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PAGE TWO
Who is “ The Most Dangerous
Man in Georgia ?” '
MOT so very long ago. a pretty, winsome,
fatherless little girl went from home, to
see the Confederate Veterans parade their
thinning, tottering lines through the streets
of Atlanta, on Memorial Day: and when even
ing elosed over (he great city, tile maiden had
not returned to her anxious mother.
The alarm went forth, and a search began:
ami. alter ever so many agonizing hours of
suspense. this suffering woman was told that
her daughter had ‘been found —found in a
grimy basement, all bruised and torn, with a
cruel cord tight around her neck, dead!
There was a Sunday-School celebration to
be held at Marietta. next day, and the girl
was to take part in it: she had laid out her
white frock, upon the bed at home, and had
intended to get, from the factory where she
worked, the small sum due her. meaning no
doubt to purchase some little additions to her
holiday dress.
She was only fourteen years old. just bud
ding into young womanhood: ami. so far as
was ever learned by a most persistent hostile
investigation, she was as chaste a maiden as
ever carried virtue to a bridal bed.
When found, there was blood on her!
Blood in her matted hair: blood on her
lower limbs: blood on her under-garments—
BLOOD!!
There was blood on the floor where she fell,
but none in the basement where she lav.
Iler hair—long, silken, golden strands of
it- hung swaying, like melancholy moss in
some Bonaventure, on the handle of the ma
chine which struck her in the back of the
head as she fell, from as fold, as cowardly,
ami as cruel a blow as ever was struck, since
Cain smote his brother at the altar of (rod.
Ami when the avenging Law pointed its
accusing finger at the man who was last
known to have been with her. and he was
sternly asked what he had done with her. his
answer was. in effect, the same as Cain’s,
when the awful question thundered from the
heavens. “JlMcre /x thy brother?"
The Law, in all its known ami accepted
processes. .1 AV’/*.’ BT . 1/A’ ED the guilt of Leo
M. Crank. The Law gave him all the time he
demanded: all Me opportunities open to any
person accused of crime: and all the reviews,
by different tribunals, possibly to any man
under our time-honored system.
Twelve jurors, selected with extreme care,
said under their oaths that the legal evidence
made him guilty: a perfectly impartial judge
of the Superior Court approved the verdict,
refusing a new trial: a Supreme Court, which
could not have been prejudiced, affirmed
what the judge and jury in the court below
had dene: and the only dissent heard from
that highest bench was that one bit of evi
dent < norft rrning a separate act of immorality,
should have been excluded.
Not one stone was jostled in the foundations
of the case!
The frightful conclusiveness of the testi
mony which placed the dead girl in Frank’s
re> ent /possession: her hair on his machine:
her blood on his floor: his absence from his
office during the fatal minutes, covered by
Monteen Stover’s call—these were not in the
least shaken by anything that legal resource
and ingenuity could afterwards do.
Ami the moral conviction fastened itself
beyond relaxation, when it transpired, that
Frank and his uncle employed the best law
yers. before anybody had accused him: and
when he failed to offer himself for cross-ex
amination. after he had gone on the stand at
his trial.
innocence would have said.
‘‘/Vv noting to hide, and trill cheerfully
ans rer evert/ question!"
THE JEFFERSONIAN
Marvellous methoejs were then employed to
defeat the Law. discredit the Courts, mock
the dictates of justice.
Contributions were levied from sea to sea,
and money poured into Atlanta from all over
the Union.
Out of- an atrocious crime, a race-issue teas
made. BY WHOM?
By the convicted man and his lawyers.
Willing. or unwilling, the Jews were drag
ged into it, because of the criminal’s na
tionality.
Adroitly manipulated, by rascally detec
tives and ingenious attorneys, scores of good
people were sucked into a vortex of hysteria.
“To save Leo Frank.” mass-meetings were
held, in Northern, Eastern, and Western
cent res.
Ranters, who knew nothing of the evidence,
denounced (he State of Georgia, her people
ami her courts.
Pamphleteers were hired, hack-writers em
ployed. actresses enlisted, and sentimental
delegations projected into our midst.
Daily papers led the furore; magazines lost
what little sense they had; Rabbis became
loudly excited: distant bankers touched finan
cial buttons: Texas and Tennessee legisla
tures made asses of themselves: and one or
(wo governors of other States betrayed their
impertinent imbecility.
In the midst of the hurly-burly. The Jeffer
sonian earnestly pleaded for the Law. after
the Atlanta Journal had declared, that the
lee/al execution of Leo F rank, IN DEB J.
SENTENCE APPBOVED BY THE SU
PREME ( OT B'T. would be '"judicial mur
der."
