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

Search for:

Reading Time: 3 minutes [413 words]

Here is the translated text as follows:

8380 X. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS,

Let not able counsel and the glamour that surrounds wealth and influence deter you. I honor the way they went after Minola McKnight. I don't know whether they want me to apologize for them or not, but if you think that finding the red-handed murderer of a little girl like this is a ladies' tea party, and that the detectives should have the manners of a dancing master and apologize and palaver, you don't know anything about the business. You have seen these dogs that hunt the 'possum bark up a tree or in a stump, and when they once get the scent of the 'possum, you can do what you like, but they'll bark up that tree and they'll bark in that stump until they run him out. And so with old John Starnes and Campbell. They knew, and you know, that Albert McKnight would never have told Craven this tale about what he saw and what his wife had told him except for the fact that it be true. And if you had been Starnes, you would have been barking up that tree or barking in that stump until you ran out what you knew was in there. That's all there is to it.

You have got the writ of habeas corpus that's guaranteed to you, go and get it. And if Mr. Haas had come to me Tuesday morning and said, "You direct the police"—on Monday morning, when Frank was taken into custody, and said to me, "You direct the police to turn this man Frank loose, he's innocent," I would have said, "It's none of my business, I run my office, they run their office." And the next time the police department, in an effort to serve the people of this community, take a negro that they know and you know and lock her up or what not, I'll not usurp the functions of the judge of these courts, who can turn her loose on a habeas corpus, and direct them to turn her loose or interfere in any way in their business. I don't run the police department of the City of Atlanta, I run the office of Solicitor General for the term that the people have elected me, and I'm taken to task because I went in at the beginning of this thing and didn't stand back.

I honor Mr. Hill. I am as proud of having succeeded him.