The Jeffersonian. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, April 23, 1914, Page PAGE NINE, Image 9
HOW MUCH LONGER WILL THE PEOPLE OF ATLANTA ENDURE THE LAWLESS DOINGS OF WILLIAM J. BURNS? ■■■ ■ • What Right Has This Sham Detect ive to Tamper with the Witnesses Who Told the Truth on Leo Frank, the Foul Degenerate Who Mur dered Little Mary Phagan ? (continued from page one.) “the tender hearted,” “the overscrupulous,” “misguided sympathy,” “the pleas of mere hysteria,” and the “vindication of our legal processes.” ‘W legal processes”— whose? “Trial by jury is a safe and fair method of dealing, even with the issues of life and death”—• when? Adolph Ochs eulogizes the firmness and “wisdom of Gov. Glynn and all the other officials concerned in resisting the pleas of mere hysteria,” the pleas of the Rabbis, the pleas of the lawyers, the pleas of perjured “new witnesses,” the pleas of relatives, the pleas of mothers and fathers, the frantic pleas of the gunmen themselves: but that was in New York. ' Down in Georgia, and in the case of Frank, Ochs demands a different standard and pro cess. 'Why? In another editorial, the worthy Adolph Ochs said: THE FOUR “GUNMEN.” All efforts to stay the course of the law in the case of the four murderers of Rosenthal have been defeated. Late yesterday the Governor refused, for the thrid time, to interfere with the carrying out of the sentence. He has been sub jected to quite needless strain, and it is to be hoped that the well-laid plans to prevent justice in this case may lead to a modification of criminal procedure. Two main lines of approach toward their object were used by the persons interested in the efforts to secure a stay, a reprieve, or a pardon for the condemned men after the Court of Appeals, with much deliberation, had confirmed the verdict of the jury in the trial court. By appeal to the courts they managed to secure consideration of alleged new evidence, which upon examination proved to be valueless. In effect, this was little better than trifling with the dignity of the court. Justice Goff’s decision on Saturday was marked by sound and convincing reasoning. By the accus tomed appeal to the sentimentalists a show of sympathy was secured for the prisoners, which it was hoped might influence the Governor and the court. But no murderers ever punished were less entitled to sympathy than these hired slayers of Rosenthal. Instead of wasting words over their fate, the sentimental people, who contrive to put so many obstacles in the way of the punishment of mur derers in this country, would do well to use such influence as they possess toward the reform of young men of this class who have not yet fallen under the ban of the law. The desperate and determined quality of the attempts to secure a stay in the case of the gunmen was shown in the discovery yesterday that the dynamo at Sing Sing had been damaged. The discovery wias made, however, in time to prevent a delay. * , • I have quoted this editorial at length, because it so exactly fits the “lines of approach” in the Frank case. There are the very same methods in both tragedies. After appeal to the highest court from the jury’s verdict, comes “alleged new evidence,” the “trifling with the dignity of the court,” and “the desperate and determined quality of the attempts to secure a stay in the case.”* As to “sentimental people who contrive to put so many obstacles in the way of the pun ishment of murderers,” we not only had the Atlanta Journal ordering a new trial, and the negro paper demanding a new trial, and two or three' asinine preachers denouncing the courts, but they had to import an opinion out of Miss Jane Addams of Chicago, the white lady who is so much one of the “senti mental people” that she believes in the inter- THE JEFFERSONIAN marriage of negroes and Caucasians— though she has not as yet married a black man, herself. Let, me quote, also, the editorials of those intelligent Jews who own the New York ITF orld* JUSTICE GOFF, THE GUNMEN AND THE GOVERNOR. The final hearing before Justice Goff Saturday in the case of the gunmen who killed Rosenthal produced nothing but a tissue of worthless testi mony which was easily riddled. Nothing else, of course, was expected; no honest man, knowing facts that would save four men condemned to death, would have delayed so long in coming for ward. Yet the hearing was justified if it has aided Gov. Giynn in one of the most difficult and trying duties of his administration. The gunmen were fairly convicted. The Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed the conviction. The enforcement of the laws against major crimi nals encounters too many delays and difficulties as it is. Between proved murderers and the pub lic, Gov. Glynn has decided justly and wisely. Again The World said: WHAT IT MEANS. Not since the execution of the Chicago Anarch ists has any American city had so impressive a lesson in law and order as New York received yesterday when the four “gunmen” convicted of the murder of Herman. Rosenthal followed one another to the death-chair in Sing Sing. No city has more imperatively needed such a lesson. Those four “gunmen” had no personal griev ance against Rosenthal in his quarrel with Becker. They were simply hired to murder Rosenthal, and they shot him down as they might have shot a dog, relying on police influence and political influ ence to protect them. They would have