A large body of peer-reviewed research published by modern psychologists, behavioral scientists, and police interrogators suggests macro and micro body language, demeanor, eye contact, speech patterns, and numerous other outward physical manifestations, known in slang as “tells,” can reveal much about a suspect beneath their surface.
Everything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.
During the normal course of procedural questioning and interrogation, which involves thorough examination of every detail and sometimes incorporating third-degree interrogation methods (good cop versus bad cop technique), the sub-factors that are evaluated about a suspect’s speech patterns, include the tone, timber, cadence, tempo, syntax, word count, and choice. The goal is to gather and document with a stenographer as much information as possible from suspects and associates for later analysis.
Rule of thumb for guilty criminals: Say as little as possible or nothing at all.
Conversations are carefully evaluated in the manner they were delivered, not just the words, but the subtext and things that don’t pass the common sense test. All of the outward auditory and physical expressions of a person are subset variables of an even larger equation, and combined as a unified whole, they reveal a picture. All the manifestations of inward and outward expression come together, often playing a significant role in how we consciously and unconsciously interpret the interactive, circumstantial, external behavior and communication from others. That’s a brief synopsis of how police and detectives did their work back in 1913. It was more intuitive than scientific. In 2015, the analysis of information collected from suspects is now equally intuitive and scientific. In the last one hundred years, forensic science has improved exponentially, but the one thing that has never changed in the history of police detective work is the central reliance on intuition for solving crimes above all, and fine tuning this intuition takes years and decades.
The path of the interrogator is intense scrutiny and persistence.
Body language from suspects often reveals insightful nuances of information to interrogation professionals, individuals with years of training in the art and science of reading people. With experience, professionals can intuitively surmise with minute levels of clarity what might hide beneath the outer veneer of appearances, and when something “just isn’t right,” defies common sense, doesn’t corroborate, or just seems plain suspicious, further scrutiny is the normal path of the investigator, and persistence usually wins the day in discovering what is likely truth and falsehood. But this kind of work is tedious, and there are many disappointing dead ends before the solution is found. And looking back with hindsight, the solution is not always, but usually is, the path of least difficulty.
The Average Juror
Unlike the typical police officer, seasoned detective, or investigator, trained in behavioral sciences, the average person can usually only rely on his or her own common sense sense. Whether one is trained to read body language or not, the conscious and unconscious interpretations of it play a role in our perceptions and judgments of others. During trials, judgments are being made not only about what people testify about, but by the their body language and appearance when jurors make decisions about statements, whether truth or embellishment, fact or fiction. In 1913, the term “demeanor” was often used to describe not just the physical cues, but also verbal information and quantifying it all as a whole.
The Body Language and Demeanor of Leo M. Frank during the Mary Phagan Murder Investigation and His Trial
The body language exhibited by Leo Frank, during the early days of the Mary Phagan murder investigation (April 27, 28, and 29, 1913), was dramatically different from his behavior at his capital murder trial (July 28 to August 21, 1913) and during closing arguments (August 21 to 25, 1913). Leo Frank was frenetically nervous during the first day of the investigation, but he was calm, cool, and collected during his entire murder trial. This seemed to be a major point of contention about him, because many of Leo Frank’s friends would describe him as a generally nervous man, but at the trial for his life, he was a monument of unwavering stone cold emotion.
The First Forty-Eight Hours Are the Most Important in an Investigation
In the first forty-eight hours of the Mary Phagan murder investigation, Leo Frank set off a number of suspicious “red flags” in the minds of those crime investigators responsible for evaluating suspects, gathering evidence and testimony, and following lead permutations. Their purpose was unraveling the Mary Phagan murder mystery, not framing Jews as many Jewish historians and authors of the Leo Frank case have suggested.
Sometimes it all comes together during a trial.
It’s an unfortunate reality that people of all walks of life sometimes judge people by their outward appearance. The way Leo Frank behaved and acted during his trial might have been misinterpreted to his detriment, or these same judgmental observations may have revealed a lot more than meets the eye about him. As time went on during the trial, most people could probably not help but zoom in on all of his perceived physical defects. Many people who sized up Leo Frank, in a moment’s notice, thought he seemed rather odd, and some described him as looking like a “pervert.”
On July 28,1913, Mary Phagan’s mother, Mrs. Frances Coleman (formerly Frances Phagan), mounted the stand as the first witness at the trial and spoke under examination by Hugh Dorsey and Luther Rosser. While she spoke, journalists seated behind and to the left side of the jury box observed that Leo Frank immediately looked down and away, refusing to make eye contact with Mrs. Phagan during the entire duration of her examination. While this was not necessarily an indication of his guilt, it certainly raised eyebrows and inspired questions.
Why was Leo M. Frank the only person at the trial unwilling to look at this bereaving mother during her examination by defense and prosecution lawyers?
This refusal to make eye contact with a witness was not noted at any other time during the trial after the behavior was published in the newspapers the following morning, leaving one to wonder if it caused Leo Frank to be a bit more cautious in self-monitoring and adapt. After taking a bath each morning, Leo Frank and his legal defense dream team followed the newspaper reports closely every morning.
Given the circumstances and nature of the trial, it was likely the jury may have unconsciously interpreted Leo Frank’s averted eyes during Mrs. Coleman’s examination as indicating that perhaps he was experiencing a moment of shame and regret, thus unable to face the mother of the victim while she spoke about her daughter. However, it is equally possible Leo Frank’s inability to make eye contact with Mrs. Coleman may simply have been a normal act of an innocent man, unable to bear the thoughts conjured up of the heinous crime, especially when the battered and torn clothes of Mary Phagan were so prominently displayed before the court like dirty rags.
Other Indications of the Abnormal: Leo Frank Was an Unmovable Statue
At the trial, there were other physical and behavioral variables to consider about Leo M. Frank, some that also seemed quite peculiar, aside from his clearly defensive poses. Leo Frank gave off a most obtuse ambiance, because of the way he sat unmoving during the duration of the trial. News reports on the trial indicate Leo Frank rarely shifted or stirred in his seat. It could have easily been interpreted as rather unnatural. Whereas some people fidget too much, Leo Frank was the extreme opposite. He sat immovable during the long, grueling days in his odd configurations and postures.
In one permutation of thought, the general body language of Leo Frank could perhaps have been the appearance of someone falsely accused, but for the jury, taking all these variables together — the eye contact and body language of Leo Frank — they could have easily interpreted some of these variables as rather unusual and others as subtle indications of deception hiding beneath the surface.
Unlike modern trials today, where the accused often sits obscured behind a large wooden table, opposite and diagonal from the jury box, Leo Frank was completely unobscured by any table and in full direct frontal view of the jury, no more than ten to fifteen feet way, with nothing blocking his entire body.
The Countenance of Leo Max Frank Sitting Directly in Front of the Jury
The Legs of Leo M. Frank throughout His Entire Trial
Starting from the floor and slowly looking upward at Leo Frank, one could not help but notice Leo Frank’s effeminately positioned and testicle-crushing crossed legs. His legs and knees were so tightly wound and twisted together, it was as if he had put his genitals into steel vice and turned the crank handle closed until it couldn’t physically be swiveled anymore. It wasn’t his crossed legs that seemed odd alone, but how they came together in concordance with his arms and that he held this posture for nearly the entire trial while he was seated.
From Leo Frank’s legs, one’s eyes would be drawn slightly upward to his folded and crossed arms that were metaphorically similar to the configuration of his legs in that he also maintained his defensive arm posture for nearly the entire duration of the trial. His folded arms had given off a defensive and guarded appearance, like he was a scared and defiant little boy shielding some kind of regretful secret and angst hidden deep within his chest, as if he sat with a kind of secret terror in anticipation of an angry mother scolding him for being a bad boy. The way he held his arms also accentuated his skeleton-like chest, the result of dramatic body weight loss during the time of his incarceration at the Atlanta police tower. He looked as if he had dropped from his svelte and lean muscular weight of 155 lbs. to 135 lbs., a dramatic weight loss for a man of 5’8″ (Height source: Cornell Senior Year Book, 1906, Leo Frank Passport Application, 1908).
The Face and Head Posture of Leo Frank at His Capital Murder Trial
Leo Frank’s face was showing the most pronounced signs of mental deterioration from the whole ordeal leading up to the trial. Looking up from his skeleton-like chest, one would see his contumacious head and face, with a subtle and gay lean to the side. Leo Frank’s face looked as if it was showing the symptoms of someone suffering from an incurable venereal disease at the terminal stage. The once delicately chiseled, handsome face of Leo M. Frank before the trial had become gaunt and sunken like an inmate serving a long sentence at Auschwitz. Just like the rest of his body, Leo Frank’s attractive Jewish aristocratic face was clearly another casualty of the whole debacle, primarily from wasting away during three months of incarceration in his sunless prison cell of the tower. His once pretty mouth with succulent lips now looked satyr-like and exhibited a protruding camel-like mouth, set above an animal-like jaw. His gaunt, sunken, and shrunken face exuded a haughty and insolent flare of empty and annoyed impatience, as if his murder trial was a minor inconvenience for him by his inferior, savage, and conspiratorial Goyim captors. Indeed, in the closing arguments of the trial, Ruben Arnold would be the first to play the race card and bring the charge of anti-Semitism against the good people of Georgia.
The Eyes of Leo Frank
His head, because it exhibited a fruity lean to the side, drew one’s attention to his liver-stained eye-orbit regions that surrounded his eyeballs. Set in the middle of his magnified eyeballs were perched the most abysmal pitch-black dilated pupils. Despite his friends and family bringing him an endless supply of premium-quality food, his eye regions gave the indication he was malnourished. The bags under his eyes had that mentally-ill lavender flower-petal texture and hue. One could not help but shudder from there, because when zooming inward on his bloodshot white Sclera exophthalmic (bulging) eyeballs, surrounding his dark irises and pupils, it gave the false appearance of Mydriasis — that he had no irises — eyes with only fully dilated pupils. His strabismus eyes (one eye out of lateral alignment) looked in slightly different directions (just like his father Rudolph Frank’s eyes and his wife Lucille). It must have been somewhat unnerving that his eyes were looking in two different directions, especially when they were bloated behind the amplifying glass of his wire rim spectacles — from a distance of ten to fifteen feet — it gave off the appearance that his bespectacled eyes were swollen galactic-mass black holes, a wall blocking out all the light in the whole of the universe and swallowing you at the same time.
All of Leo Frank taken in as a whole likely gave the jury an eery feeling, one that sent chills down their spines. Leo Frank looked like a freak of nature straight out of a carnival side show, especially flanked by his rotund wife one and a half times his size and his witch-like mother.
The Exquisite Dazzling High Fashion Suits of Leo Frank
Leo Frank sat obstinate throughout the entire trial, haughty and pimped out in expensive and glamorously tailored suits tightly wrapped around his skeletal body.
One day Leo Frank donned a tight high-end pinstripe double breasted suit with dramatic one-inch thick prison bar-like stripes, right out of a 21st century Hollywood gangster movie. Given the fact that Leo Frank had the option to wear whatever he wanted, it was rather odd that he chose to wear such flashy finery. Some days his clothes went even beyond the limit of decency and made him stick out like a hammer-struck and throbbing sore thumb, just like the eight Leo Frank defense dream team lawyers, who were equally pimped out in expensive clothes. Together Leo Frank and his eight lawyers were in extreme contradiction of everyone else in the courtroom, who, day by day at the trial, dressed somberly.
The bottom line, Leo Frank and his lawyers were overdressed, and at times, they pushed the envelope of fashion decency.
At other times, Leo Frank’s trial showcase of sheik and sparkly suit fabrics, tightly woven around his newly created rail thin body, perhaps unintentionally gave him the aura of an effeminate bisexual cosmopolitan pervert. Leo Frank, decked out in the finest threads money could buy at the time, may have been misinterpreted as arrogance and insolence by the jury, given the nature of the trial and the unconscious tension of wealth versus poverty.
Leo Frank’s Eight Slick Lawyers
Leo Frank’s dream team of eight lawyers were pimped out to the hilt in fat-cat Mafioso white Italian city-slicker silk suits tailored in Manhattan, made of the finest material money could buy, which had been originally imported from Italy. Every day was a new clown suit circus for the Leo Frank entourage, even when nearly everyone else at the murder trial had dressed rather appropriately, which meant bland, judicious, and conservative suits, the normal dress code expected for any courtroom in 1913 or 2015. The dramatic difference in dress code between the defense and prosecution had created an air of patrician elitism versus the poor white working class cracker masses.
Brief introduction and analysis of the four-hour oration by Leo Max Frank at his trial on August 18, 1913, followed by the official record in the brief of evidence capturing the Leo Frank trial statement given at the Fulton County Superior Court House, July Term, 1913:
Inconsistencies, Tall Tales, Fibs, and White Lies through the Eyes of the Judge and Jury
Leo Frank created too many inconsistencies during his numerous sessions of being questioned, made statements that seemed to defy logic, and said things that simply didn’t pass the common sense test. As a result, Leo Frank made too many unsubstantiated and exaggerated claims during his trial statement — which tended to intuitively trigger the bullshit detector of the individual jury members — it damaged Leo’s honor in terms of believability, “trustworthiness,” and reliability.
A General Rule of Thumb about Credibility
Once a person loses their credibility at a trial or appeal — as in the case of Leo Frank — it is very difficult, if not impossible, to regain it given the limited time factor variable of a typical trial, in this particular case, twenty-nine days. At the end of the trial, things had stacked up against Frank, as the prosecution assembled a nearly invincible chain of testimony and circumstantial evidence against him.
