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

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334 X. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

There is no slush fund behind this case. Now, let's move on a little bit.

They tried very hard to break down this man, Albert McKnight, with Minola—and I believe I'll leave that for a little later and come now to this statement of Frank's. Gentlemen, I wish I could travel faster over this. I'm doing the very best I can. I have a difficult task, and I wish I didn't have to do it at all.

Now, gentlemen, I want to discuss briefly right here these letters. If these letters weren't "the order of an all-ruling Providence," I should agree with my friends that they are the silliest pieces of stuff ever produced; but these letters have intrinsic marks of knowledge of this transaction. These pads, that pad—things usually found in his office—this man Frank, by the language of these notes, in attempting to fasten the crime upon another, "has indelibly fixed it upon himself." I repeat it, these notes, which were intended to fix the crime upon another, "have indelibly fixed it upon this defendant," Leo M. Frank. The pad, the paper, the fact that he wanted a note—you tell me that ever a negro lived on the face of the earth who, after having killed and robbed, or ravished and murdered a girl down in that dark basement, or down there in that area, would have taken the time to have written these notes, and written them on a scratch pad, which is a thing that usually stays in the office, or written them on paper like this, found right outside of the office of Frank, as shown on that diagram, which is introduced in evidence and which you will have out with you? You tell me that that man, Jim Conley, sober, as Tillander and Graham tell you, when they went there, would have ravished this girl with a knowledge of the fact that Frank was in that house? I tell you no. Do you tell me that this man, Jim Conley, "drunk as a fiddler's bitch," if you want it that way, would, or could have taken time to have written these notes to put beside the body of that dead girl? I tell you no, and you don't need me to tell you, you know it. The fact, gentlemen of the jury, that these notes were written—eh, but you say...