Sunday, 1st March 1914: How I Feel In Shadow Of Gallows! Leo Frank Bares Soul, The Atlanta Georgian

Search for:

Reading Time: 27 minutes [4649 words]

"I Never Have Been Able Fully to Realize That It Is I Who Is Facing Death. It Seems Like a Detached Being," He Says

"If I Should Have to Forfeit My Life, No Qualms of Death Will Ever Shake Me; It Does Not Take Any Physical Courage."

An interview that takes its place as one of the most remarkable ever given by a man under the sentence of death was obtained by The Sunday American from Leo Frank yesterday.

Frank, describing his sensations as the State, day by day, is pressing its claim for the forfeit of his life, said that he looked over the whole panorama of the great legal struggle with the eye of a person totally disconnected and disinterested in the case, except as a citizen hoping and praying for justice.

It savored of the vivisectional to ask the prisoner outright to bare his feelings and thoughts as each effort to save him from the gallows had failed and he found himself nearer the drear shadow of the noose. It was not a pleasant question to ask and it was not a particularly agreeable topic of conversation.

Meets Question Calmly.

Frank met the question calmly, however, and discussed it in a matter-of-fact way. Any apprehension that he might wish to avoid a discussion of such a possibility as death by the hangman's noose was dispelled by his ready comment and his failure to indicate any dislike of the subject.

He was not asked explicitly how it felt to be in the shadow of the gallows, but that is the question that he answered.

And his reply indicated as clearly as words can tell that he had little, or no more feeling in the matter than as though he were only an observer on the outside whose sole wish was that justice be done.

He told The Sunday American reporter who visited him at his cell that he had not been downcast by the successive defeats that efforts to free him had met, and that he had hardly been able to realize that it was his own life that was at stake.

"It has been almost in the nature of a nightmare to me," he said. "It has seemed as though some other person were being tried for the crime of murdering Mary Phagan and as though I were an onlooker."

Never Has Felt That He Will Die.

"Have you ever been oppressed or discouraged by the thought that all of the efforts to aid you may be fruitless and that the penalty already imposed may be carried out?" he was asked.

"No," was his reply, "I have felt from the first that the truth ultimately would be known and that the murderer would be found. I never have been able fully to realize that it is I who is facing death. The gallows has never come before me as a picture.

"It has seemed like a separate entity a detached being whose struggle to prove his innocence I have been standing by and watching."

Then he was asked about Death the specter whose presence brings dread to the heart of man though it comes softly and without pain. The Death that confronted him was not of that kind. Here is what he said:

Not Afraid of Death.

"If I were to know that my life would be forfeited on the gallows tomorrow, you would find me just as you see me today. No qualms shake me as I think of death. I have a conscience that is clean and clear. It does not take any physical courage to face death. From the day that we are born the only certain thing in life is death. I am prepared for that, and I am ready to meet it at any time. My heart will be heavy only with the sense of the immeasurable injustice that is being done."

"I am unworried and untroubled. I

Continued on Page 4, Column 4.

PAGE 4, COLUMN 4

FRANK UNAFRAID AS HE FACES GALLOWS

Continued From Page 1.

hope that the public and the public officials will come to a sense of the facts in the case before anything dramatic happens. Even though they do not, my personality is only an incident in the case. I am not speaking in any spirit of bravado or lightness. No one can be more cognizant and appreciative of the seriousness of the situation than I am. No one knows better what is in the balance."

Frank was standing in front of his cell in the Tower as he talked of his situation. If appearances counted for anything, his words were in his favor.

Talks as Man Unafraid.

He was not the cringing, shrinking creature that the gallows' next victim is pictured. He was speaking in the matter-of-fact tones and words of a business man. He was talking as a man unafraid and a man unflinching. If the actual presence of the gallows will show him to be of a different sort, it will be for the future to reveal it.

"Don't understand me to be unimpressed by the gravity of the situation," he cautioned. "A human life is at stake. That it happens to be mine is incidental. It actually is an incident in my view of the case. The big principles involved are the things that count, and not a person's identity. What I say and what I feel are from the viewpoint of a person totally separated from actual connection with the tragedy and its investigation."

