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PAGE TWO
middle-age Superintendent of a factory, pre
suming on his power over the girls hired to
him.
We could not kill Bart Cantrell and Nick
AVdburn—led astray by evil women —and
then find a different law for the 31 year-old
married man, led astray by his own lusts.
No! By (he Splendor of God! we couldn't
have two Codes in Georgia, one for the Rich
and (he other for the Poor.
At (he time the Atlanta Journal and other
papers jumped on the witnesses, the jurors,
the judges and the people, Governor John
M. Slaton was a member of the firm of
Frank's leading lawyer.
lie had been so for nearly a year.
Mary Phagan's body was found Sunday
morning, and on Monday morning, early.
Rosser showed up with Haas, as Frank's
lav,yer.
Who hired him, and when?
Not a Gentile-tongue had wagged against
Leo Frank!
No detective, no police-officer, no civilian
had accused this man.
117’/// 7AZ his rich connections employ the
supposedly best lawyers for him. before he
had been accused?
Do Atlanta lawyers go to their offices be
fore 8 o'clock of Monday mornings?
Rosser and Haas were at Frank's side, as
his lawyers. at 8 o'clock Monday morning.
Had the Seligs tipped it off to Montag and
Haas, that Frank had drunk heavily the
Saturday night of the crime, and had raved
about, the murder?
At any rate, Frank’s lawyers were on deck,
bright and early the next morning, at a time
when nobody was working up a case on him,
and when he was industriously working up
a case against the night-watch whom he had
accused in the notes that he placed near the
dead girl.
Mark the date: it was April ‘2B, 1913,
when Rosser publicly appeared as Frank’s
leading lawyer.
Not long afterwards, the papers announced
that Slaton had become Rosser's partner.
Slaton had been elected governor at the
October elections of 1912; and was to be in
augurated in June 1913. Why did he need
a new partnership?
And why did Rosser need a new one?
Ah, there’s where the shoe pinches!
There's where the lash hits the raw place
on Rosser, on Slaton, and on John AV. Grant.
There are some of the Commuters who
say that the Law does not forbid a gover
nor to take law cases.
Doesn't it?
When the Law carves out an Executive
Department, separating it jealously from the
Judicial and Legislative, and. constituting
the Governor as the embodiment of the
Executive power, with chief command of the
Army and Navy, to enforce the Laws, does
anybody, claiming to be a lawyer, deny that
the very nature of the office debars a gover
nor from practising law?
1 am not aware of any law which forbids
President Wilson from teaching school, but
the very character of his office does. Sup
pose President Taft had taken law cases!
Suppose President Cleveland, or President
Harrison had done so!
You can't suppose anything of the kind.
You know /hat a holder of a chief Executive
office cannot be dabbling in the judiciary,
where cases are always likely to come to him
on some final appeal.
Governor Herschel V. Johnson quit the
practise when hi' became governor. So did
Gow Henry D. McDaniel. So did Gov. Nat
Harris.
There has been some dispute as to the date
when Slaton became Rosser's partner. Samuel
Adams says it was in July, 1913.
Does that date make it any better for Sla
ton?
THE JEFFERSONIAN
Are we to be told that after Slaton became
our Chief Magistrate and Commander of our
Army, he needed Rosser?
What for?
Are we to be told that Rosser waited until
Slaton was sworn in as governor before he
took him in as partner?
What for?
The new firm was advertising its existence
in August 1913, and I presume they paid for
the ad. I see a copy of it in “The Fulton
County Daily Record,” of August 18, 1913.
I see the same firm advertised in the
Record for May 14, 1915.
1 herefore, Slaton and Morris Brandon had
continued to be the partners of Rosser &
Phillips during (he entire gubernatorial term
of John M. Slaton.
In the Record for August 1915, I find that
Morris Brandon has left Rosser and Slaton.
117?// did he leave?
It is reported that he withdrew from the
firm because he believed in Frank’s guilt, and
could not endorse the course which Rosser
and Slaton had decided to adopt.
Is it true?
Anyway, he left the firm. Who took his
place?
Stiles Hopkins. And who is he?
AA hy, Stiles is the hanger-on of the Slaton-
Rosser firm who did some of the mole-work
on that very Extraordinary Motion for New
Trial.
His affidavit is in the record, and in it he
swears that he was doing this mole-work for
( lie firm of Rosser, Brandon, Slaton and Phil
lips—a firm with which lie was “connected.”
Alter Alonis Brandon quit the firm, Stiles
was taken in—his intimate knowledge of the
inner workings of the Frank case being per
haps too valuable to take any chances on.
