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

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Reading Time: 4 minutes [600 words]

Here is the translated text as follows:

W. J. COOK.

635

He had changed his mind, and he had decided he would not come to my office. I said, "Let us not talk it over the telephone; suppose you leave your office and meet me on the Whitehall Street viaduct in a few minutes." He said, "All right." I left my office, and we walked out on the sidewalk. He said, "I will arrange a place to meet him. I don't want to talk to him in your office or his office. I will talk to him in the place I suggest." I told him he could not have any suspicion about meeting him in my office. We had a private room there, and it would be all right. After some persuasion on my part, he went up to the private office where Mr. Candler was, shut the door, and they remained in there for some time. Mr. Cook left without coming back through my main office but opened the door of my private office into the hall and left the building. Mr. Candler reported to me what Mr. Cook demanded of him to do.

I then, in response to a telephone message from her, made an engagement, brought her to my office that afternoon, and my brother George and I talked to her. We told her that Mr. Cook had demanded that he arrange for her to leave town, and her husband, or he would expose her. She said that was pretty hard to demand that she should leave her home and husband. We told her Mr. Candler was not demanding it; it was Mr. Cook's demand of Mr. Candler. We asked Mrs. Hirsch what kind of a man Mr. Hirsch was. She told us he was a pretty cool, determined sort of man, and that if Mr. Cook did go to her husband, she didn't know just exactly what he would do. She said, "Whether he would immediately kill me and then probably go and try to kill Mr. Candler, or whether he would sue me for divorce and name Mr. Candler as co-respondent."

Mr. Cooper: I object to what Mrs. Hirsch said about her husband on the ground that he was a cool, courageous man and so forth; it doesn't bind the defendant Cook on trial.

The Court: Objection overruled.

Mr. Adair: She said, "As between the two, rather than risk my husband's taking one or the other of these steps, it might be better for me to leave, but I certainly ought not to be required to leave my husband and my home and all of my friends here unless I were properly provided for." Up to that time, I had not in any way mentioned money, never. Cook was the first who suggested her leaving her husband. She said, "Mr. Candler is very wealthy; he has given a good deal to charity; he is a philanthropist, and he ought to be willing to provide liberally for me. I would rather talk to him directly about this." I assured her, as I had before, that Mr. Candler would not talk to her and would only deal with her through me. She said, "If you put the situation on that basis, I am going to be mercenary. I have to be provided with everything I have now. My husband gets a good salary of $300.00 a month as an insurance agent; he has some other income from property, and I have a good home." She said nearly all his income he spent on her, and if she left Atlanta and quit him, she thought...