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OF DIXIE
Governor Slaton and Mayor
Woodward Welcome Delegates.
Single-Crop System Hit.
' • jb
Welcomed by Governor Slaton and
Mayor Woodward, the Southern Mer
chants’ Convention opened Tuesday |
morning in Taft Hall at the Audito
rium with an excellent attendance.
How to induce the Southern farm- j
ers to desert the one-crop idea was :
the topic for Tuesday’s session, and
it was taken up from all angles. J
W. Vaughn, of Cartersville, Ga., took
up the subject as a whole. Yance^
Hill, of Montezuma, urged that the
merchants set the farmers an exam
pie, as the merchants own a larg'
proportion of the farm lands in the
State. James R. Bachman, of the
Atlanta Milling Co., spoke on the
marketing of the surplus of grain.
W. II. White, Jr., of the White
Provision Co., spoke on cattle and
hogs as a by-product of the farm, and
Joseph A. McCord, vice president of
the Third National Bank, emphasized
the fact that greater stability of cred
it would result from diversified farm
ing. An “Open Parliament” or gen
eral debate followed, each speaker
being allowed five minutes.
Theater Reserved for Them.
The delegates, who come from
Georgia and surrounding States, at
tend the Forsyth Theater to-night,
the entire house having been reserv
ed for them.
Registration began this morning at
7 o’clock, and continued steadily
throughout the morning. Early in
dications are that the attendance will
reach 4,000 as a total for the two
weeks of the convention.
Bishop W. A. Candler delivered the
invocation, in which he extolled the
spiritual significance of commerce.
Governor Slaton said a welcome to
merchants had been extended by
Georgia in 1799, when the Great Seal
of the State was made to bear a de
sign of ships loading for export, to
gether with tilled fields, an armed
man and a representation of the prin
ciples of government. This was sym
bolic, he said, of the fact that while
commerce and agriculture thrive, the
welfare of the State is assured.
Called Optimists of State.
“I welcome you, gentlemen, because
you are the optimists of the State,’’
he said, “and because you teach in
forceful manner the benefits of the
stern virtue of economy.*’
Mayor Woodward seconded the
Governor’s welcome, and took occa
sion to refer to the principal topic for
the day. The farming regions might
well pattern after Atlanta’s success,
he said, and Atlanta’s greatness is
built, not on one great industry, but
upon the diversity of its employ
ments.
R. O. Crouch, of Griffin, responded
to the address of welcome with a
felicitous speech.
J. W. Vaughn, of Cartersville, took
up elaborately the subject of soil ex
haustion. The theory that soil can
be destroyed has been exploded, he
said, but it has been established that
, fertile fields can be injured by abuse.
He urged careful study of the sci
ence of farming, in distinction to the
art of farming. Incidentally, he char
acterized many of the farm demon
stration agents as inefficient.
Plea to Country Merchants.
Yancey Hill, of Montezuma, declared
that his investigations show that 50
per cent of the farm lands of the
State are owned by country mer
chants. These men, he said, should
set an example for the farmers by
raising a diversity of crops them
selves, instead of encouraging big
cotton crops as riow.
Mr. Bachman said that his mill,
with a capacity of 42,000,000 bushels
of corn a year, ground not a single
bushel of Georgia corn in 1912, de
spite the fact that Georgia corn is
the best in the world for milling. “I
think my subject is a joke,’’ he said.
“I am asked to sit beside a man who
makes $1,500 and spends $2,000 and
tell him how to invest his surplus.
However, the future may bring bet
ter things.”
Mr. McCord's address derided the
notion that cotton is any better basis
for credit than the general products
of the farm, and pointed out how
safety lies in diversity, so that the
failure of one crop will not mean
widespread disaster,
Mrs. Leo
Frank
as she
appears in the
courtroom.
Negro Still Sticks to Main Story
AFTER 11-HOU
l
J
CONLEY BLANDLY SAYS
HE JUST FORGOT LIES
IVrhaps no other witness in the history of criminal trial
proceedure of Georgia has ever rivaled Jim Conley, the negro
sweeper, in his peculiarly open admissions of previous false
hoods.
