348 Sheet – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

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Reading Time: 3 minutes [392 words]

Here is the translated text as follows:

316 X, AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

While waiting for her companions, this daughter of an employee of Montag comes into this presence and tells you an unreasonable, absurd story. It's a story that contradicts the one made by Frank, which has been introduced in evidence and will be out with you. She claims she saw that fellow up there at Jacobs'.

On this time proposition, I want to read you this—it made a wonderful impression on me when I read it. It's the wonderful speech of a wonderful man, a lawyer to whom even such men as Meser, Arnold, and Rosser, as good as the country affords, as good men and as good lawyers as they are, had they stood in his presence, would have pulled off their hats in admiration for his intellect and his character. I refer to Daniel Webster, and I quote from Webster's great speech in the Knapp case:

"Time is identical, its subdivisions are all alike, no man knows one day from another, or one hour from another, but by some fact connected with it. Days and hours are not visible to the senses, nor to be apprehended and distinguished by understanding. He who speaks of the date, the minute, and the hour of occurrences with nothing to guide his recollection, speaks at random."

That's put better than I could have put it. That's put tersely, concisely, logically, and it's the truth. Now, what else about this alibi, this chronological table here, moved up and down to save a few minutes? The evidence, as old Sig Montag warned me not to do, twisted, yes, I'll say contorted, warped, in order to sustain this man in his claim of an alibi. For instance, they got it down here that 'Frank arrived at the factory, according to Holloway, Alonzo Mann, Roy Irby, at 8:25.' That's getting it down some, isn't it? Frank says he arrived at 8:30. Old Jim Conley, perjured, lousy, and dirty, says that he arrived there at 8:30, and he arrived carrying a raincoat. And they tried mightily to make it appear that Frank didn't have a raincoat, that he borrowed one from his brother-in-law, but Mrs. Ursenbach says that Frank had one; and if the truth were known, I venture the assertion that the reason Frank borrowed Ursenbach's raincoat on Sunday was because, after...

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