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/ 2 A ITEARST’S SUNDAY AMERICAN, ATLANTA. OA., SUNDAY, MAY 11, 1013. NO REAL SOLUTION OF PHAGAN SLAYING MYSTERY REACHED YET Tlirrc of the detectives working on the Fhaffan ease, and some of the events in the grue- Old Police Reporter Finds Flaws in Case some slav ing. The sleuths are (from left to rght: •/. X. Starnes. Harry Scott, J’nkerton opera- tve. and .John Black. Continued From Page 1. H SS IS HOW*: ant cashier at found near tli the Fourth National Bank, body were in his opinion notes found near the body of the deaTl girl meant “night watch man.'* V. M. Berry testified that tin written by Lee. Detectives told of finding a shirt with blood stains near the right shoulder in a barrel at the n'ar of Lee's house. The indi cations were that the shirt never had been worn, however. TESTIMONY FAVORING LEE. Testimony favoring Lee is that.be was not alone in the build-! ing until alter <! :30 o’clock, and that it can not reasonably be sup posed that he would have been able to lure the girl to the factory by any means after this time, or even that the girl would have i been alone in that v icinity at that time. There is no evidence to i account for her whereabouts between 12:10 and 6:30 o’clock. Lee's own testimony was that he did not know the girl and that he never saw her until he came upon the body in the base ment of the factory shortly before 3 o (dock Sunday morning. W . Rogers testified that Lee did not appear excited. Other officers who went to the factory Sunday morning corroborated this testimony. These circumstances conflict with what is known of Lee's na tore. The natural course for Lee, had he been the culprit, it is argued, would have been instant flight. The framing of the notes to divert suspicion, according to tin* testimony of persons familiar with the negro nature, was too subtle a plan to suggest itself to Lee's mind. What was developed against Frank? The principal points brought out connecting him with the crime were He was the last person known to have seen Alary l’hagan. By his own testimony, he saw her at 12:10 Saturday afternoon, April 26. when she appeared at the fac tory to get her pay. No orn she was seen was after Mary Phagan’s Death Only Assured Fact Developed BY JAMES B. NEVIN. Mary Phagan is dead. She was murdered. Leo Frank, and Newt I^ec are in jail, upon the findings of a Coroner’s jury, held as suspects fnr Investiga tion by the Grand Jury Here Is a case of cause arid effect Involving the most elusive series' of connecting events that ever came un der my observation of criminals and crime, through fifteen years of varied newspapef experience in a number of. American cities. It is not ray purpose here to try this case. Such comments as I may set down are personal merely. I did sit through the last day of the Coroner's inquest, j)ut beyond that, my information as to this strange case came to me by w3y of the mouths and pens of persons charged with some measure of re sponsibility for fixing th£ truth of the matter in such wise as it might be* fixed. My facts are authoritative, my conclusions strictly my own. It is my opinion that the slayer of poor, little Mary Phagan has not yet been found or identified. More over within my mind there dwells an ever-increasing doubt that her .slay er, or slayers, ever will be appre hended. Case Against Prisoners. As I see It. a wabbly tclvcum- stantial case has been made out against Frank, and all but no case at all against Lee. # The most horrible false details have been conjured up in some dis ordered brain hereabout, and imagi nary facts and circumstances of this little girl’s death have been passed from lip to lip in revolting detail. It was bad enough, as it was—but able to swear that time. 0. W. Epps, Jr., a boy friend of the Phagan tfirl, testified that Mary had told him Frank had waited at the door when she left the factory one day and had winked at her and tried to flirt. Epps rode to town with her the day she went to'the factory to get her money, and was to meet her again at 4 o’clock at Five Points. She did not appear, lending strength to the theorv that she never left the factory after once going to get her pay. Frank's Conduct With Girls. Thomas Blackstock, a former employee, testified that he had seen Frank attempt liberties with girls in tin* factory. Nellie Pettis, !) Oliver Street, testified that Frank had made improper advances to her when she went to get her sister-in-law’s pay at the factory. She said he pulled out a box of money from 11 AM. LEFT HER HOME FOR THE FACTORY - 11 A, M.T012M . WALKED WITH BOY SWEETHEART 12.10 PM. DREW HER PAY FROM FRANK- 1S.10 TO 3 AM. 3 AM. BODY FOUND removed from out the mass of mis information, near-facts, pure false hoods, and prejudice, what remains of it? What is there left that will stand up before a jury and fix re sponsibility for Mary Phagan’s mur der upon somebody now in custody? h drawer and looked nt her and then the money and asked: “How about it?” Mrs. (I). Doiicgan, 165 West Fourteenth Street, said