Not until this anarchistic editorial ap
peared. did T have'one word to say about Leo
Frank, or his case. But when a daily paper
adopted a revolutionary line of policy, de
structive of respect for the courts and for the
Law itself. I began a defense of both the
Courts and the Law.
Who. at that crisis, was “the most dan
gerous man in Georgia ?”
Who were the engineers of the Burns De
tective Agency, and the financiers that
staked Big Money against the Law?
Who were the Georgians that enlisted with
Burns, and (he Haas Brothers’ Finance Com
mittee ?
For what purpose can huge sums be used.
after a conviction has been affirmed in the
highest courts ?
What sort of legitimate and legal work can
be done by detectives and lawyers, after the
established legal tribunals have finished a
case ?
If our juries and our courts can be ar
raigned before the whole world and convicted
in the public mind of “judicial murder.” what
becomes of the State’s self-respect? of her
good name? of the confidence of the people in
the courts? of the willingness of the good
citizens to abide by the findings of juries and
the decisions of judges?
It would be strange, indeed, if the least
dangerous Georgian vilified our courts and
people, while the most dangerous volunteered
for the defense.
Into that unprecedented and unseemly con
test. of Big Money and Race prejudice against
the courts, and against eternal Justice, there
weft? some ministers of the Gospel who al
lowed themselves to be drawn.
One of these* misguided clericals was IL. A r .
Ainsworth, who had never before sought to
obstruct the orderly, legal processes of the
Lair.
As a representative of the Church, he had
never before felt constrained to admonish the
State.
What was it in the Frank case, which moved
him out of the even tenor of his ministerial
way (
Did he feel no compassion for poor, igno?
rant, misled Bart Cantrell, the 16-year-olct
mountain boy, lured to his untimely fate by an
older brother and a bad woman ?
Leo Frank was a manned man of middle
age— rather older than the average middle
age: Leo Frank was a son of wealth, a college
graduate: Leo Frank had an elegant homd
and refining en ironment: Leo Frank had
had the advantages of the Synagogue: Leo
Frank had not known the fierce temptations
of Poverty.
The mountain boy had had no early and
civilizing advantages; no education, no
church, no chastening home-influences. Evil
communications had held full sway over him,
and he was fhiserably poor. Tempted, he fell;
and when he fell, there was no campaign or
ganized in his behalf.
No Atlanta Journal cried “judicial mur
der”: no pulpits gave counsel to the Courts*
no detectives published a daily quota of lies;
no sentimental delegations toured to Atlanta ;
no pamphlets fluttered down the current; no
actress smirked on the front page.
The Texas legislature was mute: the Ten
nessee sages maintained silence: the Hearst
papers mastered their emotions: no public
meetings shook Boston, New’ A. ork and Chi
cago.
.Vo AMsu’tfrM lifted his soft white hand)
and cried “Mercy!" and so, poor Bart Cant
rell choked in the noose, and went his way to
the worms.
Among some of those w’ho championed Led
Franks implacable hatred has been borne td
The Jeffersonian.
Among those who can neither forget nor
forgive is W. N. Ainsworth, whose vocation
in life consecrates him to the mission of for
giving, if not forgetting.
A’i important fact to te considered is tills;
When the lawyers of Leo Frank sought the
aid of Ainsworth in behalf of their client,
they were not seeking the help of Ainsworth,
ux an individual citizen.
Those attorneys wanted Ainsworth’s influ
ence as a prominent minister of the Gospel,
and as a Methodist who enjoyed the beaming
favor of Bishop Candler. It was his Church
standing and weight, that those lawyers ap
propriated to the use of their convicted jhent,
with whose sentence the highest court on
earth had refused to interfere.
Ainsworth lent himself to an attempted
overthrow of tlie legalized result of our whole
judicial system. Slate and Federal.
AV ho is the more dangerous man. in Geor
gia—the lawyer-editor, who stands by the
Judiciary and fights for the Law. or is it the
clergyman who doffs his cloth and rushes hito
a fray that he knows nothing about, co
operating with hirelings whose utmost ef
forts are being put forth to establish one rule
for the Rich and another for the Poor?
Some commonplace humans have been
hanged in and near Macon, during Ains
worth’s ministry: did he endeavor to save
those lives?
Whv did he discriminate in favor of Leo
Frank ?
did he make an exception in fa cor of
the Atlanta man?
I CHALLENGE HIM TO ANSWER!
It was doubtless with the Scriptural widow
and her one mite in his mind, that Ainsworth
recently agitated his congregation to give
liberally, by telling them of a Macon woman
who worked in the mill, at fifty cents a
and gave Ainsworth's church twenty-six dol
lars a year!
After her donation to Ainsworth, the wo
man was left with two dollars and’ a half for
each seven days* support. Therefore she
could barelv afford meals costing twelve
cents apiece; and if you can imagine what
Thursday, December 14, 191&
