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3 TTTTC ATLANTA OEORGIAN ANT) NEWS. TO FORGET BASE URGE? SCENE IN COURTROOM AS CONLEY WAS UNDER FIRE OF THE DEFENSE ™! courtroom have been looking for (’on- ley to “break down,” to fall on his knees and confess it all a lie, and all that sort of thing. There never was any chance that Reuben Arnold assisting in the grilling of the negro. w By JAMES B. NEVIN. "Gentlemen of the jury, having heard from Jamea Conley, the black est, moat damning story ever told in Atlanta by one human being against another, having sat there and listened as he smudged with unspeakable scapdal the defendant in this case, Leo Frank, although It is irrelevant, immaterial, and has nothing to do with this case, you will kindly forget it, being on your oaths as jurymen to consider the evidence declared com petent!” And the jury, being like most other juries, in one way and another, and having heard all the things as afore said, will promptly proceed to do as instructed about forgetting it—NOT! I have heard juries told too many times to “forget” things—such, for instance, as that there is no such thing as “unwritten law” in this land of the free and home of the brave —and I have seen too many times those very same juries proceed to “forget”—NOT! Juries are, after all, composed of mere human beings, and things such as Conley said to the Frank jury can NOT be forgotten, and will NOT be disregarded by the average Jury. Merely Question of Belief. It Is merely a queston of whether the jury' BELIEVES the negro! There was something infinitely pa thetic in the situation Tuesday, when court met in the afternoon. For one thing, it brought to the cheeks of the defendant’s wife, al ways and e 'er at h ! ~ side, the first tears I yet hive seen fall from her eyes. • She has bo T ne herself with amaz ing fortitude thus far—the wonder is that she has not long aeo collapsed. When Reuben Arnold, moving to strike from the record the vile story of Jim Conley, paused a second before reading the exact w'ords he desired expunged, 'ooked a moment in the direction of the defendant’s wife, and said, with no show of the spectacular whatever, “Your honor, I w'ould pre fer not to read this in the presence of these two ladies, and I therefore pass it to your honor that you may read it in silence!” The moment was tense and tragic! Weeps For First Time. I do not know whether it was grati tude to Arnold for the kindness and consideration thus shown, whether it was realization of the weighty pur pose of the motion, whether it was the first chilling breath of apprehension, or whether it was just a physical giv ing way that moved Mrs. Frank. What, ever it was, as Arnold passed the pa per along to Ju go Roan, the firs’, tear I ever saw from the eyes of Lucile Frank trickled down her cheek and she dropped her head in her hands for a moment or tw r o and sobbed! Apparently there was nothing in the incident, either upon the part o^Ar- nold or the woman, designed to be the least bit theatrical. The jury had been removed, the stage settings were wanting. It merely was a natural and minor incident that tugged, somehow, at the heartstrings and caught at the throat. In all the packed courtroom ther« were tw r o women only—beyond that, j there was a morbidly hungry crowd of men, ready to grasp greedily at any- | tiling: sensational. [Conley's story that, through the in- Arnold denied the crowd for the sake of—the women. And now the jury has been asked to forget the damning thing that has *i * pMWPBSBBpFff T-g-T--%~s, "f.’-'JT 1 ” . * ■ - - - i i % Crowd Set in Its Opinions .. J'] By 0. B. KEELER. The impression persists that court room crow’ds are made up in the main of tw r o classes, as follows: (1) People who take It for grant ed that any person being tried on any charge in any court ie guilty, and then some. (2) People who arc constitutionally AIM DESPITE RIG ODDS By L. F. WOODRUFF. Practically the entire case on w'hieh the State of Georgia bases its claim on the life of Leo Frank to pay for r. . ,r i • -1 iinniiTrttsiiiii iw-Ti m Lr -- M SYTp- Jim Conley as he appeared on the witness jtand during cross- examination. -#^•9 \Vm'^ v 5#. V i\ >2* ■' A'-'-'-fc ' ^ Luther Z. Rosser in a characteristic attitude as he fired volleys of questions at Conley. Conley would do that. It should be borne in mind that to “break down” Conley’s story does not necessarily mean to break down Conley—to col lapse him. The point is: Can the defense—ha? or will the defense—so UNDERMINE I troduction of other evidence, It even tually will fall to the ground as a j mass of lies? Slowly, but persistently, with dead- been said to it, that* has been said j intent even it with tediousness of in the presence of the wife and the method. Luther Z. Rosser for more mother—and