begin part 2
The fancy picture of a Georgia mob, putting Rube Arnold, Luther Rosser, the Haas brothers, and the governor’s own law firm to ignominious flight, and of the sheriff ruthlessly locking Frank away from the jury—and all this being done with the hearty approval of Judges Roan and Hill, the State Supreme Court, and Federal-judge William Newman—is certainly a novel picture to adorn the classic walls of the American Academy of Jurisprudence.
Councillor Morse proceeds as follows—
This is no mere question of a single life, but one for every man. Shall you be put on trial for your life or your liberty and shall timid or careless lawyers lose or dishonest lawyers barter away your rights?
We wish for the honor of the bar and the dignity of the Court that the lawyers had stood their ground and had braved the mob and that their client had joined in the defiance, inquiring from every juror, face to face, whether the verdict of guilty was the verdict of that individual juror. Such is due process of law.
Was Rosser “timid,” in Frank’s case? I would like to see Rosser, when one of his timid spells gets hold of him.
Were Rosser and Arnold and the Haas brothers not only timid, but “careless?” Councillor Morse, spokesman for the American Academy of Jurisprudence (whatever that is) accuses these Georgia lawyers of cowardice, or culpable negligence, in their defense of Leo Frank!
What? Is nobody to be spared? Shall no guilty Georgian escape? Must the propagandists of this Frank literature slaughter his own lawyers? Is it a misdemeanor, per se, to be Georgian?
“For the honor of the bar.” Waldo Morse wishes that Rosser and Arnold, and Haas, and the governor’s law firm, “had stood their ground.” Then, they did not stand their ground, and they dishonored the bar.
That’s terrible. Surely it is a cruel thing to stand Luther Rosser up before the universe, in this tremendous manner, and arraign him for professional cowardice. What say you, Luther? Are you guilty, or not guilty?
But Waldo Morse relentlessly continues—
Might not the result have been different? Jurors have been known to change their verdict when facing the accused. We hope that the Court may declare that no man and no State can leave the issue of life as a bagatelle to be played for, arranged about and jeopardized by Court and counsel in the absence of the man who may suffer.
So, you see, Frank’s lawyers are accused, in a copyrighted indictment, of playing with their client’s life, “as a bagatelle;” and of jeopardizing that life, with a levity which showed an utter lack of a due sense of professional responsibility.
That’s mighty rough on Rosser, and Arnold, and Haas, and Governor Slaton’s law firm.
What will be your opinion of Councillor Morse, when I tell you that Frank’s lawyers did demand a poll of the jury, and each member was asked whether the verdict was his verdict, and each juror answered that it was.
And each juror, months afterwards, made written affidavit to the same effect, utterly repudiating the charges of mob intimidation.
Councillor Morse proceeds—
Shall a man charged with an infamous crime be faced by a jury of 12 men, each one ready to announce their verdict of his guilt? May he ask each man of the 12 whether the verdict be his? Yes, has answered the common law for centuries. The accused may not even waive or abandon this right.
That’s absurd. The accused may waive or abandon “this right,” and nearly every other. There are Courts in which the accused is constantly waiving and abandoning his Constitutional right to be indicted by a grand jury, and tried by a petit jury. In almost every case, the accused waives his legal right to actual arraignment, oral pleading, and a copy of the indictment. Almost invariably, he waives the useless and perfunctory right of polling the jury. If he likes, he can go to trial with eleven jurors, or less, and he may waive a legal disqualification of a juror. In fact, the accused, who can waive and abandon his right to the jury itself, can of course, waive any lesser right. This may not be good law in the American Academy of Jurisprudence, but it is good law among good lawyers.
Councillor Morse says that “for centuries” it has been the common-law right of the accused to ask each juror “whether the verdict be his.” This cock-sure statement of what the English common-law has been “for centuries,” would have had considerable weight, had the Councillor cited some authorities.
It was in 1765, that Sir William Blackstone published the first volume of his Commentaries; and at that time, the accused, in a capital case, did not even have the right to be defended by a lawyer. At that time, there were upwards of 116 violations of law, punishable by death, some of these capital offenses being petty larcenies, and others, trivial trespasses. In all those terrible cases, the accused was denied a lawyer, at common law; and these fearful conditions were not materially changed, until Sir Samuel Romilly began, his noble work of law reform, in 1808. At that time, it was death to pick a pocket, death to cut a tree in a park, death to filch from a bleachfield, death to steal a letter, death to kill a rabbit, death to pilfer five shilling’s worth of stuff out of a store, death to forge a writing, death to steal a pig or a lamb, death to return home from transportation, death to write one’s name on London bridge. Sir Samuel was not able to accomplish a great deal, before his suicide in 1818; but another great lawyer, Sir James Mackintosh, took up the work, Lord Brougham assisting. It was not until near the middle of the last century, that the Draconian code was stripped of most of its horrors, and the prisoner’s counsel was allowed to address the jury. (See McCarthy’s Epochs of Reform, pages 144 and 145. Mackenzie’s The 19th Century, pages 124 and 125.) Therefore, when any Councillor for an American Academy of Jurisprudence glibly writes about what have been the common-law rights of the accused “for centuries,” he makes himself ridiculous.
As a general rule, a prisoner may waive any legal privilege; and whatever he may waive, his attorney may waive; and this waiver can be made after the trial and will relate back to the time when he was entitled to the privilege. This waiver may be expressed, or it may be implied; it may be in words, and it may be in conduct.
In Blackstone’s Commentaries, nothing is said on the point of the prisoner’s presence, when the verdict comes in. Unquestionably, it is the better practice for him to be in court. But if his attorneys are present, and they demand a poll of the jury, expressly waiving the presence of their client, they have done for the accused all that he could do for himself, were he in court—for the prisoner is not allowed to ask the jurors any questions. The judge does that. Hence, Frank lost nothing whatever by his absence; and when he failed to make that point, as he stood in court to be sentenced and was asked by the judge, “What have you to say why sentence should not be pronounced on you?” he ratified the waiver his lawyers had made. He continued that ratification, for a whole year.
Not until after two motions for new trial had been filed, did Frank raise the point about his absence at the time the verdict came in; and, if he is set free on that point, the world will suspect that Rosser and Arnold, laid a trap for the judge.
Does it seem good law to Councillor Morse, that a man whose guilt is made manifest by the official record, should be turned loose, to go scot free, on a technical point, which involves the repudiation of his own lawyers, and the retraction of his own ratification which had lasted a year? Is there no such thing as a waiver by one’s attorneys and a ratification by one’s prolonged acquiescence?
