I EDITORIAL NOTES*
[ . 18y J. D. WATSON
k \p Georgian is surprised at the fact that a
■R campaign of villification and misrepre
sentation because of the execution of Frank
PI has been started by the same papers, out of
the State, that misrepresented us before
'Frank was sent to the prison farm at Mill
edgeville.
Ochs, of the New York Times, has the
following editorial:
L Georgia’s Shame.
The State of Georgia should either apprehend
■r, the murderers of Leo M. Frank and punish them
; ‘ according to its laws, or its people should honor
them by election to the chief judicial and admin-
P istrative offices in their gift. Any half-way course
; will be a cowardly evasion. Either the lynchers
■Pu of Frank faithfully represent public opinion in
or they do not represent it. If Georgia
approves lynching, then honors bestowed upon
, the lynchers would attest at once the shameless
courage of the Georgia public and its willingness
to defy public opinion in all the other States of
the Union. We must assume, however, that the
prevailing feeling in the State of Georgia is one
of horror and execration of the crime. If that
is the case the lynchers will be punished.
That they must be punished, that their arrest
and punishment is a supreme necessity for the
people of Georgia, is perfectly obvious. If Frank
had desired to wreak his revenge upon the State
P” 4 * of Georgia for its inhuman persecutions and
t denial of justice he could not by any possibility
f have devised a more certain and dreadful method
for the accomplishment of his purpose. The
crime is a stain upon the reputation of the State
which can be erased in only one way. Ex-Gover
nor Slaton says that these malefactors have “dis
graced the Commonwealth,” that the deed “is an
attack on civilization.” Secretary of the Navy
Daniels, a Southern man, says that “it is the
worst possible blot on the name of the State.”
Governor Harris declares that “it will hurt Geor
gia greatly everywhere,” and what is more to the
purpose he will use every means in his power “to
see to it that the members of the mob receive
fitting punishment for their crime.” It is the
most atrocious lynching ever committed in any
z Southern State. Frank had been tried for the
murder of Mary Phagan, he had been more than
once condemned to death. On appeal the courts
afforded him no relief. Governor Slaton, having
1 before him much vital evidence not put before
the jury in the trial court, commuted the death
sentence to life imprisonment. The evidence did
L not convince him that Frank was guilty. That
", Frank was innocent has been the firm conviction
1 of 'many impartial men who have inquired into
the circumstances of the crime. Yet these lynch
ers, fired with the detestable spirit of the mob
that from the time of the murder has\ raged
against Frank, have overruled Governor Slaton
and put Frank to death. The annals of lynchings
in the South record no parallel case. Yet the
responsibility must be placed, primarily, not upon
1 the participants in the crime, but upon the con
spicuous and well-known men who from the be
ginning have shown a black-hearted ferocity in
F their demand for the execution of Frank. They
I are the men who inspired the mob to do its work,
they are the instigators of the crime.
No law-abiding community, no really civilized
community, would consent to live its life with
this hideous blot upon it. The punishment of
lynchers is extremely rare in the South, but in
this case Georgia must punish the lynchers or
put up for all time with the obloquy attaching to
their crime. Surely, the decent people of Geor
gia must support the Governor in his intention to
mete out due punishment, for it is only in that
► way that they can free the reputation of the State
from the odium which has been brought upon it.
Only in that way can the people of Georgia atone
for the shame and humiliation they have brought
upon the whole country by permitting a mob to
override the laws. The bar of Georgia should
make itself the leader in the effort to absolve
v- Georgia from the deep discredit of this monstrous
act. Many members of the Georgia bar share the
very widespread belief that Frank was innocent.
They have a professional interest in putting down
the spirit of lawlessness they have an individual
interest and duty as citizens in clearing the name
of their State from this shame.
k While the New York World —the sheet of
[V the Pulitzers—says:
On Sunday Leo Frank left the Milledgeville
prison hospital, cured of the wound inflicted by
the negro convict Creen. On Monday a band of
Mary Phagan’s Marietta neighbors dashed more
than 100 miles across the State, dragged Frank
from his cell and returned to Marietta, where
Bfiy they hanged him yesterday in broad daylight.
