she first say about the time Frank stayed at the house at lunch hour on April 26?”

“She first said he stayed there long enough to eat his meal.”

“What did she later say?”

“Later she admitted that he ate no dinner and that he left the house about ten minutes after he had entered it.”

“What did Minola first say about Albert being there at that time?”

“She first declared he was not there,” replied Pickett.

“Later?’

“Later she swore that he had been there.”

“What did she say at first as to whether or not the Seligs discussed the killing at the dinner table Sunday!”

Attorney Rosser objected at once and Judge Roan ruled that the state might ask about what conversation took place in Frank’s presence or what he said or was asked.

Changed Her Statement.

“Well, what did the cook say in regard to a conversation at dinner that Sunday in the Selig home about the killing and in which discussion Frank took part?” asked Dorsey.

“She first said Albert was lying when he said she had told him of that.”

“What did she say later?”

“Later she admitted having heard the conversation,” replied the witness.

“What did she first say about having been cautioned to keep quiet on what she knew?

Attorney Rosser objected question.

“Your honor, Mrs. Emil Selig, on the stand, denied that she had ever cautioned the cook to keep quiet, and Minola, on the stand, also denied that she had ever been so cautioned.”

“Well, put your question again,” said Judge Roan.

The solicitor then asked it and the witness replied that Minola had first denied that she had ever been cautioned to keep quiet, but that later she had acknowledged it.

“It’s immaterial and no matter who it contradicts, it can’t go on record,” burst out Attorney Rosser.

“Your honor,” he continued,” suppose one of the witnesses had got up here on the stand and swore that Mary never had a little lamb, why Dorsey over there would want to impeach that witness on as immaterial a thing as that.”

“Your honor,” said Attorney Frank A. Hooper, who up to this point had kept out of the wrangle, “just give me a chance and I will show you that this subject is admissible. This witness here on the stand may be used to impeach a score of witnesses and one statement from him may do it.”

May Impeach Many Witnesses.

“That statement was obtained from the witness in order that the state might contradict Mrs. Selig, who swore on the stand that no such conversation ever took place. Now we are impeaching Minola McKnight, but that does not keep us from contradicting, or impeaching another witness at the same time.”

After further points by Attorney Hooper, Judge Roan ruled that the question might go in. The defense registered a formal objection but made no further argument.

Mr. Dorsey then had the witness tell how the negro cook had first denied being cautioned to keep quiet, but that later she had admitted it.

“What did the woman first say about her wages?” Mr. Dorsey next asked.

The defense registered a formal objection to this, but Judge Roan allowed it.

“She first said her wages were the same as usual,” said the witness.

“What did she later say?”

“Later she said she had been given more money.”

“What did she say about being given a hat by Mrs. Frank?”

“I make the same objection to that, your honor,” said Mr. Arnold.

“All right,” replied Judge Roan, “let it go on record.”

“At first Minola did not mention a hat, and we know nothing about her having been given one,” said the witness, “but later she admitted that Mrs. Frank had given her one.”

“Who first mentioned a hat before her?”

“She did first,” said the witness.

“Did anybody threaten her?

“No, all we did was to ask her questions.”

Detectives Not There.

“When you were questioning her were Detectives Campbell and Starnes there?”

“No.”

“When did they come in?”

“They came in later when we called them.”

“Where was her attorney?”

“He came in with the detectives.”

Mr. Rosser took up the cross-examination.

“When Minola made her first statement why didn’t you take that for the truth?” asked Mr. Rosser.

“We didn’t believe what she said,” replied the witness.

“Was she then in jail?”

“No, she was at the police station.”

“Just as bad, just as bad,” commented Mr. Rosser.

“Did you go to see Dorsey?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you go there?”

“Because I had promised Albert I would try to get his wife out.”

“What did Dorsey say to you?”

“He said he was willing for Craven and I to go on the woman’s bond.”

“Didn’t you know the police had to do that?”

“Well, I know Mr. Dorsey said he was willing for the woman to get out on bond.”

Wanted to Get Statement.

“Well, why did you grill her for three hours instead of getting her out?” snapped Attorney Rosser.”

“We wanted to get a statement from her before we got her out.”

“No, you all know that If you got her to tell the story that these detectives here wanted her to tell that then she would be turned loose,” said Mr. Rosser, pointing at Detectives Campbell and Starnes, who sat with the solicitor.

“I know no such thing” retorted the witness.

“You told her that if she admitted to be true what Albert claimed that she could get out, didn’t you?”

“I did not and neither did anyone else while I was there.”

“The police treated her mighty nice after she said what they wanted her to say, didn’t they,” said Attorney Rosser with a series of grimaces and gestures, which he later termed as “monkey-motions” and declared he knew the witness, nor no one else could imitate.

“It’s correct that they treated her nice and turned her out after she had said what she did, but it don’t sound nice because as far as I know they had always treated her—.”

“No, it don’t sound nice, does it?” thundered Rosser.

Rap Stops Laughter.

There was a general laugh In the courtroom and deputies had to rap sharply for order. 

“You knew this woman was there because she would not say what the police wanted her to say, didn’t you? asserted the attorney.

“You knew this woman was there because she would not say what the police wanted her to say, didn’t you?“ asserted the attorney.

“I knew she was being held to get some sort of a statement from her in regard to what her husband had said.”

“And you went there to get her to make the statement that the detectives wanted?”

“I had no intention of getting her to make any particular statement, except the truth,” replied Mr. Pickett. He was then excused from the stand.

* * *

Atlanta Constitution, August 20th 1913, “Clashes Between Lawyers Mark Effort to Impeach Negro Cook,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Constitution
August 22nd, 1913

This is the chronological table of Frank’s actions on the date of the murder which was displayed in chart form yesterday afternoon during Attorney Arnold’s speech:

 7:30 a.m.—Minola McKnight.

8:26 a.m.—Frank arrives at factory. Sees Holloway, Alonzo Mann and Roy Irby.

9:00 a.m.–Darley, Wade Campbell, Mr. Lime, Mattie Smith.

9:20 a.m.—Miss Mattie Smith leaves building.

9:40 a.m.—Darley and Frank leave building.

10:00 a.m.—Telephones Schiff to come to office.

10:30 a.m.—Alonzo Mann telephones Schiff at his home.

11:00 a.m.—Frank returns to pencil factory. Holloway and Mann came to office. Frank dictates mail and acknowledges letters.

11:30 a.m.—Miss Hall and Mrs. White.

11:35 a.m.—Corinthia Hall, Emma Freeman, Hillander Oxell, Mrs. May to Barrett. Miss Hall and Mrs. Freeman leave building.

11:45 a.m.—

11:50 a.m.—Mrs. White leaves.

12:02 p.m.—Miss Hall leaves.

12:05 p.m.—  

to 12:10 p.m.— Monteen Stover  

12:12 p.m.—Approximate time Mary Phagan [arrives].

12:14 p.m.—Approximate time Mary Phagan left.

12:20 p.m.—

to 12:22 p.m.— Lemmie Quinn.

12:30 p.m.—Mrs. White.

12:50 p.m.—Frank on fourth floor with Denham and Mrs. White.

1:00 p.m.—Frank leaves office.

1:10 p.m.—Miss Kern sees Frank at Whitehall and Alabama streets.

1:20 p.m.—Mrs. Lieby sees Frank leave car at Washington street and Georgia avenue.

1:25 p.m.—Frank talks to servant over the telephone.

1:55 p.m.—Frank at Wolfsheimer home on Washington street.

to 2:00 p.m.—Rides to town with Cohen Loeb.