Conley on the stand blandly admits that his affidavits are
so cataeombed with lies tht he doesn’t remember when, or to
whom he told them.
“I knew when I told a lie,’’ he declared to Attorney Ros
ser .“and I knew it wouldn't fit, and I’d have to change it, so
I didn’t remember much else about it.’’
The wife of the
accused
continues to sit
constantly by
her husband’s
side at the
crucial sessions.
New York Gunmen
Fatally Shoot Man
Accused as Squealer
NEW YORK. Aug. 5.—A shooting
affray identical in many respects to
the assassination of Herman Rosen
thal occurred in Third avenue early
to-day when three gunmen shot and
mortally wounded William Lustig, 20
years old, member of a respectable
family.
The gangsters tossed their revolvers
into the street and fled in an auto
mobile.
The shooting is blamed on members
At “Dopey Benny's” gang, who charged
Lustig with being a stoolpigeon for
District Attorney Whitman.
Lustig’s brother is employed in the
District Attorney’s office.
DO YOU
KNOW
THE LOWEST POINT 0FLU D
IN THE UNITED STATES
SEE PAGE 15
Dallas Man Dying
From Fracture; Fall
From Car Mystery
In a dying condition from a frac
ture at the base of hi.s skull, a man
named Adair, whose home is in Dal
las, Ga., is at the Atlanta Hospital.
He was Injured when ho alighted from
a car on the Marietta street line at
the comer of Marietta and Thurmond
streets about 8 o’clock Monday night.
Confusion exists as to how the ac
cident happened. One report says
Adair jumped from the car while it
was moving. Another report was to
the effect that he was pushed or
thrown from the car by a sudden
jerk.
At the Atlanta Hospital Tuesday
little hope was held for his recovery
A relativ(.*called at the hospital Tues
day morning and later notified the
injured man’s wife at Dallas.
Forest Fire Sweeps
Great U. S. Reserve
HEMET, CAL., Aug. 5.—Fanned by
a high wind, a wall of flame three
miles wide swept into the Cleveland
National Forest Reserve to-day,
threatening tremendous damage.
A total of seventeen square miles
already has been devastated with a
losi of several hundred thoi and dol
lar^. The fire started in Crown Val
ley Sunday when lightning struck a
tree.
Engineer Killed, 16
Hurt in Wreck on
Central of Georgia
SAVANNAH, Aug. 5.—The engine?r
is reported dead and sixteen passen
gers and trainmen more or less se
riously hurt as the result of the
wreck of Central of Georgia passen
ger train No. 4 at Oliver, 46 mtl^s
west of Savannah, at 8 o’clock this
morning-
The train was en route to Savannah
from Atlanta. All day coaches were
derailed, but the heavy Pullmans re
mained on the track. About 150 feet
of track was torn un.
The cause has not been ascertained.
A wrecking train carrying physicians
and nurses was rushed from Savan
nah. Officials of the. road here have
not received a list of the injured.
In addition to Atlanta cars the
train carried Pullman cars from Bir
mingham, picked up at Macon.
Bishop of Nashville
Puts Ban on Tango
nashjville. tknn.. au«. s.—
Absolution will be denied members
of Tennessee churches under the Ju
risdiction of the Right Rev. Thomas
M. Byrnes, bishop of Nashville, who
dance the turkey trot, tango and
other rag dances.
The bishop has forbidden his peo
ple to indulge in such pastimes.
THE WEATHER.
Forecast for tlanta and
Georgia—Fair Tuesday and
probably Wednesday.
A hopeless task apparently lay ahead of Luther
Rosser in his determined endeavor to break down the
story of Jim Conley when he resumed his questioning
of the negro Tuesday afternoon.
That Conley’s damning, story accusing Leo Frank
of the murder of Mary Phagan would stand unshaken
by any admissions of his own was the strong probabil
ity when the negro took the stand in the afternoon.
Attorney Rosser announced that he would con
tinue his examination of Conley little more than an
hour in the afternoon. That he would be able in this
brief time to make any impression on the state’s star
witness seemed most unlikely.
The startling testimony was brought out during the day
that Conley entered the factory before either Mary Phagan or
Monteen Stover entered the building.