Now before going into close reasoning on the established facts in the case, allow me to call your attention to this point:
Whoever wrote those notes that were found beside the body seems to say that she had been sexually used. “Play with me.” “Said he would love me.” “Laid down.” “Play like night witch did it,” but that long tall black negro “did (it) by hisself.”
Those words are inconsistent with a crime whose main purpose was murder. Uppermost in the mind of the man who dictated those notes, was quite another idea. Consistent with that idea, and not with murder alone, are the words “Play with me, said he would love me, laid down,” (with me) “and play like the night witch did it.”
All have claimed that the words “night witch” meant “night watch.” It may not be so. For the present, I only ask you to consider that the State’s theory all along, has been that Leo Frank was after this girl, to enjoy her sexually, and that the murder was a crime incident to her resistance.
The girl worked for Frank, and he knew her well. He had sought to push his attentions on her. She had repulsed him. She had told her friend George Epps that she was afraid of him, on account of the way he had acted toward her.
He had refused, on Friday afternoon, to let Helen Ferguson have Mary’s pay-envelope, containing the pitiful sum of one dollar and twenty cents. He thus made it necessary for Mary to come in person for it, which she was sure to do, next day, since the universal Saturday custom is, to pay for things bought during the preceding week and buy things, for the next.
Why did not Frank give Mary’s pay envelope to Helen, when Helen asked for it, on Friday? It had been the habit of Helen to get Mary’s envelope, and Frank could hardly have been ignorant of the fact.
Did he refuse to let Helen have Mary’s pay, because it was not good business?
That hypothesis falls, when we examine Frank’s own statement to the jury. On page 179 of the record, he tells the jury that Mattie Smith came for her pay-envelope on Saturday morning, the 26th of April, and she asked for that of her sister-in-law, also, “and I went to the safe….and got out the package…and gave her the required two envelopes.”
Therefore, Frank himself was in the habit of letting one employee have another’s pay envelope. On that same morning, he gave the pay-envelopes of two of the boys to their fathers, Graham and Burdette. (Page 181.)
Why did Frank make an exception of Mary Phagan, this one time? Why did he discriminate against her, and only her, that week-end?
Be the answer what it may, the girl, all diked out in her cheap little finery for Memorial Day, comes with her smart fresh lavender dress, the flowers on her hat, the ribbons on her dress, her gay parasol, and her best stockings and silk garters—comes into the heart of the great city, about noon, goes immediately to Frank’s office for her one dollar and twenty cents, is traced by evidence, which Frank dared not deny, into his office—and, is never more seen alive.
Is there any reasonable person, on the face of God’s earth, who wouldn’t say Frank must account for that girl?
When a mountain of evidence piled up, on the fact of the girl’s going to him, he then admitted that she did go to him, somewhere around 12 o’clock that day.
He says that a little girl whom he afterwards learned to be Mary Phagan, came to him for her pay-envelope.
He pretended not to know that a girl of her name worked for him, until he consulted the pay-roll! He went through the motion of looking at the pay-roll for the purpose of ascertaining whether such a human being worked in his place! After having found her name on the list, he then admitted that a girl named Mary Phagan had been working there.
What sort of impression does this make on you, in view of the fact that four white witnesses swore they had seen Frank talk to her, and that, in doing so, he called her “Mary?”
Why did Frank, when her dead body was found in the basement, feign not to know her, and say that he would have to consult the pay-roll?
The girl, dressed up for a Holiday, was in Frank’s office, at about the noon hour of that fatal day—and those two were alone!
Frank is driven to that dreadful admission. Inexorable proofs left him no option.
By his own confession, he is alone with the girl, the last time any mortal eye sees her alive!
She is in the flush of youthful bloom. She is nearly fourteen years old, buxom, and rather large for her age. She has rosy cheeks, bright blue eyes, and golden hair. She is well-made, in perfect health, as tempting a morsel as ever heated depraved appetite. Did Leo Frank desire to possess the girl? Was he the kind of married man who runs after fresh little girls? Had he given evidence, in that very factory, of his lascivious character?
The white ladies and girls whose names have already been given, swore that Frank was just that kind of a man; and neither Frank nor his battalion of lawyers have ever dared to ask those white women to go into details, and tell why they swore he was depraved!
Does it make no impression on your mind, when you consider that tremendous fact?
We start out, then, with a depraved young married man whose conduct, in that very place, is proved to have been lascivious. Did he desire Mary Phagan? Had he “tried” her? Did he want to “try” her, again?
One white girl swore that she had seen Frank with this hand on Mary’s shoulder and his face almost in hers, talking to her. One white boy swore that he had seen Mary shrinking away from Frank’s suspicious advances. Another white boy swore that Mary said she was suspicious and afraid of Frank. Another white girl swore she heard him calling her “Mary,” in close conversation.
How many witnesses are necessary to prove that the licentious young Jew lusted after this Gentile girl?
The record gives you four.
(See the evidence of Ruth Robinson, J.M. Gantt, Dewey Howell and W.E. Turner.)
Why, then, did she continue to work there?
She needed the money, and felt strong in her virtue: she never dreamed of violence.
She kept on working, as many poor girls do, who cannot help themselves. Freedom to choose, is not the luxury of the poor.
But let us pass on. The fatal day comes, and Mary comes, and then her light goes out—the pretty little girl who had dressed up for the Holiday and gone out, radiant with youth and health and beauty, to enjoy it, as other young girls all over the South were doing. She goes into Frank’s own private office, and that’s the last of her.
What became of her? Tell us, Luther Rosser! Tell us, Herbert Haas! Tell us, Nathan Strauss! Tell us, Adolph Ochs! Tell us, Rabbi Marx! Tell us, William Randolph Hearst!
What became of our girl?
YOUR MAN, FRANK, HAD HER LAST: WHAT DID HE DO WITH HER?
So far as I can discover, the only theory advanced by the defenders of Leo Frank, is hung upon Jim Conley. They claim that Jim darted out upon Mary as she stepped aside on the first floor, cut her scalp with a blow, rendered her unconscious, pushed her through the scuttle-hole, and then went down after her, tied the cord around her neck, choked her to death, hid the body, wrote the notes, and broke out by the basement door.
If the defense has any other theory than this, I have been unable to find it. And they must have a theory, for the girl was killed, in the factory, immediately after she left Frank’s private office. There is the undeniable fact of the murdered girl, and no matter what may be the “jungle fury” of the Atlanta “mob,” and of the “semi-barbarians” of Georgia, these mobs and barbarians did not kill the girl.
Either the Cornell graduate did it, or Jim Conley did it.
