Newspaper Page Text
He apparently welcomed the
opportunity to tell of the
famous crime from his view
point.
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ft’ V* -V
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TTTF ATLANTA GEORG-TAN ANT) NEWS.
LEO
FRANK AS HE TOLD HIS STORY ON WITNESS STAND
Frank appeared
perfectly calm
and collected
as he went to
the witness
chair in his own
behalf.
Continued From Page 1.
breakfast, and caught a Wash
ington Street or Georgia Avenue
car I don’t really remember
which, at the corner of Washing
ton and Georgia avenue, and ar
rived at the factory, Forsyth
street plant, at about 8:20.
‘‘Upon my arrival at the fac
tory I found Mr. Holloway, the
day watchman, at nis usual place,
and I greeted him in my usual
way, and found Alonzo Mann, the
office boy, in the office.
Opened Desk and Went
Went to Work.
“I took off my coot and hat
and opened my desk and opened
the safe, and removed the various
books and files and wire trays
containing the v -ious imporant
papers which were placed there
the evening before and distribut
ing them in their proper places
about the office. I then went out
to the shipping room and con
versed a few minutes with Mr.
Irby, who was at that time ship
ping clerk, about the work he was
going to do that morning.
“According to my recollection,
we did no shipping that day, ow
ing to the fact that the freight
offices were not receiving any
shipments, due to the fact that it
was a holiday.
“I returned to my office and
looked through the papers and
sorted out those which I was go
ing to take over on my usual trip
to the general manager’s office
that morning.
“I then turned to the invoice
covering shipments which w«r®
made by the pencil factory on
Thursday, April 24. and which
were typewritten on Friday, April
25, by Miss Eubanks, who was
the stenographer who staved at
my office. She had hurried
through with the offioe work on
the day previous, so that she
could go home and spend the hol
iday in the oountry where she
lived. But I didn’t get to check
over the invoices on the shipments
on Friday, due to the fact that
Mr. 8chiff and myself were com
pletely occupied the entire day.
So we left the factory with the
payroll. So that naturally, these
invoices covering shipments which
were made on April 24, ought to
been sent to the customers,
got right to work checking
1 have these invoices here
The accused man urged his
lawyers to let the Solicitor and
his aides cross-question him
freely.
BEST WITNESS TELLING
DIRECT DETAILED STORY
(taking up the papers and ex
hibiting them to the jury). These
papers have not been exhibited to
you before, but I will explain
them. You have seen some simi
lar to these.
“Of all the mathematical work
in the office of a pencil factory,
this very operation, this very
piece of work that I have now be
fore me is the most important. It
is the invoices covering shipments
and i« sent to the customer, and
it is very important that the
prices are correct, that the
amount of goods shipped agrees
with the amount which is on the
invoices, that the terms are cor
rect. and that the price is correct.
Also, in some cases, ther were
freight deductions, all of which
has to be very carefully checked
over and looked into, because I
know of nothing else that exas
perates a customer more than to
receive invoices which are in
correct.
“Now, with reference to the
work I did on these orders—that
is not such an easy job as you
might be led to believe. Here are
initials. They represent the sales
man who took the qrder. Some
times I have to go through a
world of papers to find out to
whom to credit these orders.
“I notice that one of the or
ders to R. B. Kindele calls for a
specialty. That has to be care
fully noted and recorded. One
column represents the shipping
point, another the date. etc.
“The next step is to fill in the
orders on this sheet. Op this
sheet I must separate the orders
into price groups. Evidently no
work has been done on this sheet
since he went away. The reason
this is done —in the pencil busi
ness as in all manufacturing
businesses—it is advantageous to
sell as much of ths high-proiced
goods as possible.
“This sheet is the only means
of telling how much of the va
rious goods we are retiing. It is
ths barometer of our business and
i
requires most careful work.
Declares He Wrote
Financial Sheet.
“After I have finished that work
I have had to do this, and not
withstanding any insinuations
that have been made, I wrote
these requisitions.”
Frank read the name on each
requisition, which were the same
as the names on the orders.
“Now that is all my handwrit
ing, except what as written at
a subsequent date to April 26.”
“Well, moreover, this operation
this morning took me longer than
it usually takes the ordinary per
son to check invoices beoause
usually one calls out and the
other checks, but I had this work
all myself that morning. As I
did this work this morn.ng I saw
that Miss Eubanks had evidently
sacrificed accuracy to speed, and
everyone of them was wrong. I
went over the invoices to make
the corrections, figure them out,
correct them, and make deduc
tions, if any were to be made, and
then get the total shipments, be
cause since these shipments were
made on April 24, which was
Thursday and the last day of our
fiscal week, and it was on this
week which the financial report
which I make out every Saturday
afternoon, which has been my
custom, so that the total ship
ments could be figured out, and
therefore I could not let it go out
at that, so I had to figure every
invoice in its entirety, so I could
get a figure I would be abl
to
“The first order here is to Hil
ton. Hart & Kern Co., Detroit,
Mich. Here is the original or
der, which exists in our files in
our’ office. Here is the original
transaction which was made
March 18, but it was not to b«
shipped until April 24. This is a
small order, 100 gross of Number
2; and here is an order of th#
Packard Motor Car Company for
125 gross of No. 3, and 150 gross
of No. 4. Those figures repre
sent the grade of hardness of the
lead in the pencil.”
