Newspaper Page Text
PAGE EIGHT
Leo Frank, As A Regular News
paper Contributor.
(continued from page one.)
Not long ago, a rich Hebrew, most influ
entially connected, stole two million dollars
from the working people of New York, many
of whom were Jews.
Henry Siegel stole the money under the
familiar disguise of a commercial failure.
He was tried and convicted—and sentenced
to pay a fine of one thousand dollars, and to
serve 9 months in prison.
Whereupon, (he Pulitzer paper, The TJYrZcZ,
admits that there' tdqes seem to be in this
country one law for, and another for
the poor. m . it
Now, in the (State of Georgia, we are doing
our level best to prove that the law treats all
men alike, and the Pulitzer paper is doing
its best to defeat our equitable trim.
The Pulitzer paper has never before sought
to dictate to our courts. Neither have the
other Hebrew papers of the North done so.
From year to year, we have had crimes, and
have punished some of them without raising
all the racket this Frank case lias raised.
For what reason is Frank entitled to special
privilege, and a new code of procedure, and
a new’ law of evidence?
The New York World has taken sides with
the negroes, against the' white people of the
South, on all occasions.
The Pulitzer paper has been notorious for
that. It claims that the negroes are as good
as we, and ,that the negroes should enjoy
social and political equality.
So cxtrenierhas been the Pulitzer paper on
this line thatrit sharply reproved President
Wilson in the ifhitter of the William Monroe
Trotter episode?
The New’ York World virtually says that
the President deserved the insolence of the
negro delegation. in that he had not inter
fered to prevent the heads of the Departments
from requiring that the negroes use separate
water-closets, &c.
Yet in the Frank case, the great point em
phasized by the World and the other Jewish
papers is, that the main witness against Frank
was a negro!
It seems that negroes are good enough to
kill our ballots, make our lawsj hold office,
sleep in our beds, eat at our tables, marry our
daughters, and mongrelize the Anglo-Saxon
race, but ore not good enough to Lear testi
mony against a rich Jew!
It is all wrong for us to disfranchise the
negroes, all wrong for Secretaries McAdoo,
Burleson and Williams to require them to eat
in separate restaurants, use separate wash
rooms, and go to separate toilets; all wrong
for the President to allow any difference be
tween whites and blacks, but no negro must
be taken as a witness against a Jew who can
command unlimited, money.
That sort of logic is a fair sample of all
the Leo Frank special pleading. None of it
will hold water. None of it would be toler
ated a minute, if there had not been such a
systematic propaganda in favor of this worst
of deliberate criminals.
From the very necessity of the case, we
have to take the evidence of negroes in some
cases—else Justice would lie defeated.
Criminals do not summon the best men in
the community to witness their crimes.
The murder in the brothel must of neces
sity be proved by bad women. No good
woman is there to sec it—nor any good man,
either.
Time and again, in Georgia, as in all
States, it has happened that the only wit
nesses to the crime were negroes, or bad white
men. What is the law’ to do, in such cases?
Must it let murder go unpunished, for the
lack of white men of the liest character?
How would you ever convict an assassin,
THE JEFFERSONIAN
if you rejected utterly the testimony of his
accomplice ?
How could you ever convict the murderer
whose, killing was clone at a negro frolic, or
in a low dive, or in a “blind tiger?”
Every case must of necessity stand on its
own merits, and be judged by its surround
ings. A witness, otherwise objectionable,
may become invincible by reason of the nature
of his association with- the and with
the res gestae of the crime.
If Conley w ere offered as a witness against
Governor Slaton, *or against Chief Justice
Fish, the impression made by his evidence
would lie entirely different from that made
when he testifies against a man who chose
him as an employee, used him in illicit com
merce, and made him the confidante of his
amours.
Isn't this so? Isn't it common sense? Isn't
it human experience?
You know that it is!
This would be true, even if Conley had not
been powerfully corroborated by facts and
circumstances, as well as by unimpeachable
white witnesses.
I will not thresh this old straw again, but
will remark that no innocent man could have
been where Frank was shown to have been,
when his little victim disappeared forever!
No other man was shown to have been in
pursuit, of Mary Phagan.
Into no other man's private room was she
seen to go—AND NEVER COME BACK
ALIVE'.
In his latest proclamation to the public,
Leo Frank stresses the point that the review
ing court has never passed upon the question
of his guilt, or innocence.
In other words, he asserts positively, in a
carefully prepared written statement, that
the Supreme Court of Georgia has never re
viewed the evidence in the case.
Good God I What an arrant falsehood!
Every tyro in the legal profession knows
better.
