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2 VfTTC ATLANTA GEORGIAN AND NEWS. LUTHER ROSSER’S COMPLETE ADDRESS DEFENDING LEO FRANK Dorsey, Detectives and Conley Are Given Terrific Scoring by Attorney Poor Daisy! SJie is not to blam<*. If she has fallen, which I pray to God she has not, let us forgive her, like the Saviour forgave the Magdalene. ’‘Gentlemen of the Jury, I don’t say all of us have been free of passion’s lust, but I do My that most of hu manity guilty of the crime hold It private. A gentleman wants decent surroundings when committing such an act. He wants cleanliness. No decent man ever stood on the stand and bragged about the ‘peach’ that he had. Why, even the beasts of the field hide that. “Burns had it right when he said 'n that poem about ‘be gentle with your brother man, ba gentler with your sin ter woman.’ that ends with the line, '’Tis human to step aside.’ "Dalton went and got that ‘peach* and carried her to his souttlehole lik^ a gopher. Did you ever see a gopher? My friend Hooper used them for chains down in South Georgia all his life. The gopher has a a hole, with usually a rattlesnake for his compan- LEADINGCOUNSELFOR FRANK IN FULL SWING Rosser’s work on the case has taxed even his remarkable physique. He has lost 25 pounds in weight. I busy, I am one of the nicest men you ever met. I eat regularly and get plenty of sleep, and I behave myseif. I mean I am fairly good. But let me stop work ior a couple of days and there is no telling where I will light. It is the man with nothing to do who gets into mischief. Why Frank’s Character Was Put in Evidence. “Who do you catch stealing and doing mischief all around? It is the idle folks. An old banker retired from active business in New York was once given a banquet, and this is what he said when his faithful em ployees gathered around him: ‘In my 40 years in this bank, it has been an unfortunate coincidence that nearly Luther Rosser’s closing argument unquestionably made a deep Impression. He attacked the State’s case at every point and brand ed Conley’s story a tissue of rehearsed lies. He analyzed the case pieoe by piece and against the State s assumptions advanced others to show that what the prosecution had tried to show was sinister facts was but distortion of innocent facts. In a moving description of the death of Mary Phagan and the picture her body made as it lay in the morgue, Mr. Rosser had many in the oourtroom on the verge of tears, but the ‘motif’ of his talk was not pathos but ridicule, denunciation and calm analysis. Rosser’s Speech Remarkably Calm. Rosser’s speech was remarkable for its calmness, but its very quietness added to its impressiveness. For the most part he sought to impress upon the jury that “fair play” must be done, and that they were a sacred body set apart to weigh facts and do justice uninfluenced by outside consideration. However, the speaker was unsparing in discussing Jim Con ley, C. B. Dalton and the methods used by the detectives to get evidence that he held up to ridicule. When he had been talking for two hours he launched into an indirect but bitter arraignment of Solicitor Dorsey, referring particularly to the attempt to make Frank’s hiring of Rosser look like a damning circumstance. Calls Dorsey’s Insinuations Contemptible. “My friend Dorsey,” he said, “made much of the fact that Frank hired the lawyer. The charges and insinuations that he has made are the most contemptible that have ever occurred in a Georgia court. The things he has done in this trial will never be done in Georgia again. I will stake my life on that. “You may question Frank in his judgment; he might have hired a better lawyer than I. He might have hired a more decent lawyer, but he couldn’t have hired a more devoted lawyer. I will say that for myself if I drop dead in my tracks.” “Gentlemen of the jury,” he began in a low voice, as he leaned against the railing of the jury box, “all things come to an end. With the end of this case it was almost the end of the trial. But for that masterly effort of my friend Arnold I almost wish it had ended without any speaking. My physical condition enables me to say but little. My voice is husky and almost useless. But for my intense interest, my pro found conviction of the inno cence of this man, I would say nothing. Public Mind Always Careless. “I want to repeat what my friend Arnold ao aptly said. This Jury is no mob. The attitude of the Jurors’ mind glass and search out the small eddies in his character, but let them take his full character, the broad and ma jestic flow of It. “If we hadn’t said a word about his character, the court would have instructed you to assume a good character. Under the law, we could have remained mute, and his char acter would have been good to you. But we didn’t wish to do that. We wanted you to know what manner of man he was. I say to you with all the sincerity of my soul that no man within the sound of my voice could show as good character as he has, if put to such a test. I am not dealing with the infamous lies of Dalton and Conley. “But you say, ‘Wait a minute. Some people said he had a bad character.’ That’s correct. 1 am not going to try to fool you. I am going to deal with the facts. “I couldn’t fool you if I tried. Let’s see who they are who say he has a bad character. You know you can find some people to swear against anyone. Suppose my friend Arnold had occasion and so far forgot him self as to put my character up. Don’t you suppose you could find a hun dred men In Atlanta to swear that I am vilely vicious? I am not—not ex traordinarily so. but in my long prac tice of law, perhaps I have wronged someone. Perhaps sometimes in my zeal I have been too severe, and some people may think they have a just dressed the detectives grouped around the prosecution's table. “You are an active gang,” he said to them. “Not only that, but how much of the Minola McKnight meth ods you have used nobody knows. How they have wheedled and turned and twisted the minds of these little girls no one but God Almighty knows. Hundreds of men have worked in that factory, and they are the larger vessels, but not one of them appeared here to testify against Frank’s char- acter. “Has no man who ever worked there brains enough to scent the cor ruption and the depravity that ex isted around the factory? Here Is that long-legged fellow Gantt. My friend Hooper here tried to explain why he left, but you know why ho was fired. He was there for three months. Don’t you know that if Frank’s character had been what they said It was, if he had been the las civious fiend, the brute and moral pervert, Gantt would have been th#| first man to testify to It? “I had intended not to go into the detail, but If you will bear with me for a while I will. My friend Hooper said he had fairly presented the State’s case. If he has they haven’t a case and If he has not he has not been fair to you. , “They say Frank had been prepar ing for this for several weeks. That little fellow says he saw Frank talk ing to the little girl and calling her 1 is not the attitude of the man who carelessly walks the streets. My friend Hooper must have brought that doctrine with him when he came to Atlanta. “We walk the streets carelessly, ab sorbed in our own interests. We pass our friends and do not recognize them. The mind wanders in flights of fancy and fits of revelry. We mean no harm to ourselves nor harm to our friends, but we are careless. “Men, you are set aside. You cease to be a part of that revelry of the streets. In old pagan Home women -walked the streets, chatted gayly and carelessly, but a few were set aside— the vestal virgins. They cared not for the gladiatorial combats or the strife. “So It is with you set apart. You care not for the chatter or the laugh ter of the rabble. You are unpreju diced. Yours is the sworn duty to pass on a matter of life and death. You are to decide on the evidence without an echo from any hostile mob With no fear, no favor, no af fection. “Others may take the brave task of standing up for the weak and op pressed, but it is not for you. You are a still, silent, consecrated band. You are to do your duty without one thought of the past or the future. You are here and now consecrated by Justice to do your duty. I do not feel that 1 can add to anything Mr. Ar nold said except to touch the high places and probably wander afield Home places where he did not go. “No crime could be more frightful than this. That little girl in the sweetest period of her life was cut down by some brute and the public was horrified. We all agree that no punishment would be severe enough. It Is nothing but human nature in a crime of this kind that a victim is demanded. “A cry goes up for vengeance. It is the old law of an eye for an eye and a life for a life. It is the primeval man. The early Indian when his companion fell by his side demanded vengeance. He went out for a vic tim regardless of who it was. But. thank God. that age Is past and in this intelligent twentieth century of ^^^ours we no longer sav, 'Give us a vic- a sacrifice.' but, 'Give us the gull man.’ ^WRosser Analyzes Dalton’s Character. “I believe this Jury Is a courageou Jury 1 know they are not like prime val men, who sought to And a victim whether he was guilty or not. I>et us see who Is the man most likely to have committed the crime. You want to ask what surroundings such a crime was likely to have come from, and to look at the man who was most likely to have done it. "My friend Hooper understood that He said that the conditions at the factory were likely to produce such a crime, but as a matter of fact the conditions are no better and no worse than in any other factory. You find good men and bad men. good women and bad women. What man raises one word against the moral atmos phere of that factory? Conley? Yes I’ll come to him later, not now. Dal ton? Yes. I’ll take up his case right now. “God Almighty when He write* upon a human face does not always write a beautiful hand, but He writes a legible one. If you were in the dark with that man Dalton, wouldn’t you put your hand on your pocket- book? If you wouldn’t, you are braver men than I. The word ‘thief is written all over his face My friend Rube Arnold said when Dalton came to the stand, ’That's a thief or 1 don’t know one.’ I smelled the odor of the chaingang upon him; I ‘reach ed’ for him; l ‘felt’ for him; I asked him If lie hnd ever been long away from home. He evaded me When he left the stand. I said, ‘Rube, that man’s been in the chaingnng as sure us there’s a God in heaven.’ And. sure enough, we looked him up. and he had been. Then he came to At lanta, and they said he had reformed. But there are two things in this world I do not believe in. One is a reformed thief and the other is a reformed woman of the streets. "Joining the Church Is Old Trick of Thieves.” “On the cross the thief prayed, and the Master recognized him. He gave him forgiveness. He haw the thief and before the thief spoke He recog nized him as a thief. But the Lord is all-forgiving, and He said to the thief, ‘This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.’ Now. I have rto faith in these reformed thieves. I have no faith in a reformed pros titute. Tell me you can reform a thief? I mean a thief at heart, and the man who has thievery in his heart will carry it there all his life. He may steal with secrecy, and be safe, but the thievery is still within him. You may reform other criminals, but the thief never. “Has Dalton reformed? Oh. he has done the beastly thing. Ho has done the low’, with a sanctimonious ex pression on his face. He slinks down upon a congregation of godly people and deceives them. H© joins them in hypocritical carrying on of their work. He deceives them. Why, gen tlemen of the jury, joining the church is an old trick of thieves, and here before us we have had the real il lustration. that of a thief who stinks in two counties and goes into an other to get away from the odor of his past existence. Here is this man Dalton, of the Anglo-Saxon race. Yes. gentlemen of the Jury, he had a white face, but that was all. He was black within. What did he do, this thief who Joined the church? Look how brazenly he ad vertised his immorality. When he was placed upon the stand and questioned as to his acts, he could have declined to answer; he could at least have hung his head In shame. But was he ashamed? No; he was as proud of his dirty immorality as a young bov with a new red top. He smiled over it. He gloated over It. It was the first time in his existence that a group of respectable men and women hRd listened to him. and he fairly gloated. “Did you hear what he said when asked as to what Frank was doing in his office? He said: ‘I had such a peach myself that I had no time to give attention to anyone else.’ Gen tlemen. he said he had Daisy, and you saw She was the ‘peach!’ grievance against me. “Now, what did this young man do? Here are the young ladies, and I haven’t a word to say against them. The older I get the gentler I become, if anything. Oh. why sthould I abuse and vilify anyone? With our lives a moment bright, then dark forever, why should I? “Here is Miss Myrtice Cato. She worked there three and a half years. If she was a sweet, pure girl, and I take it for granted she was, would she have stayed there that long, con stantly associated w r ith Frank, if he was a vile man? She would have fled from him long ago. Oh, she has felt the bitterness of the rabble since this crime occurred. She was under the tense heated atmosphere of this trial. “Then Miss Maggie Griffin. She worked there two months two years ago. What does she know about Frank compared with these women