Quinn in his statement to the officers and before the Coro
ner’s inquest declared that he came into the factory between 12:20
and 12:25. The negro's statement contradict this utterly. Either
Conley is lying again or Quinn is mistaken.
Solicitor Dorsey announced that he was ready to put Dalton,
the mysterious man mentioned in Conley’s story, on the stand
to corroborate the most revolting of the negro’s charges. He
said he might also call Daisy Hopkins, the girl mentioned as a
visitor to Frank’s office. The Solicitor said he had both wit
nesses where he could locate them.
STILL CLINGS TO MAIN STORY.
Conley, questioned and coaxed and wheedled and bullied for
a ttoal of nearly 11 hours, was still clinging tenaciously to his
accusations against the factory superinttndent when Rosser began
his last desperate attack upon the negro’s story Tuesday after
noon.
H admitted that he had lied without count. He admitted
that he lied in his first, second, and even his third affidavits,
the last of which had been described by the detectives as "the
whole truth.’’ He confessed that he had lied for no other reason
in particular while he was making his third affidavit.
But every effort to force him to admit that he had lied when
he said that Frank killed the girl and asked him to dispose of the
body met with utter failure. He could not be budged an inch from
this incriminating statement against Frank.
He might tell it in slightly different words. His story might
show minor discrepancies, but he kept to his main accusation that
Frank was the slayer of the girl and had so admitted to him.
Because Conley had at one tuns quoted Frank as saying that
he had “picked up a little girl back there and let her fall' au4
now was declaring that the superintendent said: ‘‘I struck her
and struck her too hard,” Rosser endeavored to corner the negro
and force him to admit that he was lying in both instances. Ho
was totally unsuccessful. Conley conceded that he might have
quoted Frank wrongly, but asserted strongly that the circum
stances were as he had related them.
Rosser until late in the forenoon confined himself mostly to a
comparison of Conley’s statements in his affidavits and before the
detectives with the story he had told in court. Conley was not at
all reluctant to admit that he had been a liar from the beginning
of the investigation into his part in the crime. He did maintain,
however, that he was telling the truth on the stand.
The lawyer was able to direct suspicion most strongly at the
story Conley now is telling by questioning him most closely about
the incidents at the factory on the day of the crime.
He developed that Conley saw, or claimed he saw, E. F. Hollo
way, N. V. Darley, a “peg leg” negro, the Phagan girl, Lemmie
Quinn and Monteen Stover as they entered or left the factory that
day,.while he was on the first floor near the stairs.
He testified, however, that he did not see Corinthia Hall, Em
ma Clark, Alonzo Mann, Hattie Hall, Mrs. May Barrett or Mrs.
Arthur White.
Hattie Hall and Alonzo Mann left the building at 12 o’clock.
Quinn, according to Conley, entered and left at about 12 o’clock.
How he could have seen Quinn and missed seeing the other two
persons, he was unable to explain.
Conley declared that Quinn entered the factory and left before
Mary Phagan came in. He said that he had heard the Phagan
girl’s scream before Mon teen Stover came in the factory. After
the Stover girl entered he testified that he went to sleep and was
aroused by Ffank stamping on the floor above.
This was the signal agred upon, said Conley, and he went and
locked the outside door. A little later Frank whistled and he went
up stairs.
“He asked me if I'd seen a girl come up here,” Conley said.
“I told him I’d seen two and that I’d only seen one of them leave.
“ ‘Well,’ he said to me, ‘you know that little girl that came
up here. I went back with her to the metal department to see
about some work. I wanted to be with her and she refused me.
I struck her and struck her too hard.’ ”
Asked why he didn't tell the whole truth, even in his last
affidavit, Conley could only reply that he didn’t want to tell
all his story against Frank at once. Rosser got the negro to say
that he had talked with Solicitor Dorsey six or seven times and
had added to, or changed his story slightly each time.
It was the persistent endeavor of Rosser to get before the jury
the fact that Conley in his third affidavit had said he was telling
“the whole truth,” and yet. when there was no apparent reason
for holding back anything, had continued to lie about the events
of the day and had kept a dark secret that he was in the factory
early in the morning.