2:10 p.m.—Hinchey sees Frank at Washington and Hunter streets.

2:20 p.m.—Miss Carson sees Frank at Whitehall and Hunter streets.

2:50 p.m.—Miss Carson sees him at Whitehall and Alabama streets.

3:00 p.m.—Frank goes to the pencil factory and to fourth floor to see Denham and White.

3:08 p.m.—White and Denham go to Frank’s office.

3:10 p.m.—Frank goes to work on financial sheet.

3:45 p.m.—Newt Lee.

6:00 p.m.—Newt Lee and James Gantt.

or 6:05 p.m.—

6:30 p.m.—Emil Selig sees Frank at home.

6:30 p.m.—Mrs. Selig, Minola McKnight and E. Selig see Frank at home.

7:00 p.m.—Frank telephones Newt Lee.

8:00 p.m.—Mrs. Goldstein and Mrs. Marcus, see Frank at home,

10:25 p.m.—Miss Isaac Strauss sees Frank at home.

10:30 p.m.—Frank retires.

* * *

Atlanta Constitution, August 22nd 1913, “Chronological Table of Frank’s Actions on Day of Murder,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Constitution
August 22nd, 1913

When Attorney Frank A. Hooper had made the opening speech of the prosecution, Attorney Reuben R. Arnold prepared for the first speech of the defense. It had been announced that he would review the entire history of the case and when he started at noon the pasteboard model of the pencil factory was brought In.

A large diagram giving a synopsis of the case was also brought in, but was not unwrapped when Mr. Arnold first started, “Gentlemen of the fury, we are all to be congratulated that this case is drawing to a close,” Mr. Arnold began in a quiet voice as though addressing several friends on an everyday subject.

“We have all suffered here from trying a long and complicated case at the heated term of the year. It’s been a case that has taken as much effort and so much concentration and so much time, and the quarters here are so poor.

Particularly hard on you members of the jury who are practically in custody while the case is going on.

“I know it’s hard on a jury to be kept confined this way, but it is necessary that they be segregated and set apart where they will get no impression at home nor on the street.

“The members of the jury are in a sense set apart on a mountain, where, far removed from the passion and heat of the plain, calmness rules them and they can judge a case on its merits.

Takes Rap at Hooper.

“My friend, Hooper, said a funny thing here a while ago; I don’t think he meant what he said, however. Mr. Arnold then stated. “Mr. Hooper said that the men in the jury box are no different from the man on the street, “Your honor, I’m learning something every day and I certainly learned something today, if that’s true,” he added, turning to Judge Roan.

“Mr. Arnold evidently mistakes my meaning, which I thought I made clear,” interrupted Attorney Frank Hooper. “I stated that the men in the jury box were like they would be on the street in the fact that in making. up their minds about me guilt or innocence of the accused they must use the same common sense that they would if they were not part of the court.”

“Well, let’s get away from that street idea, entirely,” Mr. Arnold fired back.

The speaker then launched into a description of the horrible crime that had been committed that afternoon or night in the National Pencil company’s dark basement. He dwelt on the effect of the crime upon the people of Atlanta and of how high feeling ran and still runs, and of the omnipresent desire for the death of the man who committed the crime.

Roasts Motorman Kenley.

“They are follows Ike that street car man, Kenley, the one who vilified this defendant here and cried for him to be lynched and shouted that he was guilty until he made himself a nuisance on the ears he ran.”

“Why I can hardly realize that a man holding a position as responsible as that of a motorman and a man with certain police powers and the discretion necessary to guide a car through the crowded city streets would give way to passion and prejudice like that.”

“It was a type of man like Kenley who said he did not know for sure whether those negroes hanged in Decatur tor the shooting of the street car men were guilty, but that he was glad they hung as some negroes ought to be hanged for the crime. He’s the same sort of a man who believes that there ought to be a hanging because that innocent title girl was murdered, and who would like to see this Jew here hang, because somebody ought to hang for it.

Frank’s Only Guilt.

“I’ll tell you right now, if Frank hadn’t been a Jew there would never have been any prosecution against him. I’m asking my own people to turn him loose, asking them to do justice to a Jew, and I’m not a Jew, but I would rather die before doing injustice to a Jew.

“This case has been built up by degrees; they have a monstrous perjurer here in the form of this Jim Conley against Frank. You Know what sort of a man Conley is, and you know that up to the time the murder was committed no one ever heard a word against Frank.”

“Villainy like this charged to him does not crop out in a day. There are long mutterings of it for years before. There are only a few who have ever said anything against Frank. I want to call your attention later to the class of their witnesses and the class of ours. A few floaters around the factory, out of the hundreds who have worked there in the plant three or four years, have been induced to come up here and swear that Frank was not a good character, but the decent employees down there have sworn to his good character.” Look at the jail birds they brought up here, the very dregs of humanity, men and women who have disgraced themselves and who now have come and tried to swear away the life of an innocent man.”

To Strip State’s Case Bare.

“I know that you members of the jury are impartial. That’s the only reason why you are here and I’m going to strip the state’s case bare for you. If I have the strength to last to do it.”

“They have got to show Frank guilty of one thing before you can convict him; they’ve got to show that he is guilty of the murder, no matter what else they show about him. You are trying him solely for the murder and there must be no chance that any-one else could just as likely be guilty.”

“If the jury sees that there is just as good a chance that Conley can be guilty then they must turn Frank loose.”

“Now you can see how in this case the detectives were put to it to blame the crime on somebody. First it was Lee and then it was Gantt and various people came in and declared they had seen the girl alive (late Saturday) night and at other times and no one knew what to do.”

Lee Has Not Told All.

“Well, suspicion turned away from Gantt and in a little while it turned away from Lee. Now I don’t believe that Newt is guilty of the crime, but I do believe that he knows a lot more about the crime than he told. He knows about those letters and he found that body a lot sooner than he said he did.

“Oh, well, the whole case is a mystery, a deep mystery, but there is one thing pretty plain, and that is that whoever wrote those notes committed the crime. Those notes certainly had some connection with the murder, and whoever wrote those notes committed the crime.”

“Well, they put Newt Lee through the third degree and the fourth degree and maybe a few others. That’s the way, you know, they got this affidavit from the poor negro woman, Minola McKnight. Why, just the other day the supreme court handed down a decision in which it referred to the third degree methods of the police and detectives in words that burned.”

Here the attorney read the decision which attacked alleged third degree methods.

“Well, they used those methods with Jim Conley. My friend Hooper said nothing held Conley to the witness chair here but the truth, but I tell you that the tear of a broken neck held him there. I think this decision about the third degree was handed down with Conley’s case in mind. I’m going to show this Conley business up before I get through.”

Charges “Frame-Up.”

“I’m going to show that this entire case is the greatest frame-up in the history of the state.”

Here court adjourned for lunch.

“My friend Hooper remarked something about circumstantial evidence and | how powerful it frequently was. He forgot to say that the circumstances, in every case, must invariably be proved by witnesses.”

“History contains a long record of circumstantial evidence and I once had a book on the subject which dwell on such cases, most all of which sickens the man who reads them. Horrible mistakes have been made by circumstantial evidence—more so than by any other kind.”

Here Mr. Arnold cited the Durant case in San Francisco, the Hampton case in England, and the Dreyfus case in France as instances of mistakes of circumstantial evidence. In the Dreyfus case he declared it was purely persecution of the Jew.

The hideousness of the murder itself was not as savage, he asserted, as the feeling to convict this man.