she had seen Frank smile and flirt with the yirls in his employ. Nellie Wood. S Corput Street, testitied that Frank had at tempted familiarities with her in his office, and had put his hands on her and had tried to persuade hdr to remain with him in his office. Frank testified that he was al the factory Saturday after noon from 12 to 1 o'clock and from 3 to 6:30 o'clock. Harry Denham, Arthur White and White's wife were in the factory part of the afternoon, the two men until 3:10. From 3:10 until 3:45 Frank was alone in the factory. Then Newt Lee came and tvas told by Frank to take the remainder of the afternoon off until 6 o’clock. From about 4 o'clock until 6, Frank again was alone in the factory, so far as tile testimony showed. Lee testified that the crime could not have been committed in the night without his knowledge, as he had gone past the lathe machine on the second floor, where the struggle is believed to have taken place, twice every half hour on his regular rounds. Lee testified that Frank appeared greatly agitated when he met him at the door of the factory office just before 4 o’clock, lie said that Frank seemed nervous and w as rubbing his hands in an excited fashion. J. M. Gantt, a former employee who happened to be in the factory at 6 o clock, testified that Frank appeared nervous and apprehensive at this time. UNABLE TO REACH FRANK AT 3. Call Officer Anderson testified that he tried to telephone r rank at his home after the police had viewed the body at 3 o'clock Sunday morning, hut that he could not get him. . \\ Rogers, former county policeman, who carried the officers in his automobile to the scene of the murder and later to get Frank, testified that Frank, when he saw the officers, be gan to ask them if “anything had happened at the factory?" and if the night watchman had “found anything” when nothing had been told him at that time as to the tragedy. Rogers said he saw Frank remove tin* time slip from the time clock which Lee had punched. Rogers said that there were no “skips on it, but that it was punched regularly every half hour from 6:30 in the evening until 2:30 the next morning. It was shortly after 2:30 o’clock that Lee told the officers he had found the body. The time slip which later was turned over to Chief Lanford by Frank had three “skips" in it. Lee testified that Frank had told him the Sundav the bodv I’Urie ■ wer was found that the elock was dieted himself by saying' ther it “looked queer. Lee testified that Frank ence that “they would both present attitude. Harry Scott, Pinkerton detective, 1 am inclined to classify this as i Frank is reached and held throua all ree right “skin and later eontra- *" in it, and that go him in a II" if Lee private confer- maintained his Testimony pointing toward the innocence of Frank was that of Frank himself. lie said that he hail not known Mary Phagan by name be fore her murder; that he recalled paying her at 12:10 Saturday afternoon, hut that she left his office at once and he heard her footsteps dying away as though she had left the building. He said he remained at the factory until 1 o’clock in the afternoon and then went to his home for luncheon, returning about 3 o’clock. He said that he was entirely alone from 4 o’clock until 6, and that he arrived home al 7 in the evening, where he remained. He declared lit* knew nothing of the tragedy until the following morning. He said that he dreamed during the night that some one was ringing the telephone, but that he did not fully awaken. In this manner lie explained his failure to answer the telephone. Harry Denham, one of the men in the factory Saturday aft ernoon until 3:10 o’clock, testified that Frank did not appear ner vous or agitated when he saw* him. F. M. Berry, assistant cashier of the,Fourth National Bank, testified that the notes found by the side of Mary Phagan did not appear to hi* in the handwriting of Frank, Leinmie C^uiim testified that he was in the office of Frank Saturday afternoon between 12:15 and 12:30, and that he did not see Mary Phagan in the office or anywhere else in the building. Mr. and Mrs. Kind Selig, Frank's parents-in-law, corrobo rated tin* story of Frank’s movements during the day. Quinn and other men in the factory testified that they never had seen Frank make any improper advances toward the girls, hut that on the contrary he had been most courteous when he had any personal dealings with them, which was not frequently. .Miss Gorinthia Hall, one of the employees, said she never had observed Frank attempt any liberties with any of the girls. Herbert Schiflf, chief clerk in the factory, testified that the work which Frank accomplished Saturday afternoon on the financial sheet woqld have taken any expert five or six hours. EVIDENCE IB NOT CONVINCING. I ask. Would you consider this very convincing in the ease of either inau? I do not. But after the Coroner’s inquest the ease assumes a new form. The whole matter now rests in the hands of Solicitor Dorsey. 