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ALWAYS FiRST ® ® The SUNDA Y AMERICAN Order It NOW=eh===e===5— Both Phones Main 100 +••!• +•+ +»^ •!•••!• +•* 4-«4- 4-»4- •!*•*!* *r®4* 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 ° HOME EDITION