“But the savagery and venom Is there, just the same, and it is a case very much on the order of Dreyfus.

Attack’s Hooper’s Position.

“Hooper says ‘Suppose Frank didn’t kill the girl and Jim Conley did, wasn’t it Frank’s duty to protect her?”. He was taking the position that if Jim went back there and killed her, Frank could not help but know about the murder.  Which position, I think, is quite absurd.

“Take this hypothesis, then, of Mr. Hooper’s. If Jim saw the girl go up and went back and killed her, would he have taken the body down the elevator at that time? Wouldn’t he have waited until Frank and White and Denham and Mrs. While and all others were out of the building? I think so. But there’s not a possibility of the girl having been killed on the second floor.

“Hooper smells a plot, and says Frank has his eye on the little girl who was killed. The crime isn’t an act of a civilized man—it’s the crime of a cannibal, a man-eater. Hooper ls hard-pressed and wants to get up a plot—he sees he has to get up something. He forms his plot from Jim Conley’s story”.

“They say that on Friday Frank knew he was going to make an attack of some sort on Mary Phagan. The plot thickens. Of all the wild things I have ever heard that Is the wildest. It is ridiculous. Mary Phagan worked in the pencil factory for months, and all the evidence they have produced that Frank ever associated with her—ever knew her—is the story of weasley little Willie Turner, who can’t even describe the little girl who was killed.”             

“A little further on in his story Jim is beginning the plot. They used him to corroborate everything as they advised. Jim is laying the foundation for the plot. What is it—this plot?”

Ridiculous Alleged Plot.

“Only that on Friday Frank was planning to commit some kind of assault upon Mary Phagan.”

“Jim was their tool. Even Scott swears that when he told Jim’s story didn’t fit, Jim very obligingly adapted it to suit his defense. He was scrupulous about things like that. He was quite considerate. Certainly. He had his own neck to save.”

“Jim undertook to show that Frank had an engagement with some woman at the pencil factory that Saturday morning. There is no pretense that another woman is mixed up in the case. No one would argue that he planned to meet and assault this Innocent little girl who was killed.”

“Who but God would know whether she was coming for her pay that Friday afternoon or the next Saturday? Are we stark idiots? Can’t we divine some things?”

“They’s got a girl named Ferguson, who says she went for Mary Phagan’s pay on the Friday before she was killed, and that Frank wouldn’t give it her. It Is the wildest theory on earth, and it fits nothing. It is a strained conspiracy, Frank, to show you I am correct, had nothing whatever to do with paying off on Friday. Schiff did it all.

“And little Magnolia Kennedy, Helen Ferguson’s best friend, says she was with Helen when Helen went to draw her pay, and that Helen never said a word about Mary’s envelope.”

“There’s your conspiracy, with Jim Conley’s story as its foundation. It’s too thin. It’s preposterous.

“Then my friend Hooper says Frank discharged Gantt because he saw Gantt talking to Mary Phagan. If you convicted men on such distorted evidence as this, why you’d be hanging men perpetually. Gantt, in the first place, doesn’t come into this case in any good light. It Is ridiculously absurd to bring his discharge into this plot of the defense.”

“Why, even Grace Hicks, who worked with Mary Phagan, and who Is a sister-in-law of Boots Rogers, says that Frank did not know the little girl.”

Defends Factory Conditions.

“Hooper also says that bad things are going on in the pencil factory, and that it is natural for men to cast about for girls in such environments. We are not trying this case on whether you or I or Frank had been perfect in the past. This is a case of murder. Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”

“I say this much, and that is that there has been as little evidence of such conditions in this plant as any other of its kind you can find in the city. They have produced some, of course, but it is an easy matter to locate some ten or twelve disgruntled ex-employees who are vengeful enough to swear against their former superintendent, even though they don’t know him except by sight.”

“I want to ask this much. Could Frank have remained at the head of this concern If he had been as loose morally as the state has striven to show? It he had carried on with thy girls of the place as my friends alleged, wouldn’t entire working force have been demoralized, ruined? He may have looked into the dressing room, as the little Jackson girl says, that if he did, it was done to see that the girls weren’t loitering.”

“There were no lavatories, no toilets, no baths in these dressing rooms. The girls only changed their top garments. He wouldn’t have seen much if he had peered into the place. You can go to Pledmont park any day and see girls and women with a whole lot less on their person. And to the shows any night you can see the actresses with almost nothing on.”

“Everything brought against Frank was some act he did openly and in broad daylight, ‘and an act against which no kick was made.’”

The Trouble With Hooper.

“The trouble with Hooper is that he sees a bear in every bush. He sees a plot in this because Frank told Jim Conley to come back Saturday morning. The office that day was filled with persons throughout the day. How could he know when Mary Phagan was coming or how many persons would be in the place when she arrived?”

“This crime is the hideous act of a negro who would ravish a ten-year-old girl the same as he would ravish a woman of years. It isn’t a white man’s crime. It’s the crime of a beast—a low, savage beast!”

“Now, back to the case: There is an explorer in the pencil factory by the name of Barrett—I call him Christopher Columbus Barrett purely for his penchant for finding things. Mr. Barrett discovered the blood spots in the place where Chief Beavers, Chief Lanford and Mr. Black and Mr. Starnes had searched on the Sunday of the discovery.

Barrett and the Reward.

“They found nothing of the sort. Barratt discovered the stains after he had proclaimed to the whole second floor that he was going to get the $4,000 reward if Mr. Frank was convicted. Now, you talk about plants! If this doesn’t look mighty funny that a man expecting a reward would find blood spots in a place that has been scoured by detectives, I don’t know what does.”

“Four chips of this flooring were chiseled from this flooring where these spots were found. The floor was an inch deep in dirt and grease. Victims of accidents had passed by the spot with bleeding fingers and hands. If a drop of blood had ever fallen there, a chemist could find it four years later. Their contention is that all the big spots were undiluted blood.”  

“Yet, let’s see how much blood Dr. Claude Smith found on the chips. Probably five corpuscles, that’s all, and that’s what he testified here at the trial. My recollection is that one single drop of blood contains 3,000 corpuscles. And, he found these corpuscles on only one chip.”

“I say that half of the blood had been on the floor two or three years. The stain on all chips but one were not blood. Dorsey’s own doctors have put him where he can’t wriggle—-his own evidence hampers him.”

“They found blood spots on a certain spot and then had Jim adapt his story accordingly. They had him put the finding of the body near the blood spots, and had him drop it right where the spots were found.”

“It stands to reason that if a girl had been wounded on the lathing machine, there would have been blood in the vicinity of the machine. Yet, there was no blood in that place and neither was there any where the body was said to have been found by Conley. The cake doesn’t fit. It’s flimsy.

“A Cheap, Common Plant.”

“And, this hascoline that they’ve raised such a rumpus over. It was put on the floor as a cheap, common plant to make it appear as though someone had put it there in an effort to hide the blood spots. The two spots of blood and the strands of hair are the only evidence that the prosecution has that the girl was killed on the second floor. “Now, about these strands of hair, Barrett, the explorer, says he found four or five strands on the lathing machine. I don’t know whether he did or not. They’ve never been produced. I’ve never seen them, But, it’s probable, for, just beyond the lathing machine, right in the path of a draft that blows in from the window, is a gas jet used by the girls in curling and primping their hair. It’s very probable that strands of hair have been blown from this jet to the lathing machine.”