If Conley’s third affidavit was now admittedly false in many
respects, although Con'ey declared it was the truth when he was
making it, what reason was there to believe that this tale Conley
had told the jury had in it much else than falsehood?
This was the question that Rosser evidently was trying to
place in the minds of each of the twelve jurors.
Rosser got Conley to say that he lied about the time he got up,
about the time he left home, about the time he first went to the
factory, about the time he bought a flask of whisky, about the time
he first met Frank, and about the length of time that Frank stayed
at Montag Brothers, and about the time N. V. Darley and Miss
Mattie Smith left the factory.
ROSSER SUDDENLY SHIFTS.
Rosser suddenly shifted from his examination of Conley as to
his previous statement and began to question him about the crime
itself.
He took up in rapid sequence the various phases of Conley 's
story of the events just before and just following 12 o’clock on the
day that Mary Phagan was killed—the entrance and departure of
factory employees, the coming of Mary Phagan, the girl’s scream
in the rear of the factory, the visit of Monteen Stover to the fac
tory, and finally the disposal of Mary Phagan's dead body by Con
ley at the direction of Frank.
During a brief recess, a strychnine tablet was given Conley
as a bracer for the ordeal through which he was to pass.
Just as it appeared that Rosser had reached the point where
he proposed to go alter the negro in savage fashion, Attorney
Hooper broke in with a strenuous objection to the manner in which
Frank’s lawyer was seeking to impeach the witness.
He insisted that all the affi
davits ho read to Conley where
it was esired to question him in
regard to events he had told of
previously.
Judge Roan ruled in favor of
the defense and the questioning
proceeded along th same lines.
Rosser evidently was determined to
break the negro down in short or^ier.
as he started off in his quick, aggres
sive fashion, and with little of the
easy manner of his early questioning
of the day before.
Conley was as unconcerned and
cool as when he first went on the
stand to tell his remarkable story, lie
answered the questions readily and
refused to be confused or mixed.
Rosser at once began asking him
concerning his part in the crime. He
brought out the contradictions in
Conley’s various sworn statements.
y. You had your second talk with
Black and Scott on May 24?—A. 1
disremembe/.
<q. Jim, you told them you wrote
the notes on Friday, didn't you?—A.
Yes, 1 told them I wrote them on
Friday.
Q. Then they told you the notes
wouldn’t fit?—A. No, sir, they didn't
tell me that.
Q. They didn’t tell you the notes
didn’t fit in with the other part of
the story?—A. No, sir,
y. You remember a lot of other
things, but you don’t rememper that?
—A. No, sir, I don’t remember that.
Q. Didn’t Mr. Black and Sr. Scott
tell you that your statement about
writing the notes on Friday was all
rot, and you’d have to change it to
make your story true?—A. No. sir,
they didn’t tell me anything like that.
Q. They tried their best to get you
to change your statement on May 27,
and you wouldn’t do it. would you, Jim?
—A. They questioned me, but they
didn’t try to make me change my
statement.
Fails to Remember.
Q. They didn’t question you at all.
—A. They asked me if that was all,
and I said yes.
Q. That was on May 27, wasn’t it?—
A. I disremember.
Q. But it was after you had mad©
your second atatement?—A. I don’t
know.
Q. Well, didn’t Lanford and his de
tectives stay with you a whole day
and stick closer than a brother?—A.
No. sir. They talked to me a long
while but they never stuck by me
all day.
Q. But they told you your statement
didn’t sound right?—A. No. sir. they
never told me that.
Q. What did they talk to you about
for four hours a day?—A. They talk
ed to me about a whole lot, about
different things.
Q. What did they talk about?—A.
They asked me if I knew Mr. Frank,
Asked All About Frank.
Q. Don't you remember anything
else?—A. They asked in© all about
Mr. Frank.
Q. Did Mr. Biack talk *o wr»u?—A.
Yes, sir, he talked to me W whole
lot.
Q, Oa May 2S .jrou made a thir$
The Atlanta .Georgian.
Read for Profit—GEORGIAN WANT ADS—Use for Results
VOL. XII. NO. 2.
ATLANTA, GA
., TUESDAY, AUGUST 5,1913.
Copyright. 1906,
By The Georgian Co.
2 CENTS. p ^ r n e °
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