At this point Frank made his first reference to Conley, the Negro branded by Frank's lawyers as the sinister arch-conspirator whose tale had doomed the factory superintendent to death.

"If worst comes to worst," the prisoner said, significantly, "Conley will be a triple criminal. If his infamous lies are going to be accepted and things take the course that they have started to take, the Negro Conley will have destroyed three lives."

"Will Have Destroyed Three."

"He will have destroyed Mary Phagan, whom he strangled to death; he will have destroyed Leo Frank, whom he perjured to death, and he will have destroyed Hugh Dorsey, whom he will have betrayed and committed to a worse fate than death. I say to every man, woman and child in Georgia that I am innocent of the charges brought against me. If I had not said it so many times, I would repeat that the hand that wrote the notes was the hand that strangled Mary Phagan."

"I don't want to make a specific accusation, but I must say that much," he said. "They say that it was incriminating for me to make a call over the phone that night, but what is more incriminating than those notes?"

"Why did Conley write them? is the first question that presents itself. It is easily answered. An ignorant negro doesn't know that a person's writing is as individualistic as his very features. Moreover, according to the State's testimony in the trial, Mrs. Arthur White saw Conley at the foot of the stairs on the first floor. He didn't know whether she had recognized him or not."

Hoped to Divert Suspicion.

"He hoped not and he framed his notes so to read that suspicion would be cast on a Negro entirely different in appearance than himself. He described a Negro diametrically different in appearance."

"What white man, if he had been insane enough to write or dictate the notes, would have gone to the trouble to have described a particular kind of a Negro? But Conley was anxious to have the officers look for a man as unlike himself as possible. He said that a 'long, tall, slim black Negro did it by hisself.' Conley is short, stocky and yellow, rather than black."

"Detectives ordinarily on finding such notes would set out to find a Negro exactly opposite the description. They did find Conley. Conley, after three weeks, admitted to the writing of the notes, and yet they took his story, subject to change without notice, as gospel truth. He did change it repeatedly. Each new version they accepted without question, though it differed radically from the one preceding."

"What explanation did Conley have for the lies contained in his first statement, in which he said that he wrote the notes on Friday? He said that he was afraid to place himself in the factory on Saturday for fear the authorities would suspect him of the crime. Is there nothing significant or suspicious in this admission?"Was Frank afraid of admitting that he was in the factory on Saturday? Was anything wrung out of him only after the application of the third degree? Did he not disclose every action on the day of the tragedy and admit that he was in the factory at or near the time the crime was supposed to have been committed?

Then we come to another feature of the Negro's weird story. He said that he was watching and waiting on the first floor so that Frank would not be interrupted up on the second floor.

But I want to ask, 'For whom was he watching and whom did he stop?' As a matter of fact, he could not have stopped any white person that wanted to go upstairs. If I had been the sort of a man that he represented, I simply could have locked the doors leading up to the second floor and that would have been all that there would have been to it.

Lemmie Quinn came upstairs at 12:20 o'clock and Conley didn't stop him, nor does he testify of giving any warning. Mrs. White came upstairs at 12:30 o'clock, according to the testimony, and no attempt was made to stop her. If the State's theory were to be believed, even Monteen Stover was allowed to go upstairs after Mary Phagan had gone up, had been decoyed to the metal room and there attacked. Conley's story, on its face, it would appear to me, falls down in its most important features.

Another Weak Point.

Another particular in which his story collapses is in the fact, borne out by testimony on the witness stand, that the first floor that is, the entrance of the pencil factory was used up to January 15 by another firm for an entrance. Conley could not have watched there under those conditions, though he testified to having done so.

Added to all this that I have recounted, a time element enters into the case that never fully has been dwelt upon. Miss Hattie Hall, the stenographer at my office the morning of April 26, left when she heard the 12 o'clock whistle blow. She testified that she forgot her umbrella and that she returned for it. She looked at the clock and saw that it was 12:02 o'clock.

It was at this clock that Monteen Stover looked when she came into the factory. The clock might have been fast or slow whichever way the State desires it but the fact remains that it was the same clock that Miss Hall looked at when she left the factory at the blowing of the noon whistle. Monteen Stover looked at the same clock not the clock of a conductor or a motorman and she testified that she arrived there at 12:05.

