album-art
Reading Time: 11 minutes [1992 words]

 

The Atlanta Journal,

Wednesday, 27th August 1913.

PAGE 1, Column 1

Convicted Factory Superintendent

Preparing Exhaustive Answer to Solicitor

General's Argument to Jury

DECLARES ARRAIGNMENT

CONTAINS MANY FLAWS

Health Unimpaired, Frank Resumes

Routine Life in Jail.

Indictment of Conley as Accessory

May Come Friday

Leo M. Frank sentenced to hang on October 10 for the murder of Mary Phagan, is preparing an answer to the closing argument to the jury of Solicitor General Hugh M. Rosey. He began work on the statement Wednesday morning and expects to have it ready for publication before the end of the week, perhaps by Thursday. It is said that he will take up each point made by the solicitor and give his version.

Frank is quoted by friends who called at his cell as having said that the solicitor's argument was as "full of holes as a sieve".

"Public sentiment against me overwhelmed the jury and made it impossible for them to give me a fair trial," the prisoner is reported to have remarked Wednesday morning before he began work on the document. "I want my version to go before the public and let them judge which is true. Their first opinion is sometimes unjust, but the ultimate decision of the world is usually right."

The announcement of France's intention was made when Rabbi David Marx, M. Klein and others left his cell early Wednesday afternoon. According to one of these gentlemen Frank has already started his work. He is provided with a short-hand transcription of Dorsey's remarkable argument and has announced that he will take it point by point and spewer each exhaustively.

ARGUMENT DECIDED JURY.

Frank, it is said, is of the opinion that, had the case gone to trial without argument if it had closed when he completed his four-hour statement, he would have been acquitted in fifteen minutes. It was public feeling and the arguments of Frank A. Hooper and Solicitor Dorsey that led the jury to find him guilty, it is said.

Frank is of the opinion that, in the event of another trial, after public sentiment has changed, as he predicts it will, his time alibi would remain unbroken and convincing.

The convicted superintendent's work on the statement so far, it is said, has been the bisection of Solicitor Dorsey's argument. It is considered probably that when he has all the details more thoroughly in his mind and his reply mapped out, he will call upon his wife to take down in shorthand at his dictation the answer. Mrs. Frank is an expert stenographer and to her, Frank dictated the original statement he made to the jury when he took the witness stand in his trial.

NO OUTWARD SIGN.

Conviction of murder and a sentence of death apparently have had no effect on Leo M. Frank's mode of living. Wednesday, he resumed the daily routine which he practiced in his cell in the lower during three months preceding his long trial. He is the same Frank, so far as outward appearances go, welcoming friends whole-heartedly, shunning interviewers and the curious. He

(Continued on Page Six, Column 5.)

PAGE 6,

FRANK WILL REPLY

TO DORSEY IN LONG

PUBLIC STATEMENT

(Continued From Page 1.)

tells those he talks to that he is innocent and it is plain that he hopes to gain freedom, notwithstanding the fact that he is sentenced to die on October 10, 1913. The verdict of the jury must have been a severe blow to Frank say his friends. And they have nothing but admiration for the way he received it.

It has been disclosed that had an acquittal resulted, he would have returned to New York to live with his mother and father. Now it is probable that his mother may remain in Atlanta to be near her son until the appeal which his attorneys will take is definitely decided. This may be months.

Emil Selig. Frank's father-in-law was the first visitor to the Tower Wednesday, August 27, 1913. He appeared about 8 o'clock with the prisoner's breakfast. A few minutes later Sig Montag, of Montag brothers, principal owners of the National Pencil factory, called. He remained over an hour and when he left Mr. Selig was still in the cell.

It was 10 o'clock before the next callers came. Several arrived and were ushered into the jail between then and early afternoon.

Frank slept soundly, jailers say. He arose about 7 o'clock, took his morning bath, devoted fifteen minutes to Calisthenic exercises and was dressed and ready for breakfast when his father-in-law arrived.

Neither the convicted man's mother nor wife called Wednesday morning, although Mrs. Frank remained with her husband Tuesday afternoon until after 4 o'clock, eating her dinner in the cell with her husband.

Frank is physically as fit as the day he entered the jail. He has not had an ill moment since his incarceration, according to Dr. H. J. Rosenberg, the family physician and a close personal friend. The only medicine administered, even during the trying days of the trial, was a mild tonic to stimulate his appetite.

No legal moves in the Frank case are expected for several weeks. Attorney Reuben R. Arnold of counsel for the defense, is now at Bedford, Pa., where he will remain several weeks. Luther Z. Rosser is hard at work on the amendment to the motion for a new trial, which will be argued before Judge L. S. Roan on October 4, 1913. The preparation of the amendment to the motion is a tedious procedure, owing to the length of the record in the case, and will probably not be concluded for some days.

Frank's Cornell Friends

Believe in His Innocence

(Special Dispatch to The Journal.)