Leo Frank’s Ever Changing and Evolving Stories, Arrival Times, and Claims
On Sunday, April 27, 1913, Leo Frank said Newt Lee had punched his time card perfectly, reviewing it in front of police officers and then putting it back into the four-foot tall safe in his anteroom.
On Monday, April 28, 1913, Leo Frank said Newt Lee had missed three or four punches on the clock, which amounted to a black hole of theoretically three to four hours of unaccounted time. The three or four one-hour time holes spread out across the time sheet seemed a perfectly suspicious match of evidence against Newt Lee, as it took about thirty minutes for Lee to get home from the factory and another half hour to get from his home back to the factory.
Did Newt Lee murder Mary Phagan at the factory and then go home to discard evidence?
Leo Frank had asked the police to check his laundry for blood two days after the murder, ostensibly to intimate they should check Newt Lee’s home as well. There at Newt Lee’s home, a bloody shirt planted by Leo Frank cronies was found at the bottom of Newt Lee’s garbage burn barrel. The discovered item suggested Newt Lee had “forgotten to burn the blood-stained shirt created during the Mary Phagan murder.”
The planted blood-stained shirt at Newt Lee’s home could have been the most deliciously orchestrated subplot by Leo Frank, that is, had it been executed more carefully. But instead the intrigue collapsed like a house of cards, becoming one of the most embarrassing, shocking, and failed coup de grace, to pin “the crime of the century” on the innocent old Negro night watchman, an honest neophyte employee of three weeks, who punched the clock with honesty, accuracy, and integrity.
Did the Police See Right through It?
The police arrested Leo Frank on Tuesday morning, April 29, 1913, at 11:30 a.m. when they figured out the shirt was a plant and began piecing everything together. Looking back more than one hundred years later, we can apply 2015 logic on the 1913 detectives’ intuition, and it makes sense. They easily figured it out the shirt was a plant because the shirt was clean when it was discovered with blood smeared on it.
Moreover, cops were “psychologists” too when it came to observing people’s behavior, and Leo Frank had behaved both oddly and nervously when they first made contact with him face to face on Sunday, April 27, 1913. Most seasoned police officers and detectives then and now read people’s demeanor in a crime investigation because it is often very telling.
High-Strung Leo Frank or Calm, Cool, and Collected Leo Frank?
The Jewish community tries to present the image of Leo Frank as a person who was shy, nervous, and neurotically high strung, but do you really believe the five-hundred-member lodge of the B’nai B’rith would vote for a “Sol Rosenberg from the Jerky Boys” to be their leader of the most elite and exclusive Jewish fraternity? Do you think a “Sol Rosenberg from the Jerky Boys” could manage 170+ employees and juggle its myriad of business variables? Do you think the cream of Jewish genetic stock, the Selig-Cohens, of Atlanta Georgia, who two generations ago founded the first synagogue in Atlanta, would marry off one of their refined daughters to a nebbish mental break down? Who the hell is Sol Rosenberg? You can listen to his numerous unique tracks if you search on Jerky Boys.
The “neurotic high strung” Leo Frank image is a manufactured myth meant to make it harder for people to believe he was someone capable of murdering Mary Phagan.
Where was the nervous, shivering, shaking, frenetic, frantic, frazzled, bustling, rubbing hands, stomach in knots, red-faced, black sparkling diamond-eyed bespectacled Leo Frank from April 26, 1913? Leo Frank, despite his defensive and revealing demeanor at the trial, was also very calm, cold, cool, and collected during the entire trial. There was no shivering, nervous, neurotic, high-strung Leo Frank during the twenty-nine-day trial from July 28 to August 25, especially not on August 18, 1913, when Frank was calm, cool, and crisp, as cold and smooth as ice when he snapped the mind-numbed audience with “NOW GENTLEMEN”!
Leo Frank:
Now, gentlemen, to the best of my recollection from the time the whistle blew for twelve o’clock until after a quarter to one when I went up stairs and spoke to Arthur White and Harry Denham, to the best of my recollection, I did not stir out of the inner office; but it is possible that in order to answer a call of nature or to urinate I may have gone to the toilet. Those are things that a man does unconsciously and cannot tell how many times nor when he does it. Now, sitting in my office at my desk, it is impossible for me to see out into the outer hall when the safe door is open, as it was that morning, and not only is it impossible for me to see out, but it is impossible for people to see in and see me there.
The Bottom Line in These Regards: Leo Frank Was NOT What the Jewish Community and Frankites Claimed He Was…
There were a number of things that Leo changed between different occasions during stenographed police and detective interviews Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday after Confederate Memorial Day. Pinkerton Detective Agency interviews (hand recorded and contentious), inquest testimony stenographed, and finally his official murder trial statement of August 18, 1913, which would forever tarnish his credibility, all were different versions.
At the trial, there were numerous situations where it came down to Leo Frank’s word versus the word of more than a baker’s dozen of his employees and associates.
On the Credibility of Leo Frank
At the coroner’s inquest, Leo Frank said that he met his wife and mother-in-law on their way out to the opera when he came home for a late lunch. At the murder trial, Leo Frank said that he had lunch with his wife and mother-in-law after arriving home. He apparently wanted to appear as arriving home sooner than he had originally said and spending time with his family. However, Lucille Selig Frank and Josephine Selig were not home when Leo Frank said they were, and they were actually seated to watch the last matinee performance by the visiting Metropolitan Opera of Lucia di Lammermoor.
Leo Frank and State’s Exhibit B
Even in his Monday, April 28, 1913, statement known as “State’s Exhibit B,” Frank said he didn’t leave the factory until 1:10 p.m. and arrived home at 1:20, a bit late for lunch? No one questioned that it took Leo Frank ten minutes to get home, not the prosecution or defense.
The Selig’s Negro Cook, Magnolia Minola McKnight, and State’s Exhibit J, June 3, 1913
Minola McKnight made an affidavit witnessed by her lawyer, submitted at the trial as State’s Exhibit J, that put Leo Frank leaving the factory at 1:20 p.m. and arriving at home around 1:30 p.m., a contradiction of ten minutes. A ten-minute difference in arrival time at home might not seem like much, but in a murder trial where every second counts, minutes become immeasurably precious. Especially in light of the fact, Leo Frank wanted to make it seem like he did not spend a lot of time at the factory during the one-hour segment of time immediately after the Phagan murder.
Minola McKnight’s affidavit also said Leo Frank did not eat lunch and that he left the home five minutes after arriving at 1:35 p.m. However, Leo Frank claimed he had spent nearly a forty minutes at his home, eating a late lunch with his family and lying down to smoke a cigarette. The emphasis of Leo Frank was that he was sitting down with his father-in-law, Mr. Emil Selig, when he first arrived for lunch. The contradiction of Leo versus Minola was that Leo Frank claimed he left home after dinner and a long cigarette at 2:00 p.m., but Minola claimed he left at 1:35 p.m. That is a big time difference.
The whole conflicting and nebulous lunchtime whereabouts on April 26, 1913, surrounding Leo Frank would likely have annoyed the sensibility of any jury given the petty squabbling over time and left them wondering why Frank would be fighting over minutes more than an hour after the murder occurred.
Frank appeared to be trying to make it seem like he came home sooner and left later, leaving him with less time for the murder and removing the body. It is also odd that Leo Frank would not be having lunch with his family on a Saturday and State Holiday where it was understood that people should take the day off, at least half the day off concerning work. Leo Frank stated that aside from leaving the factory once in the morning for an hour and once again in the afternoon for lunch and parade watching, he stayed at the factory from 8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on that infamous Saturday. It left the jury wondering what Frank had actually done that afternoon, when his financial sheets took no more than an hour and a half to complete in reality.
There are numerous inconsistencies, but only some will need to be discussed at length.
Lucille Frank Did Not Visit Leo Frank for Nearly Two Weeks after His Arrest and Incarceration
It was never denied by the prosecution or defense that Lucille Selig Frank did not visit her husband for thirteen days after he was arrested and incarcerated from Tuesday, July, 29, 1913 at 11:30 a.m. Lucille Selig Frank could have visited her husband any of those days, given she was a bored house wife with a Negro mammy.
Trial observers wondered if Lucille Selig might have known what really happened, especially when Minola’s State’s Exhibit J revealed that a drunk Leo Frank confessed to his wife of three years in the privacy of their marital bedchamber, during the late evening of April 26, 1913, that he murdered Mary Phagan earlier that day. Leo Frank made his wife sleep on the floor rug by the side of the bed after he confessed the murder of Mary Phagan in a suicidal drunken stupor, and he asked Lucille for his pistol so he could shoot himself (Minola McKnight, June 3, 1913, Affidavit, State’s Exhibit J). It was a revealing incident in the Mary Phagan murder mystery when it was revealed that Lucille knew the truth about her husband and engaged in self-deception. All things considered, she really had no choice; the honor of her family and the Jewish community was on the line.
Leo Frank mounted the witness stand chair on August 18, 1913, and with his arms and legs defiantly crossed, he said:
Then that other insinuation, an insinuation that is dastardly that it is beyond the appreciation of a human being, that is, that my wife didn’t visit me; now the truth of the matter is this, that on April 29th, the date I was taken in custody at police headquarters, my wife was there to see me, she was downstairs on the first floor; I was up on the top floor. She was there almost in hysterics, having been brought there by her two brothers-in-law, and her father. Rabbi Marx was with me at the time. I consulted with him as to the advisability of allowing my dear wife to come up to the top floor to see me in those surroundings with city detectives, reporters and snapshotters; I thought I would save her that humiliation and that harsh sight, because I expected any day to be turned loose and be returned once more to her side at home. Gentlemen, we did all we could do to restrain her in the first days when I was down at the jail from coming on alone down to the jail, but she was perfectly willing to even be locked up with me and share my incarceration.
Leo Frank lost a lot of credibility on this one because it came off as wild, exaggerated, and fantastic. It also suggested that State’s Exhibit J might have had some real strong veracity after all in terms of Lucille Frank knowing the real score. “She was perfectly willing to even be locked up with me and share my incarceration.” If that were actually the case, she wouldn’t have cared about the paparazzi taking photos of her walking into the police station, if she truly believed her husband was innocent.
The Lynchpin of the Trial: The Infamous “Unconscious” Bathroom Visit from 12:05 to 12:10
In State’s Exhibit B and at the inquest, Leo Frank suggested that he hadn’t used the bathroom all day on Saturday. Coroner Paul Donehoo, the inquest judge of the six-man inquest jury, seemed a little incredulous, as well he should have been. It seemed to defy common sense. Even observers one hundred years later are asking, “What normal person doesn’t go to the bathroom all day?” When it was determined Leo Frank drank a full pot of black coffee a day, it became even harder to believe he did not use the bathroom that day.
After 5’2″ tall Monteen Stover gave her witness testimony at the murder trial, she had cracked wide open Leo Frank’s alibi that he had never left his office. In response, Leo Frank, for the first time in three months, offered a newfangled bathroom revelation. Leo Frank would counter the evidence of 5’2″ tall Monteen Stover, because she said his office was empty from 12:05 to 12:10. Leo Frank explained why he was not in his inner office between 12:05 and 12:10 p.m., saying he might have “unconsciously” gone to use the bathroom in the metal room or he may have beem hiding behind the safe door.
Leo Frank also described the factory as being virtually empty, except for two people on the top floor banging away with hammers and removing a partition, to open up the space on the fourth floor. Observers began asking common sense questions like, “Who else could have killed Phagan in the second floor metal room?” If it wasn’t Leo Frank and if it was someone else, why didn’t Leo Frank hear the scream in the silent empty building?
Leo Frank also said the reason why 5’2″ tall Monteen Stover didn’t see him was because his four-foot tall safe door was open. Monteen Stover was much taller than the safe and would have been able to see him had she not gone into his inner office, but according to her, she did go into his inner office. It was empty and the safe was certainly not left open in an empty office.
The Cosmos Became One Universally Conscious Legal Eye and Mind in an Event that Seldom Ever Happens in Human History
That moment in Leo Frank’s four-hour statement was the hushed spine-tingling crescendo of his trial testimony, and the ultimate linchpin moment of truth for the entire case would come down to Frank’s “unconscious” bathroom visit to the metal room.
This first-time bathroom disclosure was perceived by observers, prosecution councilors, Tom Watson, the judge, the jury, and two years of appellate review by over thirteen constitutionally sworn judges as an inescapable admission of guilt, simply because the entire prosecution’s case argument was based on trying to prove that Leo Frank murdered Mary Phagan in the second-floor metal room between 12:05 and 12:10, an area of the factory that was just down the hall from where Frank worked in his front office and the precise place Phagan worked — where the metal would be. It was the place where the bathroom was, according to the defense’s and prosecution’s drawings of the National Pencil Co. factory. To get to the bathroom, you had to walk into the metal room.
Grand Slam Home Run
Leo Frank, by his own words, had just pitched the prosecution a grand slam home run. The statement by Frank was just short of him actually coming out with it and saying: “I, Leo Frank, beat, raped, and strangled Mary Phagan after luring her into the metal room, using the ruse to see if the metal had come in, starting around 12:02 to 12:03 p.m.”
Observers one hundred years after the trial are asking: How many times in U.S. legal history did the prime suspect, indicted for murder, make an inescapably incriminating statement on the witness stand at his or her own criminal capital murder trial?
No one could have dreamed the Leo Frank trial would end up this way, as something so fantastically unlikely in Southern legal history.