Explains How
Orders are Filled.
Frank thereupon explained how
such orders were usually filled,
whether in part or In whole, and
how the shipments were made,
and continuing, said:
“In investigating shipments
made by the pencil company our
method is as follows: We make
them in triplicate. Our first
original is a white sheet that goes
to the customer; the second is a
pink sheet that goes over to the
general mapager’s office and is
filed sefially, that is chronologic-
allv, that is. one date after the
other, nad from that the charges
are made on the ledger, and the
last sheet, the third sheet, or vel-
low sheet, which is here (exhibit
ing it) and those are placed in
the files in my office, and are filed
alphabetically. These yellow
sheets that I have here are not
the yellow sheets I had that day,
because they have sinoe been cor
rected. and I am just taking the
corrected sheets I made the cor
rections and Miss Eubanks cor
rected them on Mondav by the
corrections I had on the white
sheet from the corrections I made
and I presume at that time made
that correct.’’
Mr. F ran k exhibited to the
jury various orders similarly
written, to H. W. Williams and
Company, of Fort Worth, Tex.;
The Fort Smith Paper Comoany,
of Fort Smith, Ark.; S. O. Bar-
num &. Sons, of Buffalo, N. Y.;
F. L. Schmidt and Company, of
Chicago, and H. S. Kress and
Company, of New York.
“Now, there is an order that
takes a great deal of study (re
ferring t othe Kress order) be
cause in common with these five
and ten cent syndicates, there is
a great deal of red tape. These
are invoices that were typed on
April 25. Friday, and were shipped
on April 24. It was the date on
which the shipment was made
irrespective of the date there,
(referring to the date on the
letter) and these were typewrit
ten. In other words, shipments
took place April 24, and that date
was at the top, typewritten and
•tamped bv the office at the bot
tom, April 24. Among other
things that the S. H. Kress Com
pany demand on their orders, we
must state whether or not it is
complete, must give the case
number, and must tell by which
raiiroad the shipment goes.
Checking W'ade Hard
By Much Red Tape.
“Here is one for F. W. Wool-
worth and Company, Fort Wayne,
Ind., which shows 35 pounds, less
86 certs’per 100 pounds credit. In
other words, we had to find out
what was the weight of that was
on a basis of 86 cents for every
The eyes of L,eo M. Frank's wife
and his mother-in-law, Mrs. Emil
Selig. were constantly upon Mm as
he sat in the witness chair talking
conversationally with the jurors. His
mother seldom looked at him, main
taining her usual attitude, looking
slightly downward and tow'ard the
judge’s bench.
Frank had been talking only 10
minutes when he unexpectedly was
interrupted by a heated argument be
tween the opposing attorneys over
Frank's explaining the time slips,
including the one which the defense
claims was taken from the time clock
Sunday morning following the finding
of Mary Phagan’s body.
Frank had mentioned the time
slips and was undertaking to make an
explanation of the manner they are
100 pounds shipped. Then here
is another one of our large dis
tributors in New York. They
have a freight allowance of 86
cents a 100 pounds also, and their
shipments amounted to 618
pounds on Thursday, April 24.
“I started on this work. As I
said, I have gone into it in some
detail, to show you the careful
ness with which the work must
be carried out, and I was at work
on this until about 9 o’clock, as
near as I remember.
“Mr. Darley and Wade Camp
bell, the inspector of the factory,
came into the outer office and I
stopped what work I was doing,
which was this work, and went to
the outer office and chatted with
Mr. Campbell for ten or fifteen
minutes, conversed with them,
joked with them and while I was
talking with them, I think about
9:15, or a auarter after 9, Miss
Mattie Smith came in and asked
me for her pay envelope, and the
envelope of her sister-in-law. I
went to the safe and got out
the package of envelopes that
Mr. Schiff had given me the eve
ning before, and placed the two
remaining envelopes in my cash
bax, as I considered they might
come in and I wanted to have
them near at hand so that I could
r ay them off when they came in.
keep my cash box on the lower
side of my desk. After Miss Smith
had gone away with the enve
lopes, in a few minutes Mr. Darley
came back with one of the enve
lopes, and pointed out an error in
one of them, the one of the aister-
• in-law of Mias Mattie Smith,
who had gotten too much money.