Did Jim Conley do it? If so, how, and why? What was his motive, and what was his method?
The defense claims that he struck her the blow, splitting the scalp, on the first floor, where he worked, immediately after she left Frank’s office on the second floor.
They claim that the negro then dragged the unconscious body to the scuttle-hole, and flung her down that ladder.
What sort of hole is it? All the evidence concurs in its being a small opening in the floor, with a trap-door over it, and only large enough to admit one person at a time. (It is two-feet square.)
Reaching from the opening of this hole, down to the floor of the basement, is a ladder, with open rungs.
Now, when Jim Conley hit the girl in the head, and split her scalp, they claim he pushed her through the trap-door, so that she would fall into the basement below.
But how could the limp and bleeding body fall down that ladder, striking rung after rung, on its way down, without leaving bloodmarks on the ladder, and without the face and head of poor dying Mary being all bunged up, broken and cut open, by the repeated beatings against the “rounds” of the ladder?
How could that bleeding head have lain at the foot of the ladder, without leaving an accusing puddle of blood? How could that bleeding body, still alive, have been choked to death in the cellar, leaving no blood on the basement floor, none on the ladder, none at the trap-door, none on the table where they claim the notes were written, and none on the pads and the notes?
Not a particle of the testimony points suspicion toward the negro, before the crime. He lived with a kept negro woman, as so many of his race do; but he had never been accused of any offense more grave than the police common-place, “Disorderly.” (His fines range from $1.75 to $15.00.)
He was at the factory on the day of the crime, and Mrs. Arthur White saw him sitting quietly on the first floor, where it was his business to be. After the crime, there was never any evidence discovered against him. He lied as to his doings at the time of the crime, but all of these were consistent with the plan of Frank and Conley to shield each other. Frank was just as careful to keep suspicion from settling on the negro, as the negro was to keep it from settling on Frank.
You would naturally suppose that the white man, reasoning swiftly, would have realized that the crime lay between himself and the negro; and that, as he knew himself to be innocent, he knew the negro must be guilty.
Any white man, under those circumstances, would at once have seen, that only himself or the negro could have done the deed, since no others had the opportunity.
Hence, the white man, being conscious of innocence, and bold in it, would have said to the police, to the detectives, to the world—
“No other man could have done this thing, except Jim Conley or myself; and, since I did not do it, Jim Conley did. I demand that you arrest him, at once, and let me face him!”
Did Frank do that? Did the Cornell graduate break out into a fury of injured innocence, point to Conley as the criminal, and go to him and question him, as to his actions, that fatal day?
No, indeed. Frank never once hinted Conley’s guilt. Frank never once asked to be allowed to face Conley. Frank hung his head when he talked to Newt Lee; trembled and shook and swallowed and drew deep breaths, and kept shuffling his legs and couldn’t sit still; walked nervously to the windows and wrung his hands a dozen times within a few minutes; insinuated that J.M. Gantt might have committed the crime; and suggested that Newt Lee’s house ought to be searched; but never a single time threw suspicion on Jim Conley, or suggested that Jim’s house ought to be searched.
Did the negro want to rob somebody in the factory? Could he have chosen a worse place? Could he have chosen a poorer victim, and one more likely to make a stout fight?
Mary had not worked that week, except a small fraction of the time, and Jim knew it. Therefore he knew that her pay-envelope held less than that of any of the girls!
Did Jim Conley want to assault some woman in the factory? Could he have chosen a worse time and place, if he did it on the first floor at the front, where white people were coming and going; and where his boss, Mr. Frank, might come down stairs any minute, on his way to his noon meal?
No negro that ever lived would attempt to outrage a white woman, almost in the presence of a white man.
Between the hour of 12:05 and 12:10 Monteen Stover walked up the stairs from the first floor to Frank’s office on the second, and she walked right through his outer office into his inner office—and Frank was not there!
She waited 5 minutes, and left. She saw nobody. She did not see Conley, and she did not see Frank.
Where were they? And where was Mary Phagan?
It is useless to talk about street-car schedules, about the variations in clocks, about the condition of cabbage in the stomach, and about the menstrual blood, and all that sort of secondary matter.
The vital point is this—
Where was Mary, and where was Frank, and where was Conley, during the 25 minutes, before Mrs. White saw both Frank, and Conley?
Above all, where was Frank when Monteen Stover went through both his offices, the inner as well as the outer, and couldn’t find him?
She wanted to find him, for she needed her money. She wanted to find him, for she lingered 5 minutes.
Where was Frank, while Monteen was in his office, and was waiting for him?
THAT’S THE POINT IN THE CASE: all else is subordinate.
Rosser and Arnold are splendid lawyers; no one doubts that. They were employed on account of their pre-eminent rank at the bar. I have been with them in great cases, and I know that whatever it is possible to do in a forensic battle, they are able to do.
Do you suppose for one moment that Rosser and Arnold did not see the terrible significance of Monteen’s evidence?
They saw it clearly. And they made frantic efforts to get away from it. How?
First, they put up Lemmie Quinn, another employee of Frank, to testify that he had gone to Frank’s office, at 12:20, that Saturday, and found Frank there.
But Lemmie Quinn’s evidence recoiled on Frank, hurting the case badly. Why? Because two white ladies, whom the Defendant put up, as his witnesses, swore positively that they were in the factory just before noon, and that after they left Frank, they went to a café, where they found Lemmie Quinn; and he told them he had just been up to the office to see Frank.
Mrs. Freeman, one of the ladies, swore that as she was leaving the factory, she looked at Frank’s own clock, and it was a quarter to twelve.
Mrs. Freeman testified that as she passed on up the stairs in the factory building, she saw Frank talking to two men in his office. One of these men was no doubt Lemmie Quinn. At any rate, after she had talked to the lady on the fourth floor (Mrs. White) and had come down to Frank’s office to use his telephone, the men were gone; and when she met Quinn at the café, he told her that he had just been up to Frank’s office. Hence the testimony of Mrs. Emma Clarke Freeman, and Miss Corinthia Hall, smashed the attempted alibi. And of course the abortive attempt at the alibi, hurt the case terribly.
Let me do Mr. Quinn the justice to say, that he merely estimated the time of day, by the time it would have taken him to walk from his home; and that he admitted he had stopped on the way, at Wolfsheimers, for 10 or 15 minutes—all of which is obvious guess-work. He frankly admitted that when he met Mrs. Freeman and Miss Hall at the Busy Bee Café, he told them he had just been up to Frank’s office.