NEW YORK, Aug. 27, 1913 In an attempt to clear the character of Leo M. Frank, a Cornell graduate, formerly of Brooklyn, who was convicted of the murder of a girl of 15 in Atlanta, Ga., on Monday and sentenced to death, White Fehr, of No. 1867 Seventh avenue, sent letters today to Oscar S. Straus and several Cornell graduates and professors asking their aid in proving Frank is a man who could not commit the crime of which he stands convicted.

Fehr in a letter which he wrote today to Frank in the county prison, Atlanta, says until he was told Frank was a Cornell man of the class of 1906, he was unaware he was a man he had known in the university.

The letter in part reads:

"My confidence" in your innocence is not the least disturbed by the verdict against you. As speaker of the Cornell congress and man active in debating circles in the university. I knew you as a thoroughly ambitious and hard-working student. Your activity also as a member of your class basketball team for four years makes me firm in the conviction it would be impossible for a man of your mental and physical caliber to have committed the crime with which you are charged."

"As an observer of court proceedings for the past four years, I have seen many cases of injustice worked in the form of law, but none so tragic and apparent as that of which you are the victim."

In his letter to Straus, Fehr says:

"As a gentile and as a New Yorker, I appeal to you as a Hebrew and Georgian to enlist your powerful influences in behalf of my college friend, Leo M. Frank, who was sentenced yesterday in Atlanta for murder in the first degree."

"I am firmly convinced the testimony of two negroes against him, prompted by the desire to throw suspicion from themselves, was only accepted because of prejudice."

Fehr today wrote letters calling attention to Frank's scholastic and athletic activities in Cornell to Prof. George Cleason Bogert, of Cornell, and Woodford Patterson, editor in chief of the Cornell Alumni and News in Ithaca.

Conley Probably Will

Be Indicted on Friday

The Fulton County grand jury will hold a meeting Friday morning at which in all probability, a bill presented by the solicitor general charging James Conley with being an accessory after the fact of Mary Phagan's murder will be considered.

There are more than 100 felony cases awaiting the attention of the grand jury and only a small number of them can be acted on Friday. However, Conley has been in jail for many months and it is said that his case will be one of the first to get the jury's considerations.

There are more than 100 felony cases awaiting the attention of the grand jury and only a small number of them can be acted on Friday. However, Conley has bene in jail for many months and it is said that his case will be one of the first to get the jury's consideration.

Solicitor General Hugh M. Dorsey would not say positively that a bill against Conley will be presented Friday, but stated that in all probability it would be given to the grand jury then.

The present grand jury made an effort to indict Conley several weeks before the trial of Leo M. Frank commenced, as a principal in the murder. The effort was blocked, however, by the solicitor.

In view of the fact that a jury has returned a verdict of guilty against Frank there is little probability of the jury's attempting to indict him now as principal.

When Conley is arraigned in court following his indictment, he will necessarily enter a plea of guilty. The maximum penalty on conviction of being an accessory after the fact of a murder is three years in the penitentiary.

PAGE 11, Column 5

AND NOW NEWT LEE

WANTS JOB AND WIFE

His Spouse Has Vanished With

His Chickens and He's

Ready for Work.

Newt Lee, discover of Mary Phagan's body, once suspected of complicity in her murder, a leading witness against Leo M. Frank, and with the exception of James Conley, probably the most widely known negro in Atlanta, wants a job, clothes and a home. And he wants his wife. More than anything else he wants his wife, who in some mysterious manner during his incarceration in the police station and tower disappeared from their humble home. At the same time also disappeared some two dozen chickens and Lee's household effects.

So when old Newt Lee breathed the air of freedom at the front door of the sidewalk yesterday shortly after noon he was almost as destitute of worldly goods as when he first appeared on this mundane sphere some forty-five years ago. He had the clothes that he wore and they didn't amount to much.

From the jail he went to the office of Graham & Chappell, his attorneys, and later sought the home he found deserted. Lee returned to the law office and told his lawyers his predicament. They agreed to allow the use of their rooms as an employment office for Newt until he gets a job. The negro forthwith announced that he was open for engagement at phone main 2182.

Lee has quite a bit of faith left in the public. They were good to him during his incarceration to the extent of giving him a cap, a watermelon, and much "chawlen' tobacco." Now he points to his record of faithfulness as a recommendation to a prospective employer.

ARGUMENT DIVIDED JURY

Frank, it is said, is of the opinion that had the case gone to trial without arraignment - if it had closed when he commuted his four-hour statement, he would have been acquired in fifteen minutes. It was public feeling and the arguments of Frank A. Hooper and Solicitor Dorsey that led the jury to find him guilty, it is said.

Frank is of the opinion that, in the event of another trial, after public sentiment has changed, as he predicts it will, his alibi would remain unbroken and convincing.

Wednesday, 27th August 1913 Frank Will Reply To Dorsey In Long Public Statement
atlanta-journal-august-27-1913-frank-will-reply-to-dorsey-in-long-public-statement

Download PDF document here: atlanta-journal-august-27-1913-frank-will-reply-to-dorsey-in-long-public-statement

Related Posts