who have been there for years? “Miss Estelle Winkle had an exten sive acquaintance with Frank. She worked there one week in 1910. Miss Carrie Smith, like Miss Cato, worked there three and a half years, and the other few worked there very brief periods. “That’s all. gentlemen, of the hun dreds of women who worked there during the last five years. Scores Detectives as “Active Gang;.” "Why, I could find more people to swear against the Bishop of Atlanta. They have searched every corner. They have spyglassed every nook. Starnes and Black and Campbell and Rosser, generaled by that mighty de tective. Chief Lanford.” Attorney Rosser turned and ad- Mary, and this Gantt said Frank told him he seemed tq know Mary Phagan very well. Gantt’did not tell that be fore the coroner’s inquest and that other young fellow had to be wheedled and led by my friend Dor sey, only to get tangled up and prove that he knew nothing. “Then what was next? The next Continued on Page 3. Column 1. WOLFSHEIMER 114-116 Whitehall Street Specials ior Cash Only ...8c . ,10c . ,15c 17y 2 c . ,15c 17y 2 c . ,20c ion. Ain’t that a fine combination? In that dirty, fllthy old hole of the pencil factory, on old goods boxes, with an odor which If put to the nose of a skunk would be offensive, where a dog would not step aside, where an old lascivious cat would not crouch— that’s Dalton Yet only he and Jim Conley have brought charges of Im morality against this factory. “I am going to be fair with you, gentlemen, if I can. 1 am going to tell you the truth. I thought this case was to be tried by a Solicitor Gen eral. God save the mark! I’ve never seen such partisan feelings before. Says State Witness Left Serpent’s Trail. “This arm of the State is to protect the weak, yet I’ve heard something I’ve never heard before, and I never expect to hear as long as God lets nae live. The Solicitor said, ‘I’ll go as far as the court will allow me. That * the crux of this whole case. When the Solicitor General said that. God only knows how far the detectives went. Dalton said he went to the factory some time last year, between the hours of 1 and 2 o’clock. Did he go Into the Woodenware Company's part of the building or into the pencil factory? There’s nothing to show, except that wherever he went he left the trail of a serpent behind him. Frank didn’t know he was there. It was Frank's lunch hour. If Dalton went, he was taking advantage of the factory authorities. “When we come to consider it, what is there about this factory to make It so bed as the State has tried to paint it? It was searched by my friend Starnes, who wouldn’t stop at anything to get evidence. It was searched by that delightful ma n John Black. Do you know when I think of him I Just want to take him in mv arms and caress him. And it was searched by PatricK Campbell, that noble detective who wouldn’t go on the stand for fear I might ask him about his tutorage of Jim Conley. “The entire police department, in all its pride, went over the record of that factory with a flne-toothed comb. What have they found? “Let s see. In the first place we havs had a mighty upheaval in the last two years. It is wrong to com mit adultery, but with segregation, the proper surroundings, and a de cent amount of secrecy, the world tol erates it. But Chief Beavers doesn’t. He has combed the town with a flne- toothed comb. Young women have had to fly to cover, and young men go down the middle of the road. That Immoral squad; what do they call it, Brother Arnold? Oh. yes; the vice squad.* ha* swept the town with a broom until there is not one lasciv ious louse left in the head of the body politic. And now’ they try to tell us this pencil factory was an im moral resort. "Who has one w’ord to say against that boy Schiff? Who has a word to say against young Wade Campbell?” Rosser turned toward Attorney Hooper at this point, and continued: "You were willing, without one line of testimony, to attack the charac ters of these young men, so that you may carry your case. You are willing to clasp this Bertus Dalton to your breast as though he were a 16-year- old. If I know a single thing on this earth I know the ordinary working man and working woman of Georgia. I have an ancestry of working people behind me. My parents were work ing people. With 100 of Atlanta’s working girls, w’ith about the same number of Atlanta’s hardy ^working men. in that factory on Forsyth street. I assert they could not have been there eight long years if the factory had been an immoral house. Those girls would have fled. The outraged citizens would have torn down that old building, stone by Htone. You may assert that those girls wouldn’t have fled, but I tell you I have a higher conception of the Georgia working girl man to believe for one minute that she would have remained. “If I am mistaken, and 100 willing females stayed there, and 100 thin- blooded males stood by and let con ditions continue, I assert the factory could not have lasted 4 8 hours. No man in charge of a business of that magnitude ever yet attempted to be on terms of criminal intimacy wdth the scores of women In his employ but that they didn’t rule him with of stronger reins than the Queen Sheba. “Frank’s Statement Had Ring of Truth.’’ “What do you think would become of a factory superintendent w’ho got on Intimate terms with his women employees? This would be bad enough for a native born American, but what would you think full-blood ed Americans would do or say about a foreigner w r ho came here and at tempted such a thing, and especially considering the antipathy which has always been borne to the Jewish r^ce? “Now, I have shown you that the factory has been prosperous, and we know well enough that it could not have been prosperous If immorality had been allowed to exist there. “Now, let's take up the man. I don’t have to tell you that he is smart. Every one of us knows that. When ne got upon the stand and talked to you, he gave Illustration of being one of the most remarkable men I have ever met. His talk to you was, indeed, remarkable, and as I sat and listened to it for the first time, 1 wondered and marveled at the brain of the man. I could never have made up a speecn like that, even if I had had the brains. And it wasn’t a written speech, either. It was the truth, gushing out natural ly as does the water from the flowing spring. There was no force behind it. There was no electricity there. It was the plain, simple flowing truth as mother Nature furnished it. Gentlemen of the jury, If Frank’s talk to you had been forced, it would not have had that ring of truth to it. You may make a silver dollar that in appearance would fool the Secretary of the Treasury*. But drop that dollar and the ring will tell. The real dollar has the real ring, the silver tinkle that can not be mistaken. And tht* real truth, like the real ring, has the ring that shows that it is nothing but the truth. "Frank's words had the ring that comes from old Mother Natures breast when telling the truth. The old saying is that the idle brain is the devil’s workshop. No one knows this better than I do. When I am every man connected with the bank has been under suspicion at one time j or the other. But there is one thing I wish to say. There was never a hard-working, thrifty man among you who was ever found guilty in the slightest w’ay.’ “Now, gentlemen of the Jury, that is the way it is in every walk of life. When you watch a great river flowing on to the sea, you don’t take a spy glass and pick out the little eddies. No. You look at the heavy flow of the waters as they move majestically along. “So It is with human life. It is this way with the hard-working man who follows the straight course and goes on in a majestic flow on the even tenor of his way. It is not for the jury, trying him, to take the spy- 1 Cash Grocery Co. 118 WHITEHALL |25lbs,Sugar s 1- No. 10 Lea”' LARD S125 Winner Milk - - 10c 40c Coffee, lb - - 28c 35c Wesson Oil - - 24c Stew Meat . Brisket .... Pot Roast .. Rib Roast .. Chuck Steak Round Steak Loin Steak . Porterhouse Steak .20c LAMB Lamb Stew ... Lamb Shoulder Lamb Hindquarter . 15c Lamb Chops 20c Hams, Sugar-cured Picnic 14i/ 2 c Hams 19c to 21c Breakfast Bacon . . 21c WOLFSHEIMER 114-116 Whitehall Street ...9c i2y 2 c BANKRUPT SALE? Millinery Supplies for Retail Merchants and Milliners < $26,000.00 STOCK OF MYERS MILLINERY CO. NOW ON SALT V f Purchasers Can Select Just What They Can Use in Their Own Busi ness at Less Than Cost to Myers Millinery Co. Stock Consists of Following Items, To-wit: “Ribbons, $5,600; wire, $194; hat pins, $65; thread, etc., $288; mourning veils, $100 hat bands, etc., $378; braid, $950; velveteen, $98; velvet, $1,285; English crepe, $155 felt, $65; furs, $47; maline, $367; chiffon, $998; scarfs, $188; veiling, $706; lace, $812 mull, $124; silk, $1,000; plumes, $3,839; aigrettes and fancy feathers, $2,800; flowers, $3,282; children’s headwear, $845; ladies’ hats and frames, $1,750.” This sale is being conducted under order of the Referee in Bankruptcy, at the old store of Myers Millinery Co., 39 East Alabama street, Atlanta, Ga. Terms cash. H. A. FERRIS, Trustee