Secondly, the able lawyers for the defense endeavored to meet Monteen Stover’s evidence by the statement of Frank himself. This statement is so extraordinary, that I will quote the words from the record:
“Now, gentlemen, to the best of my recollection, from the time the whistle blew for twelve o’clock until after a quarter to one when I went up stairs and spoke to Arthur White and Harry Denham, to the best of my recollection, I did not stir out of the inner office, but it is possible that to answer a call of nature or to urinate I may have gone to the toilet. Those are things that a man does unconsciously and cannot tell how many times nor when he does it.”
Here then was the second of the two desperate, but futile, attempts to account for the whereabouts of Frank, at the fatal period of time when he and Mary are both missing.
Pray notice this: Frank’s first statement made a few hours after Mary’s corpse was found, made no mention of Lemmie Quinn’s coming to the office after Hattie Hall left. The effort to sandwich Quinn between Hattie Hall and Mrs. White, was a bungle, and an afterthought. It showed he felt he must try to fill in that interval and the failure showed his inability to do it. Hence he is left totally unaccounted for, during the half-hour when the crime was committed.
Frank’s final statement—the one he made to the jury—hurt him another way: he said he was continuously in his inner office, after Hattie Hall left, whereas Mrs. Arthur White on her unexpected return to the factory surprised him in his outer office where he was standing before the safe with his back to the door. He jumped when she spoke to him, and he turned round as he answered.
He did not explain what he was doing at the safe at that time 12:35, and the State’s theory is, that he had been putting Mary’s mesh bag and pay-envelope in the safe.
The only material thing about it is, that he was out of his inner office at 12:35, and not continuously in it up to nearly 1 o’clock, as he declared he was. And he had never even attempted to explain why he was at the safe at that time.
The fact that Conley may have been missing too, is secondary, and more doubtful. Monteen did not come there to look for him. Her mind was not on Jim Conley.
Monteen’s mind was on her money and the man who had it. She went there to find Frank. She says—“I went through the first office into the second office. I went to get my money. I went in Mr. Frank’s office. He was not there.
I stayed there 5 minutes, and left at 10 minutes after 12.”
Mrs. Freeman and Miss Hall had already been there; Lemmie Quinn had already been there; and these visitors, having gone up to Frank, came down again. Next comes pretty Mary Phagan, and she goes up to Frank, and Frank receives her in his private office; and when Monteen comes up into that same office, in her noiseless tennis shoes, at 5 minutes after twelve, neither Mary nor Frank were to be heard or seen. O! where were they, THEN?
To the end of time, and the crack of doom, that question will ring in the ears and the souls of right-feeling people.
Frank says he may have unconsciously gone to the toilet. Then he has unconsciously PUT HIS FEET IN THE MURDERER’S TRACKS!
The notes make Mary Phagan go to the same place, at the same time; and the blood spots and the hair on the lathe show that she died there!
On page 185 of the official record, Frank says—
“To the best of my knowledge, it must have been 10 or 15 minutes after Miss Hall left my office, when this little girl, whom I afterwards found to be Mary Phagan, entered my office and asked for her pay envelope. I asked for her number and she told me; I went to the cash box and took her envelope out and handed it to her, identifying the envelope by the number.
“She left my office and apparently had gotten as far as the door from my office leading to the outer office, when she evidently stopped, and asked me if the metal had arrived, and I told her no. She continued her way out, &c.”
Note his studied effort to make appear that he did not even lift his eyes and look at this rosy, plump and most attractive maid. He does not even know that she stopped at his inner office door, when she spoke to him. She evidently stopped, apparently at the door; he does not know for certain; he was not looking at her to see. She spoke to him, and he to her, but he does not know positively that she stopped, nor positively where she was, at the time. He did not recognize her at all. She gave him her number, and he found an envelope to match the number, and he gave it to the little girl, whom he afterwards found to be Mary Phagan! “Found,” how? By looking at the pay-roll, and seeing that Mary’s name corresponded with the number that was on the pay envelope!
Let me pause here long enough to remind you that J.M. Gantt, Dewey Howell, W.E. Turner and Miss Ruth Robinson, all swore positively that Frank did know Mary Phagan, personally, by sight and by name.
But what follows after Mary leaves Frank’s office?
He says—“She had hardly left the plant 5 minutes when Lemmie Quinn came in.”
But Miss Corinthia Hall, and Mrs. Emma Clarke Freeman, and Quinn himself, made it plain that Quinn had already been there and gone, before they arrived.
When did they arrive? And when did they leave?
They came at 11:35 and left at 11:45! They were Frank’s own witnesses, and they demolished the Lemmie Quinn alibi and Frank’s own statement!
What can be said in answer to that? Nothing. It is one of those providential mishaps in a case of circumstantial evidence, that makes the cold chills run up the back of the lawyer for the defense.
I know, for I have had them run up my back; I know them, of old.
See if you get the full force of the point. Remember that Frank’s lawyers put up Mrs. Freeman and Miss Hall, to account for Frank at the fatal period when he seemed to be missing. Evidently, they were expected to account for Frank up to Lemmie Quinn’s arrival, and after that, Lemmie was to do the rest. But Mrs. Freeman and Miss Hall not only arrived too soon, but got there after Lemmie! When they left at 11:45, by the clock in Frank’s office, they went to the café, and who should be there but Lemmie, and Lemmie, in the innocence of his heart, said he had just been up to Frank’s office.
Mary Phagan, as all the evidence shows, was at that time on her way to the fatal trap!
The evidence of Frank’s three witnesses, Miss Hall, Mrs. Freeman and Lemmie Quinn, proves that he told the jury a deliberate falsehood when he said that Quinn was with him, after Mary Phagan left.
That’s the crisis of the case!
Desperately he tries to show where he was, after the girl came; and, desperately, he says that Quinn came after Mary left, and that Quinn knows he was there in his office, after Mary had departed.
Ah no! The great God would not let that lie to prosper!
Mrs. Freeman, Miss Hall, and Quinn put themselves in and out—there and away, come and gone, before Mary came—and where does that leave Frank?
The plank he grabbed at, he missed. The straw he caught at, sunk with him. When Lemmie Quinn fails him, he sinks into that fearful unknown of the half hour when the unexpected Monteen Stover softly comes into the outer office, goes right on into Frank’s inner office, seeking her money, and cannot find Frank!
The place is silent; the place is deserted; she waits five minutes, hears nothing, and sees nobody. Then she leaves.
Where were you, Leo Frank?
And where was our little girl?
Desperately, he says he may have gone to the closet.
Fatefully, the notes say Mary went to the closet.
