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Curious Spectators Find Sensations They Seek as the Famous Traqedy Is Unfolded in Court
WOMEN SEE A MARRIAGE LESSON IN THE GRACE TRIAL
A Graphic View of the Women at the
Hearing Who Find in It a “Big Show,”
Varying the Monotony of Dull Lives.
By DUDLEY GLASS.
If any spectator at the Grace trial
expected to be awed by the solemnity
of the tribunal and thrilled at the dra
matic stage setting—accused wife and
wounded husband glaring at each other
before the judge—he must have been
somewhat disappointed.
The striking detail one couldn’t get
away from was the women in the audi
ence, the poorly clad women who sat in
■those rear seats breathing that fetid
atmosphere, surrounded by men of
every stamp, hearing little, seeing less
and apparently supremely happy de
'spite the wilting of their garments and
the trickle of perspiration through the
powder on their cheeks.
There were perhaps 50 of them—some
eld enough to be grandmothers, some
I girls not far in their teens. One wom
an bore a child of five, who fretted and
whined on her lap and begged to be
taken outdoors again. There was a
little girl who ran through the crowd
when the doors were opened, dodging
between the legs of the grownups, gain
ing ground by her very insignificance,
until she found a front seat by the
judge’s stand.
Just Ordinary Women.
There were little groups of women,
dull-eyed, who chewed gum incessant
ly and chatted together in low tones
as the case progressed. I saw no wom
en whose garb or manner stamped her
as one of the demi-monde few of the
type the world would call "refined."
They seemed just ordinary women,
whose husbands were at work for day
wages. To them the trial of Mrs. Grace
was the great “show" of the. year. It
was to their starved, sensation-hungry
souls what the grand opera is to the
lover of great music. It was the event
of their lives.
And how little they saw and heard’
Most of them were crowded into seats
fa- at the left of the court room, with
the judge’s bench and the railed do
minions of the clerk shutting off their
view of all the principals in the drama.
They saw no more than if a wall had
been built between them and the court.
Perhaps they caught a glimpse of a
white-covered cot as Eugene Grace was
borne into the room and out again. Per
haps they saw a bit of brown plume
as Mrs. Grace rose to make her exit.
But through all the six hours of the
hearing they saw nothing more, for the
railings and the standing men against
it were between the audience and the
stage.
But they did not leave in disappoint
ußolige
Lieutenant Is Held Under an
Indictment for Rosenthal
Murder.
Continued From Page One.
and Vallon declared Becker set the
stage for the murder and personally
managed its details. Each swore Re
acted at the repeated direction of
Becker, and that Becker both before
and after the crime assured them of
protection.
These men gave to District Attorney
Whitman the complete chain of facts
leading up to the assassination. And in
doing so they paved the way to the
most remarkable exposition of graft
that has ever been known.
All of the statements lead to men
higher up in the official scale than
Becker. They caused District Attorney
Whitman to state that he was no
longer concerned for the little fish, but
was determined to get the bigger men
who were responsible for the direction
of Becker.
They told how the services of big
Jack Zelig's red-handed murder band
had been called in to carry oyt Beck
er’s sentence of death, and how the
whole startling crime had Been com
mitted under the threat from Becker
that if the gamblers did not murder
Rosenthal. Becker would send them to
prison under “framed up” charges.
For the telling of the murder story,
Rose, Webber and Vallon will get im
munity. They were called as witnesses
and testified before the grand jury,
which was called in extraordinary ses
sion last night to indict Becker.
Three Men Guarded
Through the Night.
All night long Rose, Webber and
Vallon camped in the office of Hugh
Byrne, secretary to District Attorney
Whitman. Detectives Leigh and Russo,
with Process Servers Kling and Zinn,
took turns guarding them. There was
no sleep for Webber. Intensely nerv
ous by nature, the man sat in a chair
and smoked cigarette after cigarette,
alternately weeping, wiping his fore
head with a huge handkerchief and
staring vacantly into space. At that
he said that it was the first good night
he had passed in weeks.
