The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1915-06-10
THE JEFFERSONIAN


feet but Marys for among them all-and
have seen and listened to every one-onIy
Mary would have been chosen for May
Day queen!
Most Northern people believe Frank inno-
cent. They have read for months in news
papers and magazines about the "Unfairness
OF his trial, "Atlanta's prejudice against the
jew and other allegations that belong
wholly to the story Of the defense. Mary
Phagan, seemingly, is forgotten and Frank
himself has become the injured party!
l must admire the wonderful organization
OF the movement in Franks behalf that has
swept the country with wave of sympathy,
which is all but overwhelming; but | am de-
pressed by the clamor of the editorial page
that this man be saved from the gallows! It is
a clamor based on statements concerning the
trial which are not true.
For instance 1t is not true that the
courtroom was level with the street
that pedestrians stared with intense cur-
BUSINESS" into the room and discussed the
case in tones that reached the Jurors ears.
1t is not true that the spirit of the mob
ruled the courtroom. I have no sympathy
with mob sentiment, and in that courtroom.
where | sat for many days, I detected no
more OF the spirit of the mob than I have
felt in any Chicago courtroom during an
important trial. To be sure, the courtroom
crowd was intensely interested in every
move made by the State or the defense, but
1T was good-natured crowd, and | never
OF court or bailiffs to preserve order felt
as eminently respectable in that environment
as ever felt in my own sanctum
1t is not true that racial prejudice ex-
plains the insistence of Georgians that
Frank is guilty. There is no faint of racial
prejudice in my veins, and I saw no evidence
or prejudice against Jews in Atlanta in the
months | spent here prior to and during the
trial.
Anent this charge of prejudice-it was
tn~4
verdict of guilty was based, and why should
a Southern jury believe a "nigger" and
hang a Jew
The history of this remarkable case, in
the months that have elapsed since the first
sentence of death was imposed speaks I'M
ansWerably, not Of prejudice against the
Jews, but rather Of Jewish influence and
Jewish power in Atlanta and in every COM
munity of any Importance in this country!
Mrs Seig Mrs. Franks mother with
whom the Franks lived, testified at the trial
that on Sunday. the day Mary Phagan's body
was found by Waterman Newt Lee she first
, heard of the murder in her son-in-laws fac
tory. When asked if she learned that day
that the murdered person was Mary Phagan,
this sympathetic CD mother-in-law replied:
mo, | didn't ask who it was. I didn't
think it was anything that concerned US"
Every day since her husbands arrest
ran a recent Chicago story, Mrs. Frank has
visited him in his cell and done everything
IN ner power to comfort him and keep him
buoyed up
The fact is, that Frank was in Jail two
weeks before his wife went to see him.
Then she explained her failure to visit him
by saying she had dreaded the publicity that
would attend their meeting.
Is it the excuse of wife stricken by her
husbands peril!
Sentiment, humane. but irrational; obiec-
ton to capital punishment, commercial in
Stinct nOlitic91
are the springs of power that have been
tapped everywhere by the attorneys for the
defense to give volume to their efforts to
save Franks life
The manager of one of the largest bust
nesses in the South said to me but yester-
day:
"The President of my company wrote q
Letter to the Governor the other day asking
for executive clemency He has such finan-
cial relations with the Jews that he had to