Fatally, her golden hair leaves some of its golden strands on the metal lever, where her head struck, as Frank hit her; and her blood splotched the floor at the dressing room, where Conley dropped her.
What broke the hymen? What tore the inner tissues? What caused the dilated blood vessels? What laceration stained the drawers with her vaginal blood? How came the outer vagina bloody?
Who split her drawers all the way up? Who did the violence to the parts that Dr. Harris swore to?
The blow that bruised and blackened, but did not break the skin, was in front, over the eye, which was much swollen when the corpse was found. The blow that cut the scalp to the bone and caused unconsciousness, was on the back of the head.
Who struck her with his fist in the face, and knocked her down, so that, in falling, the crank handle of the machine cut the scalp and tore out some of her hair?
How did anybody get a chance to hit her in the back of the head, and not throw her on her face? Would a negro go for a cord with which to choke a white woman he had assaulted? Would a negro have remained with the body, or cared what became of it, and taken the awful risks of getting it down two floors to the basement? Would a negro have lingered by the corpse to write a note on yellow paper, and another note on white paper? Would a negro have loafed there to compose notes at all? What negro ever did such a thing, after such a crime?
Place in front of you a square piece of blank paper, longer than it is broad; an old envelope will do. This square piece of paper, longer than it is broad, will represent the floor of the building—the second floor, upon which Mary Phagan was done to death.
Draw a line through the middle of the square, from top to bottom, cutting the long square into two lesser squares. These will sufficiently represent the two large rooms into which the second floor was divided by a partition. Mark a place in the center of the partition, for the door which opens one room into the other.
Where was Frank’s office?
It was at the upper right-hand corner of the room, to your right, as the square lies lengthwise before you.
Mark off a small square at that corner, for Frank’s office.
Mark off a small square, in the left hand corner of the second room, and run a line through it, to divide this small closet, into two divisions. One of these small divisions was the water-closet of the men; the other, of the women! You cannot crumple a piece of paper in the one, without being heard in the other!
We naturally turn to Frank, and we naturally ask him—
What did Mary do, after you gave her the pay-envelope? Where did she go?
He cannot answer.
But thereupon we take it up, another way, and we ask him this question—
Where were YOU after Mary left? Did you stay in your office? Did you go anywhere, and do anything?
Now, follow the facts closely:
Frank’s own detective, Harry Scott, in his energetic efforts to find the criminal, pinned Frank down, as to where he was, after 12 o’clock.
Frank told Harry Scott, in the hearing of John Black, that he was continuously in his office, during the 45 minutes AFTER MARY HAD COME AND GONE.
The white lady, Mrs. Arthur White, returned at 12:35, and found Frank in his office, standing before the iron safe. He jumped nervously, when he heard her.
Now, then: Monteen Stover went to Frank’s office, after Mary had gone away from it, AND BEFORE MRS. WHITE CAME BACK, AT 12:35.
Where was Frank, then?
Right there, in that fateful half-hour, lies the crime.
Who is the criminal?
If Frank had been in his office, Monteen would, of course, have seen him when she went to it—and he would have seen her.
He did not see her, and therefore did not know that she had been there, until after he had told Harry Scott, positively and repeatedly, that he was in his office, THEN.
It was afterwards, when the unimpeachable Monteen told what she knew, that Frank saw how he had boxed himself up.
Then it was, that such a persistent and desperate effort was made to get Monteen’s evidence out of the way.
Then it was, that Burns in person tried first to persuade, and then to bulldoze her.
(Why don’t some of Frank’s paid champions dwell on that ugly phase of his case?)
The enormous weight which Frank’s lawyers and detectives (Burns and Lehon) attached to Monteen’s evidence, is the best proof that Monteen’s evidence clinches the guilt of Frank. When Frank told Scott and Black that he was in his office, continuously, after Mary left, he knew the vital necessity of accounting for his whereabouts, at that particular time.
He knew it, even then!
His definite, positive placing of himself, during that particular half-hour, shows that he knew it.
BUT HOW CAME HE TO KNOW IT?
If some one else made away with the girl, he did not THEN know when the deed was done.
If he was as innocent as you and I, he did not then know, any better than you and I then did, the vast materiality of his whereabouts, at any one half-hour of that fatal day.
How came he, at that time, to be so extremely careful to account for himself, for that special half-hour, and why did he lie about it?
He does not deny what he told Scott and Black; he does not accuse Monteen of a perjury for which she had no motive; he stated to the jury that he might have gone to the water-closet, on a call of nature, which he curiously said is an act that a person does “without being conscious of it.”
If Frank told Scott and Black a deliberate falsehood as to his whereabouts, that is a powerful circumstance against him.
If he was actually out of his office, just after Mary left, that, also, is a powerful circumstance against him, provided he cannot tell where he was.
If, in giving the only possible account of himself, he puts himself at the water-closet, then the crime gets right up to him, provided Mary was ravished and killed, in that same room.
Now, where was Mary ravished and killed?
The blood-marks and the hair say, in that same room!
And the notes say, in that same room!
The blood-marks tell where she was; and if Frank went out of his office, to go to the closet, he went right there!
The notes make Mary say that she went to the closet, “to make water,” and, if she did, she went right there.
If a negro seized her, raped her and killed her, he had to be right where Frank says he was, when absent from his office.
But if Frank was in his office, and Monteen is a liar without motive, how could a negro come up from the lower floor (where Mrs. White saw him,) and commit the crime, without Frank hearing, or seeing a single thing to excite his suspicion?
Where is the negro who would go that close to a white man’s office, when he knew the white man was there, to commit such a fiendish crime upon a white girl? And how did the negro, by himself, get the body from the second floor, down to the basement?
Mary’s body was found on the night of Saturday the 26th. It appeared to have been dead a long time. “The body was cold and stiff.” The notes were lying close by.
Newt Lee went on duty for the night, as usual, that Saturday night, and it was he who found the body on that night, at about 3 o’clock.
Therefore, you have a clear case of murder, on Saturday, sometime after the noon hour, and before Newt Lee came on duty as night-watchman, at 6 o’clock.
Conley was not back in the building that day, after 1 o’clock. Frank was. The record shows this.
The circumstances conclusively prove that somebody did the deed, during the half-hour following Mary’s coming to Frank’s office.
Frank admits that he is the last white person with whom she was ever seen. The blood and the notes say she was assaulted on Frank’s floor, near the closets, which she and Frank both used.
The notes make her go to the closet, to answer a call of nature, immediately after she left Frank!
She did not go up stairs; she had no work to do in the factory, that day; and if she went to the toilet at all, she went there from Frank’s office.