“The state not only has got no case, gentlemen, but they’ve got the clumsiest, ill-fitting batch I’ve ever seen.“

“The detectives say that Frank is a crafty, cunning criminal, when deep down in their heart of hearts they know good and well that their case is bullshit against him purely because he was honest enough to admit having seen her that day. Had he been a criminal, he never would have told about seeing her and would have replaced her envelope in the desk, saying she had never called for her for pay.”

Defends Character of Women.

“I believe that a majority of the women are good. The state jumped on poor Daisy Hopkins. I don’t contend, now, mind you, that she is a paragon of virtue. But there are men who were put up by the stats who are no better than she. For instance, this Dalton, who says openly that he went into the basement with Daisy. I don’t believe he ever did, but, in such a case, he slipped in. There are some fallen women who can tell the truth. They have characteristics like all other types.

“We put her on the stand to prove Dalton a liar and we did it. Now, gentlemen, don’t you think the prosecution is hard-pressed when they put up such on character ag Dalton? They say he has reformed. A man with thievery in his soul never reforms. Drunkards do and men with bad habits, but thieves? No!”

“Would you convict a man like Frank or the word of a pervert like Dalton? “Now, I’m coming back to Jim Conley. The whole ease centers around him. Mr. Hooper argued well on that part. At the outset of the case, the suspicion pointed to Frank merely because he was the only man in the building. It never cropped out for weeks that anyone was on the first floor.

Taken Rap at Detectives.

“The detectives put their efforts on Frank because he admitted having seen the girl. They have let their zeal run away with them in this case, and it is tragic. They are proud whenever they get a prisoner who will tell something on anybody. The humbler the victim the worse is the case. Such evidence comes with the stamp of untruth on its face.”          

“Jim Conley was telling his story to save his neck, and the detectives were happy listeners. If there is one thing for which a negro is capable it is for telling a story in detail. It is the same with children. Both have vivid imaginations. And a negro is also the best mimic in the world. He can imitate anybody.”

“Jim Conley, as he lay in his cell and read the papers and talked with the detectives, conjured up his wonderful story, and laid the crime on Frank, because the detectives had laid it there and were helping him do the same.”

“Now Brother Hooper waves the bloody shirt in our face. It was found Monday or Tuesday in Newt Lee’s home/house/place (unclear) while Detectives Black and Scott were giving calm to poor, old man Newt Lee. I don’t doubt it for a minute that they know it was out there when they started out after it.

 “I can’t say they planted it, but It does look suspicious. Don’t ask us about a planted shirt. Ask Scott and Black.”

“The first thing that points to Conley’s guilt is his original denial that he could write. Why did he deny it? Why? I don’t suppose much was thought of it when Jim said he couldn’t write, because there are plenty of negroes who are in the same fix. But later, when they found he could, and found that his script compared perfectly with the murder notes, they went right on accusing Frank. Not in criminal annals was there a better chance to lay at the door of another man a crime as well as Jim Conley had.”

“You see, there is a reason to all things. The detective department had many reasons to push the case against Frank. He was a man of position and culture. They were afraid that someone, unless they pushed the case to the jumping off place, would accuse them of trying to shield him. They are afraid of public and sentiment, and do not want to combat it, so, in such cases, they invariably follow the line of best resistance.”

Conley’s Statement Attacked.

Continuing the reading of Conley’s statement, Arnold pointed out the use of words, which he declared no negro would naturally have used. These were long words, with many syllables in them.

“They said that Conley used so much detail in his statements tha­­­t he could not have been lying!” exclaimed Arnold.

Arnold then read parts of statements which Conley had repudiated as willful lies, and pointed out the wealth of detail with which they were filled.

“And yet they say he couldn’t fabricate so much detail! Oh, he is smart!” cried Arnold.

He then took up the reading of the statement of May 24, in which Conley admitted writing the notes. In this he showed three different times at which Conley stated he wrote the notes, these being early in the morning, at 12:04 and at 3 p.m.

Once more Arnold sought to show that the statements were not genuinely Conley’s. “Take the word ‘negro’,” he said. “The first word that a nigger learns to spell correctly is negro, and he always takes particular pains to spell it n-e-g-r-o. He knows how to spell it. Listen to the statement. He says that at first he spelled the word ‘negros’, but that Frank did not want the ‘s’ on it and told him to rub it out, which he did. “Then he says that he wrote the word over.”

Arnold then read rapidly the parts of the statement referring to smoking in the factory with Frank when it was against the rules, taking the cigarette box with money in it, etc.

Conley’s Lies About the Notes.

“Look at the notes,” he said. “He was tried about those notes and he had to tell a lie and put upon someone the burden of instructing him to write them.”

“The first statement about them was a blunt lie—u lie in its incipiency. He said he wrote the notes on Friday. This was untrue and unreasonable, and he saw it. Frank could not have known anything of an intended murder on Friday from any viewpoint you might take, and therefore he could not have made Conley write them on Friday.”

“Ah, gentlemen of the jury, I tell you these people had a great find when they got this admission from Conley!” Arnold cried sarcastically.

“If Conley had stayed over there in the Tower with Uncle Wheeler Mangum he would have told the truth long ago. There’s where he should have stayed, with Wheeler Mangum.”

Says Dorsey Made Mistake.

“My good friend, Dorsey, is all right. I like him. But he should not have walked hand in glove with the detectives. There’s where he went wrong.”

“My good old friend Charlie Hill would not have done that. He would have let the nigger stay In the jail with Uncle Wheeler.”

“I like Dorsey. He simply made a mistake by joining in the hunt, in becoming a part of the chase. The solicitor should be little short of as fair as the judge himself. But he’s young and lacks the experience. He will probably know better in the future.”

“Dorsey did this: He went to the Judge and got the nigger moved from the jail to the police station.”  

“The judge simply said, ‘Whatever you say is all right.’ “Now, I’m going to show you how John Black got the statement of Conley changed. I am going to give you a demonstration. I have learned some things in this case about getting evidence!”

“They say that Frank cut Conley loose and he decided to tell the truth.”

“Conley Is a wretch with a long criminal record. Gentlemen, how can they expect what he says to be believed against the statement of Leo M. Frank?”

Four Pages of Lies.

“They say Conley can’t lie about detail. Here are four pages, all of which he himself admits are lies. They are about every saloon on Peters street, saloons to which he went, his shooting craps, his buying beer and all the ways in which he spent a morning. There is detail enough, and he admits that they are lies.”

“Now, in his, third statement, that of May 28, he changes the time of writing the letters from Friday to Saturday. Here are two pages of what he said, all of which he afterwards said were lies.

“He says that he made the statement that he wrote the notes on Friday in order to divert suspicion from his being connected with the murder which happened on Saturday. He also says that this is his final and true statement. God only knows how many statements he will make. He said he made the statement voluntarily and truthfully without promise of reward, and that he Is telling the truth and the whole truth.”

“He said in his statement that he never went to the building on Saturday. Yet we know that he was lurking in the building all the morning on the day of the murder. We know that he watched every girl that walked into that building so closely that he could tell you the spots on their dresses. We know that he was drunk, or had enough liquor in him to fire his blood.”

Had Guilt on His Soul.

“I know why he wouldn’t admit being fu that building on Saturday. He had guilt on his soul, and he didn’t want it to be known that he was here on Saturday. That’s why!” 

“When they pinned him down what did he do? He says that he was watching for Frank!”

“My God, wasn’t he a watchman! He said that he heard Frank and Mary Phagan walking upstairs, and that he heard Mary Phagan scream, and that immediately after hearing the scream he let Monteen Stover into the building.