killed anybody else in the same manner if they were paid for it and had been assured of their “get away.” Thus the Pulitzer owners of the World strike the same note as the Ochs owner of the Times. Let us not suppose for a moment that these editorials were at all influenced by the fact that the murdered man was a Jew. Let us rather assume, in good faith, that the Jewish owners of those two metropolitan papers gloried in the triumph of the law —THE OLD MOSAIC LAW. But how can their eulogy on trial-by-jury, in those cases, be reconciled with the bitter and slanderous crusade they have waged against trial-by-jury in the Frank case? If Mary Phagan had been a pretty little Rose Pastor of the East-side Ghetto, deter mined to preserve her purity for some good husband, like J. G. Phelps-Stokes, would the Pulitzers and the Ochs person have been as quick to raise the false alarm of race-hatred, police frame-up, and injured innocence? • Lefty Louie and his Hebrew pals killed a Jew; and the law exacts aii'eye for an eye. “Good!” cry the Pulitzers and the Ochs per son. But Leo Frank, a lustful brute, goes from woman to woman, girl to girl, until his diseased sensuality maddens him with desire for pure little Mary Phagan, “a factory girl” —and in the struggle to enjoy her, either naturally, or unnaturally, the lascivious simian kills her. Poor little girl! If ever the Lord God Omnipotent must have yearned to unleash the lightnings of His wrath on any defiler of His image, it must have been when Leo Frank was sinking that child into the horrors of hell. Better for her to die, perhaps, than to drag that hideous remembrance through the heavy hours of the long nights of after years. * * sjc »Je * Sf; sjc If ever a man was given every opportunity to clear himself, it was Frank. If ever, an accused met fair fight in the Solicitor, and patient impartiality in a presiding Judge, Frank was that man. If ever a man was self j convicted, by circumstances with which the prosecution had nothing to do, it was Frank. If ever a man, and his lawyers, and his detectives have deepened the conviction of his guilt, after the Jury declared it, and the highest court affirmed it, that man is Leo Frank. Nemesis fastened right on him, at the very start; and Nemesis has followed him at every step, since. What innocent man has ever acted as Frank did, on the very day of the crime? What innocent man in Atlanta could not have proved where he was, and what he was doing that day? There was no innocent man in Georgia who could not have done it: you could have done it: Mayor Moodward could have done it; Judge Roan could have done it: Hugh Dor sey could have done it: any innocent person of the City and of the State could have dona it. Leo Frank could not do it. Like those three Jews who killed the Jew in New Tork, this Jew could not put himself away from the crime, nor from its victim. Inexorable fate placed him with the gid, at the time she met her fearful doom, and, like a body of death, she clung to the simian who destroyed her—and she is clinging to him yet. Was any innocent man of Atlanta unable to clear up his home-coming, that terrible night? Did any Atlanta man, guiltless of crime, have a servant whose tongue wagged with a gruesome, story? Mas there an innocent man of Atlanta, suddenly and horrible accused, whose wife would not have gone flying to him on the wings of the wind, to throw her faithful arms around him and say “All the world may for sake you, but I—l, my love— l am here, by your side.” * sjs sfc $ That noisy jackass, William J. Burns, comes rushing into the case, (at SSOO a day?) after all the known and statutory methods of discovering guilt have been exhausted. Burns had the clues. Burns had the angles. Burns knew that the guilty man had never been arrested. Burns had his basilisk eye on that guilty person. Burns would lay his unerring hands on the murderer at the proper time. Burns had put a spell upon this unknown miscreant, and he couldn't possibly get away. Burns’ “Report,” was in prepara tion. Burns’ “Report” was well-nigh finished. Burns’ “Report” would make ashamed of the persecution of the innocent' Frank. Yet, every blood-hound that bayed in the case, barked on the trail of Frank. It was absolutely impossible to get away from Frank. Just as the murdered girl clung to Frank, the chain of evidence clanked round nobody but him. There was absolutely no clue leading away from this moral pervert, who had lusted after the child, and who had been seen with his hands on her shoulders, in the factory where she came to her awful death. Conley and Frank: Frank and Conley: that was the case, and there was no getting away from it. Eight white witnesses testified to the las civiousness of Frank, and his lawyers did not dare to ask them a single question. They were afraid they would go from bad to worse. They did cross-examine the negro for eight hours, for they knew that, he had nothing ta tell, worse than he had already told. They failed completely in the labored effort to break down the negro; and they virtually admitted that they could not even hope to shake the women who swore to Frank's simian lewdness. To make matters even more damning to the accused, Miss Irene Jackson, a witness for the defense, corroborated the other witnesses as to Frank's bad character. Whatsoever ye sow! Isn’t it the truth? No other man of Atlanta, innocent of crime, could have been PAGE NINE