She never again appeared down stairs; or out of doors.
If she had gone up stairs, Mrs. White and others would have known it. If she had gone down stairs, both Frank and Conley would know it.
Yet at 12:35, Mrs. White saw Frank, but did not see the girl.
She had disappeared, during the very time that Frank disappears; and when Frank gets back into his office, at 12:35, that little girl is out there near the toilet, in the next room, choking to death.
It was Frank who was close to her; it was the negro who was down stairs.
No wonder Frank “jumped,” when Mrs. White came up, behind, and spoke.
No wonder he hurried Mrs. White out of the building, hesitated to allow J.M. Gantt to go in for his shoes, and refused to let Newt Lee enter.
By all the evidence, Frank and Jim were the only living mortals in that part of the house, at that time. Mary undoubtedly was there, at the time, by Frank’s own line of defence.
There was one short sentence Capt. J.N. Starnes’ re-direct examination, that did not rivet my special attention at first. That sentence was—
“Hands folded across the breast.”
That simple statement came back, again and again, knocking at the door, as if it were saying, “Explain me!”
How did it happen that a girl who had been raped or murdered—or both—was found with her hands folded over her breast?
How could a girl who had been knocked in the head, on the first floor, and tumbled down into the basement, through a scuttle-hole, and over a ladder, as Defendant claims, have her hands resting quietly on her bosom?
Frank’s theory represents Jim as attacking Mary on the first floor, finishing her in the basement below, then writing the notes, breaking the door, and speeding away.
That theory does not account for those folded hands.
A girl knocked on the head, into unconsciousness, and then choked to death with a cord, does not fold her own hands across her bosom. O no!
In the agony of death, her arms will be spread out. And if, hours later, those arms are found across her bosom, the little hands meeting over the pulseless heart, be sure that somebody who remembers intuitively how the dead should be treated, has put those agonized hands together!
There were the indisputable and undisputed facts: a bloody corpse, with a wound in the head, torn underclothing, privates bloody, a tight cord sunk into the soft flesh of the neck, the face blackened and scratched by dragging across a bare floor of cinders and grit, and yet when turned over and found “cold and stiff,” the testimony curtly adds—
“Hands folded across the breast.”
How did that happen? Who folded those little hands across the heart which beat no more?
In vain, I searched the evidence. Nowhere was there an explanation. In fact, nobody had seemed to be struck by that brief, clear statement of Capt. Starnes, which everybody conceded to be strictly true:
“Hands folded across the breast.”
Mind you, when she was found in the basement, she was lying on her face, not directly on her stomach, but so much so that they had to “turn her over,” to see her face, and wipe the dust and dirt off, for the purpose of recognition. (See official record, pages 7, 8 and 9.)
Lying on her face! Had to turn her over, and “the body was cold and stiff.” But the frozen hands—where were they? “Folded across the breast.”
Then, they had become rigid in that position! They had not come off the bosom, even when the body was turned over! They had remained across the breast, while the body was being dragged.
Dr. Westmoreland and Dr. Harris would probably agree, for at least one time, and both would say, as competent experts, that those hands, (to remain fixed under those circumstances,) had been placed across the girl’s bosom, before the stiffness set in.
Death froze them there!
You may read every line of the evidence on both sides, as I did, and you will not find any explanation of those folded hands—hands folded as no murdered woman’s were ever found before, except where somebody, not the murderer, instinctively followed universal custom, and folded them!
Can you escape that conclusion? No, you can’t. At least, I couldn’t, and I have been reading and trying murder cases, nearly all my life.
Then, as a last resort, in my efforts to satisfy myself about that unparalleled circumstance of the folded hands, I decided to turn to Jim Conley’s evidence, saying to myself, as I did so, “If that ignorant nigger explains that fact, whose importance he cannot possibly have known, it will be a marvelous thing.” So I turned to Conley’s evidence, searching for that one thing. On page 55, I found it. Here it is:
“She was dead when I got back there, and I came back and told Mr. Frank, and he said ‘Sh-sh!’….The girl was lying flat on her back and her hands were out, this way. I put both of her hands down, easy, and rolled her up in the cloth….I looked back a little way and saw her hat and piece of ribbon and her slippers, and I taken them and put them all in the cloth.”
The girl was lying flat on her back, hands out this way—and he illustrated. “I put both of her hands down.” Then, they were not only out, but up—as if the pitiful little victim had been pushing something, or somebody, off!
Those dead hands are fearful accusers of the white men who now say that Mary Phagan did not value her virtue.
Only the other day, there was issued by the Neale Publishing Company, a new book of war experiences, written by a Philadelphia surgeon, Dr. John H. Brinton; and he relates some vivid incidents showing the rapid action of the rigor mortis—the “instantaneous rigor,” following mortal wounds received in battle. He made a special study of the dead, on the field which the North calls Antietam. (Our name for it is, Sharpsburg.)
On page 207, Dr. Brinton speaks of the cornfield and sunken road, so famous to the literature of the War; and he says, “Dead bodies were everywhere…..Many of these were in extraordinary attitudes, some with their arms raised rigidly in the air….
I also noticed the body of a Southern soldier….The body was in a semi-erect posture….One arm, extended, was stretched forward.....His musket with ramrod halfway down, had dropped from his hand.”
This Southern soldier had been lying in the road, had half risen to load and shoot, had been shot while driving the ramrod home, and the gun had dropped; but the soldier himself remained, face to the foe, half-erect, with “one arm extended, and stretched forward.”
Brave Southern soldier! Death itself could not rob him of the proofs of his unfailing heroism.
Brave Southern girl! Death itself would not rob Mary Phagan of the proofs, that she fought for her innocence to the very last.
Shame upon those white men who desecrate the murdered child’s grave, and who add to the torture of the mother that lost her, by saying Mary was an unclean little wanton.
Jim Conley had no motive to describe her hands as being uplifted; and he, an ignorant negro, could not have realized the stupendous psychological significance of it.
Providence was against Frank in this case. The stars in their courses fought against him, as they fought against Sisera. His lawyers must have felt it.
Providence was against him, in the time of Monteen Stover’s unexpected visit to his office.
Providence was against him, in the unexpected return of Mrs. White.
Providence was against him, in the fatal break-down of his alibi.
Providence was against him, in the apparently trivial fact that Newt Lee’s call of nature, Saturday night, did not occur on any of the floors above the basement—all of which had closets—but occurred in the basement, where the closet was close to the dead girl.
Providence was against him, in the fact that Barrett worked that crank handle, the last thing on Friday evening, and was thus able to credibly swear that it had no woman’s hair on it, then.