In a first motion for a new trial there, are
three grounds which are so invariably taken,
that even the form-books lay them down, as
stereotyped.
The defendant always alleges that the ver
dict was strongly and decidedly against the
evidence, against the weight of the evidence,
and without evidence to support it.
These three grounds are as inevitably a
part of every ordinary motion for a new trial,
as are the allegations of crime in the indict
ment. z
Therefore, the Supreme Court had to pass
on the evidence. The Supreme Court did
pass on the evidence. And the Court did say
that the evidence was sufficient to sustain the
verdict.
There was no “mob” threatening the Su
preme Court. There was no military display
menacing the Supreme Court.
Those serene, experienced lawyers were
not twelve terrified jurors, for whom Leo
Frank is now so sorry.
The circumstances under which the Justices
of our Supreme Court heard the evidence,
heard the arguments, consulted with one an
other, and reached their conclusion were not
such as would have “horrified” Leo Frank.
He now says that the twelve jurors who
found him guilty were on trial for their lives.
Were the Justices of the Supreme Court
similarly intimidated ?
On their oaths and their consciences, those
superb lawyers, coolly deliberating in private
and in the profoundest security, had to say
whether the evidence set forth in the record
was sufficient to Warrant the verdict of those
twelve jurors.
And those Justices, upon their oaths and
their consciences, said the evidence was suffi
cient.
Yet Leo Frank has the brazen effrontery to
argue that his case has never been tried, ex-
cept by twelve men wlio were scared into a'
verdict by the Atlanta “mob.”
This attempt at misleading a sympathetic
public is on a par with the efforts made to
suppress testimony, to frighten those girl wit
nesses, to buy up the Reverend Ragsdale and
his deacon.
It is on a par with that pulpit crusade they
started in Atlanta. It is on a par with Wil
liam J. Burns’ “utterly confident” explora
tions in Cincinnati and New York. It is on
a par with Burns’ interviews with Conan
Doyle, John Burroughs and a whole lot of
other people who have never seen the record
in this case, nor been- charged with the fear
ful responsibility of trying this man for his
life.
The State of Georgia and its Judiciary, and
the honest jurors who were sworn to try
Frank, have been vilified, held up to scorn and
made objects of derision and hatred by irre
sponsible persons who know nothing of the
evidence, except that Jim Conley is a negro.
The public has been gulled, again and
again, by the noisy protestations of William
J. Burns, and by the assurance that something
wonderfully sensational would explode very
soon.
But nothing ever comes of it. Every time
there is a show down, it is the same old thing.
The same old fatal pursuit of the girl by
Frank; the same old undisputed and dam
nable fact of the little victim being lured back
to his private office, to get the pitiful balance
of her pitiful wage : the same old disappear
ance of the girl, and the same old utter ina
bility of Frank to give an account of him
self.
The efforts to buy off witnesses shows his
guilt; the efforts to use the bought testimony
of the preacher and the deacon, shows his
guilt; the efforts to use Conley’s own lawyer,
and the miserable failure to make the deal pan
out, shows his guilt.
And let me call your attention to one thing
that may have escaped your notice :
Frank never mentions Mary Phagans
name!
In his last careful and elaborate statement,
you couldn’t tell who it was that Frank was
accused of killing.
With the instinctive horror of a guilty
man, he shrinks from the. mention, of that
little girl's name!
Those who know human nature, and the
psychology of crime, cannot fail to be pro
foundly impressed by this.
Let me quote one sentence from a masterful
book which has recently been published, and
which has been widely read. Its author is
Edward A. Ross, Professor of Sociology in
the University of Wiscofisin: the name of the
book is, “The Old World and the New.”
This expert in Sociology makes a study of
Immigration, the changes brought about by
it, the diseases, crimes and vices incident to
this foreign flood, &c.
On page 150, he says— ■
“The fact that pleasure-loving Jewish busi
ness men spare Jewesses, but PURSUE GEN
TILE GIRLS excites bitter comment.”
This . bitter comment is made by the city
authorities, who have had to deal with these
pleasure-loving Jewish business men who
spare the Jewish girls and run down the Gen
tile girls!
God in Heaven! If Professor Ross had
had the Frank case in his mind, he could not
have hit it harder.
Here we have the pleasure-loving Jewish
business man.
Here we have the Gentile girl.
Here we have an employer who came down
from the North, where the Five-dollar-a-week
working girl is presumed to need the financial
aid of “a gentleman friend.”
Here we have the typical young libertine
Jew who is dreaded and detested by the city
authorities of the North for the very reason