that was too vile to say ! than two days has attacked the amaz- a second time in the presence of the ; ln& and terrible story upon which the latter! Do you think the jury WILL for get—do you think it CAN forget? Maybe you do—I don’t! And as to Conley and his story in its entirety—the spectators in that State hopes to convict Leo Frank of the murder of Mary Phagan. Rosser has been almost maddening In his patience with the negro. He has gone over the same ground, time after time, in his efforts to get Con- Soda crackers are more nu tritive than any other flour food. Uneeda Biscuit are the perfect soda crackers. Though the cost is but five cents, Uneeda Biscuit are too good, too nourishing, too crisp, to be bought merely as an economy. Buy them because of their fresh ness—because of their crispness— because of their goodness—because of their nourishment. Always 5 cents. Always fresh, crisp and clean. NATIONAL BISCUIT COMPANY 1 ley’s various stories adjusted to the purpose of the defense. Conley, rapid-fire enough in direct examination, rattling off his grewsome and frightful story as if it were a recital of an altogether common thing, became quite another Conley under cross-examination. Where but a few moments ago he had remembered most amazing and inconsequential details—such as the fact that a woman who called to see Frank on Thanksgiving Day wore a blue and white polka dotted dress, a green hat and white shoes and stock ings—under cross-examination he could remember nothing at all save after the most persistent prodding. Time and again Mr. Rosser had to go over the entire ground of an entire situation to draw' from Conley one further comment upon it. Questioned on his story under both cross and direct examination, me negro was pat enough in reply—on other points he was as vague, as he possibly could be. Twenty-one times Tuesday he ad mitted to Mr. Rosser that he had “lied.” Seven limes’ in addition to that he admitted that he had been “mistaken.” As the cross-examination pro gressed, too, it became evidem enough that the defense is to hold the entire charge against Frank' to be largely a “frame-up,” with Conley as the bright and particular star about whon) it revolves. The negro said he at first refused to speak of the crime at all, and w'hen b^did speak deliberately lied because he “wished to protect Mr. Frank.” “He was my young superintendent —I would have done anything to save him,” said the negro—whether with sinister cunning or genuine sinceri ty, the Jury must say. Showed How Negro Lied. And yet, with Conley’s own lips Rosser showed how. time and again, he deliberately lied about his move ments on the fatal Saturday that was Mary Phagan’s last on earth- after h r had said that he had looked in vain for help from Frank, and was then determined to tell “the whole truth!” After Conley's excuse of protect ing F'rank had been shattered by the negro’s own “confession,” he had to make three subsequent and different “confessions” before he got things shaped to his liking—and every time he readjusted his story it was changed s to meet the ever bobbing up objections to the story of the day or two be fore. Continuously Mr. Rosser referred to the fact, always admitted by the ne gro. that his various affidavits were changed “at police headqTIarters." m the presence of officers, ' after being released from jail and carried to headquarters.” There are dozens of puzzling in consistencies to be bridged over in Conley’s story—scores of things yei to be explained and straightened out. And yet— In the average mind I doubt wheth er Conley's story has been seriously discredited in the main. There are people w'ho admit, read ily enough—hundreds of them—that Conley *s a liar, a thousand times over, a loafer, and an utterly unde sirable citizen. Doubt Slowly Crystallizing. They will say thus and so to his disparagement, but Fateful. suggestive. profoundly melancholy “but” for Leo Frank! It bespeaks a widespread and crys tallizing doubt that is dangerously incompatible with Frank’s hopes for life and liberty and the restoration of his* good name. With all the undermining and in congruities of Conley’s story that the most subtle ingenuity of the defense can conjure to its aid, the Jury has been given a story which, if so much as 5 per cent of it sticks, likely will serve to convict. The primary circumstances—these might be swept aside like chaff be fore the wind, if only Conley’s story might be crushed to earth and made absurd. But there Is the story in all its abundance of sinister detail—th* comings and goings of questionable men and women, the negro, time and again, on watch downstairs, respond ing to signals, the connivance of the negro with the white man in unna tural and perverted practices, the coming of innocent little Mary Pha