Providence was against him, in that Stanford swept the whole floor Friday, and was thus able to credibly swear that there was no blood on it, then.
Providence was against him, when he was forced into explaining his absence from his office by unwittingly putting himself at the place of that woman’s hair and those fresh blood spots.
Providence was against him, when that cold and stiff girl was found in the basement, with “hands folded across the breast,” for that fact—apparently little—imperiously demands explanation!
And when you start out to hunt for the explanation which you know must exist, you search every nook and cranny in the case without finding it, until you read a line or two which the negro did not understand the meaning of—and which, so far as I can learn—has never been the subject of comment, on either side.
It happened to flash across me, that I had recently read something similar, in the book which Walter Neale had sent me for review; and then I saw the meaning of Mary’s hands being in such a position upward, that Jim had to put them “down.”
No negro could have invented that. No negro could have known the importance of that. Apparently, the lawyers did not pay any attention to it. Am I mistaken in doing so? Am I wrong in saying that this little fact absolutely establishes the truth of the State’s theory?
How, else, do you account for the hands folded across her breast, so rigidly that when her body had been dragged, and then turned over, the rigid posture of the hands was maintained, by the frozen muscles?
To save your life, you cannot explain it, except by saying that somebody, almost immediately after the girl’s death, put her hands in that position. She didn’t do it.
Who was that somebody?
Not the man who killed her, you may be dead sure.
But the nigger says, he did it.
Then you may stake your life on the proposition, that the nigger didn’t kill her.
Negroes who assault and murder white women, don’t loiter to fold hands, write notes, and pick up hats, ribbons and slippers.
Negroes who assault and murder white women, have never failed to hit the outer rim of the sky-line, just as quick as their heels can do it.
But as it was the nigger who put down the girl’s hands, and folded them across her breast, soon after her life went out, who did kill her?
THE ONLY OTHER POSSIBLE MAN, IS FRANK.
Was it Frank, and not the nigger, who was “lascivious,” at that factory? Twelve white women swore, “Yes.”
Was it Frank, and not the nigger, who had been after this little girl. Three white witnesses swear, “Yes.”
How many more witnesses do you want, than fifteen white ones?
And yet the Burnses, and Connollys, and Pulitzers, and Abells, and Ochses, and Thomsons and Rossers are still telling the outside world that the virtuous Frank was convicted on race prejudice, and the evidence of one besotted negro!
Was any State ever so maligned, as Georgia has been?
Let me call your attention to another little thing in the negro’s evidence which there was no need to “make up.” It is his statement that he wrote, at Frank’s dictation, four notes before Frank was satisfied. Why say four, when only two were found? The negro in testifying at the trial, knew that only two notes were found, yet he swore to writing four.
At least, I so understand his words, which were—
“He taken his pencil to fix up some notes….and he sat down and I sat down at the table and Mr. Frank dictated the notes to me. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to suit him, and he told me to turn over, and write again, and I turned the paper and wrote again, and when I had done that, he told me to turn over and write again, and I turned over and I wrote on the next page, and he looked at that, and kinder liked it, and he said that was all right. Then he reached over and got another piece of paper, a green piece, and told me what to write. He took it and laid it in his desk.”
If that doesn’t make four notes, I don’t understand the language in the record; and if it means four, when only two were found and introduced into the case, it shows, at least, that the negro was not making up a tale to fit the known facts.
The negro said another thing that he could not have “made up,” because he does not even yet realize the meaning of it. The lawyers made no allusions to it. Jim said—“When I heard him whistle (the signal Frank had often used when he had lewd women with him) I went…on up the steps. Mr. Frank was standing up there at the top of the steps, and shivering and trembling, and rubbing his hands like this—.
He had a little rope in his hands—a long wide piece of cord. His eyes were large and they looked right funny…..
He asked me, “Did you see that little girl who passed up here a while ago?”
Jim told him he had seen two go up, and only one come down.
Mind you, Frank had not heard Monteen Stover, whose tennis shoes made no noise; and Frank knew nothing of her visit at all. When he asked Jim if he had seen that little girl, Frank meant, “Did you see the Phagan girl?”
Frank’s purpose was, to learn whether Jim had seen the little girl, who was then lying out there in the metal room, with a piece of that cord around her neck. If the negro had answered, “No, I didn’t see any girl,” Frank would never have said another word to him about her. It was only after he found out that Jim had seen her go up, but not come down, that he had to take Jim into his confidence one more time.
Much has been said about the improbability of Frank making a confidante out of a negro of low character. Does an immoral white man make a confidante out of a negro of high character? Will a respectable negro act as go-between, procurer, or watch-out man, for a white hypocrite who is one thing to his Rabbi and his Bnai Brith, and quite a different thing to the cyprians of the town?
Suppose I can show you from the official record that Frank’s lawyers knew that the murder was committed on Frank’s floor, back there where the blood and hair were found, won’t you be practically certain that they also knew Frank to be guilty?
Come along with me, and see if I don’t prove it to you:
Leo Frank employed Harry Scott, a detective, to ferret out the criminal, and Scott went into the case with great vigor. In fact, he soon showed altogether too much vigor to suit Frank, and Herbert Haas. Herbert became alarmed—why? And Herbert told Scott to first report to him, Herbert, whatever he might discover, before letting any one else know. Herbert Haas was chairman of the Frank Finance Committee, and he was one of the lawyers for the defense.
Scott did not like to be shut off from the police, and confined to a Herbert Haas investigation, and so he remonstrated with the Chairman of the Finance Committee.
But before Scott was fired, he had drawn from Frank two material statements. One was, his alleged continuous presence in his office after Hattie Hall left; and the other was, his answer to Mary Phagan, when she asked him if the metal had come.
Frank told Scott that when Mary asked him whether the metal had come, he replied, “I don’t know.” At that time, Frank was not aware of the fact that Monteen Stover could prove that he was absent from his office when Mary was being murdered.
What did Mary’s question about the metal prove? That her mind was on her work. She had lost nearly the whole week, because the supply of metal had run out. They were expecting more. If it had come, she could go back to work in that metal room, next Monday. Therefore, when she asked Frank, “Has the metal come?” her thoughts were on her work and she was eager to know whether she could return on Monday to resume it. “Has the metal come?” Equivalent to, “Will there be any work for me next week? Must I lose another week, or can I come back Monday?”
This was the meaning of the question. What was the meaning of Frank’s answer?
If he said, “I don’t know,” the girl would naturally suggest, or he would, that they go back there, to that metal room, and see.