Shocking, Jaw-Dropping Blunder
Frank’s shocking jaw-dropping blunder helped the prosecution, which was already far ahead in the case by the third week of the trial, essentially guaranteeing them a hands-down victory, one week before the judge and jury would give its unanimous verdict of guilt, without MERCY, voting 13 to 0.
Why Leo Frank made such a mind-boggling blunder is hard to comprehend, but he had personally sealed his own doom in that very moment on the afternoon of August 18, 1913.
Be sure to read the closing arguments of Hugh M. Dorsey and Frank Arthur Hooper (available in American State Trials Volume X 1918), followed by Tom Watson’s, January, March, August, and September 1915, “Jew Pervert” article, in Watson’s Magazine to get the delicious details of the Leo Frank murder confession. Also read Tom Watson’s Jeffersonian Newspapers from 1914 to 1917 on Leo Frank. We provide 80% of the Jeffersonian Newspaper articles on the Leo Frank case.
Mary Phagan Who?
When the police first visited Leo Frank at his house on the morning of the April 27, 1913, he denied knowing any Mary Phagan and said he would have to check his accounting log book. It was a bit of a shocker given Mary Phagan worked on the same floor as Leo Frank for one full calendar year, having been hired in the spring of 1912, and she was one of only four girls working in the metal room section known as the tipping department.
It was later determined Leo Frank would pass immediately by Mary Phagan’s workstation each day to go to the bathroom, because she worked less than 2-3 feet away from the bathroom door. The bathroom in the metal room was the ONLY bathroom on the second floor. Given that Leo Frank religiously drank a lot of coffee, it is likely he might have gone to the bathroom more than once in a typical eleven- to twelve-hour workday. Ask one hundred people who drink coffee if the beverage is a diuretic and therefore makes you tend go to the bathroom more often than usual and note the numerical results in terms on their answers.
How many times did Leo Frank pass Mary Phagan each day on the way to the bathroom? On the low end, one or two times a day over the year Mary Phagan worked there, perhaps conservatively 150 to 200, and on the high end, maybe 300 to 400+. What happened psychologically to Leo Frank during these hundreds of passes inspired by natural body urges and coming within arm’s length of Mary Phagan?
Leo Frank Paid off Mary Phagan about Fifty Times
It was really odd for Leo Frank to deny knowing Mary Phagan, because it was determined after deeper investigation that Frank paid and logged her salary more than fifty times in his account books during the work year. Within about a calendar year of Mary Phagan’s employment, it was estimated that she invested more than 2,500+ hours laboring at the sweatshop factory in the metal room, if you multiply a typical fifty-five-hour week by fifty weeks. The time clock and time cards were all managed meticulously by Leo Frank, who managed the accounting books and signed off on employee pay.
Mary Phagan Was Part of a Final Production, a Major Dependency
Mary was not in an obscure, irrelevant position at the plant. She worked in one of the most crucial capacities in the final production of pencils at the National Pencil Company; she was a tipper who inserted the erasers into the brass metal bands attached to the pencils, using a knurling machine. She and four other girls worked in the metal room, and if there was no metal and thus no brass bands to put on the ends of the pencils, then there was no putting erasers into the brass bands, and the pencils could not be completed. And that’s the bottom line.
No Pencils, No Sales, No Money
Observers one hundred years later are asking: Was this very successful pencil company, which had a huge growing demand from clients across the country, suddenly going out of business, or was the ordered brass likely to come at some point in the near future? Did Leo Frank know when the brass sheet metal was to arrive?
Mr. Frank, We Have a Pencil Log Jam Here
Stated in a different way. Four girls were laid off as a result of their being no “metal,” and therefore, no small brass bands around the pencils meant the completed supply would run out soon. It was only a matter of time. Leo Frank would surely know the names of the four girls on his office floor who would be temporarily laid off, wouldn’t he? He did, after all, meticulously oversee the final production, supplies acquisition, and payroll. Was the running out of supplies a minor affair at the factory? Likely not.
The pencil manufacturing plant under Leo Frank’s supervision wasn’t about to just shut down because of a temporary shortage of metal, and they certainly weren’t going to fire the “tippers” and then hire new employees to train from scratch once the supplies came back in. The supplies became an important factor in the metal room and the employment of these four girls. Seeing if the metal was there became an issue of contention at the murder trial. It was the three-dimensional motion from Leo Frank’s office walking toward the metal room to “check” that sustained Jim Conley and Harry Scott at the trial.
Did Leo Frank get caught in a lie about not knowing Mary Phagan? Yes. Observers are asking: Why was Leo Frank trying so hard to claim he didn’t know Mary Phagan and distance himself from her? It is a rhetorical question.
I Did Not know Jim Conley Was in the Building on April 26, 1913
Leo Frank would deny that he knew Jim Conley was at the factory that day too, but other people would swear they saw Frank and Conley talking together on the day of the murder. Ironically, Alonzo Mann would describe seeing Jim Conley lounging there in the first-floor lobby all morning sixty-nine years later, contradicting Leo Frank, who said he didn’t even know Conley was there that day. Leo Frank admitted to coming, going, and coming back in the morning of April 26, 1913, but nothing about seeing Jim Conley. Wouldn’t Leo Frank have heard a scream if Jim Conley attacked Mary Phagan and was only thirty-five feet away? Thirty to forty feet was the distance between Leo Frank’s second-floor office and the first-floor lobby.
Leo Frank would also turn his back on knowing one of his whoring buddies, Charles Brutus Dalton, and one of the girls, Daisy Hopkins, who worked at the factory a year prior to the crime and was turned out. But later, she was regularly whoring at the factory after hours. Leo Frank would get caught in a lie about that too after the prosecutor got Daisy Hopkins to admit on the stand she lied about her whoring escapades.
Consider this the warm up….
Further long-winded analysis after the official statement of Leo Frank….
The Complete Testimony Leo M. Frank Gave to the Court and Jury on August 18, 1913
LEO M. FRANK, the Defendant, made the following statement:
Gentlemen of the Jury: In the year 1884, on the 17th day of April, I was born in Cuero, Texas. At the age of three months, my parents took me to Brooklyn, New York, and I remained in my home until I came South, to Atlanta, to make my home here. I attended the public schools of Brooklyn, and prepared for college, in Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York. In the fall of 1902, I entered Cornell University, where I took the course in mechanical engineering, and graduated after four years, in June, 1906. I then accepted a position as draftsman with the B. F. Sturtevant Company, of Hyde Park, Massachusetts. After remaining with this firm about 6 months, I returned once more to my home in Brooklyn, where I accepted a position as testing engineer and draftsman with the National Meter Company of Brooklyn, New York. I remained in this position until about the middle of October, 1907, when, at the invitation of some citizens of Atlanta, I came South to confer with them in reference to the starting and operation of a pencil factory, to be located in Atlanta. After remaining here for about two weeks, I returned once more to New York, where I engaged passage and went to Europe. I remained in Europe nine months. During my sojourn abroad, I studied the pencil business, and looked after the erection and testing of the machinery which had been previously contracted for.
The first part of August, 1908, I returned once more to America, and immediately came South to Atlanta, which has remained my home ever since. I married in Atlanta, an Atlanta girl, Miss Lucile Selig. The major portion of my married life has been spent at the home of my parents in law, Mr. and Mrs. Selig, at 68 East Georgia Avenue. My married life has been exceptionally happy–indeed, it has been the happiest days of my life.
My duties as superintendent of the National Pencil Company were in general, as follows:
I had charge of the technical and mechanical end of the factory, looking after the operations and seeing that the product was turned out in quality equal to the standard which is set by our competitors.
I looked after the installation of new machinery and the purchase of new machinery.
In addition to that, I had charge of the office work at the Forsyth Street plant, and general supervision of the lead plant, which is situated on Bell Street.
I looked after the purchase of the raw materials which are used in the manufacture of pencils, kept up with the market of those materials, where the prices fluctuated, so that the purchases could be made to the best possible advantage.
On Friday, April 25th, I arrived at the pencil factory on Forsyth Street, at about seven o’clock — my usual time. I immediately started in on my regular routine work, looking over papers that I had laid out the evening before, and attending to any other work that needed my special attention that morning.
At about 9:30 I went over to the office of the General Manager and Treasurer, Mr. Sigmond Montag, whose office is at Montag Brothers, on Nelson Street. I stayed over there a short time, got what papers and mail had arrived over there–all the mail for the Pencil Company comes over there to their office–I got that mail and brought it back to Forsyth St. I then separated the mail and continued along my usual routine duties in the office on Forsyth Street. At about eleven o’clock, Mr. Schiff handed me the pay roll books covering the plants at Forsyth Street and at Bell Street, for me to check over to see that the amounts and the extensions were correct. Of course, this work has to be very carefully done, so that the proper amount of money is drawn from the bank. This checking took me until about 12:30 P.M., when I made out the amount on a slip of paper that I wished to have drawn from the bank, went over to Montag Brothers, had the checks drawn and signed by Mr. Sigmond Montag, after which I returned to Forsyth Street and got the leather bag in which I usually carry the money and coin from the bank, and got the slip on which I had written the various denominations in which I desired to have the pay roll made out, accompanied by Mr. Herbert Schiff, my assistant, went to the Atlanta National Bank, where I had the checks cashed. Returning to the factory, in company with Mr. Schiff, I placed this bag containing the money for the pay roll in the safe and locked it. At this time, my wife called for me and in her company and that of Mr. Schiff, I went over to the car and took my wife home to lunch. After lunch, I returned to the factory and took a tour for about an hour through the factory, after which I then assisted Mr. Schiff in checking over the amounts on the pay envelopes–checking the money against the duplicate slips that we had gotten from the bank, to see that the correct amount had been given us, and I helped Mr. Schiff checking over the money and in filling the envelopes. This took us approximately until a quarter to six, to fill the envelopes, seal them and place them in the box that we have over there, with two hundred pigeon holes, and which we call our pay-off box. While I was so occupied with Mr. Schiff in filling these envelopes, a young man by the name of Wright, who had helped us out as a clerk in the office during the past week, came in and I paid him in cash, as Mr. Schiff, I found, neglected to put his name on the pay roll; I just made out a ticket for the amount of money he drew and put it in the cash box and charged it to the cash box and not to the pay roll. At a quarter to six, payment of the help took place, Mr. Schiff taking all the envelopes that were due the help who had worked from April 18th to 24th, inclusive, out to the pay roll window, which is entirely outside of either my inner office or the outer office and out in the hall beyond–a little window that we have built. I sat in my office checking over the amount of money which had been left over. This amount was equal–or should have been equal, to the amount that had been loaned out in advance to help and had been deducted when we were filling the envelopes. In checking this amount over–as near as I can recollect it, there was about $15 — I noticed a shortage of about $1.20–something over a dollar, at any rate, and I kept checking to see if I couldn’t find the shortage, going over the various deductions that had been made, but I couldn’t locate it that evening. After the help had been paid off, during which time as I sat in my office, no one came into my office who asked me for a pay envelope or for the pay envelope of another. After the paying off of the help had taken place, Mr. Schiff returned and handed me the envelopes which were left over, bound with an elastic band, and I put them in the cash compartment–which is different from the cash box–a certain cash compartment in the safe, the key to which is kept in my cash box. I placed them in the safe, and Mr. Schiff busied himself clearing up the books and the files and placing them in the safe. While he was doing that, I placed in the time clocks, the slips to be used next day. I took out the two time slips which were dated April 25th, which had been used by the help on Friday, April 25th, and took two slips out to the clock, the ends of which I creased down so that they would fit into the cylinder inside of the clocks; and I noticed that I had neglected to stamp the date on them, so I just wrote on them” April 26, 1913′”–in other words, I put the date of the day following, which is the way we usually do with the time clock. After placing these slips in the clock and bringing those back in the office, Mr. Schiff and myself left for home, it being about 6:30. I neglected to state that while I was sitting in the office, Mr. Schiff was paying off Newt Lee–these are the two time slips I took out–
Gentlemen, as I was saying, these two slips that had April 26, 1913, written at the bottom are the two slips I put in the clock on the evening of Friday, April 25th, to be used on the day following, which, of course, was April 26th. I neglected to mention also, in going over my duties at the factory, that Mr. N. V. Darley was superintendent of labor and of manufacture, it fell to his duty to engage the help and to distribute the help throughout the plant, and to discharge the help in case it was necessary; it was also due to him whether their wages were raised or not.
In other words, he was the man that came directly in contact with the help. Moreover, he saw that the goods progressed through the factory without stopping, easily, quickly and economically manufactured. On Friday evening, I got home at about 6:30, had my supper, washed up, then went with my wife to the residence of her uncle, Mr. Carl Wolfsheimer, on Washington Street, where my wife and Mr. Wolfsheimer and his wife and myself played a game of auction bridge for the balance of the evening. My wife and I returned home and retired at about eleven o’clock. On Saturday April 26th, I rose between seven and seven-thirty and leisurely washed and dressed, had my breakfast, caught a Washington Street or Georgia Avenue car–I don’t recall which–at the corner of Washington and Georgia Avenue, and arrived at the factory on Forsyth Street, the Forsyth Street plant, at about 8:30, is my recollection.