gan, the pattering of anxious feet above, the suppressed scream, the call to Conley for further assistance in consummating unlawful deeds with women—this time murder—the re moval of the body, and the promise to pay on some subsequent day! Will the story thus given to the jury, unless completely and alto gether broken down, ever be re moved from its mind entirely? And unless it is removed entirely, can Frank hope for acquittal? If it is, in its essentials, the truth, what will the jury care about the exact time at which Conley bought some whisky on Peters street: or whether he went straight from Pe ters street to the laundry; or whether he remembers the mythical “woman in green who went up the factory steps,” no matter how vitally impor tant these things may be to the sus tained truth of Conley's story. Conley may lie in a dozen details of his story, he may have readjusted it continuously under the direction of Tom, Dick, or Harry, he may be everything he ought not to be—and yet, if one BIG detail in his awful story sticks in the minds of that jury, Leo Frank is undone hopelessly. If the story Conley tells IS a lie. then it is the most inhumanly devil ish, t he most cunningly clever, and the most amazingly sustained lie ever told in Georgia! Every little detail, as finally ad justed—and not then until Conley went upon the stand Monday—fits the necessities of those bent upon Frank's conviction. If it is, as the defense contends, a “frame-up,’’ it is a diabolically smart “frame-up”—one can not escape that conclusion! Girl’s Visit Dovetails In. Even the coming an d going of Monteen Stover, the five minutes of time in which the primary circum stances might be made to dovetail into the Conley story, is cited by the witness Conley as the very period of time w'herein Conley, sitting in the dark hall below, heard patterihg foot steps above, the faint scream, and im mediately after Miss Stover went out, the tiptoeing of F'rank to the front, and then the story of the death up stairs. Monteen Stover could not have chosen a more exact and useful mo ment to wander in—and yet, she heard no scream, although she did not see F'rank in his office during the few minutes she remained upstairs. If the Conley story is a lie, if it has been TOO CLFWERLY “framed up” —if and a thousand other “ifs”— w'hat matters that? It matters this: If it be a lie, it MUST break down, somewhere, sometime; if be the truth, it will stand against ALL the assaults made upon it! It has come to the point where one, seeking the truth and justice and the right to all men at all times and in all circumstances, can only say he will leave it to the jury—and that the JURY will speak the TRUTH! incapable of believing anybody is guilty of anything whatever. That is one powerful impression gained at the F'rank trial. It is an impression sticking out pointedly in the wake of the Thaw trial, and the Nan Patterson trial, and the Beatty trial, and the Hyde trial. All three of the Hyde trials, in fact. Never an Opinion Altered. At the risk of being convicted of exaggeration in the first degree, the writer, who was rather intimately associated with the celebrated poison case, would estimate that 18.397 per sons expressed in his hearing what they insisted were unalterable opin ions as to the guilt or innocence of the accused physician before the jury in the first trial had been impaneled. And of the 18,397 (estimated) not one single instance is recalled of on? single opinion being altered. The fact that the physician was convicted on his first trial made not the least difference to those who be lieved him innocent. Court Ruling Mattered Not. The fact that the Supreme Court reversed and remanded the case for further trial made not the least dif ference to those wno voted guilty. The second and third trials, one of which resulted In an escaped juror, fleeing madly by way of a rain spout from the dread lair of the hypothet ical question, and the other in a hung jury, had no perceptible effect on the factions. Except to solidify them In their original beliefs. One side desired to take steps at once. The other aide named men-chil dren for the object of a persecution unparalleled since the days of Nero. Arguments Never Will End. And if Bennett Clark Hyde’s an nual trials proceed as per schedule until the year 1950. there will be hoary-headed wrangling over the same old points, by the same ancient and original wranglers, lined up the same way as when the greatest mys tery of the West came to the fall of 1 the gavel in the opening trial. Take the Beatty Case. There were men and women—you know some of them—who raised frantic hands to heaven, that a poor boy should thus be railroaded to his doom. They were about set to buy mileage and travel to throw themselves and j their petitions at the