Now here is what the State and Jim Conley say that happened between 12:02, when Miss Hall left, and 12:05, when Monteen Stover entered, by the clock in the factory.

That was only three minutes, remember. Conley said that Lemmie Quinn came in and stayed in Frank's office for six or seven minutes.

He left and disappeared. Then Mary Phagan came in and went up to the office of Frank. She had her conversation with Frank about her pay envelope and the possibility of the metal coming within a few days. Then came, according to the State, the trip to the metal room, the advances to the girl, the struggle, the blow and all all within a space of three minutes.

Continuing his discussion of Conley and the Negro's testimony, Frank said:

Suppose that, instead of accusing Frank, Conley had put the crime on some other Negro; every one would have said that he was simply seeking to shift the blame. But when he accused a white man, everyone took up the cry.

The crime is typically that of a Negro. A white man will stab, poison, shoot, but he will not take fiendish delight in choking and strangling his victim.

"Negroisms" in Notes.

Returning to the notes, one finds a number of Negroisms that one never would encounter had a white man dictated them. One that stands out particularly in view, that has not been emphasized before, is contained in his expression: 'That hoo it was.'

I am told that one of the most common expressions heard before Recorder Broyles is on this order. A Negro is brought before the Recorder, say for crap shooting. The Recorder asks him how about it. The Negro replies:

'No, judge, I ain't shoot no craps. Jim Johnson was playing THAT HOO IT WAS.'

And the judge knows that he is lying.

Burns Expected Monday.

Coincident with Frank's story to The Sunday American came the announcement that William J. Burns will be in Atlanta Monday to take up a personal investigation of the case. At the local agency it was said that no definite word had been received from Burns, but that he was expected in town Monday, or Tuesday at the latest.

Rumors that Allan Pinkerton, the head of the Pinkerton agency, also would have a hand in the investigation were set at rest by the managers of the Atlanta agency.

The Pinkertons have cleaned up all of their work in connection with the case, said Henry Jennings. So far as we know there is nothing else to do. There is nothing to the report that Allan Pinkerton is coming here. We would have been notified had such been the case. There would have been secrecy enshrouding his movements.

Next Legal Moves.

The next development in the Frank case will be the sending down of the remittitur Monday by the Supreme Court. This was expected Saturday, but pressure of clerical business prevented. Soon after the decision of the upper court becomes a part of the lower court's record, probably on Tuesday or Wednesday, Solicitor Dorsey will ask for the resentencing of Frank.

Judge Ben Hill will reimpose the death sentence, it being generally understood among lawyers that this is his only course, and the lawyers for Frank then will announce their extraordinary motion for a new trial.

The motion will be based on the sensations of the last ten days, chief among which are the statement of Dr. H. F. Harris, the repudiation of his trial testimony by Albert Mc Knight, and the repudiation of her affidavit by Nina Formby.

Adding strength to the declaration of Dr. Harris that the hair found on the lathe in the metal room was not the hair of Mary Phagan, came the story Saturday that Dr. Harris preceded his microscopic examination by boiling both samples of hair so that they should be absolutely free from anything that would tend to lighten or darken them.

This information was looked upon by the defense as a sufficient reply to the contention of Solicitor Dorsey that the Phagan girl's hair had been washed in tar soap and was, therefore, lighter than the strands found on the lathe, which were not so treated.

PAGE 1, COLUMN 2

HERE'S A NEW LEO FRANK

IN spit of the Fact that he has lived for months in the shadow of the gallows, the man convicted for the slaying of Mary Phagan is a different person physically. The camera plainly shows the improvement in his face since has been in cell.

PAGE 4, COLUMN 1

SECOND AFFIDAVIT MADE

IN OCTOBER BY FORMBY

WOMAN JUST REVEALED

Repudiates in Entirety Charges She

Originally Made Against Leo Frank

and Accuses Police of Plot to Con-

coct Evidence Against Prisoner.

The second affidavit of Nina Formby, in which she repudiates in its entirety the first affidavit made against Leo M. Frank, was received Saturday night by The Sunday American. The statement charges in a more specific manner than yet published that Detectives Chewning and Norris, of the Atlanta department, concocted and dictated the accusations contained in the document and threatened her with harm if she did not swear to its truth. The surprising fact was also made known that this repudiation was sworn to as long ago as last October.