“Why, they even have him saying that he watched for Frank, when another concern was using the very floor space in which Frank’s office was located, and you know they wouldn’t submit to anything like that.”

“Look again! He says that Mr. Frank said, “Jim, can you write?” What a lie!”

“He admitted that he had been writing for Frank for two years. It’s awful to have to argue about a thing like this, gentlemen! You will remember Hooper said, ‘How foolish of Conley to write these notes!’ How much more foolish, I say, of Frank to do it!”

“I don’t think that Newt killed the girl, but I believe he discovered the body some time before he notified the police. Newt’s a good nigger.”

Arnold once more read the notes and commented upon Conley’s spelling of the word “negros” and afterwards rubbing out the letter “s.”

“’Frank said he wanted the ‘s’’ rubbed out,’ quoted Arnold. ‘I rubbed it out.’ Frank said, ‘That’s all right, old boy, and slapped me on the back.’”

Over this picture Arnold had much merriment.

“Now, here is what Scott said,” continued Arnold. “He said that it took Conley six minutes to write a part of one note. Conley said that he wrote the notes three times.”

Attorney Laughs Aloud.

Arnold then read from Conley’s statement the description of the congenial manner in which Frank had Conley to sit down and asked him to have a cigarette, and of the pompous, manner in which Conley took the cigarette and smoked it. Arnold laughed loudly as he read this. He described comically how Frank must have looked when he looked up at the ceiling and said, ‘Why should I hang? I have rich relatives In Brooklyn.’”

“They say that nigger couldn’t lie. Gentlemen. If there is any one thing that nigger can do it is to lie. As my good old friend, Charlie Hill, would say, ‘Put him in a hopper and he’ll drip lye!”

“He was trying to prove an alibi for himself when he said that he was not in the factory on Saturday and told all the things that he did elsewhere on that day. But we know that the wretch was lurking in the factory all of Saturday morning.

“Further he swore that while he was in Frank’s office he heard someone approaching and Mr. Frank cried out, ‘Gee! Here come Corinthia Hall and Emma Clarke!’ and that Frank shut him up in a wardrobe until they left. According to Conley they came into the factory between 12 and 1 o’clock, when, as a matter of fact, we know that they came between 11 and 12.”

“And as for his being able to fabricate the details of his statement — why, he knew every inch of that, building from top to bottom! Hadn’t he been sweeping and cleaning it for a long time?”

Made Conley Change Story.

“With this knowledge of the building, he naturally had no trouble in his pantomime after he had formed his story”.

“The miserable wretch has Frank hiding him in the wardrobe when Emma Clarke came in after the murder, when it has been proved that she came there and left before Mary Phagan ever entered the building on that day.”

“They saw where they were wrong in that statement, and they made Conley change it on the stand. They made him say, ‘I thought it was them.’ They knew that that story wouldn’t fit.”

“Do you remember,” continued Arnold, “How eagerly Conley took the papers from the girls at the factory? And do you remember how for four or five days the papers were full of the fact that Frank’s home was in Brooklyn, and that his relatives were reported to be wealthy? Conley didn’t have to go far to get material for that statement he put in Frank’s mouth.”

“It so happened, though, that Frank really did not have rich relatives in Brooklyn. His mother testified that his father was in ill health, and had but moderate means, and that his sister worked in New York for her living.”

He read from Conley’s statement about what Frank wanted with the notes, saying that Frank said he wanted to send them to relatives in BrookIyn and show what a smart negro he was, so that he could recommend him to them for a job.

“Why the nigger hadn’t even asked for a job,” exclaimed Arnold. “And if he had, what recommendation would such notes as these have been. Can you for a moment imagine a man saying that he intended to send his mother any such notes as these?”

Here Arnold read the repulsive contents of one of the notes.

“Gentlemen, am I living or dreaming, that I have to argue such points as these? This is what you’ve got to do. You’ve got to swallow every word that Conley has said—feathers and all, and you’ve got to believe none of it. How are you going to pick out of such a pack of lies as these what you will believe and what you will not? Yet this is what the prosecution has based the case upon. If this fails, all fails.”

“And do you remember about the watch, where Conley said that Frank asked him, ‘Why do you want to buy, a watch for Your wife? My big, fat wife wanted me to buy her an automobile, but I wouldn’t do it!’”

“Do you believe that, gentlemen of the jury?”

“I tell you that they have mistreated this poor woman terribly. They have “insinuated that she would not come to the tower to see Frank—had deserted him. When we know that she stayed away from the jail at Frank’s own request, because he did not want to submit her to the humiliation of seeing (him locked up and to the vulgar gaze of the morbid and to the cameras of the newspaper men. The most awful thing in the whole case is the way this family has been mistreated! The way they invaded Frank’s home and manipulated his servants.”

Are Not Representative.

“I deny that the people who did this are representative of the 175,000 people of Fulton county! We are a fair people and we are a chivalrous people. Such acts as these are not in our natures!”

Arnold reached the end of the statement where Conley changed the time of the writing of the notes to Saturday.

“That is where he changed the time of the writing of the notes to Saturday, but denied knowledge of the murder.”

“That, of course, did not satisfy these gentlemen and they went back to him. They knew he was dodging incrimination. So they had him to change the statement again.”

“Let me read Scott’s statement about how they got the statements from him.”

He read the detective’s statement about how he and other detectives had spent six hours at the time with Conley on occasions and used profanity and worried him to get a confession.

“Hooper thinks,” continued Arnold, that we have to break down Conley’s testimony on the stand, but there is [np such ruling. You can’t tell when to believe him, he has lied so much.”

Reading on, he came to the statement that the detectives went over the testimony with Dorsey.

“There,” said Arnold, “is where my friend got into it.”

Changed the Day.

Continuing his reading to show how the detectives got Conley lo change his statements, he said that they kept grilling Conley for six hours trying to impress on him the fact that Frank would not have written the notes on Friday.

“They wanted another statement,” he said. “He insisted that he had no other statement to make, but he did change the time of the writing of the notes from Friday to Saturday. This shows, gentlemen, as clearly as anything can show how they got Conley’s statements.

Lawyers Are Accessories.

“In the statement of May 29 they had nothing from Jim Conley about his knowledge of the killing of the little girl,” Mr. Arnold continued, “and the negro merely said that Frank had told him something about the girl having received a fall and about his helping Frank to hide the body.

“Lawyers, why, knowing a person guilty, yet defend him, are guilty of being accessories after the fact.”

“Oh, Conley, we are going to have you tell enough to have you convict Frank and yet keep yourself clear.”

“That’s a smart negro, that Conley.”

“And you notice how the state bragged on him because he stood up the cross-examination of Colonel Rosser, well that negro’s been well versed in law. Scott and Black and Starnes drilled him; they gave him the broad hints.

“Scott says, ‘We told him what would fit.’”

“In his first statement Conley leaves himself not an accessory after the fact.”

“Oh, Conley’s smart enough all right.”

“It ain’t hard to show how perjury comes into this case; the tracks are broad and clear.”

“We came here to, go to trial and knew nothing of the negro’s claim to seeing the cord around the little girl’s neck, or of his claim of seeing Lemmie Quinn go into the factory, or of a score of other things.”

“Yet, Conley was then telling the truth, he said, and he’d thrown Frank aside. Oh, he was no longer shielding Frank, and yet he didn’t tell it all when he said he was telling the whole truth.”

“Well, Conley had a revelation, you know.”

“My friend Dorsey visited with him seven times.”