On my arrival at the factory, I found Mr. Holloway, the day watchman, at his usual place, and I greeted him in my usual way; I found Alonzo Mann, the office boy, in the outer office, I took off my coat and hat and opened my desk and opened the safe, and assorted the various books and files and wire trays containing the various papers that were placed there the evening before, and distributed them in their proper places about the office. I then went out to the shipping room and conversed a few minutes with Mr. Irby, who at that time was shipping clerk, concerning the work which he was going to do that morning, though, to the best of my recollection, we did no shipping that day, due to the fact that the freight offices were not receiving any shipments, due to its being a holiday. I returned to my office, and looked through the papers, and assorted out those which I was going to take over on my usual trip to the General Manager’s office that morning; I then turned to the invoices (Defendant’s Exhibits 25 to 34) covering shipments which were made by the pencil factory on Thursday, April 24th, and which were typewritten and figured out on Friday, April 25th, by Miss Eubanks, the stenographer who stays in my office; she had hurried through with her work that day, previous to going home, so she could spend the holiday in the country where she lived; I didn’t get to checking over those invoices covering these shipments on Friday, due to the fact that Mr. Schiff and myself were completely occupied the entire day until we left the factory, with the pay roll, so naturally, as these invoices covering shipments which were made on April 25th, ought to have been sent to the customers, I got right to work in checking them. Now, I have those invoices here (Defendant’s Exhibits 25 to 34); these papers have not been exhibited before, but I will explain them. You have seen some similar to these. Of all the mathematical work in the office of the pencil factory, this very operation, this very piece of work that I have now before me, is the most important, it is the invoice covering shipments that are sent to customers, and it is very important that the prices be correct, that the amount of goods shipped agrees with the amount which is on the invoice, and that the terms are correct, and that the address is correct, and also in some cases, I don’t know whether there is one like that here, there are freight deductions, all of which have to be very carefully checked over and looked into, because I know of nothing else that exasperates a customer more than to receive invoices that are incorrect; moreover, on this morning, this operation of this work took me longer than it usually takes an ordinary person to complete the checking of the invoices, because usually one calls out and the other checks, but I did this work all by myself that morning, and as I went over these invoices, I noticed that Miss Eubanks, the day before, had evidently sacrificed accuracy to speed, and every one of them was wrong, so I had to go alone over the whole invoice, and I had to make the corrections as I went along, figure them out, extend them, make deductions for freight, if there were any to be made, and then get the total shipments, because, when these shipments were made on April 24th, which was Thursday, this was the last day of our fiscal week, it was on this that I made that financial sheet which I make out every Saturday afternoon, as has been my custom, it is on this figure of total shipments I make that out, so necessarily it would be the total shipments for the week that had to be figured out, and I had to figure every invoice and arrange it in its entirety so I could get a figure that I would be able to use. The first order here is from Hilton, Hart & Kern Company, Detroit, Mich., here is the original order which is in the file of our office, here is the transcription which was made on March 28th, it hadn’t been shipped until April 24th, this customer ordered 100 gross of No. 2 of a certain pencil stamped “The Packard Motor Car Company,” 125 gross of No. 3 and 50 gross of No. 4; those figures represent the grade or hardness of the lead in the pencils; we shipped 100 gross of No. 2, 1111/4 gross of No. 3 and 49 gross of No. 4, the amount of the shipment of No. 3 is short of the amount the customer ordered, therefore, there is a suspense shipment card attached to it, as you will notice, the first shipment on this order took place on April 24th, it was a special order and a special imprint on it, and therefore, the length of time, order received at the factory on March 18th. In invoicing shipments made by the Pencil Company, our method is as follows: We make out in triplicate, the first or original is a white sheet, and that goes to the customers; the second is a pink sheet and that goes over to the General Manager’s office and is filed serially, that is, chronologically; one date on the top, and from that the charges are made on the ledger, and the last sheet or third sheet is a yellow sheet, which is here, those are placed in a file in my office, and are filed alphabetically. These yellow sheets I have here are not the yellow sheets I
had that day, because they have since been corrected, I am just taking the corrected sheets, I made the corrections. Miss Eubanks returned on Monday and saw the corrections I had made in pencil on the white sheets, and made another set of triplicates afterwards, and I presume made them correct, I was not there, and I don’t know. These orders are respectively Hilton, Hart & Kern Company, L. W. Williams & Company of Fort Worth, Tex., the Fort Smith Paper Company of Fort Smith, Ark., S. O. Barnum & Sons, Buffalo, N.Y., S. T. Warren & Company,
South Clarke St., Chicago, Ill., S. H. Kress Company, warehouse at 91 Franklin St., New York, N.Y.; there is an order that we have to be particularly careful with, because all these five and ten cent syndicates havea great deal of red tape. These invoices, though they were typed on April 25th, Friday, were shipped on April 24th, and bear date at the top on which the shipment was made, irrespective of the date on which these are typewritten; in other words, the shipments took place April 24th, and that date is at the top typewritten, and a stamp by the office boy at the bottom, April 24th. Among other things that the S. H. Kress Company demands is that on their orders, you must state whether or not it is complete, the number of the store, and by which railroad the shipment goes. Here is one from F. W. Woolworth & Company, Frankfort, Ind., take the following illustrations: Less 95 lbs., at 86 cents per hundred lbs., freight credit; in other words, we had to find out what the weight of that shipment was, and figure out the amount of credit that they were entitled to on the basis of 86 cents for every 100 lbs. shipped. Then here comes one to Gottlieb & Sons, one of our large distributors in New York, N.Y., they have a freight allowance of 86 per hundred lbs. also, and their shipment amounted to 618 lbs., on Thursday, April 24th. That was a shipment of throwouts, or jobs.
I started on this work, as I said, and had gone into it in some detail, to show you the carefulness with which the work must be carried out, I was at work on this one at about 9 o’clock, as near as I remember, Mr. Darley and Mr. Wade Campbell, the inspector of the factory, came into the outer office, and I stopped what work I was doing that day on this work, and went to the outer office and chatted with Mr. Darley and Mr. Campbell for ten or fifteen minutes, and conversed with them, and joked with them, and while I was talking to them, I should figure about 9:15 o’clock, a quarter after nine, Miss Mattie Smith came in and asked me for her pay envelope, and for that of her sister-in-law, and I went to the safe and unlocked it and got out the package of envelopes that Mr. Schiff had given me the evening before, and gave her the required two envelopes, and placed the remaining envelopes that I got out, that were left over from the day previous, in my cash box, where I would have them handy in case others might come in, and I wanted to have them near at hand without having to jump up and go to the safe every time in order to get them; I keep my cash box in the lower drawer on the left hand side of my desk. After Miss Smith had gone away with the envelopes, a few minutes, Mr. Darley came back with the envelopes, and pointed out to me an error in one of them, either the sister-in-law of Miss Mattie Smith, she had gotten too much money, and when I had deducted the amount that was too much, that amount balanced the pay roll, the error in the pay roll that I had noticed the night before, and left about five or ten cents over; those things usually right themselves anyhow. I continued to work on those invoices, when I was interrupted by Mr. Lyons, Superintendent of Montag Brothers, coming in, he brought me a pencil display box that we call the Panama assortment box, and he left it with me, he seemed to be in a hurry, and I told him if he would wait for a minute I would go over to Montag Brothers with him, as I was going over there; and he stepped out to the outer office, and as soon as I come to a convenient stopping place in the work, I put the papers I had made out to take with me in a folder, and put on my hat and coat and went to the outer office, when I found that Mr. Lyons had already left. Mr. Darley left with me, about 9:35 or 9:40, and we passed out of the factory, and stopped at the corner of Hunter and Forsyth Streets, where we each had a drink at Cruickshank’s soda water fount, where I bought a package of Favorite cigarettes, and after we had our drink, we conversed together there for some time, and I lighted a cigarette and told him good-bye, as he went in one direction, and I went on my way then to Montag Brothers, where I arrived, as nearly as may be, at 10 o’clock, or a little after; on entering Montag Brothers, I spoke to Mr. Sig Montag, the General Manager of the business, and then the papers which I collected, which lay on his desk, I took the papers out and transferred them into the folder, and took the other papers out, which I had in my folder, and distributed them at the proper places at Montag Brothers, I don’t know just what papers they were, but I know there were several of them, and I went on chatting with Mr. Montag, and I spoke to Mr. Matthews, and Mr. Cross, of the Montag Brothers, and after that I spoke to Miss Hattie Hall, the Pencil Company’s stenographer, who stays at Montag Brothers, and asked her to come over and help me that morning; as I have already told you, practically every one of these invoices was wrong, and I wanted her to help me on that work, and in dictating the mail; in fact, I told her I had enough work to keep her busy that whole afternoon if she would agree to stay, but she said she didn’t want to do that, she wanted to have at least half a holiday on Memorial Day. I then spoke to several of the Montag Brothers’ force on business matters and other matters, and after that I saw Harry Gottheimer, the sales manager of the National Pencil Company, and I spoke at some length with him in reference to several of his orders that were in work at the factory, there were two of his orders especially that he laid special stress on, as he said he desired to ship them right away, and I told him I didn’t know how far along in process of manufacture the orders had proceeded, but if he would go back with me then I would be very glad to look for it, and then tell him when we could ship them, and he said he couldn’t go right away, he was busy, but he would come a little later, and I told him I would be glad for him to come over later that morning or in the afternoon, as I would be there until about 1 o’clock in the morning, and after 3. I then took my folder and returned to Forsyth St. alone. On arrival at Forsyth St., I went to second or office floor, and I noticed the clock, it indicated 5 minutes after eleven. I saw Mr. Holloway there, and I told him he could go as soon as he got ready, and he told me he had some work to do for Harry Denham and Arthur White, who were doing some repair work up on the top floor, and he would do the work first. I then went into the office. I went in the outer office, and found Miss Hattie Hall, who had preceded me over from Montag’s, and another lady who introduced herself to me as Mrs. Arthur White, and the office boy; Mrs. Arthur White wanted to see her husband, and I went into the inner office, and took off my coat and hat, and removed the papers which I had brought back from Montag Brothers in the folder, and put the folder away. It was about this time that I heard the elevator motor start up and the circular saw in the carpenter shop, which is right next to it, running. I heard it saw through some boards, which I supposed was the work that Mr. Holloway had referred to. I separated the orders from the letters which required answers, and took the other material, the other printed matter that didn’t need immediate attention, I put that in various trays, and I think it was about this time that I concluded I would look and see how far along the reports were, which I use in getting up my financial report every Saturday afternoon, and to my surprise I found that the sheet which contains the record of pencils packed for the week didn’t include the report for Thursday, the day the fiscal week ends; Mr. Schiff evidently, in the stress of getting up, figuring out and filling the envelopes for the pay roll on Friday, instead of as usual, on Friday and half the day Saturday, had evidently not had enough time. I told Alonzo Mann, the office boy, to call up Mr. Schiff, and find out when he was coming down, and Alonzo told me the answer came back over the telephone that Mr. Schiff would be right down, so I didn’t pay any more attention to that part of the work, because I expected Mr. Schiff to come down any minute. It was about this time that
Mrs. Emma Clarke Freeman and Miss Corinthia Hall, two of the girls
who worked on the fourth floor, came in, and asked permission to go up-
stairs and get Mrs. Freeman’s coat, which I readily gave, and I told them
at the same time to tell Arthur White that his wife was downstairs. A
short time after they left my office, two gentlemen came in, one of them a
Mr. Graham, and the other the father of a boy by the name of Earle Bur-
dette; these two boys had gotten into some sort of trouble during the
noon recess the day before, and were taken down to police headquarters,
and of course didn’t get their envelopes the night before, and I gave the
required pay envelopes to the two fathers, and chatted with them at some
length in reference to the trouble their boys had gotten into the day pre-
vious. And just before they left the office, Mrs. Emma Clark Freeman
and Miss Corinthia Hall came into my office and asked permission to use
the telephone, and they started to the telephone, during which time these
two gentlemen left my office. But previous to that, when these two gen-
tlemen came in, I had gotten Miss Hattie Hall in and dictated what mail
I had to give her, and she went out and was typewriting the mail; before
these girls finished their telephoning, Miss Hattie Hall had finished the
typewriting of those letters and brought them to my desk to read over
and sign, which work I started. Miss Clark and Miss Hall left the office,
as near as may be, at a quarter to twelve, and went out, and I started to
work reading over the letters and signing the mail. I have the carbon
copies (Defendant’s Exhibit 8) of these letters which Miss Hall type-
wrote for me that morning here, attached to the letters from the custom-
ers, or the parties whose letter I was answering; they have been intro-
duced, and have been identified. I see them here-Southern Bargain
House, there was a letter from Shode-Lombard, dye makers, 18 Frank-
lin Street, the American Die Lock Company, Newark, N. J., another let-
ter to Shode-Lombard Company being in New York, one to Henry Diss-
ton & Sons, in reference to a knife which they sent us to be tried out, a
circular knife, one to J. B. McCrory, Five & Ten Cent Syndicate, one to
the Pullman Company, of Chicago, Ill., in reference to their special im-
print pencils, which they were asking us to ship as soon as possible, one
to A. J. Sassener, another die maker; these letters are copies of the ones
I dictated that morning; I signed these letters, and while I was signing,
ag Miss Hall brought these letters in to be signed, I gave her the orders
(Defendant’s Exhibits 14 to 24) which had been received by me that
morning at Montag ‘s office, over at the General Manager’s office, I gave
her these orders to be acknowledged. I will explain our method of ac-
knowledgment of orders in a few minutes. I continued signing the let-
ters and separating the carbon copies from the letters, and putting them
in various places, I folded the letters and sealed the letters, and of course
I told Miss Hall I would post them myself. Miss Hall finished the work
and started to leave when the 12 o’clock whistle blew, she left the office
and returned, it look to me, almost immediately, calling into my office
that she had forgotten something, and then she left for good. Then I
started in, we transcribed, first we enter all orders into the house order
book (Defendant’s Exhibit 12), all these orders which Miss Hall had ac-
knowledged, I entered in that book, and I will explain that matter in de-
tail. There has been some question raised about this, but I believe I can
make it very clear. Here is an order from Beutell Brothers Company
(Defendant’s Exhibit 32) ; the very first operation on an order that is re-
ceived by the pencil factory at Forsyth Street in my office is the acknowl-
edgment; that is the first operation, because the acknowledgment is the
specific second part of the contract, the first part is when they send us
the order; that is the party of the first part, and the party of the second
part is when we write them an acknowledgment card and agree to fill the
order, and enter the order which they send us, and so necessarily, to sat-
isfy our customers, it must be the very first thing that is done, and is the
first thing. The acknowledgment stamp, which you have already seen
here below, shows first two things; first, who acknowledges the order,
and second, the date it was received in the office on Forsyth Street. Here
is one from Beutell Brothers (Defendant’s Exhibit 32); that bears the
date April 23rd, up at the top; that was the date when Beutell Brothers
in Dubuque, Ia., had that letter typewritten, we didn’t know when they
mailed it, but that is the day it was written, it was received at the Gen-
eral Manager’s office, might have been received Friday, on Friday April
25th, after I had gotten the mail that day there, and remained there until
April 26th, when I went over and got the mail again. Here is one from
John Laurie & Sons, and here is one I think Mr. Dorsey did some ques-
tioning about, because of the fact that up here at the top was 4-22, this
order was written in pencil, of course it is written in pencil; this is an
order from F. W. Woolworth & Company (Defendant’s Exhibit 28),
that is a Five & Ten Cent syndicate, as you know, probably the largest
in the world, that has over 700 stores, and these stores would be so bulky
for one office to handle that the 700 stores are divided into different
groups or provinces, and in charge of each group there is a certain office;
for instance, there is one at Toronto, for the Canadian stores; one in
Buffalo, one in Boston, one in New York, there is one at Wilkesbarre, one
at St. Louis, one at Chicago, and one at San Francisco. Now, this order,
by looking at it, I can tell, because I have had reason to look into and
know the system of orders used by this syndicate, and I most assuredly
have to know it, you notice Chicago, Ill., 4-22, down here, and also store
No. 585 (Defendant’s Exhibit 28), the Woolworth Company, 347 E. Main
St., here again is DeKalb, Ill. In other words, DeKalb, Ill., is in the ju-
risdiction of the Chicago office. These blanks are distributed among
these various five and ten cent stores, and the manager of one store,
when he wants to order goods, he finds his stock is getting a little low, he
makes that out and sends his order in to the Chicago office, at the Chicago
office, the buyer looks over it, and sees that the manager has carefully
and economically ordered the goods, and then you will notice that little
stamp punched through; you see up there, that says: “Valid, 4-23,” in
other words, of course, we couldn’t have put that on there at our office,
but the validation stamp, with 4-23, the date of it, shows it took a day to
travel from DeKalb, Ill., to Chicago, Ill., and that stamp shows the vali-
dation of the order on that date by the head office, and that order is then
forwarded by the head office to us. Now, this order is usually made out
by the Manager or by the clerk of the Manager or some one in that F. W.
