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PAGE FOUR
It was done at the instance of the man who
accused Newt, in the notes, and who told
the police that Newt ought to know more
about the crime.
'Fhe correctly punched time-slip for Sat
urday night mysteriously disappeared, and
Frank produced another, which had a skip
of an hour, during which Newt would have
had time to go home, and change his shirt.
If Conley had not confessed, who knows
but that Newt Lee might have been the
negro whom Ragsdale and Barber would
have sworn they heard confess the crime?
Lee might just as well have been the ob
ject of that bought affidavit, which Rosser
dictated in his office, and for which Rags
dale was paid S2OO. By whom?
By the Man in the Moon, of course.
If Ragsdale and Barber had sworn to
hearing Newt Lee confess, the forged time
slip. and the bloody-shirt, would have made
rough weather for Newt.
Nothing stopped the horrible frame up
against this innocent negro, except the con
fession. of the guilty one.
Yet Burns rants about the frame up
against Leo Frank—a case made out by as
fine an array of white witnesses as ever made
out any case; men and women, boys and girls,
who spurned the persistent efforts of Burns,
'Lehon, and C. IF. TJrfe TO BRIBE THEM
into a change of testimony.
‘‘Sought to appease public wrath by the
arrest of the man they said last saw Mary
Phagan alive.**
They said! Why, blame his impudence!
Frank said so himself, in effect.
He had to.
Several witnesses saw Mary on her way
to the factory, at near noon —just a little
after the whistle blew —and McCoy fixed
almost the minute she reached Frank's door.
As she was found dead a few hours later,
in his house, how could he deny that she
had come in there, alive?
Tie simply could not do it.
Then, the hard, inexorable necessity of
admitting that she had come in alive, car
ried with it another, equally inexorable.
He had to fix the time of her coming, at
least approximately.
And here he was left to a narrow margin
of less than half an hour, because his stenog
rapher left him at 12:02 without seeing
Mary; and Airs. White was back in the fac
tory at 12:30, and did not see anything of
Mary, although she saw’ Frank standing be
fore the safe in his outer office.
Forced to say when Mary came, he fixed
her visit next after his stenographer's de
parture; therefore, after 12:02.
He fixed Mary's visit at about 12:05 to
12:10, and that was the true time when she
was with him in the metal room, where she
was assaulted and killed.
The fatality to Frank was, his ignorance
of the fact that Al iss Afonteen Stover had
come to the factory at 12:05, looked for him
in both bis offices, waited around for five
minutes, and gone away at 12:10, by his
clock, to report to her mother, at home,
that she had not got her money, because
there didn't seem to be anybody there!
Consequently, it was Leo Frank, himself,
who, in effect, made it out, that he was the
last person that saw’ Alary alive.
She was seen almost at his door, she was
found dead in his house, he admits she
entered it alive, he fixed the time of day
when she came; and, as no one else ever
sees her alive, he was necessarily the last.
Burns has poured out much wrath upon
the Atlanta police.
It seems to mo that they checkmated his
game, very effectually.
They made a monkey out of William, at
every round in the fight
Hence his spleen.
THE JEFFERSONIAN
Burns, Lehon, and Slaton are so sure that
the public will believe anything they allege
against us, that these three culprits do not
take the trouble to lie consistently.
On March 20, 1915, Dan Lehon — who was
fired from the Chicago police, for criminal
conduct toward, a woman— told a San Fran
cisco reporter that—
“/ am prepared to prove, that the lock of
hair w’as placed on the handle of a lathe
by a newspaper reporter.”
Now, what w r as the game of this rascal,
and his “Chief,” Burns?
It w 7 as, to find a reporter who would
swear that he put the hair on the machine,
“to score a scoop.”
But Burns, and Lehon, could never find a
reportorial Ragsdals, or Barber, to make a
false affidavit, and earn S2OO from the Man
in the Moon.
The thing was too difficult, and dangerous
—why ?
Because nobody in the factory had hair
like that which Barrett found on his ma
chine —nobody except Alary Phagan.
The reportorial Ragsdale would have, had,
first, to tell how Ae got the hair, and why
he picked out Barrett’s machine handle to
hang it on.
No reporter could ever be found who could
be hired to undertake this ticklish job.
“Ain't it so”’ Dan Lehon?
No doubt you tried hard, but you couldn’t
coma it.
Let us now consider the crazy jumble of
words which Burns put into the Cleveland
Leader:
“Nothing stands out more glaringly than
certain perjured testimony,” of a “reporter,”
who “ testified, not unde?'oath!' 1 11' 1
This blatant booby apparently thought
that the public wmuld believe him, when he
said the State’s case against Frank was
made out by a newspaper reporter, who was
not sworn, when he gave this “perjured tes
timony.”