“When 1 took the amount which
was too much, that amount bal
anced the error in the payroll
that I had noticed the night bo-
| used when Attorney Rosser called
i the slips for Frank to explain
i before the Jury.
Solicitor Dorsey made an instant
objection, arguing that the slips had
| not yet been placed in evidence. All
four of the principal attorneys inter-
j ested in the case were on their feet
| at once, two and sometimes three
I of them, were talking at the same
I time.
Papers Withheld.
I Judge Roan was compelled to cau
tion them to proceed parliamentarily.
His ruling was that Frank might
refer to them as much as he pleased,
but that he must not go before the
jury with them until they had been
properly identified and offered for
evidence. The same situation de
veloped when Frank sought to ex
plain the details of his work by means
fore, and left about five or ten
cents. Those things generally
right themselves, anyhow. I con
tinued to work on these invoices
when I was interrupted by Mr.
Lyon, the superintendent of
Montag Brothers, and he brought
me a pencil display box. He
seemed to be in a hurry, and I
told him if he would wait a min
ute I would go over with him, but
he passed out of the office, and
then I found a stopping place in
the work I was working on, and
I put on my coat and when I
got to the outer office I found
that Mr. Lyon had already left.
“Mr. Darley and I left about
9:35 or 9:40, and we got out of
the factory and stopped at the
corner of Hunter and Forsyth
streets, where we each had a
drink at Cruickshank’s soda foun
tain, and I bought a package of
my favorite cigarettes.
“After that conversation there
I left him and went alone to
Montag Brothers, where I ar
rived about 10 o’clock or maybe a
little* after. I entered Montag
Brothers and spoke to Mr. Sig
Montag, general manager, on bus
iness, and he brought the pa
pers which I collect and laid them
on his desk, and I then took the
papers out, thrust them in the
folder and took the other papers
which I had in my folder, and
Continued on Page 3, Column 1.
BALTIMORE AND RE-
TURN—$20.95.
On sale August 22. 23, 24.
Through steel trains. Seaboard.
of papers and records of his office.
He was allowed to sit in his chair
and refer to them but not to ex
hibit them to the jurors.
Fearless and Direct.
Frank taked to the Jurors directly
and fearlessly. There was no trace
of uncertainty In his voice or in his
manner. He appeared exactly as
though he were in an informal con
ference with some persons interested
in the factory and was outlining his
duties ^and leading up to some par
ticular Incident that had engaged
their attention and interest.
He was entirely at ease. He as
sumed an easy pose in his chair,
gestured frequently as he proceeded
with his narrative, and occasionally
changed his position. His hands
most of the time were clasped in
front of him, except when he illus
trated a point with an unconscious
gesture. He found it necessary often
to adjust his glasses which seemed
not to fit him perfectly.
Tells Complete Story.
He touched only brifly on his
early history, telling merely of his
place of birth, his career in school
and college, his short business exper
ience after his graduation and finally
his coming to Atlanta in 1908 to take
charge of the National Pencil Factory.
He began with Friday, August 25,
the day before the crime and re
counted his movements almost min
ute by minute. Coming to the fatal
Saturday, he told of leaving his home,
reaching his office, talking with his
employees and taking up the work of
the day.
He was given orders, records, ac-
Funeral Designs and Flowers
FOR ALL OCCASIONS.
Atlanta Floral Company
455 EAST FAIR STREET.
j$20.95 BALTIMORE
AND RETURN VIA
SEABOARD.
On sale August 22, 23 and 24.
Correspondingly low rates from
other points. Through steel
trains.
a P-R-I-N-T-O-R-I-A-L-S w
No. 220
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BYRD
m
Phones M. 1560-2608-2614.
Printing Co.
46-48-50 W. Alabama,
Atlanta.
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GOLD CROWNS
WHITE CROWNS
BRIDGE WORK
20-YEAR GUARANTR
W» wttl oeettnue to make our Whalebon. ever,
rtlok Suction Plat, for »3.0O. Tha llght«.t and
strong..; plate known.
EASTERN PAINLESS DENTISTS 3»* ar 1 ■ — cl
UNTIL AUGUST 15th
knowledgment of orders, record
sheets, financial sheet* and all the
other minute details that are Involved
In the work of the office. Those that
had been submitted In evidence he
took before the jury and explained at
length and in detail the amount of
work required in getting these out.
His Own Best Witness.
Notebook in hand, Solicitor Dorsey
took a seat almost directly in front
of Frank, but this appeared to dis
turb the prisoner not in the least.
Through the major share of the
remarkable address, with its clear-cut
statements and explanations, there
was little or no attempt at oratory,
but the speech was unquestionably
a most eloquent argument. As had
been prophesied, Frank war- his own
best witness.
I PEACHTREE ST.. Near Wallos
> R. R. FARE ALLOWED U MILES ■