Woolworth store. Here is one from Wilkesbarre (Defendant’s Exhibit
29), itself, that is from the head office itself. Here is one from St. Joseph,
Mo., (Defendant’s Exhibit 25), via St. Louis, that bears the validation
stamp of the St. Louis head office. You gentlemen understand these peo-
ple are great big people, a great big syndicate, and they have to do their
clerical work according to a system that is correct. Now, then, that was
the first operation on these orders after we separated them from the
other mail, and we hand that on to our Superintendent. I am showing
you about the acknowledgment stamp, because it is important first be-
cause it shows the acknowledgment of the order, and who acknowledged
it, and secondly, shows the date on which the orders were received at my
office. To the best of my recollection, these acknowledgment cards were
given to the office boy to post, after Miss Hall had made them out.
Now, in reference to the work that I. did on these orders, starting
here with order 7187 (Defendant’s Exhibits 25 to 35), and continuing
through 7197, that is not such an easy job as you would have been led to
believe; in the first place, next to the serial number, there is a series of
initials, and those initials stand for the salesman who is credited with
the order; in other words, if a man at the end of the year wants to get
certain commissions on orders that come in, we have to very carefully
look over those orders to see to whom or to which salesman or to which
commission house or which distributing agent that order is credited, so,
therefore, it takes a good deal of judgment and knowledge to know just
to which salesman to credit, and sometimes, I can’t say that it was incor-
rect that morning, but it might have been, sometimes I have to go through
a world of papers to find just to whom a certain order is to be credited.
Then I enter in (Defendant’s Exhibit 12) the various orders here, too,
the next column shows to whom the goods are to be shipped; of course
that is not very difficult to do, that is just a mere copy. The store num-
bers are put down in case the stores have numbers, and then one must
look over the order; I notice that one of the orders is one to R. E. Kendall
(Defendant’s Exhibit 34), at Plum St., Cincinnati, 0., calling for a spe-
cial, and that has to be noted in this column here, you will notice regular
or special, notice here the word special out here opposite R. E. Kendall,
that thing has to be very carefully noted also. Now, in this column (De-
fendant’s Exhibit 12) is the order number, and that order number is the
customer’s order number, to which we have to refer always when we ship
that order. Now, in these cases like on these Woolworth orders, when
there is no order number, we put down the date with the month, so in that
way that gives it, 4-22, that was the date the order was made out, so we
can absolutely refer to it; in this column (Defendant’s Exhibit 12), is the
shipping point and the date we are going to ship it, and in this column
represents the date on which the order was received, and the month,
which is April 26th, according to the acknowledgment, corresponding to
the acknowledgment stamp. Now, after that work, after the order was
acknowledged and entered in here (Defendant’s Exhibit 12), the next
step is the filling in on the proper place on this sheet (Defendant’s Ex-
hibit 2), which has already been tendered and identified. Now, the work
done by me on that day right here, that was Saturday, Saturday is the
second day of the fiscal week, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tues-
day, Wednesday and Thursday-Saturday is the second day, and you
will notice, gentlemen, there are only two entries there (Defendant’s Ex-
hibit 7), the work not having been done since I left the factory, there are
only two entries there, and the last entry is April 26th, which was Satur-
day. Now, then, the information on this sheet is as follows: I go through
the orders and find out the number of gross of pencils which our custom-
ers order which fall in certain price groups, that is, to find the number of
gross of pencils for which the pencil factory gets 60 cents a gross, and I
put them down under the first column, the second under the column RI,
which means rubber inserted, and for which we get an average price of
80 cents, I go through the same thing and put the figures all out, in this
case, it was 102; then we have a price group on which we get an average
of $1.25, and it covers a range in price from $1.00 per gross to $1.40;
there were 116 gross of such pencils ordered with these orders which were
received that morning. The next price group are those on which we fig-
ure on an average price of $1.75 a gross, and falling within those limits
of $1.50 to $1.95 inclusive; in this case, there were 341/2 gross; then there
is a group between $2.00 and $2.95, averaging $2.50, and there was 1001/2
gross that day, then $3.00 and over, which we always figure at just $3.00,
we have goods that we get $3.25 for, and some that we get $3.50 for, but
we figure them all at $3.00, so it is a conservative estimate. The reason
this is done is this; in the pencil business, just like in all manufacturing
businesses, that is manufacturing an article that has to be turned out in
large quantities, it behooves the sales department to sell as much of your
high priced goods as possible, and as few of your cheap goods, and there-
fore, if you know how many of the cheap goods and how many of the bet-
ter grade of goods you are selling, it serves as a barometer on the class
of goods that is being sold. You can see that this job takes quite a little
figuring and quite a little judgment.
After finishing that work, I went on to the transcription of these or-
ders to these requisitions (Defendant’s Exhibits 25 to 35), and notwith-
standing an answer that has been made, I wrote these requisitions my-
self. That is my handwriting and you can read every one of them
through. Here is one F. W. Woolworth (Defendant’s Exhibit 25), I
wrote that one, and another one F. W. Woolworth (Defendant’s Exhibit
26), I wrote that one, and another one F. W. Woolworth (Defendant’s
Exhibit 29). Here is one 5 and 10 Cent Store, Sault Ste Marie (Defend-
ant’s Exhibit 31), I wrote that one, and here is F. W. Woolworth,
DeKalb, Ill. (Defendant’s Exhibit 28), and Logansport, Ind. (Defend-
ant’s Exhibit 27). That is all my handwriting; excepting the amounts
that are placed down here under the dates when the shipment of these
orders were made, which is in the handwriting of my assistant, Mr.
Schiff. This part, the amount, date, numbers, addresses, salesman, date
April 26th, and the order number, taking the date in lieu of the order
number, as I explained previously, that is all my handwriting-every-
thing except that amount there and the subsequent date, that is in my
handwriting and the work on all of those was done on the morning of
April 26th.
Miss Hall left my office on her way home at this time, and to the best
of my information there were in the building Arthur White and Harry
Denham and Arthur White’s wife on the top floor. To the best of my
knowledge, it must have been from ten to fifteen minutes after Miss Hall
left my office, when this little girl, whom I afterwards found to be Mary
Phagan, entered my office and asked for her pay envelope. I asked for
her number and she told me; I went to the cash box and took her envel-
ope out and handed it to her, identifying the envelope by the number.
She left my office and apparently had gotten as far as the door from my
office leading to the outer office, when she evidently stopped and asked
me if the metal had arrived, and I told her no. She continued on her way
out, and I heard the sound of her footsteps as she went away. It was a
few moments after she asked me this question that I had an impression
of a female voice saying something; I don’t know which way it came
from; just passed away and I had that impression. This little girl had
evidently worked in the metal department by her question and had been
laid off owing to the fact that some metal that had been ordered had not
arrived at the factory; hence, her question. I only recognized this little
girl from having seen her around the plant and did not know her name,
simply identifying her envelope from her having called her number to
me.
She had left the plant hardly five minutes when Lemmie Quinn, the
foreman of the plant, came in and told me that I could not keep him away
from the factory, even though it was a holiday; at which I smiled and
kept on working. He first asked me if Mr. Schiff had come down and I
told him he had not and he turned around and left.
I continued work until I finished this work and these requisitions and I looked at my watch
and noticed that it was a quarter to one. I called my home up on the tele-
phone, for I knew that my wife and my mother-in-law were going to the
matinee and I wanted to know when they would have lunch. I got my
house and Minola answered the phone and she answered me back that
they would have lunch immediately and for me to come right on home. I
then gathered my papers together and went upstairs to see the boys on
the top floor. This must have been, since I had just looked at my watch,
10 minutes to one. I noticed in the evidence of one of the witnesses, Mrs.
Arthur White, she states it was 12:35 that she passed by and saw me.
That is possibly true; I have no recollection about it; perhaps her recol-
lection is better than mine; I have no remembrance of it; however, I ex-
pect that is so. When I arrived up stairs I saw Arthur White and Harry
Denham who had been working up there and Mr. White’s wife. I asked
them if they were ready to go and they said they had enough work to keep
them several hours. I noticed that they had laid out some work and I had
to see what work they had done and were going to do. I asked Mr.
White’s wife if she was going or would stay there as I would be obliged
to lock up the factory, and Mrs. White said, no, she would go then. I
went down and gathered up my papers and locked my desk and went
around and washed my hands and put on my hat and coat and locked the
inner door to my office and locked the doors to the street and started to
go home.
Now, gentlemen, to the best of my recollection from the time the
whistle blew for twelve o’clock until after a quarter to one when I went
up stairs and spoke to Arthur White and Harry Denham, to the best of
my recollection, I did not stir out of the inner office; but it is possible that
in order to answer a call of nature or to urinate I may have gone to the
toilet. Those are things that a man does unconsciously and cannot tell
how many times nor when he does it. Now, sitting in my office at my
desk, it is impossible for me to see out into the outer hall when the safe
door is open, as it was that morning, and not only is it impossible for me
to see out, but it is impossible for people to see in and see me there.