Becker Passes
Sleepless Night.
Becker passed a sleepless night in
cell No. 120 at the Tombs. He said
this morning:
"This is an awful plight for an inno-
ment. No; they stuck to their seats in
grim determination, knowing that
should they leave a dozen other men
or women were waiting for their places.
They sat and waited, in the forlorn
hope that something might happen to
break the monotony of the proceedings
or perhaps satisfied with being merely
in the same room with those famous
characters immortalized by the papers.
They were like the crowd which gath
er outside the walls of a jail waiting
for the moment of the execution which
they have no hope of seeing.
Drama Strangely Dull.
But the drama itself was strangely
dull and emotionless. Upon the wit
ness stand a policeman in h'ls Sunday
citizen’s suit or a negro in worn and
dusty garments answered such ques
tions as were put, waiting patiently
while the .young solicitor and the burly
trial lawyer for the defendant quarreled
over the wording of a phrase. There
were questions seemingly without a
shadow of importance, answers appar
ently meaningless. There were half
angry altercations between the lawyers
over points bearing no meaning to the
auditor; flashes of rough wit as a cross
questioner tried to ridicule the witness
into tangling his testimony.
And Mrs. Grace, central figure of “the
play, sat at her lawyers’ table, ex
pressionless, inscrutable. There were
moments when the testimony became
unprintable; when almost forbidden
subjects were discussed with comment
bordering on buffoonery. But still Mrs.
Grace leaned over her table, her dark
eyes fixed upon the face of the wit
ness, her cheek unmarked by blush or
pallor. It was as though all the smaller
things of life had been forgotten in the
I face of the great question the tribunal
had been called to answer.
And Eugene Grace, the “dying man”
of so many newspaper extras: the man
who had descended into the shadow of
death; the hopeless cripple who would
I never smile again- he lay on his cot
and laughed softly as his friends made
comments on the ease. He chuckled at
the sharp tilts between the counsel and
j commented caustically upon bits of the
I testimony. His face was brown, as
though he had been playing golf in the
sun. There was no trace of the pallor
j which comes from long confinement
. save in the slender hands, which were
I white and emaciated. Grace seemed
I the merriest man in all the room.
I_
[cent man to be in. I can't say any
thing more now.”
The delicate health of his wife, who
is expecting the arrival of an heir,
weighed upon Becker quite as much as
the charge against him. The man who
had jauntily twisted a panama hat the
night before and smiled in the face of a
charge of murder in the first degree
was broken and unstrung.
When Police Commissioner Waldo
came to his office he was affected.
“Have you any statement to make?”
"Absolutely none.” was his reply.
"Don’t you think that as the head of
the department of New York and in
view of what has happened in the last
24 hours it is up to you to say some
thing?”
"I do not.”
"It has been reported that you re
signed from the position as a result of
this?”
The commissioner made no reply.
Jack Sullivan, another of the prison
ers under arrest for the Rosenthal mur
der, held a lengthy conference today
with his attorney. This was taken as
an indication that Sullivan, following
the lead of Rose, Vallon and .Webber,
and with the same assurance from the
district attorney that was given to the
other three, is prepared to tell all he
knows concerning the relations between
the police and the gamblers and the
murder of Rosenthal.
Dougherty Shows He’s
Not in Conspiracy.
Deputy Police Commissioner Dough
erty replied to a statement by Rose that
he feared Dougherty and would not
confess in his presence, with a denial
that he had held any friendly relations
with Becker in the investigation of the
murder.
Dougherty said:
"I have not visited any supervision
over Becker—never came in contact
with him or his work at all. I,t was
outside,of my jurisdiction.
"When this investigation is finished
it will be determined that I never had
any relations with Becker of any kind.
Everybody in and out of the investiga
tion knows I had nothing to do with
gambling.
“In the first place, I arrived at the
West Seventy-fourth street police sta
tion 45 minutes after the actual mur
der was reported to me at my home,
and the case was absolutely dry when
i got there. 1 ordered the arrest of
Libby and Shapiro. I got the first in
formation from Shapiro that the mur
der car was hired by Rose and that it
went to Brfdgie’ Webber’s house. I
was the first to learn the names of the
two men that rode with Rose. They
were Vallon and Schepps.