feet of a cruel ■ and callous Governor. And then Beatty confessed. Did that still the trouble lachrymal waters? Not precisely. They said the poor boy’s mind had been weakened by his persecution. And if you are in a hypercritical mood or are otherwise disposed to stick pins in toy balloons, just ask your memory to inform you how many times you have heard these pronouncements since the trial of Leo M. F'rank began: F'irst: “Well, I’ve been absolutely certain from the very first that F’rank did it.” Second: “Well. I never have be lieved that F'rank was guilty of that crime.” And now do you feel hypercritical? And now do you fancy that 18,397 is an inflated estimate? Of course, there must be a Third F^state—a well-balanced, thoughtful, cautious body. Particularly cautious, and slow of speech—mayhap in some sporadic instances slow of thought. They are the Judicial ones. They hold the balance open at both ends, to receive and weigh the testimony and the facts. At least, they say they do. That would be the jury, perhaps. And some others—perhaps. that life taken from Mary Phagan is before the Jury. # . Most of the remaining evidence of importance which the Solicitor Gen eral may introduce merely will be re buttal to testimony presented by F'rank’s counsel. Whether the evidence presented is strong enough to convict is a question for the Jury to decide. Whether the testimony introduced by the defense will be convincing enough to cause the reasonable doubt which th e law' says shall make F'rank a free man or w'hether the defense’s attack on the State’s case has been of sufficient strength to create a question in the minds of the jurors, time alone will tell. But this fact remains unchallenged: Every single thing that Solicitor Gen eral Hugh Dorsey declared in advance that he would get before the jury is there now. It may not be enough to convict, but the case which Uie State said fastened the crime on Leo F'rank has been put in evidence. Dorsey Had Huge Task. One by one the prosecutor has forged the links in the chain that lie maintains fixes the guilt of the Pha gan murder on Leo F'rank and Leo F'rank alone. It has been long, tedious work. Dorsey has had to fight against con siderable odds, but his work has been well done. When the defense has its innings, the chain may be torn asunder as though struck by lightning, but that will be the work of the skilled attor neys w’ho are fighting to save the life of the pencil factory superintendent. Here was Dorsey’s work: He had to adduce enough circumstantial evi dence to corroborate the testimony of Jim Conley before his case could Funoral Designs and Flowers FOR ALL OCCASIONS. Atlanta Floral Company 455 EAST FAIR STREET.' Weak, Nervous and Diseased Men Permanently Cured DR. J. D. HUGHES is an experienced spe cialist. Dr. Hughes successfully treats and permanently cures Premature Weakness. Blood Poison, Kidney. 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According to the State’s theory the murder was committed about 12:10 on Memorial Day. Frank himself has said and his employees and his as sociates have testified he was there at that time. This point also is prac tically unchallenged. At last came the hardest task. He had to prove that Leo Frank was the only human being in the pencil fac tory at that time who could have taken Mary Phagan’s life. By every witness introduced on this point it was shown that as far as human knowledge goes Leo F'rank and Jim Conley were the only men in that part of the factory at that time. Either could have committed the crime. It was Dorsey’s work to place the blame on F'rank alone. Newt Lee’s testimony was Intro duced to Hiow that F'rank sent him away that afternoon. Dr. Harris* testimony tended to show that the Haying must have been done imme diately after F’rank had given the child her week's wage and had given it to her while they were alone. Mrs. White’s testimony tended to show that Jim Conley was sitting down stairs making no attempt at flight after the time the crime is supposed to have been committed. Then came Conley's direct evidence and the chain was practically com plete As has been said before, this chain may not stand the acid test of the defense’s attack. It may not be strong enough even unattacked to convince the Jury that F'rank is re sponsible for Mary Phagan’s death. But it is what Dorsey went out to get before the Jury. He has done it. And he has done it practically un aided. The valuable assistance he iiad reason to believe he would re ceive from tlie police department has been more or less missing. In fact, the greatest blows to the State’s case have been delivered by detectives, supposdly expert witnesses ivho have been unable to withstand the cross fire of Luther Rosser. 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