I continued on up Forsyth to Alabama and down Alabama to White-
hall where I waited a few minutes for a car, and after a few minutes a
Georgia Avenue car came along; I took it and arrived home at about
1:20. When I arrived at home, I found that my wife and my mother-in-
law were eating their dinner, and my father-in-law had just sat down and
started his dinner. I sat down to my dinner and before I had taken any-
thing, I turned in my chair to the telephone, which is right behind me and
called up my brother-in-law to tell him that on account of some work I
had to do at the factory, I would be unable to go with him, he having in-
vited me to go with him out to the ball game. I succeeded in getting his
residence and his cook answered the phone and told me that Mr. Ursen-
bach had not come back home. I told her to give him a message for me,
that I would be unable to go with him. I turned around and continued
eating my lunch, and after a few minutes my wife and mother-in-law fin-
ished their dinner and left and told me good-bye. My father-in-law and
myself continued eating our dinner, Minola McKnight serving us. After
finishing dinner, my father-in-law said he would go out in the back yard
to look after his chickens and I lighted a cigarette and laid down. After
a few minutes I got up and walked up Georgia Avenue to get a car. I
missed the ten minutes to two car and I looked up and saw in front of
Mr. Wolfsheimer’s residence, Mrs. Michael, an aunt of my wife who lives
in Athens, and there were several ladies there and I went up there to see
them and after a few minutes Mrs. Wolfsheimer came out of the house
and I waited there until I saw the Washington Street car coming and I
ran up and saw that I could catch the car. I got on the car and talked to
Mr. Loeb on the way to town. The car got to a point about the intersec-
tion of Washington Street and Hunter Street and the fire engine house
and there was a couple of cars stalled up ahead of us, the cars were wait-
ing there to see the memorial parade; they were all banked up. After it
stood there a few minutes as I did not want to wait, I told Mr. Loeb that
I was going to get out and go on as I had work to do. So I went on down
Hunter Street, going in the direction of Whitehall and when I got down
to the corner of Whitehall and Hunter, the parade had started to come
around and I could not get around at all and I had to stay there fifteen or
twenty minutes and see the parade. Then I walked on down Whitehall
on the side of M. Rich & Bros. ‘s store towards Brown and Allen; when I
got in front of M. Rich & Bros.’ store, I stood there between half past 2
and few minutes to 3 o’clock until the parade passed entirely; then I
crossed the street and went on down to Jacobs and went in and pur-
chased twenty-five cents worth of cigars. I then left the store and went
on down Alabama Street to Forsyth Street and down Forsyth Street to
the factory, I unlocked the street door and then unlocked the inner door
and left it open and went on upstairs to tell the boys that I had come back
and wanted to know if they were ready to go, and at that time they were
preparing to leave. I went immediately down to my office and opened
the safe and my desk and hung up my coat and hat and started to work
on the financial report, which I will explain. Mr. Schiff had not come
down and there was additional work for me to do.
In a few minutes after I started to work on the financial sheet (De-
fendant’s Exhibit 2), which I am going to take up in a few minutes. I
heard the bell ring on the time clock outside and Arthur White and Harry
Denham came into the office and Arthur White borrowed $2.00 from me
in advance on his wages. I had gotten to work on the financial sheet, fig-
uring it out, when I happened to go out to the lavatory and on returning
to the office, the door pointed out directly in front, I noticed Newt Lee,
the watchman, coming from towards the head of the stairs, coming to-
wards me. I looked at the clock and told him the night before to come
back at 4 o’clock for I expected to go to the base ball game. At that time
Newt Lee came along and greeted me and offered me a banana out of a
yellow bag which he carried, which I presume contained bananas; I de-
clined the banana and told him that I had no way of letting him know
sooner that I was to be there at work and that I had changed my mind
about going to the ball game. I told him that he could go if he wanted to
or he could amuse himself in any way he saw fit for an hour and a half,
but to be sure and be back by half past six o’clock. He went off down
the stair case leading out and I returned to my office. Now, in reference
to Newt Lee, the watchman, the first night he came there to watch, I per-
sonally took him around the plant, first, second and third floors and into
the basement, and told him that he would be required, that it was his duty
to go over that entire building every half hour; not only to completely
tour the upper four floors but to go down to the basement, and I specially
stressed the point that that dust bin along here was one of the most dan-
gerous places for a fire and I wanted him to be sure and go back there
every half hour and be careful how he held his lantern. I told him it was
a part of his duty to look after and lock that back door and he fully un-
derstood it, and I showed him the cut-off for the electric current and told
him in case of fire that ought to be pulled so no fireman coming in would
be electrocuted. I explained everything to him in detail and told him he
was to make that tour every half hour and stamp it on the time card and
that that included the basement of the building.
Now, this sheet here is the factory record (Defendant’s Exhibit 7),
containing the lists of the pencils in stock and the amount of each and
every number; the amount of each and every one of our pencils which we
manufacture at the end of any given week. There are no names there.
We make the entries on this sheet by trade notes. Here is a sample case
containing the pencils which are manufactured at the Forsyth Street
plant. That is just as an explanation of what these figures are.
Well, I expect you have gotten enough of a glance at them for you
know that there are a great many pencils and a great many colors, all
sorts and styles; all sorts of tips, all sorts of rubbers, all sorts of stamps
-I expect there are 140 pencils in that roll. That shows the variety of
goods we manufacture. We not only have certain set numbers that we
manufacture, but we will manufacture any pencil to order for any cus-
tomer who desires a sufficient number of a special pencil, into a grade
similar to our own pencil. Now, this pencil sheet (Def. ‘s Ex. 7) when I
looked at it about half past eleven or thereabouts on Saturday morning,
was incomplete. It had the entry for Thursday, April 24th, omitted.
Mr. Schiff had entered the production for April 18th, 19th, 22nd and
23rd, but he had omitted the entry for the 24th, and the 24th not being
there, of course it was not totaled or headed, so it became necessary to
look in this bunch of daily reports (Defendant’s Exhibits 4a, 4b, 4c, 4d)
which was handed in every day by the packing forelady, sort out the va-
rious pencils noted on there, and place them in their proper places. Be-
fore proceeding further on that, I want to call your attention to the fact
that we use this sheet (Defendant’s Exhibit 7) for two weeks. You no-
tice two weeks ending down there April 27th, April 17th, and one ending
the week later, April 24th. Mr. Schiff, I notice, put April 17th at the top
and the date corresponds to the entries here on the side; these are the
dates alongside of each entry. Now, where we have any special pencil,
as a general rule-for instance, take two 10-X special up there; we manu-
facture two 10-X special for the Cadillac Motor Company. Now, there
is a 660-X pencil (Defendant’s Exhibit 7); that 660-X pencil we call
Panama, but in this entry it is called Cracker-Jack. Now, here is an-
other 660-X special (Defendant’s Exhibit 7), ours being Panama and
this the Universal 660-X special. In other words, gentlemen, we put the
name of the customer, if he wants business in a sufficient quantity. Well,
I had to go through this report for Thursday (Defendant’s Exhibit 4a),
handed in by Miss Flowers, the forelady of the packing department, as
she said, on Friday; I had to go through it and make the entries. Now,
after I made the entries, I had to total each number for itself; that is, the
number of 10-X, 20-X, 30-X, etc. Now, I notice that both of the expert
accountants who got on the stand, pointed out two errors. While those
errors are trivial, yet there is enough of human pride in me to explain
that those errors were not mine. Those errors, one of 11/2 gross and one
of one gross, in totalling up, these totals here on the 18th and 19th-
those entries were made by Mr. Schiff. I don’t expect he meant to make
an error, but they happen to be in his handwriting. Those totals were
already down there for the various days when I got the sheet and I al-
ways take them as correct without any checking of his figures. The only
figures that I check are my own figures. I add my correct figures to his
figures and, of course, not having checked the figures, I had to assume he
entered it correctly, so I would not have known it. As I say, my usual
method is to take his figures as correct per se. Now, after I entered them
in the total, the next thing I did was to make out the job sheet; the job or
throw-outs. Now in regard to these jobs, if I recall it correctly, was the
only error that the expert accountant found in my work on the financial
sheet for that day, but it really was not an error, as I will show you. He
didn’t know my method of doing that, and therefore, he could not know
the error. When I explain to you fully the method in which I arrived at
these figures you also will see they are not in error. Now among the pack-
ing reports that are handed into the office just like Miss Eula May handed
this (Defendant’s Exhibit 4a) in from the packing room proper, there is
another room where pencils are packed, viz.: the department under the
foreladyship of Miss Fannie Atherton, head of the job department. The
jobs are our seconds or throw-outs for which we get less money, of
course, than for the first. You see that Fannie A. (Defendant’s Exhibit
4b), that is Fannie Atherton. That is the job department. Now, I took
each of those job sheets (Defendant’s Exhibit 4b) and separated them
from the rest of those sheets, finding out how many jobs of the various
kinds were packed that week. Now, this sheet (Defendant’s Exhibit 3)
shows that there were 12 different kinds of jobs packed that day. Each
of them, you will notice, has a different price. That is the number of
jobs 0-95, or the number of job 114 (Defendant’s Exhibit 3) ; that is the
number of the job, not the amount, but the number by which it is sold.
Out here (Defendant’s Exhibit 3) you see the amount of that job which
was packed; 180 gross, 1 gross, six gross, 24 gross, etc. Then you will
find the actual price we received for each. Then I make the extensions
and find the number of gross of pencils, 180 gross at 40c, of course, is $72
(Defendant’s Exhibit 3). In other words, there is the actual number of
jobs packed that day, the price we actually got for them, and the exten-
sions are accurate and the totals are correct; the total amount of gross
is totaled correctly, the total gross packed and the total amount of the
value of those gross are the two figures that are put on that financial re-
port (Defendant’s Exhibit 2), 792 gross jobs, $396.75 (Defendant’s Ex-
hibit 3), being absolutely correct, but in getting the average price, you
notice 50.1 cents down below here (Defendant’s Exhibit 3), I just worked
it approximately, because nobody cares if it costs so small a fraction-
the average price of those jobs, 50.1 cents, and six hundredths-that six
hundredths was so small I couldn’t handle it, so I stopped at the first dec-
imal. Now, in arriving at the total number of gross and the total value
of pencils, which are the two figures really important, I divided one by
the other. I also used, in getting up the data for the financial sheet here,
by the way, one of the most important sheets is this sheet here.
(Defendant’s Exhibit 3). It looks very small, but the work connected
with it is very large. Now, some of the items that appear on here are
gotten from the reports which are handed in by the various forewomen.
Now, you saw on the stand this morning Mr. Godfrey Winekauf, the su-
perintendent of the lead plant; there is a report (Defendant’s Exhibit 4c)
of the amount of lead delivered that week, two pages of it; the different
kinds of lead, No. 10 lead, No. 940, No. 2 and No. 930, and so on. Now,
here is a pencil with a little rubber stuck on the end; we only put six
inches of lead in that, and stick rubber in the rest. Now here (Defend-
ant’s Exhibit 4d) is the report of L. A. Quinn, foreman of the tipping
plant. He reports on this the amount of work of the various machines,
that is, the large eyelet machine, the small eyelet machine and the other
machines. Then he notates the amount of the various tips used that he
had made that week. Now, we have, I expect, 22 different kinds of tips,
and one of them is a re-tip, and we never count a re-tip as a production.
Now, this was made out (Defendant’s Exhibit 7) for the week ending
April 24 by Mr. Irby, the shipping clerk, that is, the amount of gross of
pencils that he ships day by day. There were shipped 266 gross the first
day, which was Friday in this case, Friday the 18th of April, 562 gross
the 2nd day, which was Saturday, a half day, the 19th of April; 784 gross
on Monday which was April 21; 1232 gross (that was an exceptional day)
were shipped on Tuesday April 22nd; 572 gross shipped on Wednesday,
April 23rd, and 957 gross, also a very large day, shipped on April 24th,
a total of 4374 gross. Now, there is another little slip of paper (Defend-
ant’s Exhibit 4aa) here that requires one of the most complicated calcu-
lations of this entire financial, and I will explain it. It shows the repack,
and I notice an error on it here, it says here 4-17, when it ought to be
4-18; in other words, it goes from 4-17 through 4-24. That repack is got-
ten up by Miss Eula May; you will notice it is 0. K’d by her. Miss Eula
May Flowers, the forelady, packed that; that is the amount of pencils
used in our assortment boxes or display boxes. That is one of the tricks
of the trade, when we have some slow mover, some pencil that doesn’t
move very fast, we take something that is fancy and put some new bright
looking pencils with them, with these slow movers. That is a trick that
all manufacturers use, and in packing these assortment boxes, which are
packed under the direction of Miss Flowers, we send into the shipping
room and get some pencils which have already been packed, pencils that
have been on the shelf a year for all we know, and bring them in and un-
pack them and re-pack them in the display box. Therefore, it is very
necessary in figuring out the financial sheet to notice in detail the amount
of goods packed and just how many of those pencils had already been
figured on some past financial report. We don’t want to record it twice,
or else our totals will be incorrect. Therefore, this little slip showing
the amount of goods which were repacked is very necessary. That was
figured by me, and was figured by me on that Saturday afternoon, April
22nd. There were 18 gross of 35-X pencils selling for $1.25; 18 gross for
$22.50. It shows right here, I figured that out. That is my writing right
down there. Eighteen gross 35-X, $1.25, $22.50; 10 gross of 930-X figur-
ing at $25.00; that added up, as you will see, to $70.00. In other words,
there were 40 gross of pencils, 36 gross of which sell in our medium price
goods; 86 gross 35-X; 10 gross 930-X, $2.50, that is a high price goods.
Therefore, the repack for that week was 36 gross medium priced goods
and 10 gross of high price goods. I will show you now where the $70.00
is and where the’36 gross is, and where the 10 gross figured in the finan-
cial sheet. There is a little sheet (Defendant’s Exhibit 7a) stuck up here
in the corner attached to the record-the factory record of pencils manu-
factured during that week. That shows the production, divided into the
following classes (Defendant’s Exhibit 7a) ; cheap goods, the very cheap-
est we make, outside of jobs, those we figure at 60 cents a gross. Then
there is the rubber insert, those we figure 85 cents a gross, and then the
job and then the medium; the medium being all goods up to a certain
grade that contains the cheap lead, and the good being all those that con-
tain a better class of lead. In this case, Mr. Schiff had entered it up to
and through Wednesday, and had failed to enter Thursday, and I had to
enter Thursday, and to figure it. This sheet (Defendant’s Exhibit 7a)
shows the total of the three classes of goods packed from day to day.