“I secured the first incriminating
statements from the prisoners and it
was on my evidence that all of them
were held in the first place.
"I have co-operated with the district
attorney in the entire case. Os course,
the district attorney could promise and
grant immunity where I could not.”
Miss Dora Bryant.
The remains of Miss Dora Bryant. 16
years old. dead from an operation for ap
pendicitis. will be carried to Mapleton,
Ga., tomorrow, for funeral and interment.
Miss Bryant died at a private sanitarium
in Atlanta yesterday. She was the
daughter of T. T. Bryant.
THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN AND NEWS. TUiiiJSDAY, J ULY 30, 1912.
MRS. GRACE, CONFIDENT, LEAVING HOME
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Photographed by a Georgian Photographer. I
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GRACE SUFFERS
J BREAK-DOWN
Victim of Shooting Ordered
by Physician Not to Go to
Court Room.
Continued From Second Page.
within a fraction of an inch. He be
lieved the bullet rested in the spite.
The spinal cord would not be shown
in an X-ray. Mr. Rosser’s insistence
that the witness “speak English” in
stead of Latin phrases occasioned some
amusement.
Dr. Durr said Grace had no control
of his legs when the X-ray was taken.
He attributed this to the pressure of a
bony substance against the spinal cord.
The X-ray plates were admitted in
evidence.
The court took a recess here until
1:30 p. m.
So fearful for their seats were the
morning spectators at the trial that
they refused to leave the court room
during the recess period.
The same faces that peered over the
rail when court opened this morning
were there when Judge Roan rapped for
order at 1:30 o'clock. The edges of the
crowd were swelled to a considerable
extent by a throng of men who dropped
in "just to look on for a few minutes.”
Quite a sensation was caused just
prior to the opening of court by a thin,
bedraggled old woman who forced her
way Into court and demanded a seat.
Not finding any seats vacant, she made
her way to the inside of the rail. Here
she deliberately caught a man by the
coat collar and jerked him from his
chair. She then took the seat herself.
At the afternoon session the patent
medicine bottles in question were ten
dered by the solicitor general. Mrs.
Grace was missing from her seat, but
she arrived a moment later.
Morris Prioleau, a relative of Eugene
Grace’s family and an employee of the
Southern Bell Telephone Company, was
the first witness at the session.
Grace had not returned from the san
itarium to which he had been taken
in an ambulance at luncheon time. He
had felt the effects of the heat at the
morning session.
Mrs. S. L. Hill was recalled to the
stand, Mr. Prioleau being taken down.
"Did you tell Mrs. Grace of any ac
cusation made against her?” she was
asked.
"No; I didn't know of any,” she re
plied.
“Mrs. Grace was not out of my pres-
ence from the time she left Newnan
until midnight.
"Gene told me he had married Daisy
on March 8, 1911, in New York. She
is about 30 years old.”
On cross-examination, Mrs. Hill said
Daisy had told her she had given Gene
a patent medicine that morning. She
didn't remember testifying to this be
fore Justice Ridley. She said Daisy
had told her Gene was feeling “par
alyzed” that morning and he seemed
to feel better after the medicine.
Heard at Depot That
Mrs. Grace Was Accused.
At the Terminal station two police
men met her. She and Mrs. Grace
did not ride to the police station in
the same vehicle. She hadn’t meant to
say they hadn’t been separated at all.
“Didn't you know,” asked Mr. Ros
ser, “that it was rumored around the
streets that Grace accused his wife?”
Mr. Dorsey objected. The court ruled
in favor of the question.
"I heard it at the depot.” said Mrs.
Hill.
“Didn't Mrs. Grace have the same
opportunity?”
"I don’t know. A paper was shown
me. I don't know whether she saw a
paper or not.
