The Jeffersonian. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, September 23, 1915, Image 1
effersonian, Vol. 12, No. 38 Ttie State versus John IVI. Slaton k YANCE upon a time a certain man bought some hills and gullies, in the midst of a small town, and he paid for them in chips and whetstones. And it came to pass that shrewd builders of railroads picked out this town as the best place for iron horses to come together. So, in the course of the years, the town grew into a city; and the man’s hills and gullies . became gold mines, not through any labor of his own. He merely had the good luck to launch his boat on the river of Progress, and the river carried him on. Jbt And it came to pass that Carpet-baggers * from the North came to this Southern town, for Sherman's army had burnt it down, and Northern bayonets had pinned the Southern people down, and it was a good time for pat riots with Carpet-bags, holding an extra shirt and a celluloid collar, to also come down. They came, accordingly, and many of them were .the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and, while they no longer t set up a golden calf to worship, it was be- Bf-* cause they had other and more profitable uses for the gold. These Children of Israel became the ten ants of the man who built houses on his w levelled hills and his filled-in gullies; and ur 5 while the man grew fat on the rents of the Jews, the Jews grew fat on their wisdom in the handling of merchandise. Every sweat-shop in Boston, Philadelphia and New York poured cheap goods into Atlanta; and, by the time they had been transferred to the Gentiles, these goods were eminently respectable, so far as the price was concerned. If the sweat-shops starved, brutalized and ruined the girls and boys who made the goods, the Gentiles did not know it, and the Jew merchants did not care. And it came to pass that the Jew carpet bagger becatne the Mighty Man of Atlanta. He controlled the principal stores, lie con trolled some of the banks, he owned some of the mills, he bcssed some of the newspapers, he cut a large block of ice in politics; and he took himself very seriously, indeed, as a man who could buy pretty much everything ■k that he coveted. He was found in many law-firms, he was r found in rhe advertising agencies, he dealt in real estate, he dealt in stocks and bonds, he dealt in electric companies, and he laid a persuasive hand upon street-car lines. luet ic dentally, he made pencils; and his pull was so strong with men high up, that his pencils 1 have to be used in the Public Schools of Fulton County, although they are stained with the life-blood of a little girl who ought to have been at school, at the time the Bfek Superintendent of the pencil-making en r trapped her, assaulted her, and killed her. And it came to pass, that when this Super intendent of the pencil making., had been duly tried and convicted of murder, accord- L ing to Law, and had been legally , sentenced r to death, the carpet-hag Jews of Atlanta w took a mighty oath, that he should NOT die! Thomson, Ga., Thursday, September 23, 1915 Indidment for Treason. An insolent Jew editor, John Cohen by name, published a most inflamatory and incendiary article in his paper, denouncing the Gentile jury, the Gentile witnesses, the Gentile judge, and the Gentile Supreme Court I These Gentiles had had the audacity to convict a Jew of aristocratic millionaire con nections. These Gentiles had dared to say that such a Jew should be hanged by the neck until he was dead. These Gentiles had ventured to trample upon the sacred law of the Talmud which justifies a Jew for the killing of a Gentile, even as, it glorified the crimes of ancient Jews against the pregnant women and chaste daughters of Mi dianites and Canaanites. Consequently, the Gentile jury was savagely assailed by John Cohen, the Jew. The Gentile judge, L. S. Roan, was wan tonly arraigned by John Cohen, the Jew. The four Gentile Justices of the Supreme Court —Beverly D. Evans, Joseph Henry Lumpkin, Samuel C. Atkinson, and H. War ner Hill—were furiously indicted by John Cohen, the Jew. He told the world that these men who had dared to take the evidence of forty-odd white witnesses against Leo Frank, WERE ABOUT TO COMMIT “JUDICIAL MUR DER .” He virtually ordered Judge Ben Hill to grant a new trial, on the Extra-ordinary mo tion —a motion based upon the most infamous series of perjuries, and attempted perjuries that were ever presented to any court in Geor gia. One of these perjuries was dictated by Luther Rosser in his office, after the Burns detectives, through Arthur Thurman, had bought the alleged Baptist preacher Rags dale to swear that he had heard Jim Conley confess the crime. For a very much less offense against the dignity of the courts, Judge A .S. Fite was pulled off the bench, humiliated and fined. John Cohen and James R. Gray were not even arrested. They were both guilty of gross contempt of the Supreme Court, and of Judge Ben Hill's Court. In that editorial, John Cohen arrogantly set forth the preposterous proposition, that a portion of the judicial power was rested in the press. He said that courts and juries were not alone responsible for the administration of justice, but that the newspapers had a “share.” Never before had any such doctrine been heard. Never before had the Journal, or any other newspaper, set up such a claim. What Cohen meant was, that Gentile wit nesses, Gentile judges, and Gentile Supreme Courts were competent to hang Gentiles, but not competent to hang Jews. This astounding and most. offensive edi- torial appeared on the evening of March 10, 1914. Judge Roan had officially declared that Leo Frank had had a fair trial. The Journal said, “Leo Frank has not had a fair trial.” The Supreme Court had officially declared that he had been legally convicted upon suffi cient evidence. The Journal declared that “he has not been fairly convicted and his death without a fair trial and legal conviction will amount to judicial murder.” The verdict of the jury was six months old, and before it was announced, Hearst’s Sunday American had declared that the long trial of Leo Frank, stretching over a period of four weeks, had been as fair, as it was possible for human minds-and human efforts to make it. Nobody contradicted this deliberate state ment of the Hearst Atlanta paper. The Journal did not: Frank’s lawyers did not: the correspondents of Northern papers did not. 5 But when the Haas brothers, months afterwards, followed up the Cohen at tack on the witnesses, the jurors, the judges, and the people of Atlanta, there arose a clamor about the mob, the frenzied mob, the jungle fury of the mob, the blood lust of the mob, and the psychic drunk of the meh. That clamor grew louder and louder, spread farther ami farther, became bolder and bolder, until millions of honest outsiders actually believed that the mob stood up in the court-room during the month of the trial, and yelled at the jury “Hang the damned Jew, or we will hang you.’’ It was not until John Cohen and James R. Gray had started this flood of libel against the State, that The Jeffersonian said one word about the case. The files of this paper will show that it took no part whatever in the Frank matter, until after the unheard of attack which the Atlanta Journal made upon the courts. Then The Jeffersonian did what no other editor with a general circulation seemed willing to do: I came out in defence of the Law, the Courts, and the People. If that be treason, turn me over to Straus! Are the Laws not entitled to support? Are the Courts not worthy of respect ? Are the People not deserving of fair treatment? The Jeffersonian did not stoop to any per sonalities, or mean abuse, or malignant mis representation. Our files will show that this paper went no further than to vindicate the conduct of our judiciary, and the attitude of our peo ple. We had given to Leo Frank as much as we had to give to anybody. We had measured him by the same yardstick that measures Gentiles before they are condemned. We could not kill poor old Umphrey* of Whitfield County, on circumstantial evidence, and then refuse to execute a Jew. The one was an aged tenant, aggravated by a dispute with his landlord, about his share of a bale of cotton: the other was a Price, Five Gents