AA e are blandly asked to believe by Samuel
Adams, the blandest of Savannah railroad
lawyers, that although this new firm of Ros
ser and Slaton was formed soon after Rosser
was employed to defend Leo Frank, there
was a written agreement to the effect that
partners should not be partners.
Samuel Adams blandly invites us to believe
that Rosser and Slaton were such chaste vir
gins that lawful wedlock meant no marriage
to them.
1 hey waived the Code; and, with suave
smiles at each other, obliterated the ency
clopedic accumulation of legal lore on the
subject of Partnerships.
hes, Samuel! (Ve believe it. Is there any
thing else incredible that you want us to
believe ?
In this paper, I have stated, again and
again, that just before ex-Congressman How
ard was employed, Luther Rosser went to
Senator Ollie James of Kentucky, and made
him a proposition of a discreditable kind.
1 hat proposition had no other meaning
than that Rosser knew the sentence of Frank
was to be commuted by his partner, Slaton,
but, for the sake of appearances, Rosser and
Slaton wanted to make the case for Frank
as imposing as possible.
Rosser offered Senator James a fee out of
all proportion to the service, and told him
that his argument would be prepared for
him, and that he could not possibly lose the
case.
Will Samuel Adams deny this? Can he
secure a denial from Senator James?
The accusation has been standing more
than a month, and all of Slaton's commuters
dodge it. They plough round it. THEY
DON’T DARE GO TO IT.
Do you need any better proof of the com
plete understanding between Partner Rosser
and Partner Slaton?
Can you ask any clearer evidence of the
fact that Slaton wasn't caring two straws
about the Judge Roan letter, the Chicago
delegations, the Texas legislature, the tele-
gram from Vice-President Marshall, and the
petitions from “all parts of the world.”
Rosser and Slaton realized the need of all
the strength they could muster, on the side of
their client, and every possible resource was
exhausted.
They drummed up commuters wherever
there was political, financial, or professional
influence which could be brought to bear.
It was a case where every little helped;
and they got together as many mickles as
they could, in the effort to make a muckle.
BUT THEY FAILED ON SENATOR
JAMES!
Tell us about it, John Cohen!
Tell us about it, Samuel Adams!
If Rosser's assurance to the Senator did
not mean that he knew in advance what his
partner would do, WHAT DOES IT
MEAN? ’
In effect, Rosser said to Senator James:
‘"’We want to use you! AA r e want to buy
your name and prestige. AVe want you to
act a part in»the drama of Treason, that we
are staging in Atlanta.
The Jews have bought the opera house;
our troupe of players is already large and
well practised; but we need a first-class ora
tor to make a first-class appearance in the
Final Act of the play.
Here's a large pile of Jew money! Will
you take it? Everybody else is doing it.
You can’t possibly lose the case.”
But the -Kentucky Senator remembered
there was something else he might lose, and
he spurned the offer which the circumstances
justify us in believing was as much the offer
of Slaton -as it was of Rosser.
Add to the shame of this rejected proposi
tion, the clandestine meeting between the two
crooks, Rosser and Slaton, a few hours after
the Prison Commission startled them by its
adverse decision.
AATiy did Rosser slink up a side street, and
take it afoot to hold a midnight meeting with
his partner, Slaton?
Answer it, Samuel Adams! , ■_
Answer it, John Cohen!
* t alk to us about alleged agreements
■which exempted this partnership from the
Law of Partnerships?
AATiy ask us to believe the unbelievable?
Tell us what Rosser meant by his-statement
to. Senator James, and what he meant by his
stealthy, thief-like visit to John M. Slaton.
No legitimate errand demanded this cover
of darkness.
As to Leo Frank’s guilt, it is sufficient, at
present, to say that it was judicially ascer
tained, in the only way the English-speaking
peoples have devised for that purpose.
His lawyers had had ample time for
preparation, and they did not move for a con
tinuance.
They made no objection to trying the case
in Fulton County, nor did they, at any time
during the trial, move for a mistrial, on ac
count of any “mob violence.”
AVhen, at a much later day, they adopted
that line, they themselves couldn’t swear to
any mob violence, for I have examined their
long affidavit carefully.
Ihe Sheriff and all officers of the court
swore to the orderly conduct of the trial.
The newspaper reporters did so. The Colonel
of the sth Ga. a Regiment did so. The Chief
of Police did so.
Most of the witnesses who made out the
case against Frank were his employees at the
time.of the crime; and when they first re
ported the finding of the hair, and the blood,
and the condition of the body, and of the
basement, and of the elevator, and of the
vacant office—vacant when Frank, if inno
cent, would have been there—fhey did not
know whom their evidence would convict.
AVhen Miss Monteen Stover told her
mother, Saturday afternoon, that she hadn’t
got her money from Frank, because she could