Can you escape this conclusion? If he didn’t know whether the metal was there or not, the only way to tell for certain, was to go and look. If he was doubtful, the girl would want to go and look to see if it was there, for the girl wanted to resume her work.
Now, if that answer, “I don’t know,” were allowed to stand, Rosser realized, quick as lightning, that it led to the inevitable conclusion that the girl went back to the metal room to see about it, and was assaulted there!
Consequently, Frank not only changed his answer of, “I don’t know,” into a positive, “No;” but Rosser went at Scott, hammer and tongs, to badger him into saying that he may have been mistaken, and that Frank may have said, “No,” instead of, “I don’t know.”
But the point is this: If Rosser had not felt certain that the blood and the hair proves that Mary was killed on Frank’s floor, near Frank’s closet, and at about the time Frank puts himself at the closet, what would Rosser have cared whether Mary went to the metal room, or not?
If Jim Conley killed Mary on the first floor, or in the basement, it did not at all matter whether she went to the metal room, either with Frank, or by herself.
The strenuous effort of Rosser to escape from that answer of “I don’t know,” proves what he knows. He knows very well that the girl was killed on the second floor. Otherwise, you cannot understand why Frank was made to change his statement, and why such herculean strength was used to get a change out of Harry Scott.
The difference between “No,” and “I don’t know,” is a difference between tweedledum and tweedledee, unless Mary was murdered on Frank’s floor.
Rosser knew, just as you must now see, that if Frank told the girl, “I don’t know,” he might just as well have admitted that he and Mary went back there together, where the blood and hair were found.
The answer of, “I don’t know,”—suggesting as it did, an inspection of the room, to see about the metal—is the only plausible way to account for the girl’s being back there, unless indeed the notes speak the truth about her going to the closet.
(See Harry Scott’s evidence in record.)
Rosser’s desperate struggle to get away from the “I don’t know,” is wonderfully illuminating as to what was in Rosser’s mind. If he had placed the slightest reliance on the theory that the negro killed the girl, he would not have cared a button whether Frank went with Mary to see about the metal. If Rosser had not been absolutely certain that the girl was attacked and killed, back there, he would not have struggled so hard to keep her and Frank away from there. If Rosser had believed for a moment that Mary went on down stairs, after she left Frank, and was killed by the negro down stairs, he wouldn’t have wasted a breath over that question of whether Frank said, “No,” or said, “I don’t know.”
If the girl was killed down stairs, it would not have hurt Frank’s case in the least, if he had boldly admitted that, after telling Mary, “I don’t know,” he had gone back there with her to see. It is to be presumed that he, as well as she, wanted the work to go on; and therefore he, also, would be interested in the matter, with a view to her return on Monday.
Suppose he had said, “Yes, Mary came to my office, got her money, and we went back to the metal rom to see if the expected metal had come; and, after that, she went on down stairs, and I went back into my office, and saw no more of her.”
Where would have been the danger of his saying that? She was with him in the office; he admits that, after the evidence forces him to it; but why not go a little farther, and admit that he and she went to the metal room, before she left his floor?
Ask Rosser to tell you the answer to that question. Ask your own intelligence! What danger, was to be dreaded, in allowing Frank to say that he and Mary went to the metal room, even for one single minute?
If she was killed on the first floor—no matter who did it—there was no danger in letting Frank admit that he went to the metal room with her.
If she was killed in the basement—no matter who did it—there was no danger in the admission that she and Frank went to the metal room.
But Rosser’s desperate drive, to remove the very idea of her going to the metal room with Frank, proves the immense importance he attached to it. He could not allow it, he dared not allow it! Mary and Frank must not for an instant be allowed in the metal room, during that fatal half-hour!
WHY NOT?
Is there any possible answer, but the one? And that is—Mary’s tress of golden-brown hair is hanging out there in that room, on the crank of Barrett’s machine; and Mary’s life-blood is out there, on that recently swept floor!
Rosser said in his heart, “I dare not let Frank go there!”
When you test the theory that Conley alone did the deed, you have no evidence to rest it on. Jim never bothered those white girls, did not act like a negro who had committed the unpardonable crime on a white woman, did not try to lay suspicion on anybody, and went about his work as usual, on Monday and Tuesday.
There is absolutely no evidence against the negro, upon which the State could have made the shadow of a case.
When you test in your mind the hypothesis that Frank and Jim both committed the crime, you make some slight headway, for Jim and Frank shielded each other, until Frank was jailed. But this is not enough to implicate both, in the actual crime. It is enough to prove a common guilty knowledge of the crime, but it does not shut out the idea of Conley’s being accessory to the fact, after the deed was done.
It is only when you test in your mind the theory that Frank alone committed the crime, that all proved circumstances harmonize, and interlink to make the chain.
Twelve white girls swore that Frank had a lascivious character; and they learned what he was, inside this very factory.
One of his own witnesses, a white girl, swore to this immoral conduct, inside this very factory.
Conley mentioned the names of the white women and the white man who came into this very factory, to engage in vice with Frank, and one of these persons corroborated Conley on the witness stand.
White witnesses swore that Frank had been after little Mary, ever since March, inside this very factory.
Frank laid a trap for Mary, by forcing her to come back inside this very factory, when he might have sent her money by Helen Ferguson.
Mary walks into the trap inside that factory, and it closes on her.
God in Heaven! was guilt ever plainer, and more deliberately diabolical?
And are we to be dictated to by mass-meetings in Chicago, and by circular letters from New York and New England, when this awful crime stares us in the face?
Nothing corroborates Frank when he says that Conley alone committed the crime; and every undisputed fact is against that hypothesis.
Everything corroborates Conley, when he says that Frank did it, and he himself became mixed up in it, afterwards.
And if there is one feature of the case more convincing than another it is, that Frank was at least as careful to shield Conley from suspicion, AT FIRST, as Conley was, to shield Frank.
Until Frank himself was arrested, he tried to set the dogs on Lee and Gantt, BUT NEVER ONCE ON JIM CONLEY!
At first, Frank and Conley both acted like a pair who held a guilty secret between themselves.
Ah, it is a heartrending case. Big Money may muzzle most of the papers, hire the best legal talent, and bring remote popular pressure to bear upon our governor, but all the money in the world cannot destroy the facts, nor answer the arguments based on those facts.
Let me refer to the negro’s explanation of how it happened—my reference being confined strictly to facts where there is abundant corroboration.
Jim says he heard steps of two persons going back to the metal room; and Frank himself, states that Mary inquired about whether the metal had come, which would give her more work next week. What more natural than that Frank, when t