Conley Saw New Light.

“And my friend Jim Starnes and my Irish friend, Patrick Campbell, they visited him, and on each visit Conley saw new light. Well, I guess they showed him things and other things.”

“Does Jim tell a thing because it’s the truth, gentlemen of the jury, or, because it fits into something that another witness has told?”

“Scott says, ‘They told him things that fitted.’”

“And Conley says they changed things every time he had a visit from Dorsey and the detectives.  Are you going to hang a man on that!?!”

“Gentlemen, it’s foolish for me to have to argue such a thing.”

“The man that wrote those murder notes is the man who killed that girl,” said Attorney Arnold suddenly in a quiet voice.”

“Prove that man was there and that he wrote the notes and you know who killed the girl. Well, Conley acknowledges he wrote the notes and witnesses have proved he was there and he admits that, too”.

Having turned suspicion towards the negro the attorney launched into a description of the way in which Conley might have done the murder.

“That negro was in the building near the elevator shaft; it took but two stops for him to grab that little girl’s mesh bag. She probably held on to it and struggled with him.”

“A moment later he had struck her in the eye and she had fallen. It is the work of a moment for Conley to throw her down the elevator shaft.”

Would Story Stand Pressure.

“Isn’t it more probable that the story I have outlined is true than the one that Conley tells on Frank? Suppose Conley were now under indictment and Frank out, how long would such a story against Frank stand the pressure?”

Here Mr. Arnold read from Conley’s evidence on cross-examination, where he declared that Solicitor Dorsey had visited him seven times and that he had added something new each time.

“Mr. Rosser asked Jim on cross-examination why he had not told all the first time that Dorsey went there and the negro said he didn’t want to; that he wanted to save some of it back. Who corrected the negro? Did Dorsey or Starnes or Campbell?”

“Now, see here,” added Mr. Arnold, “In the statement of May 29 there are any number of things that are not told of which later were told on the stand.”

“In the May 29 statement Conley never told of seeing Mary Phagan enter; he never told of seeing Monteen Stover enter, nor of seeing Lemmie Quinn enter; now he tells of having seen all of them enter.”

“Don’t you see how they just fitted to fit witnesses and what the witnesses would swear?”

“It was, ‘Here, Conley, swear that Quinn came up, swear that the dead girl came up and swear that Miss Stover came up; they all did and it’s true, swear to it!“

“And Conley would say, ‘All right, boss, Ah reckon they did.’”

“And it was, ‘Conley, how did you fail to hear that girl go into the metal room? We know she went there, because by our blood and hair, we have proved she was killed there,’ and the poor negro thought a minute and then he said, ‘Yes, boss, I heard her go in.’”

Made Conley Swear.

Attorney Arnold went through the same methods and In the same way declared that the state’s representatives had put it into the negro’s head to swear he heard Frank go in with her and that he heard Frank come tiptoeing out later and that by that method they made Conley swear that Frank was a moral pervert.

“Now, I don’t know that they told Conley to swear to this and to swear to that, but they made the suggestions and Conley knew whom he had to please. He knew that when he pleased the detectives that the rope knot around his neck grew looser.

“In the same way they made Conley swear about Dalton, and in the same way about Daisy Hopkins. They didn’t ask him about the mesh bag. They forgot that until Conley got on the stand. That mesh bag and that pay envelope furnish the true motive for this crime, too, and if the girl was ravished, Conley did it after he had robbed her and thrown her body into the basement.

“Weil, they got Conley on the stand and my friend Dorsey here asked Conley about the mesh bag and he said yes, Frank had put It in his safe. That was the crowning lie of all!”

“Well, they’ve gone on this way, adding one thing and another thing. “They wouldn’t let Conley out of jail; they had their own reasons for that and yet I never heard that old man over there (pointing to the sheriff), called dishonest. He runs his jail in a way to protect the innocent and not to convict them in his jail.”

Talks of the Murder.

Mr. Arnold then switched away from that and talked of the murder.

“Gentlemen, right here a little girl was murdered (pointing to the pasteboard model of the National Pencil factory, which had been brought Into court when he started to speak), and it’s a terrible crime.”

Mr. Arnold then went on to describe in detail the horror of the Phagan tragedy, the crime that stirred Atlanta as none other ever did.

“We have already got in court the man who wrote those notes and the man who by his own confession was there; “the man who robbed her, and gentlemen, why go further in seeking the murderer than the black brute who sat there by the elevator shaft?” 

“The man who sat by that elevator shaft is the man who committed the crime. He was full of passion and lust, he had drunk of mean whisky and he wanted money at first to buy more whisky.”

Mr. Arnold then asked the sheriff to unwrap a chart which had previously been brought into court. It proved to be a chronological chart of Frank’s alleged movements on Saturday, April 26, the day of the crime, and Mr. Arnold announced to the jury that he would prove by the chart that it was a physical impossibility for Frank to have committed the crime.

“Every word on that chart Is taken from the evidence,” slated the pleading attorney, “and it will show you that Frank did not have time to commit the crime charged to him”.

“The slate has wriggled a lot in this affair; they put up little George Epps and he swore that he and Mary Phagan got to town about seven after twelve and then they used other witnesses, and my friend Dorsey tried to boot the Epps boy’s evidence aside as though it were nothing.”

“The two street car men, Hollis and Mathews, say that Mary Phagan got Forsyth and Marietta at five or six minutes after twelve; and they stuck to it, despite every attempt to bulldoze them, and then Mathews, who rode on the car to Whitehall and Mitchell, says that Macy Phagan rode around with him to Broad and Hunter streets before she got off.”

McCoy Had No Watch.

“Well, the state put up McCoy, the man who never got his watch cut of soak until about the time he was called as a witness, and they had him swear that he looked at his watch at Walton and Forsyth (and he never had any watch), and it was 12 o’clock exactly, and then he walked down the street and saw Mary Phagan on her way to the factory.

“Now, I don’t believe McCoy ever saw Mary Phagan. Epps may have seen her but the state apparently calls him a lie when they introduce other testimony to show a change of time to what he swore to. It’s certain those two street car men who knew the girl, saw her, but the state comes in with the watchless McCoy and Kenley, the Jew-hater, and try to advance new theories about the time and different ones from what their own witness had sworn to.”

“Well, we have enough to prove the time, all right; we have the street car schedule, the statement of Hollis and Mathews and of George Epps, the state’s own witness.”

“The next thing is how long did it take Conley to go through with what he claims happened from the time he went Into Frank’s office and was told to get the body until he left the factory?”

“According to Conley’s own statement he started at four minutes to 1 o’clock and got through at 1:30 o’clock, making 34 minutes in all.”

“Harlee Branch (here the speaker paid a tribute to the newspaper man mentioned) says that he was there when the detectives made Conley go through with what he claimed took place and that he started then at 12:17 and by Mr. Branch’s figures, it took Conley 50 minutes to complete the motions.”

Didn’t Attack Dr. Owen.

“Well, the state has attacked nearly everybody we have brought into this case, but they didn’t attack Dr. William Owen, and he showed by his experiments that Conley could not have gone through those motions in 34 minutes.”

Mr. Arnold then read from Jim Conley’s evidence on cross-examination where he declared that ho started at 4 minutes to 1 o’clock to get the body and that he and Frank left at 1:30.

“If we ever pinned the negro down to anything, we did to that, and we have shown that he could not have done all that in 34 minutes.”

“Leaving out the slander and filth hurled at Frank and the statements of “those poor little factory girls, dragged up here and made to swear that his character was bad, there can be no truth in the state’s case.”