“I don’t know whether Daisy knew
whether she was suspected or not. Yes;
she went down the street with Morris
Prioleau, and two policemen followed
them.
Mr. Rosser gave a comical imitation
of Mr. Prioleau, Mrs. Grace and the
policemen.
Mr. Prioleau resumed the stand.
“I saw Mrs. Grace at the Terminal
station on the evening of March 5,” he
said.
"I said nothing to her about any ac
cusation against her. I was with her
all the way to the hospital.
"Nobody told her anything about the
accusation while I was with her. I was
with her in the room at St. Josephs.”
Mr. Prioleau was extremely confident
of his answers.
He was in the room at the hospital
when Mrs. Grace confronted Grace. Mr.
Dorsey began to ask about the conver
sation. but the defense objected and
the Jury was sent out again.
“Mrs. Grace spoke first,” said the
witness. "She said: 'Gene, what are
these things you're saying about me?’
He replied; ‘Daisy, why did you shoot
me?’ ”
Mr. Rosser protested against Mr.
Dorsey’s leading the witness.
Conversation is
Barred From Jury.
"This witness, more than any other
man, perhaps, is the friend of Eugene
Grace," declared Mr. Rosser.
The court ruled that the evidence
could not go before the jury.
The jury returned to its box and
the examination of Prioleau continued.
On being questioned he said:
“Nobody had said anything to Mrs.
Grace about an accusation against her
until the time I went to Grace’s room
with her.
“She told me Gene had had a cold
that day, and asked me what his con
dition was with reference to the cold.
“She asked me how the people had
got into the house and expressed worry
about the furniture.
“She said she wanted to go out and
spend the night and protect the fur
niture. This was before she had seen
her husband.”
"Did she manifest any worry or so
licitude over her husband?”
The defense was on its feet, ob
jecting, and was sustained. Mr. Rosser
was persistently leading the witness.
After the question was put in proper
form, the witness answered:
“She asked about how badly Gene
was shot.
“She said Grace had intended to go
to Philadelphia, and his failure to go
would put her In an embarrassing posi
tion.”
Same Curious Faces
Peer Over Rail.
The second day of the trial was a
replica of the first so far as the crowds
were concerned.
The same anxious, strained faces
peered over the rail and into the dock—
the same little shivering women were
crowded against the wall and away
from all sight and sound; the same
hectic faces of young girls bobbed in
and out in the audience.
The personnel of the crowd had
changed somewhat, but the same types
were there. A mathematical deputy
sheriff counted 140 spectators over and
above those directly concerned in the
trial. Of' this number, 64 were women.
It was a noticeable fact that there
were present many more nicely dressed
women than on the day before. One
of these —young and pretty—who wore
a neatly trimmed white suit, sat near
the rail. Every now and then she
made notes with a pencil. She replied
to a question that she was not a news
paper correspondent.
One of the lawyers concerned in the
case drew attention to the scarcity of
red-headed girls in the court room. A
survey of the crowd revealed the fact
that there was one She was slender
and nervous, frequently rose to her seat
and looked about. When Grace was
brought In on a stretcher, she climbed
to the top of a chair and so remained
until forced by a sheriff to resume her
seat.
One little girl on the outside of the
court room was curious to discover how
Grace spent the night. She seemed
very much disturbed when told that he
The Probable Causes of Tragedy
Speculated Upon by Two Women
as They Study Gene and Wife.
By T. B. SHERMAN.
The wife's outward composure, the
husband’s disdain, the tender care in
the face of the aged mother—each
made manifest in many different ways
throughout the course of the trial, play
with strange effect upon the heart
strings of the women spectators at the
trial of Daisy Opie Grace.
As for the men, they are there to sat
isfy an appetite for details about two
persons who have suddenly been lifted
to the spotlight by a plethora of news
paper publicity. When the average man
knows the result of the Grace trial his
interest soon will wane. But no verdict
of the jury will ever satisfy the un
spoken queries which have arisen in
the mind of every woman who has read
of the Grace case.