Chief Lanford is charged with having a part in obtaining the first affidavit, although it is not said what knowledge he had of its truthfulness. The charge is made, however, that Chief Lanford attempted to make Mrs. Formby say certain definite things hurtful to Frank.

Leo Frank, asked for a comment on the statement on the latest development of the sensational new evidence that is being turned up by the defense, said:

Who Is the Liar? He Asks.That affidavit at once raises the question as to who has been lying. Chief Lanford says that it has been Harry Latham, but I wonder if this is so. Lanford has published abroad that Latham, being "sore" on the department, went to New York and there gave out to one of the New York papers statements purporting to come from Mrs. Formby. Lanford said that Latham was in New York and that the Formby woman was not.

But it comes to me from authoritative sources that Latham actually was in Birmingham and that he telephoned no later than Friday to an Atlanta attorney from that city. It also is a fact that the affidavit from Mrs. Formby, in which she repudiates everything that she said before, was made October 30 of last year, before Latham ever had any trouble with the police or detective department and before he could have any animus against them, such as Lanford alleges.

So it resolves itself into a question as to the identity of the liar in the case.

Lanford said at the time the Formby affidavit came out that it was the one link that remained to connect me inseparably with the crime. It was the one thing needed to clinch the evidence against me. Now he says that he never did believe it or give it any credence. Who is the one that is lying about this?

Lanford said that Latham was in New York. He was not. Lanford said Latham had a grudge against Vickery and Hamby for arresting him, but this affidavit was made before Latham ever was arrested. So who is the liar?

### New Formby Affidavit.

Here is the Formby affidavit taken and sworn to before Franz Siegel, in New York, last October, but made public for the first time here:

Two officers of the detective department of the police force, whose names are Norris and Chewning, called at my home early one Sunday afternoon the date I cannot be sure of, but it was after Leo M. Frank had been arrested in connection with the murder of Mary Phagan, all of which had been published in the newspapers and was my only source of information that Leo M. Frank was arrested. They then made the murder of Mary Phagan the subject of their conversation and asked me if it was not a fact that Leo M. Frank had been to my house with Mary Phagan. I told them as positively and as certainly as I knew how that it was not a fact, and that any such inference was a lie.

### Suggestive Questions.

They continued to ask suggestive questions along the same lines, wanted to know if it was not also a fact that Leo M. Frank was in the "habit" of coming to my house with young girls and if it was not a fact that he was a degenerate. To all of which insinuations I replied in most positive language that he had not ever been to my house with young girls, and that I knew nothing about Leo M. Frank that would in any way suggest that he was a degenerate or any other sort of a man than a gentleman.

Chewning and Norris also wanted me to admit that Leo M. Frank had talked with me on the telephone on the evening of April 26 and wanted to engage a room in my apartment for "himself and a young girl." Replying to this, I again told the detectives that it was absolutely false. They also wanted to know if I did not believe that Leo M. Frank had killed Mary Phagan. I told them, with some warmth in my language, that I did not believe so, and that they must know it was a lie.

I made absolutely no admissions to Detectives Norris and Chewning about or in connection with Leo M. Frank that could by any possible means require another call on me by them, or any other members of the Atlanta police department in connection with the Mary Phagan murder in the future.

### Tells of Another Call.

However, in about two hours after Chewning and Norris left my house, Chief of Police Beavers, Chief of Detectives Lanford, and Solicitor Dorsey called. At this call, Lanford talked with me in my dining room; Chief Beavers and Solicitor remaining in my parlor.

Lanford put to me about the same inferences and suggestions that Chewning and Norris had made earlier in the day wanted me to say and admit that Leo M. Frank had been to my house with Mary Phagan and that he was in the habit of coming to my house with other "young girls," and that he had telephoned to me several times in the evening of the 26th of April and wanted a room for himself and a young girl on which day the murder of Mary Phagan is said to have occurred. I refused to admit any of the suggestions or make any of the statements derogatory to Leo M. Frank.

He also asked me to go to the Tower and call on Leo M. Frank, and that he would have his secretary, Mr. Febuary, go in behind me and when I would engage Leo M. Frank in conversation, the secretary would come near enough to overhear our conversation and to make stenographic notes.

