Newspaper Page Text
PAGE TWO
attornies and can hold the club over these per
sons.
“With the aid of judges who were misled into
misconceiving the testimony offered in my trial,
and into misstating it both to the jury and on
appeal, you have proved yourself able to destroy
my life. But, believe me, I will surrender it
without rancor. Not all the judges in this State,
nor in this country, nor the Governor of this
State, nor the District Attorney, nor all of them
combined, can destroy permanently the character
of an innocent man.’'
Becker said that his name would be vin
dicated. his innocence made clear, and his
martyrdom manifest.
He forgave his persecutors, and declared
that he would get “justice in the next
world.”
Thus, you see. Becker accused the judges,
the jury, and the witnesses, and the Gover
nor, of “judicial murder.”
The same charge was brought by the At
lanta Journal against Judge Roan, the
Frank jury, and the Supreme Court of Geor
gia-
Becker, with his dying breath, accused the
New York judges of misstating to the jury
the testimony in the case, and therefore the
trial was. according to him, a “legal lynch
ing.”
In his letter to his wife, Becker referred
to his “destruction by the State,” and he
prayed Almighty God to pardon those who
had brought him to his untimely death.
This was tragedy, for the man knew he
was to die.
With the unfathomable perversity which
has led innocent men to confess crimes they
did not commit, Becker persisted in his pro
testations of innocence, charged the judges,
and the jury, and the Governor with delib
erate murder, and then magnanimously
begged the Almighty to forgive these cold
blooded assassins’
At the Georgia State Farm there was a
little comedy, adroitly staged, and acted
with consummate skill.
Frank's wife was on hand to furnish the
conjugal element: and Dr. McNaughton was
sitting up waiting for the prompter; and
Green raked the muscle of Frank's throat
with the hog-knife (or the kitchen knife),
and then the doctors came pell-mell on the
scene: and began to forgive his ene
mies as volubly as Becker.
This isn't the first time that a suspicious
connection between McNaughton and Frank
has been evident.
McNaughton got his commutation from
Governor John Al. Slaton —who held the
dual relation of Rosser's partner and the
people's (lovernor.
As* given out, Slaton's reason was. that the
State had refused to bring McNaughton's
alleged accomplice to trial.
Who was the attorney of Mrs. Flanders,
the alleged accomplice of McNaughton?
Iler attorney was Luther Rosser!
In other words, Governor Slaton occupied
the same position in regard to the McNaugh
ton case that lie did to the Frank case.
To be specific, lie was attorney for Mrs.
Flanders, in the eye of the law, because he
was Rosser's partner.
Now. who was the lawyer whom the
Flanders family employed to assist the So
licitor General?
ir/cy, was Reuben Arnold!
The Solicitor wanted to try the case
against Mrs. Flanders, so that the sentence
against McNaughton could be carried out.
But Reuben Arnold objected to trying the
woman accomplice. although he knew that
Governor Brown had declared that Mc-
Naughton should not be hanged, so long as
the State refused to try his accomplice.
Successor to Governor Brown came Slaton,
of course, and Slaton was partner to the
lawver of Mrs. Flanders.
So, Arnold plays into Rosser’s hands, and
Rosser plays into McNaughton’s hands; and
THE JEFFERSONIAN
McNaughton escapes the scaffold, BE
CAUSE the two lawyers of Leo Frank work
together to keep McNaughton’s accomplice
from being tried!
Do you suppose that Slaton was ignorant
of what his partner was doing in the Mc-
Naughton case?
Do you imagine he was ignorant of the
reason why Mrs. Flanders was not tried?
It certainly is a most peculiar coincidence
that Dr. McNaughton should have been on
hand to save Frank’s life, the night Frank’s
jugular vein was severed, his head cut off &c.
The deeper you go into all this' Slaton-
Rosser-Arnold mess, the worse it looks, and
smells.
It is.the blackest episode in the history of
Georgia.
John Temple Graves, who is regarded as
Mr. Hearst’s oratorical department, attended
f <- —a —X \
ywwzyzwwwz wzz/. z<7 z. 'G'w/// /////,v////////////
( - 9m < i fey
■»I\Y
- J*
a Press Club banquet in Pittsburgh, soon
after Jack and Sally left us; and John Tem
ple virtually proclaimed Slaton as Hearst’s
candidate for the Vice Presidency.
From what State, Mr. Graves?
I
During the two years since Leo Frank
lured Mary Phagan into the metal room of
his factory, under the pretext of looking
to see whether the new metal had come, the
Jew’ papers of Baltimore, and New York
have been violently assailing the State of
Georgia, because we wanted Frank punished
for assaulting and murdering that poor child
—a little innocent Christian girl whose last
act on this earth was to iron with her own
hands the white dress that she expected to
wear, next day, at the Bible school of First
Christian Church.
During the two years while these Balti
more and New York papers have been as
sailing Georgia for trying to punish Frailly
they have been hounding Becker with re
lentless ferocity.
They have been demanding Becker’s life,
constantly, mercilessly, savagely.
They had no shadow of doubt of Becker’s
guilt, although an indispensable link in the
chain of evidence was supplied by negro tes
timony.
A nigger was good enough to put Bccmw ‘
to death, for Becker had caused the murder
of a Jew.
They had no bow T els of compassion for
Becker’s wife, although her appeals for sym
pathy were piteous, frantic, and constant.
They had no ear for the priest who “con
fessed” Becker, who claimed to have Avon
Becker’s inmost secrets, and who declared
with vehement earnestness that the man was
not guilty of murder.
And, as a lawyer and an honest man, I
must say that while the evidence conclusively
shows that Becker intended some crime upon
Herman Rosenthal, it is not absolutely cer
tain that the intended crime was murder.
Becker unquestionably planned to silence
Rosenthal, and get him out of the way; but
murder is not the only method in such
cases.
Private mad houses can be used with ease
and success; and so can monasteries!
Many a man, many a woman, has been
buried alive in asylums, in convents, and in
monasteries; and Becker’s priest may have
learned from him in confession that his plan
against Rosenthal contemplated such a liv
ing tomb.
However that may be, Becker is dead, and
he went to the chair like a very brave man,
with his wife's picture pinned over his hearty
and with his last look into life, he challenged
his accusers to face the revelations of the
future. ‘ • 1 ' . •