Mr. Arnold then read the chronological chart through to the jury, stopping from time to time to comment on it. He paused at where the chart stated that Miss Hattie Hall left the office at 12:02 o’clock and went on to show from her evidence how that had been settled upon. Then he declared that the little Stover girl had entered the office and left before Mary Phagan did.

“Away with your filth and your dirty, shameful evidence of perversion: your low street gossip, and come back to the time—the time-element in the case,” Mr. Arnold almost shouted.

“Now, I don’t believe the little Stover girl ever went into the inner office; she was a sweet innocent, timid little girl, and she just peeped into the office from the outer one, and if Frank was in there, the safe door hid him from her view, or if he was not there, he might have stepped out for just a moment.”

“Oh, my friend, Dorsey,” Mr. Arnold again launched into an attack on his brother attorney’s methods. “He stops clocks and he changes schedules, and he even changes a man’s whole physical make-up, and he’s almost changed the course, of time in an effort to get Frank convicted.”

Charges Rotten Evidence.

“Oh, I hate to think of little Mary Phagan in this, I hate to think that such a sweety pure, good little girl as she was, with never a breath of anything wrong whispered against her, should have her memory polluted with such rotten evidence against an innocent man.”

“Well, Mary Phagan entered the factory at approximately 12 minutes after 12,” Mr. Arnold continued in a quieter tone, “and did you ever stop to think that it was Frank who told them that the girl entered the office and when she entered it. If he had killed her, he would have just slipped her pay envelope back in the safe and declared that he never saw her that day at all, and then no one could have ever explained how she got into that basement.”

“But Frank couldn’t know that there was hatred enough left in this country against his race to bring such a hideous charge against him.”

“Well, the little girl entered, and she got her pay and asked about the metal and then she left, but there was a black spider waiting down there tear the elevator shaft, a great passionate, lustful animal, full of mean whisky and wanting money with which to buy more whiskey. He was as full of vile lust as he was of the passion for wore whisky, and the negro (and there are a thousand of them in Atlanta who would assault a white woman if they had the chance and knew they wouldn’t get caught) robbed her and struck her and threw her body down the shaft and later he carried it back, and maybe, if she was alive, when he came back he committed a worse crime, and then he put the cord around her neck and left the body there.”

“Do you suppose Frank would have gone out at 1:30 o’clock and left that body in the basement and those two men, White and Denham, at work upstairs? Do you suppose an intelligent man Iike Frank would have risked running that elevator, like Conley says he did, with the rest of the machinery of the factory shut off and nothing to prevent those men up there hearing him?”

Girl Saw Frank.

“Well, Frank says he left the factory at 1 o’clock and Conley says he left there at 1:30. Now there’s a little girl, who tried the week before to get a job as stenographer in Frank’s office, who was standing at Whitehall and Alabama streets and saw Frank at ten minutes after 1.

“Did she lie? Well, Dorsey didn’t try to show it, and according to Dorsey everybody lied except Conley and Dalton and Albert McKnight.”

“This little girl says she knows it was Frank because Professor Briscoe had introduced her to him the week before and she knows the time of day because she had looked at a clock as she had an engagement to meet another little girl.”

“That stamps your Conley story a lie blacker than hell!”

“Then Mrs. Levy, she’s a Jew, but she’s telling the truth; she was looking for her son to come home and she saw Frank get off the ear at his home corner and she looked at her clock and saw, it was 1:20. There Mrs. Selig and Mr. Selig swore op the stand that they knew he came in at 1:20.”

“There’s no one in this ease that can tell the truth,” shouted the attorney in a sarcastic tone, “but Conley, Dalton and Albert McKnight. They are the lowest dregs and jail-birds and all that, but they are the only ones who know how to tell the truth!”

“Well, now Albert says he was there at the Selig home when Frank came in; of course he is Iying, for his wife and the Seligs prove that, but he’s the state’s witness and he says Frank got there at 1:30 and thus he brands Conley’s story about Frank’s leaving the factory at 1:30 as a lie.”

Saw Frank’s Reflection.

“Well, along the same lines Albert says Frank didn’t eat and that he was nervous and Albert says he learned all this by looking into a mirror in the dining room and seeing Frank’s reflection.“

“Then Albert caps the climax for his series of lies by having Frank board the car for town at Pulliam street and Glenn.”

Mr. Arnold then dwelt on the claim of the defense that the affidavit signed by Minola McKnight, the cook for Mr. and Mrs. Emil Selig, was obtained by “third degree” methods.

“How would you feel, gentlemen of the jury, he asked, “if your cook, who had does no wrong and for whom no warrant had been issued, and from whom the solicitor had already got a statement, was to be locked up.”

“Well, they got that wretched husband of Minola’s by means of Craven and Pickett, two men seeking a reward, and then they got Minola, and they said to her: “Oh, Minola, why don’t you tell the truth like Albert’s telling it!”

“They had no warrant when they locked this woman up. Starnes was guilty of a crime when he locked that woman up without a warrant, and Dorsey was, too, if he had anything to do with it.”

“Now George Gordon, Minola’s lawyer, says that he asked Dorsey about getting the woman out, and Dorsey replied, ‘I’m afraid to give my consent to turning her loose: I might get in bed with the detective department.’”

“That’s the way you men got evidence, was it?” he shouted, pointing to a group of city detectives who stood at the table with the state’s lawyers.”

 Then Mr. Arnold changed his subject. He took up the accusations made against certain witnesses and delivered a eulogy upon Miss Rebecca Carson, a forewoman of the National Pencil factory, who, when called by the defense, sword Frank had a good character. The state had introduced witnesses who swore that the woman and Frank had gone into the woman’s dressing room when no one was around. Mr. Arnold branded it a culmination of all lies when this woman was attacked. He said Frank had declared her to be a perfect lady with no shadow of suspicion against her.

Made Out Financial Sheet.

“Well, Frank went on back to the factory that afternoon when he had eaten his lunch and he started in and made out the financial sheet. I don’t reckon he could have done that if he had just committed a murder, particularly when the state says he was so nervous the next morning that he shook and trembled.”

“Then the state says Frank wouldn’t look at the corpse. But who said he didn’t? Nobody. Why, Gheesling and Rack didn’t swear to that?”

“Now, gentlemen,” continued the speaker, “I’ve about finished this chapter, and I know it’s been long and hard on you and I know it’s been hard on me, too; I’m almost broken down, but it means a lot to that man over there (pointing to Frank). It means a lot to him, and don’t forget that.”

“This case has been made up of just two things—prejudice and perjury,” Mr. Arnold continued, “I’ve never seen such malice, such personal hatred in all my Ife and I don’t think anyone ever has.”

“The crime itself is dreadful, too horrible to talk about, and God grant that the murderer may be found out, as I think he has. I think we can point to Jim Conley and say there is the man.”

“But, above all, gentlemen, let’s follow the law in this matter. In circumstantial cases you can’t convict a man as long as there’s any other possible theory for the crime of which he is accused, and you can’t find Frank guilty if there’s a chance that Conley is the murderer.”

“The state has nothing on which to base their case but Conley, and we’ve shown Conley a lie Write your verdict of not guilty and your consciences will give your approval.”

Court then adjourned until 3 o’clock Friday morning.

* * *

Atlanta Constitution, August 22nd 1913, “Arnold Ridicules Plot Alleged by Prosecution And Attacks the Methods Used by Detectives,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Constitution
August 20th, 1913

Albert McKnight, husband of Minola McKnight, the negro cook for the family of Emil Selig, with whom Leo Frank and his wife made their home, was introduced to the stand following E. H. Pickett.