£W- Public neglect or collusion favored the deed at
THE JEFFERSONIAN
every step. There was no opposition. The Mari
etta Chief of Police knew nothing afterward of a
crime his neighbors knew all about beforehand.
In more than 200 miles of Open road no one ques
tioned the lynchers’ procession. Atlanta does not
know whether the party avoided the city or passed
through. In Milledgeville, though there had been
warning enough, nothing was done by thirty
armed men, behind walls that would have stood a
siege, to defend their charge.
Night veiled Georgia’s contempt of law. Day
lighted its odd ideas of decency. When the body
was “found”—Sheriff and Coroner being conve
niently absent —it remained hanging while Geor
gia parents lifted little children up to gaze over
the heads of the throng at a spectacle they can
never forget, a festival of glutted vengeance be
fitting a savage tribe. Pieces of its garments were
cut off for “souvenirs.” As a fitting final touch,
the corpse was stamped upon by blood-mad
ruffians.
The mob did not “take the law into their own
hands.” They trampled on the lawu They lynched
the honor of a State. In the dark prospect that
faces the State there is one gleam of light. It is
the declaration of the gallant ex-Gov. Slaton that
every man concerned in “an act contrary to the
civilization of Georgia should be hanged, for he is
an assassin.” It is the pledge of Gov. Harris to
use all his power to “see to it that the members
of this mob receive fitting punishment.”
This is the word for future action. The law
abiding men of Georgia may be expected to dis
avow, to denounce, to condemn this crime against
their State. But the only disavowal that will
carry weight with the Nation will be the punish
ment of the men who murdered Leo Frank.
Chicago, being as free from vice and crime
as New York, cannot afford to be outdone
by New York in denouncing mob-ruled
Georgia; so they go a little further in the
Chicago Tribune, and give us a remedy for
improving our present state of semi-civiliza
tion.
Says the Tribune: "
..... . j-
The South is backward. It shames the United
States by illiteracy and incompetence. Its hill
men and poor whites, its masses of feared and
bullied blacks, its ignorant and violent politicians,
its rotten industrial conditions, and its rotten
social ideas exist in circumstances which dis
grace the United States in the thought of Ameri
cans and in the opinion of foreigners.
When the North exhibits a demonstration of
violence against law by gutter rats of society,
there is shame in the locality which was the scene
of the exhibition. When the South exhibits it
there is defiance of opinion.
The South is barely half educated. Whatever
there is explicable in the murder of Leo M. Frank
is thus explainable. Leo M. Frank was an atom
in the American structure. He might have died,
unknown or ignored, a thousand deaths more
agonizing in preliminary torture and more cruel
in final execution, and have had no effect, but the
spectacle of a struggling human being, helpless
before fate as a mouse in the care of a cat, will
stagger American complacency.
The South is half educated. It is a region of
illiteracy, blatent self-righteousness, cruelty and
violence. Until it is improved by the infusion of
better blood and better ideas it will remain a re
proach and a danger to the American republic.
After which we quote from the following
most representative papers of the North,
East and West:
New York Evening Post:
There is no need to put words to the rack in or
der to seek to express the full horror and shame
of the lynching of Leo Frank in Georgia. Every
thing conspires to fix public attention on this
latest and culminating murder by the mob. The
crime was committed, as it were, in full sight of
the Nation. The awful spectacle speaks for itself.
We can only turn away from it with a shudder to
ask what it all means and what can be done
about it.
New York Evening Sun:
The lynching of Leo M. Frank is the most
shocking crime in the long record of mob out
rages. It is the climax of a story in which justice
and moderation have consistently been subordi
nated to prejudice.
New York Mail:
A government that does not represent in its acts
the best moral sense of its community cannot
long endure. What is going on in Georgia is
more than a tragedy of an individual man. The
tragedy of Leo Frank is the tragedy of the gov
ernmnt of Gorgia.
Pittsburgh Dispatch:
Georgia is reaping what she sowed. For
years she had tolerated mob violence against one
race. No State, no community, can thus traffic
with anarchy paying the penalty. The
mob that is allowed to set its belief above the law
in one case will not hesitate to arrogate to itself
the same power in another.