No matter what the trial brings
forth, the Grace case is but a varia
tion of the domestic equation. The
Graces were incompatible, either by na
ture or through worldly circumstances
which arose early in their wedded life.
The wherefores of this incompatibility
—the reason for the climax, whatever
It was—are the things about the Grace
case which disturb and compel the at
tention of the women.
But She Wants to Know.
"I object to being classed among the
'idle curious,' ” said a well-dressed mid
dle-aged woman who sat in a front
seat at the trial. She was speaking to
a friend.
"Well, it’s hard for me to say why
I came.” said the friend. “I confess to
this—l am not -so much interested in
whether she shot him or not as 1 am
in the chain of circumstances which
brought about the shooting."
“Os course." said the middle-aged
woman, "there was tragedy in the
Grace home—that much is sure. There
are a thousand p<>ssibilities. She may
have been undutiful or he may have
been. If so, why? Did their natures
interlock? Or did an outside circum
stance force itself in and disturb the
domestic balance?
"If the full details of the Grace case
were known—-I don’t moan merely the
details which led directly to the shoot
ing—they would show a problem which
arises in the lives of every married
couple. In their ease, it might have
been primitive—they might have fall
en out about some petty thing, or they
may not have fallen out at all—it might
have all been under the surface.
"Bjjt whatever the trouble was—it
arose because of the inability or the
failure of one of them to bear an equi
table part of the responsibilities of
married life. There are a million ways
in which this old, old formula can be
violated. In some instances you see a
man and woman, apparently fashioned
for each other. Both of them are gen
tle in spirit, both are considerate, both
allow to each other the little necessary
privacies—and there is enough money
to keep the wolf at a safe distance from
the door. Yet there is no permanent
happiness. It may be that one of them
tried to do too much. It may be that
the stronger withheld from the weaker
certain matters which should have been
met by both of them together.
“And so it was with the Graces I
am sure, regardles of what form it
took.”
didn’t sleep well and suffered a chill
during the early morning.
Grace was bright and cheerful, how
ever, when brought into the room. His
sickness, he said, had worn off com
pletely. He laughed when asked If he
feared assassination.
"I was only joking when I said that,”
he declared.
State Pleased With
Progress of Cajse.
"The state is very well satisfied with
the progress of the case." said Lamar
Hill of cousel for the prosecution, to
day. "But we have only Just started.
We brought out every point we de
sired from one witness and have every
reason to believe we have made good
progress.”
John W. Moore, of counsel for the de
fense, only smiles when asked about
the state's evidence.
"I am as well satisfied as Mr. Hill,”
he said. “There’s nothing else to say.”
That the case will be continued
through tomorrow at least was indi
cated by the court’s announcement that
all witnesses in other cases, called for
Wednesday, would be excused until
Thursday. It is expected that the case
will reach the jury by Wednesday aft
ernoon.
The absence of Reuben Arnold, the
noted criminal lawyer, from the trial,
occasioned a great deal of comment
from members of the bar and court
attaches, who had anticipated a battle
royal between Mr. Arnold and Luther
Z. Rosser, who have met more than
once in wordy wars over witnesses.
It was stated in the court room that
Mr. Arnold, who had been retained with
Lamar Hill by Grace’s relatives, had
withdrawn from the case because he
did not receive a fee commensurate
with the importance of the case, and
because, as he said, he did not care to
face the ordeal of a court room so hot
and sickening in its atmosphere as that
in the Thrower building. Mr. Arnold.
It is understood, is out of the city en
gaged in an important criminal case
in a Georgia town.
Mrs. Grace entered the room at 8:55
o’clock, accompanied, as on yesterday,
by C. W. Burke, a private detective.
She wore a large white panama hat
with a black velvet ribbon around it.
Her dress was of black silk, with low
shoes to match. Diamonds flashed in
Just then the bailiff rapped for or
der.
“The spectators will have to keep
quiet and stop interrupting the court,”
he bawled. The two women were silent
for a moment. At this particular mo
ment Mrs. Grace turned her head and
gazed for the barest part of a second
at the cot where her wounded husband
lay.