1 1 have never met him. All that ! hear about him is in his favor. But he has never shown any unusual skill as a detective. He I knows criminal law, and he will proceed along the regular lines of bringing the whole matter to the attention of the Grand Jury, and indicting both Frank and Lee. Then will come the trick If Detectives Scott and Black are reported accurately in their testimony, as quoted at the beginning of this article, then the prosecution in my opinion has very little upon which to base a trial of either of the men now held for the crime. Lee came through the cross-questioning without any discredit at all. The points made against Frank are not of much importance. They L\l'. ,el( i Liir 111 it 1( , i, L, /v I" I^ f a i .... . ... 4* X? .. 1 „..« FERTILIZER HIT Iff NEW TIFF, SIR PROTEST Business Men Receive Message From Washington, Following Passage of New Bill, it was not bad enough, even at that, for the morbid trend of some peo ple’s thoughts. Those on the inside of this investi gation tell me—and I am speaking of those who KNOW' whereof they speak —that these whispered details are, almost entirely, without any founda tion in fact. They say that the girl’s death was accomplished in cir cumstances paralleling numerous cases of a similar sort, but not sen sationally otherwise. The newspapers, curiously enough, have been shot at from two amaz ingly opposite standpoints, therefore —by one sensation-hungry contingent charging them with underdoing the news, and by another charging them with overdoing It! When the Phagan case, as con cerns the suspects now in jail, is Lee’s Straight Story. I looked Newt Lee over carefully, observed his manner and his general bearing on the stand, during the sit ting of the Coroner’s jury on Thurs day. I have studied his testimony as delivered at the hearing. Lee is just an ordinary negro. There are half a million Newt Lees in the South to-day. He told a simple, straightforward story from the first— and no amount of prodding has caus ed him to swerve a hair’s breadth from it. If Lee committed the crime, he is a most unusual negro—rather than a most commonplace negro, such as I take him to he. If he killed Mary Phagan early In the evening of April 26—and he must have murdered her early in the evening, if at all—and remained in the building with her dead body until 4 a- m.. then to call the police, he is the most astonishing negro that ever came under my ob servation! If, however, there were other cir cumstances tending to show that he did do it, nevertheless, i might in cline to waive the first cited unnat ural and unheard of circumstance, and say all right, he may have done it. If Lee committed the crime and then dragged the body to the cellar of the National Pencil Factory, there to lay it In the dirt until he sent in his 4 o’clock alarm, why was the staple »f the door leading into the cellar broken from the outside? Was this done to arouse the suspicion that the murderer and the murdered came into the cellar through the cel lar door, and that, therefore, the crime was committed by some one outside the factory? This necessa rily would mean that the real mur derer inside the factory, after com mitting his crime, dragged the body to tlje cellar, then went outside, broke the staple of the door, re-entered the building and awaited his next move, the belated alarm to the police. Where Was Mary Phagan. Did Lee do that? He is a most exceptional negro, if he did. And yet, if murderer and murdered real ly did enter that cellar from the out side. and after dark, or near dark, what became of Mary Phagan from the time she was paid off at noon until dark or near dark, as the case may have been? Could she have been outside the factory any of that time, or part of that time, and no living soul be willing to testify to that fact to-day? Against al! these fine spun theories, must he set off Lee’s remaining in the factory certainly many hours af ter the murder was committed, his alarm to the police near daybreak, His straightforward story, and his satisfactory bearing since the crime was brought to light. Did Lee murder Mary Phagan? If not, does he know anything of who did murder her? Or is he utterly innocent of al! connection with it? Personally, I incline to the last conclusion, but I may be altogethei wrong. It looks to me more probable that Lee did the perfectly negro-like thing In this Phagan case, and not the unusual or very-much-out-of-thc -way thing. Well, if not Lee. was Leo Frank concerned in this killing? A Jury likely will pass upon that, for I suspect the Grand Jury will in dict Frank. There is some circum stantial detail connecting him with this crime' that may or may not mean much. I looked Frank over critically at the Coroner’s inquest, just as I look ed Newt Lee over. Appearance of Frank. Frank looks very unlike the tradi tional murderer. That spells little if anything, perhaps—at least, noth ing of itself. J And yet a man’s gen tlemanly appearance should count for something, when there is nothing much established against him other wise. Unfortunately for Frank, it is eas ier to make out a case