Boston Traveler:
In this crowning demonstration of inherent
savagery Georgia stands revealed before the world
in her naked, barbarian brutality. She is a shame,
a disgrace to the other States of the Union, who
are powerless in the matter of humane justice to
put upon her the corrective punishment her
crimes deserve.
Milwaukee Leader:
The lynching of Leo Frank is a dastardly crime
for which the State of Georgia and its people ar©
officially and personally responsible. After at
tempting to murder an innocent man by judicial
procedure and being frustrated, the cowardly
lynching was perpetrated. By this act Georgia
becomes the Pariah among the States of the
Union. The people of the rest of this great coun
try should refuse to recognize Georgia, socially
or in a business way. Instead of sending troops
to Mexico, the Federal Government should send
an army to Georgia. Nothing so barbarous has
been recorded in Mexico. Nothing so offensive
to the dignity of this Nation has been committed
by the Mexicans. Nothing so repugnant to all
sense of decency is found in history. The people
who talk about the alleged atrocities of the Ger
mans can find in this Frank case something more
■worthy of condemnation. There isn’t even the
excuse of war—there isn’t any excuse. That a
man’s life should be destroyed by imprisonment
for a crime it was not shown he committed was
bad enough. That is mob spirit in the hands of a
comparative few. But for the State itself to take
part in the lynching of a man legally committed
to its care by the State's law machinery is the
climax of crime and brutality which has no
parallel. Georgia was as much in duty and honor
bound to protect Leo Frank in his dismal cell at
Milledgeville, as it is to protect the life and safety
of the Governor of the State or the warden of the
prison. Georgia not merely failed or neglected
to proetet Frank. She refused to protect him.
The State of Georgia did all she could do to
accomplish the lynching of Frank. She refused
to protect him after threats to kill had been made,
and a murderous attack followed, from which he
had not recovered when carried away last night
by a mob. The State not only refused to pro
tect Frank, but if the news of the affair is re
liably reported, there was a complicity that was
more brutal than the crime of which the prisoner
was accused and not proven guilty. The warden
and superintendent of the big prison were
“asleep” at a place most convenient for the mob
to “surprise” and “overcome” them. There were
only two guards on duty, and they, too, “were
asleep.” Why all were “asleep” is a matter
which the higher officials of Georgia must explain,
but outside of Georgia there is little doubt that
they “slept” that the lynchers could gain time,
and work with ease and certainty. If there are
any officfals in Georgia who have a shred of
respect left for themselves and the law they have
a fine case before them for adjustment and pun
ishment. If ever a State took an active hand
in setting aside all law and respect for law and
turning the law into an agent for destroying law,
Georgia is the State in this case of Leo Frank.
Georgia is a disgrace to the United States. She
has outlawed herself—she is the outcast of the
sisterhood. Until Georgia shows some remorse,
some repentance, by capturing and hanging
for the murder of Leo Frank, her name should be
every personevery person in'any way responsible
Anathema.
There has been a. peculiar silence of
Hearst’s Atlanta Georgian on the affair, but
from Hearst’s New York American we learn
that:
The outcry against Frank was raised by hate
crazed irresnonsibles in whose ranks were
enough criminals to carry out the hideous plot
that resulted in Frank’s assassination. For this
outrage there can be no toleration, North or
South, East or West. To allow the murderers to
go unpunished would be to abandon justice and
set anarchy up in its stead. If the offering of a
reward for the apprehension of the butchers will
facilitate their capture, it should be offered.
Never have government and law and order been
more flagrantly set at naught. Never has justice
been more ruthlessly trampled upon. Backed by
the opinion of the best lawyers of the land, and
sustained by the enlightened people of the State,
Governor Slaton refused to permit Frank to be
executed while there still existed grave doubts of
his guilt. The man was not freed. His sentence
was commuted to life imprisonment. There was
a brief demonstration against Slaton, which was
frowned on by all intelligent Georgians. Not
daring to molest a courageous man, the cowards
who composed the mob retired. But among theua
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