“Look at her—she can’t keep her
eyes off him,” whispered the younger
woman.
“Yes,” responded the middle-aged
woman. "Elementally she Is no differ
ent than she was the first day she saw
Eugene Grace. He fascinated her. The
two types point to that clearly—”
“I don’t see how they ever fell in
love with each other,” said the younger
woman.
“She Was Fascinated.’*
"I don’t know that they did,” said
the middle-aged woman. “But I can see
this. He had never known much of
her type of woman and she had never
seen much of this type of man. They
were novelties to each other. She is
clearly a woman of a whimsical nature.
She is the kind who could concentrate
her whole nature in the achieving of
one particular thing. He was tall and
good looking and with the unmistakable
marks of Southern breeding—he was a
new element in her life. She was fas
cinated —and still Is, down at the bot
tom, regardless of what she thinks she
thinks of him."
“And what of him? What did she
mean to him ?”
“I don’t believe that the emotions
which she stirred in him could have
been of a very fimi texture,” answered
the middle-aged woman. "I don't be
lieve that he was ever more than mere
ly Infatuated with her. And that, I
think, is in a measure responsible for
the present situation.”
The women were silent for a long
period. They listened closely to the
evidence. Finally the middle-aged wom
an seemed to lose interest. As if pos
sessed by a sudden thought she nudged
her companion.
Than They Dissect the Men.
“A woman will always know what to
wear,” she said. “I’ll wager that Mrs.
Grace picked out the simplest gown she
could find—although it fits her horri
bly." •
“Yes,” agreed the other, “there are
lots of things which figure in a trial
besides the sworn evidence.” f
“ —But all mothers are just alike.
They all look the same, they al! act
the same. Their actions spring from
the. one primitive animal Impulse of
protection for their young. The fact
that Mrs. Grace’s mother has rushed to
her daughter’s side provds nothing. If
her daughter were innocent as an angel
or black with guilt, her attitude would
be the same. It’s beautiful, though.”
The two women then fell to dissect
ing the men. The prosecuting attorney
was certainly very insistent for a lit
tle fellow—and how Mr. Rosser roared.
Neither one of them could understand
how such a benevolent looking man
as Judge Roan could sentence anybody
to prison. Both agreed, however, that
the jury was a very intelligent looking
body as a whole.
her ears. A bracelet with the insignia
of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity
was on her left wrist. She wore white
silk gloves and wielded a palm leaf fan
vigorously. Her face wore the marks
of the long ordeal she had gone through
the day before. She took her seat so
that her back would be turned toward
the spot which Grace’s cot had occu
pied on the previous day.
“Oh, yes; I slept very well last night.”
she said. “No; I’m not worried a bit.
Os course, one’s nerves suffer under
the strain of such a day. But the heat
was the worst of all. There never was
such awful heat before.”
Grace was borne into the court room
at 9:22 o’clock and placed in the same
position as on yesterday, looking to
ward the jury and away from his wife’s
seat. Mrs. Grace had retired from the
room for the recess and was not pres
ent when her husband was borne into
the room.
Mrs. Grace came in a moment later,
but did not glance toward her husband.
Grace Case Nearly
Ties Up Legislature
Action was taken in the legislature
today to see that the Grace case does
not block the wheels of the law-making
machine.
When the house assembled It was
found that a bare quorum was on hand.
Representative Atkins, of Dooly coun
ty, Immediately offered a resolution in
structing the messenger to hurry over
to Judge Roan’s court and summon ev
ery legislator there.
ENGINE HITS WAGON AT
CROSSINGjHDRIVER HURT
J. L. Smith, of Howell Station, was
struck by a switch engine at the Bell
wood avenue crossing of the Atlanta,
Birmingham and Atlantic railroad at
noon today. He was injured badly. He
was driving a horse, hauling a wagon
load of watermelons. The horse was
killed and the wagon demolished.
Smith was rushed to the Elkin-Gold
smith sanitarium in Patterson’s auto
mobile ambulance. It la reported he
will recover.
3