Atlanta Georgian., 1914-03-01
~ Never Have Been Able Fully
to Realize That 1t Is | Who Is
Facing Death. 1t Seems Like
a Detached Being," He Says
"If Should Have to Forfeit My
Life, No QuaIms of Death Will
Ever Shake Me; 1t Does Not
Take Any Physical Courage" !"

An interview that takes it's place
as one of the most remarkable ever
given by man under the sentence Of
death was obtained by The Sunday
American from Leo Frank yesterday.
Frank. describing his sensations as
the state, day by day, is pressing
its claim for the forfeit of his life.
said that he looked over the whole
panorama of the great legal struggle
with the eye of a person totally dis
connected and disintarested in the
case. except as a citizen hoping
and praying for justice
It savored of the vivisectional to
ask the prisoner outright to bare his
feelings and thoughts as each effort
TO save him from the Eallows had
failed and he found himself nearer
The drear shadow of the moose. 1t was
not a pleasant question to ask and
II was rot a particularly agreeable
.opic Of conversation.
Meets Question Calmly.
Frank met the question calmly
however, and discussed it in a mat
ter of fact way Any apprehension
that he might wish to avoid a discus
sion of such a possibility as death
by the hangmans moose was dis
PEELED by his ready comment and his
failure TO indicate any dislike of The
subject
He was not asked explicitly how it
felt to be in the shadow of the gal
lows. but that is the question that
he answered.
And his reply indicated as clearly
as words can tell that he had little,
or no more feeling in the matter than
as though he were only an observer
on the outside whose sole wish was
that justice be done.
He told The Sunday American re-
porter who visited him at his cell
that he had not been downCast by
the successive defeats that efforts
TO free him had met, and that he had
hardly been able to realize that it was
his own life that was at stake.
1T has been almost in the nature
of nightmare to me- he said. ut
has seemed as though some other
person We're being tried for the crime
Of numbering Mary Phagan and as
though / We're an onlooker"
Never Has Felt That He Will Die.
Have you ever been oppressed or
discouraged by the thought that all
Of the efforts to aid you may be fruit
less and that the penalty already i'm
posed may be carried out?" he was
asked.
80" was his reply, q have felt
from the first that the truth ulti-
mately would be known and that the
murderer would be found. never
have been able fully to realize that
it is | who is facing death. The gal
lows has never come before me as a
picture.
1T has seemed like a separate en-
tity-a detached being+-whose strug-
gle to prove his innocence l have
been standing by and watching"
Then he was asked about Death
the specter whose presence brings
dread to the heart of man though it
comes softly and without pain. The
Death that confronted him was not
Of that kind. Here is what he said:
Not Afraid Of Death.
IF | were to know that my life
would be forfeited on the gallows to-
morrow, you would find me just as
you see me to-day No qualms shake
me as I think of death. have a con
science that is clean and clear. L
Goes not take any physical courage
to face death. From the day that we
are born the only certain thing in
life is death. l am prepared for that
and / am ready to meet it at any
time. My heart will be heavy only
with the sense of the immeasurable
injustice that is being done.
Il am unworried and untroubled. I