Saturday, 21st August 1915: Blue Ridge Solicitor Will Probe Lynching, The Atlanta Journal

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Herbert Clay Tells Governor

Special Grand Jury Investigation Will Be Made

Herbert Clay, of Marietta, Solicitor General of the Blue Ridge Circuit, which Circuit includes Cobb County, called on Governor Harris Saturday morning and assured the Governor that he would exert every effort within his power to detect the members of the mob that lynched Leo M. Frank, and to bring them to justice.

Solicitor Clay further informed the Governor that Judge H. L. Patterson, the presiding Judge of the Blue Ridge Circuit, has called a special term of the Superior Court in Cobb County on the last Monday in August, for the purpose of directing a special Grand Jury investigation of the lynching.

Governor Harris was very much gratified over the promptness of Solicitor Clay in coming to Atlanta to confer with him in regard to the lynching and with the Solicitor's evident sincerity in desiring to leave no stone unturned to punish the men who took the law into their own hands.

"I feel certain," said Governor Harris, "that the Superior Court of Cobb County will exert its full power under the law to discover the identity of the men who perpetrated the shocking outrage upon the State and to punish them as the law provides."

The Governor expects the Judge and Solicitor of the Baldwin County Superior Court to confer with him next week concerning the lynching. The Baldwin Court has authority over the lynchers for abduction, by reason of the fact that Milledgeville is in Baldwin County, while the Cobb County Superior Court has authority to deal with them for the actual lynching of Frank.

Sale of Lynching Pictures Prohibited

The sale of photographs showing the body of Leo M. Frank hanging to a tree, near Marietta, was ordered stopped Saturday, by the City Council.

The ordinance which was introduced by Councilman J. N. Renfroe and Alderman J. Lee Barnes passed both the Council and the Aldermanic Board without a dissenting voice. It was then signed by Acting Mayor I. N. Ragsdale, and the Police Department was instructed to immediately stop the sale of the pictures.

The ordinance provides that "It shall be unlawful to sell or to offer for sale any picture or representation of any person's body hanging from a tree or other support, where the person has been killed by means of a mob or in other illegal manner."

The measure provides the usual penalty of $200 or thirty days in the City Prison for its violation. It also provides that the amount of the license paid by any one to sell such pictures shall be refunded and that no such licenses shall be issued in the future.

City Clerk Walter C. Taylor stated to the Aldermanic Board that only three licenses to sell the Frank pictures have been issued, as he refused to issue additional ones, when he learned the nature of the pictures.

PAGE 10, COLUMN 3

FOR SALE MISCELLANEOUS

FOR SALE 30-H. P. HIGH-SPEED RUSSELL ENGINE: PERFECT CONDITION. NATIONAL STRAW HAT WORKS, 17 TRINITY AVENUE, PHONE, MAIN 1428.

PHOTO History of the Frank Case, 25c and 50c each. Address S. B. Gaston, P. O. Box 758, Atlanta, Ga.