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

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Reading Time: 3 minutes [373 words]

Here is the translated text as follows:

790 X. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

In this paper, which you will have before you when you retire, I shall not read at length. This application was from one friend to another; on the face of it, a confidential communication, although containing nothing but what might do credit to all the parties concerned. Mr. Adams, however, did not consider it so confidential, and from some disclosure on his part, has arisen the base and cowardly slander that initially dragged me before the public to vindicate my moral and political character. It has now brought me before this tribunal to protect, if I can, my personal liberty and my private fortune against the legal attack of an ex-officio information.

Hence, it is evident, gentlemen of the jury, that this is not a voluntary but an involuntary publication on my part. It has originated not from motives of turbulence and malice, but from self-defense; not from a desire to attack the character of the President, but to vindicate my own. And in what way have I done this? My motives, my private character, and my public character were the objects of falsehood and calumny, apparently founded on information of high authority. In reply, I credit the intentions of the President. I say nothing of his private character, and I attack only the tendency of measures notorious to the world, which, having been known to disapprove publicly, I was charged with being ready, from motives of interest, to approve privately. I think, gentlemen, you cannot help but feel this contrast of behavior, and if the President is satisfied with his side of the picture, I am with mine.

The first article selected for accusation is that, at the time I allude to, he was but in the infancy of political mistake. Why this expression should have been fixed on as seditious, I know not, unless it be that "quem deus vult perdere prius dementat"; for have we advanced so far on the road to despotism in this republican country that we dare not say our President may be mistaken? Is a plain citizen encircled at once by the mysterious attribute of political infallibility the instant he mounts the presidential chair? If so, then indeed...

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