Mr. Hooper drew from the negro the statement that since the day he stood in the kitchen door and saw Leo Frank’s reflection in the dining room sideboard glass that the sideboard had been moved.

The negro was made to go over a blue print diagram of the Selig home and show what he claimed was the location of the sideboard on the day of the murder and at the time he claims he saw that Frank ate po dinner and remained only a few minutes at the dinner table.

There was a bitter wrangle over the negro’s statements, the defense claiming that it had all been gone over when he was first on the stand, and the state contending that the blue print had been introduced after he had been on the stand, and that they had a right to examine him upon it.

Judge Roan held that the state might question the witness on the blue print, but that they could not go over his original statements.

“I want to show by this witness that since that day that the sideboard in the Selig home has been moved,” said Mr. Hooper.

The McKnight negro then swore that the sideboard had been moved, and the state ended Its questions.

“Did you see anybody move it?” asked Mr. Rosser.

“No, but it ain’t now where it was then,” replied the negro.

“Oh, you are just going by the plat?” said Mr. Rosser.

“I’m going by where you say it is,” ‘he replied.

The witness was then excused.

* * *

Atlanta Constitution, August 20th 1913, “Sideboard in Leo Frank’s Home Moved, Asserts Husband of Cook,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Constitution
August 21st, 1913

John Starnes, prosecutor of Leo Frank, was put up to tell about the Minola McKnight affidavit.

“Did you Investigate the scuttle hole around the elevator? was Dorsey’s first question.

An objection by the defense was overruled.

“See any blood spots there?

“No.”

“Now, tell the jury about the Minola McKnight affidavit.”

“Pat Campbell and I arrested her at the solicitor’s office. We had gone to get a statement from her husband. We also had information from this husband that she had made the identical statement which she made in the affidavit. The next day, Mr. Craven and Mr. Pickett came to police headquarters. They were sent into the room with Minola. She said, upon request, that she preferred to talk to them. We left them alone with her. When she finished with her statement, I said, “Minola, we only want the truth, and if this isn’t the truth, we don’t want it.” She said that it was the whole truth. Her attorney, Mr. Gordon, was waiting on the outside conferred with him frequently. I don’t recall any demand that he made except for admission. When he went into the room, the statement was half finished. It was read over to him, and he left shortly afterwards, presumably for the solicitor’s office. The statement had been typewritten when he returned. It was read over to him, and he asked Minola a number of questions about it.”

“Was she held upon my authority?” asked the solicitor.

“No.”

“Did I direct you to free her?”

“No.”

Cross-examination, by Rosser:

“What authority did you have to arrest her?”

“The feeling of an honest and conscientious officer who thought she ought to have been arrested.”

“Did you have any warrant?”

“No.”

“Did Dorsey know you were going to lock her up?”

“I suppose he did.”

“He didn’t protest against it because it was against the law?”

“No.”

“She was carried from Dorsey’s office screaming and hysterical, wasn’t she?”

“Yes.” 

“And declaring that she had told all she knew?”

“I don’t think she said that.”

“Your purpose was to get her to make another statement beside the one she had already made—the one that didn’t suit you, eh?”

“My purpose was to get the truth.”

“Did you telephone Dorsey at any time?”

“My recollection is that I called him to tell that Minola had made the statement.”

“Why did you call him?”

“He was representing the state in the state’s case on which we were working.”

* * *

Atlanta Constitution, August 21st 1913, “Starnes Tells How Affidavit From Negro Cook Was Secured,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

Atlanta Constitution
August 20th, 1913

Court Rules Out All Specific Acts of immorality Charged to Prisoner, Despite Vigorous Fight Made by Solicitor Hugh Dorsey, Who Had Called Many Witnesses to Prove His Character Bad.

DR. SAMUEL BENEDICT COMES TO THE DEFENSE OF DR. ROY F. HARRIS

State Makes Strong Effort to Show, That Minola McKnight Was Not Coerced Into Signing the Statement Which She Afterward Repudiated — Boy Says He Saw Frank With Mary Phagan.

The state was given a big setback Tuesday when Judge Roan ruled out all specific acts of immorality charged to Frank which Solicitor Dorsey was seeking to get before the jury. When the defense placed Frank’s Character to evidence, no one was more gratified than Solicitor Dorsey.

He stated that this was the thing he had hoped for all along and that he would have no difficulty in tearing it to tatters. With this in view the little Hewell girl, who has been in the Home of the Good Shepherd at Cincinnati, was sent for and is now in the city. She was but one of many by whom, he expected to establish certain sets of immorality.

If Solicitor Dorsey cannot manage to get any of this evidence before the Jury, Frank’s character, so far as testimony goes, will go unscathed.

TESTIMONY RULED OUT.

At the afternoon session Miss Nellie Wood who worked at the pencil factory two days, was placed on the stand. Ignore any questions were put to her Solicitor Dorsey stated that he wanted a ruling from Judge Roan as to the class of evidence that he would permit for the record. The jury was sent out and Solicitor Dorsey stated that he wanted to prove by the witness that on the second day she was employed at the pencil factory, Frank had made her an indecent proposal and that she had quit.

The point was argued at length, Solicitor Dorsey urged that the defense then asked many witnesses if at any time or place they had been guilty of any immoral conduct with Frank, and that the state had a right to rebuke his evidence. Judge Roan once most ruled with the defense, however, and the witness left the stand without making any sort of statement.

SAW FRANK WITH MARY PHAGAN.

One of the few strong places of evidence which the state managed to get to the jury was the statement of WiII Turner, a youth of sixteen, that on one occasion when he was working at the pencil factory, he had seen Frank in conversation with Mary Phagan in the metal room; that the girl was retreating from Frank and Frank was following her. Frank had said, according to the witness, that he was the superintendent of the factory and wanted to talk to her. The girl had replied that she had some work to do and retreated from him.

Frank, in his statement, said he did not know Mary Phagan.

ECHO OF McKNIGHT AFFIDAVIT.

The state made a strong effort to show that Minola McKnight, who works for Mrs. Selig, Frank’s mother-in-law, was in no way coerced into making and signing the statement which she afterward repudiated. The effort was not altogether successful; in fact, on cross-examination, George Gordon, attorney for the McKnight woman, made statements which would seem to give color to this contention. Among other things, he stated that Solicitor Hugh Dorsey had refused to sign an order to Chief Beavers asking for the woman’s release. He said Solicitor Dorsey had stated to him that he had not had the woman arrested and he did not want to do anything which “would get him in bad with the detectives,”

The statements of Roy Craven and E. II. Pickett, employees of the Beck. Gregg Hardware company, were to the effect that the McKnight woman had first denied the statements afterward made in the affidavit and had later made them voluntarily.

STANDS BY HARRIS.

Dr. Samuel G. Benedict, president of the state board of health, was introduced by the state to disprove the charges of scientific dishonesty lodged against Dr. Roy Harris by Dr. Willis Westmoreland. The minutes of the board were admitted as evidence. These minutes were at variance with the statement of Dr. Westmoreland.

At the morning session many witnesses were introduced to prove the good character of C. B. Dalton and to prove the bad character of Daisy Hopkins.

It was one of the most uneventful days of the trial.

* * *

Atlanta Constitution, August 20th 1913, “State is Hard Hit by Judge Ruling Barring Evidence Attacking Frank,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)