of what he might have done than it is to make out a case against somebody else as to what HE might have done. But, while Frank MAY have done all these things, where is the evi dence that he DID do them? Such as there is is purely and loosely cir cumstantial, and woefully lacking in detail at that. Solicitor Dorsey plainly is puzzled almost to his wits end by the mys teriousness of the Phagan case. I doubt capitally, although he has not said this to ine, that he believes he has sufficient evidence to justify an indictment either of Frank or Lee. I think he DOF'S believe that he is on the light road, but that he is far from being in sight of the end there of. But, even after indictment, it is a long, long road to conviction in cir cumstantial cases, even of the strong est kind. As to the attempts to break down Frank’s character—well, there has been testimony submitted pro and con on that phase of the ease. To my mind, the evidence submitted In vindication of his character has out weighed that against it—that is to say, the preponderance is favorable to Frank. Who, then, DID murder Mary Pha gan? The question is almost as far from an answer to-day, I think, as it was when Mary Phagan’s dead body was dragged to light on that early Sunday morning in April. At the Coroner’s inquest, ninety- five per cent, of the questions asked were irrelevant, and ninety-nine per cent, of the information obtained worthless. Necessarily this was so, because there was so very, very lit tle to go on! The Coroner, the So licitor. and the jury did the best they ‘could—angels could have done no bet ter, perhaps—but there was so little by way of fact to predicate questions upon. If the cases against Frank and Lee break down, where shall investiga tion hegin anew? If there were other clews to be obtained, over and beyond the pitiful few that were ob tained, could they be picked up now? It is within the range jpf the possi ble, but hardly within the range of the probable. Going Into Society? STODDARD1ZE! JF YOU are froing to enter the whirl of society, then I * ST0DDARD1ZE ! It’s the correct thing nowadays to have one’s clothes STODDARDIZED—it keeps one vvell- dressed all the time 1 Practically all Atlanta society women and men STODDARDIZE! A Wagon for a Phone Call We pay Charges (one way) on Out-of-Town Orders of $2 or more. rs , b s s 126 Peachtree Street Dixie's Greatest Dry btoddard Atlanta PhCleaner and Dyer lore out 1 proci /(*(* on stinioi *>$ o may foreshadow something big. They were, of course, sufficient point I to warrant the Coroner's Jury in holding him for the Grand Jury ,\n indictment by the Grand Jury does not mean that a per elimination. * son is guilty. Far from it. The following telegram, which ex- plains itself, was received from Washington to-day by come of the leading business men of Atlanta: "What do you think of the Demo cratic Congress, pledged to tariff re form. taking off of the free list an article and putting a duty of ten per cent on same? This I am advised was done yesterday when the House of Representatives at Washington passed the tariff bill putting a tax of ten per cent on sulphate of am monia. My understanding that the ten per cent is an ad valorem tax which, at the present price of sul phate. would be over $6 a ton, and would be fully as much if not more than the old Republican tariff of 30 cents per hundred pounds, which was knocked out of the Payne-Aldrich bill and became a law in August. 1909, since w hich sulphate of ammonia has been on the free list. "You must know about the in creased production in this country and that this Infant industry has greatly prospered in four year** of free trade. The fertilizer manufac turers ought to protest to our Rep resentatives. both in the House and in the Senate, against this tax which is directly against the farmer, and the Democratic party, having pledged itself to revise the tariff and bring about cheaper cost of living, is de liberately adding to the cost if they tax sulphate of ammonia. "The price of sulphate of ammonia is higher to-day than it was in 190k ! when the duty of 36 per ton was im posed. This material is a by-prod uct, is healthy and needs no pro tection." BERLIN AND SAVILLE IN TOUCH BY WIRELESS Special Cable to The American. BERLIN. May 10.— Wireless com munication was established to-day between the new station at Naueli, near Berlin, and the Sayvllle station on Long Island. No commercial mes sages were transmitted, the operators confining themselves to a series of questions and answers. If you want to see the prettiest and at the same time the highest class residence property Atlanta offers, drive out HABERSHAM ROAD through PEACHTREE HEIGHTS PARK We are wiliing to take your judgment upon our assertion of its excellence. There is going to be “something doing” in PEACHTREE HEIGHTS PARK right away. See your own real estate agent about it. He will tell you. Better still—look at the property first and then see him or see us. Call at “The Lodge” for in formation and plats. E. RIVERS REALTY CO. 8 West Alabama St.