Now, I have had very few clerks at Forsyth Street, or anywhere else, for
that matter, who could make out this sheet (Defendant’s Exhibit 2) suc-
cessfully and accurately. It involves a great deal of work and one has to
exercise exceptional care and accuracy in making it out. You notice that
the gross production here (Defendant’s Exhibit 2) is 27651/2. That gives
the net production. The gross production is nothing more than the addi-
tion, the total addition, the proven addition of those sheets containing
-the pencils packed. This other little sheet (Def. ‘s Ex. 7a) behind here
represents the pencils packed the week of April 17-that week’s produc-
tion. Now, this little sheet I had to work on, showing pencils that were
repacked, going into display boxes, and the numbers, and subtracted that
from total amount 46 from 27651/2, which leaves 27191/2; in other words, I
just deducted the amount that had been taken out of the stock room and
repacked from the total amount that was stated to be packed, showing
the amount of repacked goods. Now all I had to do was to copy that off,
it had been figured once. The value of the repack was $70.00; that was
mere copying. Now, the rubber insert entries, I got those that morning,
the number of pencils packed during the week ending April 24th; that is
Thursday, April 24th; that insert rubber is a rubber stuck directly into
wood with a metal tip or ferret to hold it in. I have to go through all of
this data, that being an awfully tedious job, not a hard job, but very
tedious; it eats up time. I had to go through each one of these, and not
only have to see the number, but I have to know whether it is rubber in-
sert or what it is, and then I put that down on a piece of scratch paper,
and place it down here, in this case it was 720 gross. Then the rubber
tipping, that means tipped with rubber; that is the rubber that is used
on the medium priced pencils that have the medium prices, we ship with
the cheap shipping. I had to go through this operation again, a tedious
job, and it eats up time; it is not hard, but it is tedious. I had to go
through that again, to find out the amount of tip rubber that was used
on this amount of pencils. Then I had to go through the good pencils.
Now, it has been insinuated that some of these items, especially this item,
if I remember correctly-that when I have gotten two of the items, I can
add it all up and subtract from the total to get the third by deduction,
but that is not so. Of the pencils that still remain unaccounted for, there
are many pencils that don’t take rubber at all. There are jobs that don’t
take rubber on them, plain common pencils, going pencils that don’t have
rubber on them at all, and I have to go through all of that operation, that
tedious operation again that eats up so much time. Then there is the
lead of the various kinds that we use; there is a good lead and cheap lead,
the large lead and the thick or carbon lead, and the copying lead. That
same operation has to be gone through with again. Now this sheet (De-
fendant’s Exhibit 3) (exhibiting) is where the expert accountant said I
made a mistake. I had to go through with each of those pencils to see if
they were cheap rubber or if they were good lead or copying lead. So I
had to go through this same operation and re-add them to see that the
addition is correct before I can arrive at the proper figure. The same
way to find the good lead and the cheap lead, the large lead and the copy-
ing lead; that operation had to be gone through in detail with each and
every one of those, and the same with each of the boxes, and that is a
tough job. Some of the pencils are packed in one gross boxes and some
in half-gross boxes, and, as I say, we use a display box, and there are
pencils that are put in individual boxes, and we have to go through care-
fully to see the pencils that have been packed for the whole week, and it
is a very tedious job. Now in these boxes there is another calculation in-
volved, and then I have to find the assortment boxes, but that is easily
gotten. Then I have to find out whether they are half-gross boxes or one-
gross boxes, and then reduce them to the basis of boxes that cost us two
cents apiece; reduce them to the basis of the ordinary box that we paid
two cents a box. After finding out all the boxes, then I have to reduce
that to some common factor, so I can make the multiplication in figuring
out the cost at two cents. That involves quite a mathematical manipula-
tion. Then I come to the skeleton. Skeletons are no more than just a
trade name. They are just little cardboard tiers to keep one pencil away
from the other, that is all a skeleton is. I have to go through and find
out which pencils are skeletons. If it is a cheap pencil they are just tied
up with a cord, and there are pencils in a bunch, and there are pencils
that we don’t use the skeleton with. That must all be gone through and
gotten correctly, or it will be of no worth. Then comes the tip delivery,
which is gotten from this report from Mr. Lemmie Quinn that I showed
you before. Then there is another entry on this sheet of the tips used
and I can give you a clear explanation of the manner that I arrive at that.
You can’t use tips when you don’t have some rubber stuck in it, so I just
had to go through the rubber used to find that. Then we have what we
call ends; there are a few gross of them there. Then the wrappers. Pen-
cils that are packed in the individual one-dozen cartons don’t take wrap-
pers; they are in a box. Pencils that are packed in the display boxes
don’t take a wrapper; they just stick up in a hole by themselves. The
cheap pencils are tied with a cord and they don’t take any wrapper, so
the same operation, the same tedious operation, had to be gone through
with that to get at the number of wrappers, and then the different num-
ber of gross and the number of carton boxes used in the same way. On
the right hand side of this sheet you notice the deliveries. There is the
lead delivery from the Bell Street plant and the Forsyth Street plant.
This doesn’t mean the amount of lead used in the pencils packed for this
week only, but it shows the amount of our lead plant delivery, for infor-
mation. Then the slat delivery, that is not worked out that week; that
is not worked out simply because that is Mr. Schiff’s duty to work that
out and that is a very tedious and long job and when I started in to do
that I couldn’t find the sheet showing the different deliveries of slats
from the mill, so I let that go, intending to put that in on Monday, but on
Monday following I was at the police station.
I took out from this job sheet (Defendant’s Exhibit 3), the correct
amount of gross packed-791 as figured there-correct value $396.75, as
shown on this sheet, and the average is that one, that I didn’t carry out
to two decimal places; I didn’t carry it to but one. Then from the pay
roll book I got the pay roll for Forsyth Street and Bell Street, and then
as a separate item took out from the pay roll book total, separate the
machine shop, which that week was $70.00. The shipments (Defendant’s
Exhibit 6), were figured for the week ending April 24th on this sheet, as
far as I-oh, you notice the entry of the 24th; those are those invoices,
the first piece of work that I explained to you, sitting up there; I ex-
plained that from the chair, and couldn’t come down here; that’s the
piece of work that I explained to you how we did it in triplicate. That’s
the work that I did that morning, and completed, as I told you, that each
of the invoices was wrong, and I had to correct them as I went along,
simply because I needed it on the financial, and there’s where I entered
it on the sheet as shipments; (Defendant’s Exhibit 6) ; I needed that so
as to make the total; and that’s where I entered it-(Defendant’s Ex-
hibit 6-shipments, the 24th, on this sheet (Defendant’s Exhibit 6), dur-
ing the afternoon $1,245.57, and totalling it up, the pencil factory shipped
that week $5,438.78. Those amounts you see are entered right in there,
and the amount of shipments is gotten from this report $4,374.00 handed
in by Mr. Irby, and the value of the shipments are gotten from this sheet,
the last entry on which I had to make.
Then the orders received. The entry of the orders received that
day involved absolutely no more work on my part than the mere transfer
of the entries. On this big sheet (Defendant’s Exhibit 2), I have here
the orders received are in terms of “total gross” and “total value,” and
we need that to compare the amount of shipments with the amount of
orders we are receiving to see whether we are shipping more than we are
receiving, or receiving more than we are shipping. That amount is given
here. Down there it tells you the total amount of dollars and cents of all
the orders received, total gross, and the average. The average is impor-
tant, though it is usually taken over on a separate paper on Friday morn-
ing to Mr. Sig Montag so that he knows how sales for the week have come
out long before he receives the financial. He didn’t receive the financial
usually until Monday morning, when I go over there.
Now one of the most intricate operations in the making up of the
financial report is the working out of the figures on that pencil sheet, as
shown by that torn little old sheet here, (Defendant’s Exhibit 3), that
data sheet. Now with this in hand, and with that pencil sheet record of
pencils packed (Defendant’s Exhibit 7), the financial report is made out.
This sheet (Defendant’s Exhibit 2), the financial, I may say is the child
of my own brain, because I got it up. The first one that ever was made
I made out, and the fact that there is a certain blue line here, and a cer-
tain red line there, and a black line there, and certain printing on it, is
due to me, because I got this sheet up myself. On one side you notice
” Expense, ” or two main headings ” Expense,” ” Materials.” Together
they comprise the expense for the week. On the other side, like the debit
and credit sides of a ledger, is the “Value,” ” I Gross Value” of the goods,
which have been packed up during a given week. Down here below you
will notice “Less Repacked.” You remember the repacked, that I told
you about, the pencils taken out of stock and re-packed to make them
move better. That value is deducted, so that it won’t allow error to en-
ter into this figure. Then we take off 12 per cent. down at the bottom.
That 12 per cent. allows for freight allowances, cash discounts, and pos-
sibly other allowances, and gives us the net value or the net amount of
money for those pencils, which the treasury of the Pencil Company re-
ceives in the last analysis.
On the other side is the materials, the cost of materials, that went
into the making of those pencils, based on the amounts and kinds of pen-
cils, which, of course, as in this instance, comes from the data sheet.
The first item under “Expense” items is “Labor,” and the labor is
divided, as you all know, into the two classes, direct and indirect. The
direct labor is that which goes directly into the making of the pencils
themselves, and the indirect constitutes the supervising, shipping, office,
clerical help, and so forth. These figures are brought directly from the
pay roll. The indirect labor, however-as in this case $155.00-is an
empirical figure, a figure, which we have found out by experiment to be
the correct figure, and we arbitrarily decide on it, and keep it until such
time as we think we ought to change it and then change. The burden
that a business has to carry is the fixed charges, the expense that it car-
ries, irrespective of whether it will produce two gross or 200,000 gross,
like rent, insurance, light, heat, power and the sales department. The
sales department expense usually goes on whether the salesman sells lit-
tle or big bills; his salary goes on and his expense goes on. Rent, heat,
light, power, sales department men, and all that, is figured out, as you
could find by looking back, continuously from week to week, and there is
no work other than jotting it down to figure in this total.
The repair sundries is also arbitrary at $150.00. The machine shop,
however, is available. It appears alongside of “Investment.” “Invest-
ment” is crossed out, and “Machine Shop” written in. There is a rea-
son for that. The time was at the inception of our business when every
machine built by us was so much additional added to the value of our
plant. In other words, it was like investing more money in it, in the
plant, but the time came, when we quit making machines, and then we
simply kept them in repair, and we charged that to expense, crossing out
“Investment” and putting down “Machine Shop” as an expense item.
The material is arrived at on the basis, gross, net. The gross basis
is the total amount of pencils packed, as per the packing reports handed
in by Miss Eula May Flowers, and the net basis is the total amount, total
gross, packed by report of Miss Eula May Flowers less the amount of re-
packed, of which I have spoken. In this case the gross amount was 2,851
gross, net 2,8301/2 gross, the smaller being the net figure. The slats are
figured at 22 cents per gross, and that’s simply taking the 2,8301/2 gross
down to the slat item, and multiplying that by 22 cents, and putting it
down to the materials. Then from the figures derived from the packing
reports we figure rubbers used according to the character or grade of
the pencil manufactured; 61/2 cents cheapest, 9 cents medium, 14 cents
high grade. Then comes the tips. The tips is simple, gotten by adding
together the amounts of rubber used in ferrules, the medium rubber, and
the better class of rubber. In other words, it’s gotten by adding together
the rubber at 9 cents a gross, and the rubber at 14 cents a gross, and add-
ing together the total amount of gross used. And you see it says “mate-
rials,” and it is reckoned at 10 cents; in other words, the materials used
in making the tips in that tip plant we figured at 10 cents a gross, and
the labor is included in that pay roll item up above. Then there is 25
gross of these medium ends.
Then the lead, which is used, is taken from this sheet, multiplying
15 cents for the better lead and 10 cents for the cheaper lead. Then 5
cents a gross has been figured out after months of careful keeping track
of what we use to include such materials as shellac, alcohol, lacquer, ani-
line, waxent, and oils-that’s oils used in manufacture, not for lubrica-
tion of transmission or machinery. It also includes that haskolene corn-
pound, of which we have heard so much. That’s included in this 5 cents
per gross.
Then comes the boxes at 2 cents a gross, then assortment boxes at
an average of 4 cents a gross; then come wrappers at one cent a gross;
that is the number of wrappers used in wrapping up one gross of pencils
are worth one cent. Then cartons, boxes, holding one gross of pencils,
figured at 28 or 18 cents. Then down below “pay roll Bell Street,
$175.21.” Then show what was delivered, just a plain copy of what I
have on this sheet. I have been looking at the sheet for the week ending
April 17th, but it is practically the same way. I have here down on the
bottom of this financial (Defendant’s Exhibit 2) made out on the 26th
what’s delivered, good and cheap. There is no entry there. You will re-
member I said I didn’t work that out. I put that out there preparatory
to working that out Monday morning before I would take it over. Then
it tells tips delivered from Mr. Quinn’s report.
Now on the right side you will notice this entry, “Better grades,
gross, net.” From this small sheet we get total of better grades, 710
gross. Then right below it says 700 gross net. There are 710 gross,
and on that repacked sheet I called out there 10 gross good goods
repacked, therefore the difference of 10 gross. Then we look on down
this pencil sheet, cut down each and every one of the items accordingly
-you will notice in some places I marked some items, “142 1-2 2-10-X”
-and so on down the sheet. In this case there were 29 or 30 different
items, all of which had to have the prices correctly traced down, exten-
sions correctly made, checked, re-checked, added up, and totaled, and
checked back, and there pack had to be deducted, after which the 12 per
cent. had to be figured out, and deducted, giving net value of the produc-
tion for that week. Then we take the net value of the production that
week, and from it take the total amount of expense, and materials used,
the expense including labor, rent, light, insurance, and so forth, and, if
this expense is greater than the value of the pencils, then the factory has
operated that week at a loss. In this case a deficit shows, showing that
that week we operated at a loss. The shipments were gotten off down
there from this sheet. Those are my initials on the top.