### "Suggested Conversation."

He even suggested an outline of the conversation I was to have with Leo M. Frank, saying that undoubtedly Frank would not at first recognize me or admit that he knew me, but that I should continue to talk with him and express my sympathy for him in his predicament, and that I should say in the conversation that when he talked with me over the telephone on April 26, I did not expect to see him in the Tower afterward.

I refused absolutely to agree to this arrangement and, as there had been no telephone conversation between Leo M. Frank and me or any other single thing of truth in the suggestions and statements made by Chief Lanford as occurring between Leo M. Frank and myself, over a telephone or otherwise. Neither Chief Beavers nor Solicitor Dorsey talked to me about the Mary Phagan murder or made any suggestions whatever relating to that crime.

Chief Lanford talked with me in the dining room for about 20 or 25 minutes. We then returned to the parlor, where Solicitor Dorsey and Chief Beavers were, and the party remained in the house about three-quarters of an hour. I have never talked with any of these men since that visit. I will state, however, that Detectives Chewning and Norris called at my house again later that Sunday night after Lanford, Beavers, and Dorsey had left, but I did not see them. My maid told me of their call.

### Brought Whiskey, She Says.

On the following Monday afternoon, Detectives Chewning and Norris again called at my house and on this occasion brought a bottle of whiskey, which they set out on the table between us and invited me to drink.

They then went over practically the same story and questions that they did on the previous day concerning Leo M. Frank and the Mary Phagan murder; tried to cajole me and argued that I should "stand in" with Chief Lanford and themselves, and boldly and plainly asked me to "stand for" the statements that they had suggested to me as to Leo M. Frank coming to my house with Mary Phagan and other young girls and that he was a degenerate, all of which I again absolutely refused to do and told them that they themselves knew that all such inferences and statements were lies.

They went so far as to say that they could do me harm if I did not agree to stand for this story.

Chewning and Norris called at my house again the following Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in the afternoon of these days, and on each occasion brought a bottle of whiskey with them and went over the same ground and outlined practically as I have stated above, continuing their urging me to stand for the story and allegations outlined by them.

### Didn't Want Notoriety.

On each and every occasion, I refused and told them if they knew anything that it was all false and that I would not under any circumstances be made a party to it, and that I did not want to get my name in the newspapers or any notoriety in connection with the Mary Phagan matter.

Norris and Chewning then said that if I would make a statement along the lines outlined by them they would see that it did not get into the newspapers. On each of the calls that they made at my house they played cards. On three of the occasions when Norris and Chewning were at my house others were present and saw them there.I deeply regret that I did not appreciate more keenly the effect that the publication of the story herewith had upon the public, standing as it has until today undenied by me, but I was annoyed and pestered by the police officers in this matter and failed to see or realize the injury that the circulation of these published lies, attributed to me, had upon the public and the welfare of Leo M. Frank, and now realizing them as I do after all the excitement and public clamor has died away, I owe it to myself, to Mr. Frank and to the public to deny this false story and set myself right before them.

Tells of Seeing Rosser.

I would further state that since the publication of this story on May 23, I have not talked with the police officers, Norris and Chewning, or Chief Lanford about this story, but on September 27 I met Detective Bass Rosser in the post-office in Atlanta, and with him talked about the story that had been published in the Atlanta papers wherein my name had been used. Rosser knew that Chewning and Norris were the ones responsible for the stories published in which my name had been used, and he expressed his regret that I had been so unfairly treated by them, and added by way of sort of explanation or justification that Chewning was in a bad way in the police department, and he had to stoop to most anything to hold his job.

(Signed) MRS. NINA FORMBY.

PAGE 4, COLUMN 3

Fragments From The Philosophy Of Leo M. Frank

IF I were to know that my life would be forfeited on the gallows tomorrow you would find me just as you see me today. No qualms shake me as I think of death. I have a conscience that is clean and clear. From the day that we are born the only certainty is death. I am prepared for that. My heart will be heavy only with the sense of the immeasurable injustice that is being done.

I am unworried and untroubled. I hope that the public and the public officials will come to a sense of the facts in the case before anything dramatic happens, but if they do not, my personality is only an incident in the case. I speak without bravado or lightness.