Is it possible that the editor of the Leader
believes a murder case (or any other) can
bo made out, anywhere, by witnesses “not
under oath?”
Does the Treader think it treats us fairly
when it publishes such manifest falsehoods?
Burns goes further, and the truth fares
worse: he says—•
“This hair was adroitly distributed on the
rung of a ladder that arose from an ash
heap, and on a turning lathe adjacent?'
Heaven grant us patience!
There was no ash-heap in the basement;
the foot of the ladder rested on the floor of
the basement, and reached up to the scuttle
hole in the floor, above; the turning lathe
was on the second floor, and it was at least
200 feet away from the rung of the ladder,
on a different floor, and in>a different part
of the factory.
There never was a thread of hair found
on the ladder, and none anywhere else, ex
cept on the lathe-handle, in the metal room,
near where the blood spots were to be seen,
the first thing, on Monday morning, after
the murder.
Burns tells the Leader- —
“Contrary to all the laws of evidence, this
unsworn evidence crept into the case.”
I wonder w’hat the managing editor was
thinking about, when he let this absurd state
ment pass his blue pencil.
Did he not see how Burns was balling up?
If it crept into the case, that there was hair
on the rung of the ladder, it ruined the
State's theory, for the State’s theory put all
the crime, and all the hair, and all the blood,
on Frank’s office floor, two flights above the
basement!
If Solicitor Dorsey had allowed “unsworn
testimony” of hair on the rung of the lad
der” to have “crept into the case,” he would
Leader:
have smashed his own theory, and his own
line of evidence.
Burns is such a booby, that he -doesn’t even
know when he talks self-evident besh.
“Yet to me, and to others, this reporter
admitted that he had planted the hair on
the ladder rungs, and on the lathe''’
Planted some auburn hair on the ladder
in the basement, and planted more, two
floors above, on the handle of R. P. Bar
rett’s machine!
O the inexhaustible artifices of ingenius
reporters —and of truthful detectives!
Here was a reporter w’ho either w’ent to
the morgue, and pulled a hand fid of hair
from the head of the dead girl, for the sake
of “a plant,” and a sensational “scoop;*’ or
who obtained hair, from a living auburn
haired woman, which was so much like Alary
Phagan’s auburn hair, that her step-father
sw’ore it w’as hers, and the girls in the fac
tory, wdio had w’orked w’ith Alary, came run
ning out of the metal room, Monday morn
ing, w’ith the cry —-
“IF<? have found some of Mary's hair on
the handle of Barrett's machine!''
. Afarvelous reporter! Wonderful detec
tive !
Burns asks, with virtuous indignation—
“ Was this reporter called to explain his
perjured testimony? He was not."
Called where? Hadn't he already “crept
into the case?”
Hadn't he, “in violation of all the laws of
evidence,” been allowed to give the court,
and jury, “this unsworn testimony?*’
The great Rosser ought to have cross
examined this übiquitous reporter, who
robbed the head of a dead girl of its auburn
tresses.
Rosser examined Jim Conley the whole
day; and he spent perhaps a thousand ques
tions on Harry Scott: w’hy did Rosser per
mit this guilty reporter to escape a terrific
fire of cross-examination?
AVith increasing disgust and indignation,
Burns says —-
“And today he” —the prodigal reporter —
“is a new T s-gatherer in good standing in At
lanta’s school of journalism.”
The most unkindest cut of all!
The prodigal reporter,- w 7 ho pulls hair out
of the head of murderer] women, and plants
it where it may hang innocent men, is in
good standing in Atlanta’s school of jour
nalism!
Atlanta's school, mind you.
Not Cleveland’s, or Chicago’s, or New
York's.
I fear that the facts compel me to admit
that Atlanta’s school of journalism is a most
disreputable, school; and this being the case,
I don’t see how Burns could have hurt its
reputation any, by telling us the name of his
reporter.
This reporter must be an extraordinary
person. He gave “glaringly” important evi
dence, which was calculated to ruin the
State’s case: he was not sworn: he was not
cross-examined: the stenographer did not
learn his name: the official Brief of Evidence
does not refer to what he said: the list of
witnesses does not disclose him; he did not
get into Burns’ extraordinary motion for a
new trial: he did not go up to our Supreme
Court; he did not accompany Louis Alarshall
to the Supreme Court of the United States:
he did not appear lief ore the Prison Com
mission; and he did not go to the relief of
John Al. Slaton, the attorney of last resort
for Leo Frank.
Rosser has never told us about this mar
velous reporter: Reub.YVrnold has not men
tioned him; the 15,000-word document of
Partner Slaton nowhere refers to him: Louis
Alarshall has never alluded to him: the Haas
brotherhood are silent about him: the Hearst
papers, the New York papers, and the Geor
gia dailies have never whispered a syllable
about a witness who—according to Burns—*