Now, besides the making of this large sheet (Defendant’s Exhibit
2) proper, there is in the making of the financial report three other
sheets, that I usually make out. Now one of those little sheets, that are
usually made-and I want to call your attention to the fact that I didn’t
typewrite this; I just filled these figures in; I am no typewriter; I cannot
operate a machine; I have two or three dozen of those every now and
then typewritten together, and keep them in blank in my desk; I didn’t
typewrite those on that day, or any other day; I just filled those figures
in those blanks-this is the sheet (Defendant’s Exhibit 11), called the
comparison sheet between 1912 and 1913, which is nothing more nor less
than taking the vital figures, the vital statistics of one week of 1913, and
comparing them with the same week of 1912, to see how we have im-
proved or gone backward every week one year apart. Of course the put-
ting of these down involves going back into the proper week in this
folder, and getting that out. However, I noticed the week in 1912 corre-
sponding with the week of April 24th in 1913, was a week of 45 hours in-
stead of 50 hours.
In addition to that, I made out two condensed financial reports, (De-
fendant’s Exhibits 43 and 46), that is, give the main figures. I didn’t
typewrite this sheet, either; as I say, I cannot operate a machine. I just
filled in the figures, which have to be picked out from this large financial
report, fill them in for the week ending-that does not show the date it
was made, but it shows for the week ending April 24th, the production
in dollars, the total expenditure in dollars, the result, which in this week,
as I wrote in “deficit”I in dollars; shows the shipments, which in this
week were very good, and the orders received, which were gotten from
that great big sheet. These were enough figures for a director or stock-
holder of the company to receive, and are practically the only figures he
is interested in. He don’t care to hear how much we make of this pencil
or that pencil. The only thing he is interested in is dividends, if we are
able to give them to him. One of these sheets I always make out and mail
to Mr. Oscar Pappenheimer (Defendant’s Exhibit 46), who was formerly
a member of the Board of Directors, though he is not now. The other
sheet (Defendant’s Exhibit 43), I always invariably send to my uncle,
Mr. M. Frank, no matter where he is, who is president of the company.
On this particular Saturday, my uncle had during the week ending April
26th, gone to New York, stopping at Hotel McAlpin, preparatory to tak-
ing his annual trip abroad for his health, he being a sick, feeble old man.
When I made out that financial, I really made out two small ones, and I
put one (Defendant’s Exhibit 46), in an envelope, addressed it to Mr.
Oscar Pappenheimer, care Southern Furniture Company, Atlanta, Geor-
gia; the other one (Defendant’s Exhibit 43) was put in this envelope,
which you see right here, and sent to my uncle, Mr. M. Frank, together
with a letter, (Defendant’s Exhibit 42), which I wrote him, after having
finished the financial sheet, the sheet showing the comparison of vital
statistics for the same weeks of 1912 and 1913, and after having com-
pleted these two small condensed financial reports. I wrote that letter
(Defendant’s Exhibit 42) to my uncle, and I sent him that report (De-
fendant’s Exhibit 43), and also sent a price list, to which I referred in
that letter; hence the size of the envelope, (Defendant’s Exhibit 44). I
am going to show you one of those price lists. Its a great big sheet when
it is folded up, it is much too large for the ordinary size; hence the rea-
son I used a great big envelope like that. I addressed that letter to my
uncle, Mr. M. Frank, care Hotel McAlpin, Greely Square, New York,
N. Y., as has been identified.
This ends practically the work on the financial. After finishing the
financial, I wrote these letters, and sealed them, and placed them aside to
post. After finishing the financial, I folded this big report up (Defend-
ant’s Exhibit 2), and put it with the comparison sheet (Defendant’s Ex-
hibit 11) for the week of 1912 and the same week of 1913 in a large envel-
ope, addressed it to Mr. Sig Montag, General Manager of the Pencil Com-
pany, and put it under my inkwell, intending to take it over on the morn-
ing of Monday following.
I then came to the checking up of the cash on hand and the balancing
of the cash book. For some reason or other there are no similar entries
in this book after those of that date. That’s my handwriting (Defend-
ant’s Exhibit 40), and I did that work on Saturday afternoon, April 26th,
as near as might be between the hours of 5:30 and 5 minutes to 6:00.
Now in checking up it didn’t take me an hour and a half. I did that in
about 25 minutes. In checking up the cash the first thing to do is to open
the cash box. We have a little coin bag in there, and there was in cash
actually on hand that day about $30.54; that’s all there was. That’s all
there could have been, and that $30.54 was to the best of my recollection
composed of about three dollars in one dollar bills, about four or five dol-
lars in quarters and halves, and the balance dimes, nickels, and one-cent
pieces. That’s some job to count that, not only to count it, but to sepa-
rate the different denominations, and stack it up into stacks of a dollar.
I did that, stacked them up, checked them, and re-checked them, and I
took a piece of paper-haven’t that paper-and jotted down the amounts.
To that had to be added the amount that was loaned. In this case there
was only one loan, that which I loaned to Mr. White that afternoon. That
would eventually come back to the cash box. If there had been any errors
in the pay roll the night previous, I would have had to make it good from
the cash box, and it would have gone under the item of” extra pay roll.”
I don’t know whether that occurred this week or not. However, I added
up the total cash I actually had on hand then-$28.54-and that $2.00
loaned to Mr. White brought it up to $30.54, the actual amount which the
cash book phowed. Now on the left-hand side of this book, the debits for
the week between April 21st, which was Monday, previous to April 26th,
it being a record simply of the petty cash used by us, showed that we had
a balance on hand the Monday morning previous of $39.85. On April
22nd we drew a check for $15.00, and on April 24th we drew another one
for $15.00. I mean by that that we would draw a check for $15,00, and go
over to Mr. Sig Montag to sign it; so that during that week all we got
from the treasury was $30.00, and $39.85 already on hand, made $69.85,
which was the total amount we had to account for. When we spend, of
course we credit it. There once was a time, when, as we paid out money,
we would write it down on this book. We found it was much better, how-
ever, to keep a little voucher book (Defendant’s Exhibit 10) and let each
and every person sign for money they got, and we have not only this
record (Defendant’s Exhibit 40) but this record on the receipt book (De-
fendant’s Exhibit 10). The first entry on this is 15 cents there-on the
19th of April the National Pencil Company gave 15 cents to Newt Lee
for kerosene (Defendant’s Exhibit 10). Newt Lee’s name is there, but
he didn’t write it. I wrote it; my initials are on it. He was there when
he got the money, but I thought he couldn’t write, and I signed his name.
Whenever I sign anybody’s name, my initials are under it. The next
item is 75 cents for typewriter rent (Defendant’s Exhibit 10) ; next item
$2.00 drayage 24th of April. That is Truman McCrary’s receipt-he
has a very legible handwriting, and one of the little stamps stamped on
there. The next item is for cases; some negro signed his name down
there. So on throughout the book (Defendant’s Exhibit 10), cases, ex-
press, drayage, postage, parcels post, etc. Now, after counting the
money, finding how much actual cash there was in the cash box, the next
thing I do is to take this little voucher book, and lumped the different
items that were all alike together. This sheet (Defendant’s Exhibit 41)
has been identified and explained, and you notice that there were four
items of drayage grouped together, the total being $6.70. I just extend
that over to the right there $6.70. Then I don’t have to put drayage
down in this book (Defendant’s Exhibit 40) four times; just make one
entry of drayage for the four times we paid drayage together, which
gives the same total, and makes the book a great deal neater. So on
throughout, five items of cases, two items of postage, two items of par-
cels post, one item of two weeks’ rent on an extra typewriter, 45 cents
for supplies for Mr. Schneegas’ department, foreman on the third floor,
85 cents for the payment of a very small bill to King Hardware Com-
pany, $11.50 to a tinsmith for a small job he had done, 5 cents for thread,
and ten cents for carfare one item. Then this young man, Harold
Wright, of whom I spoke, omitted from the pay roll. I added this up,
and that was $39.31, and transferred it from here (Defendant’s Exhibit
41) to there (Defendant’s Exhibit 40). I then made the balance in the
usual way, checking it against the money on hand, that I had in the cash
box that night, and after checking and re-checking it, and finding no
money missing from any source that we could trace, found that it was
$4.34 short of the cash box, which was due to shortage in pay roll in the
past three months.
4:35 P. M.
I finished this work that I have just outlined at about five minutes to
six, and I proceeded to take out the clock strips from the clock which
were used that day and replace them. I won’t show you these slips, but
the slips that I put in that night were stamped with a blue ink, with a
rubber dating stamp, “April 28th (Defendant’s Exhibit 1), at the bot-
tom, opposite the word “date.” Now, in reference to these time slips
and the reason that the date April 28th was put on these slips, which was
put in the clocks that night-Saturday night-no one was coming down
to the factory on Sunday, as far as I knew, or as far as custom was, to
put the slips into the clocks, and, therefore, we had to put the slips into
the clock dated with the date on which the help were coming into the
factory to go about their regular duties and register on the Monday
following, which, in this case was April 28th. Now on one of these slips,
Newt Lee would register his punches Saturday night, and on Sunday
night he would register his punches on the other. His punches on Mon-
day night would be registered on two new slips that would be put into
clock on Monday night. As I was putting these time slips into the clock,
as mentioned, I saw Newt Lee coming up the stairs, and looking at the
clocks, it was as near as may be six o’clock-looking straight at the clock;
I finished putting the slip in and went back to wash up, and as I was
washing, I heard Newt Lee ring the bell on the clock when he registered
his first punch for the night, and he went down stairs to the front door to
await my departure. After washing, I went down stairs-I put on my
hat and coat-got my hat and top coat and went down stairs to the front
door. As I opened the front door, I saw outside on the street, on the
street side of the door, Newt Lee in conversation with Mr. J. M. Gantt,
a man that I had let go from the office two weeks previous. They seemed
to be in discussion, and Newt Lee told me that Mr. Gantt wanted to go
back up into the factory, and he had refused him admission, because his
instructions were for no one to go back into the factory after he went
out, unless he got contrary instructions from Mr. Darley or myself. I
spoke to Mr. Gantt, and asked him what he wanted, he said he had a
couple of pairs of shoes, black pair and tan pair, in the shipping room.
I told Newt Lee it would be alright to pass Gantt in, and Gantt went in,
Newt Lee closed the door, locking it after him-I heard the bolt turn in
the door. I then walked up Forsyth Street to Alabama, down Alabama
to Broad Street, where I posted the two letters, one to my uncle, Mr. M.
Frank and one to Mr. Pappenheimer, a few minutes after six, and con-
tinued on my way down to Jacobs’ Whitehall and Alabama Street store,
where I went in and got a drink at the soda fount, and bought my wife a
box of candy. I then caught the Georgia Avenue car and arrived home
about 6:25. I sat looking at the paper until about 6:30 when I called up
at the factory to find out if Mr. Gantt had left. I called up at 6:30 be-
cause I expected Newt Lee would be punching the clock on the half hour
and would be near enough to the telephone to hear it and answer it at
that time. I couldn’t get Newt Lee then, so I sat in the hall reading un-
til seven o’clock, when I again called the factory, this time I was success-
ful in getting Newt Lee and asked him if Mr. Gantt had gone again, he
says, “Yes,” I asked if everything else was alright at the factory; it was,
and then I hung up. I sat down and had supper, and after supper, I
phoned over to my brother-in-law, Mr. Ursenbach, to find out if he would
be at home that evening, I desired to call on him, but he said he had an-
other engagement, so I decided to stay home, and I did stay home read-
ing either a newspaper or the Metropolitan magazine that night. About
eight o’clock I saw Minola pass out on her way home. That evening, my
parents in law, Mr. and Mrs. Emil Selig, had company, and among those
present were Mr. and Mrs. Morris Goldstein, Mr. and Mrs. M. Marcus,
Mrs. A. E. Marcus and Mrs. Ike Strauss; Mr. Ike Strauss came in much
later, something after ten o’clock, I believe. I sat reading in the hall
until about a quarter to ten, when I lighted the gas water heater prepar-
atory to taking a bath, and then continued reading in the hall; at 10:30
I turned out the gas, went into the dining room, bade them all good night,
and went upstairs to take my bath, a few minutes later my wife followed
me upstairs.
(Here the jury took a recess).
I believe I was taking a bath when you went out-on Saturday
night; and after finishing my bath, I laid out my linen to be used next
day, my wife changed the buttons from my old shirt to the shirt I was to
wear the following morning, and I retired about eleven o’clock. The
next day, Sunday, April 27th, I was awakened at something before seven
o’clock, by the telephone ringing. I got out of bed-was tight asleep, it
awakened me-but I got out of bed, put on a bath robe and went down to
answer the telephone, and a man’ s voice spoke to me over the phone and
said-I afterwards found out this man that spoke to me was City Detec-
tive Starnes-said “Is this Mr. Frank, superintendent of the National
Pencil Company ?” I says “Yes, sir,” he says, “I want you to come
down to the factory right away,” I says, “What’s the trouble, has there
been a fire?” He says, “No, a tragedy, I want you to come down right
away; ” I says, “All right,” he says,” I’ll send an automobile for you,”
I says, “All right,” and hung up and went upstairs to dress. I was in
the midst of dressing to go with the people who should come for me in the
automobile, when the automobile drove up, the bell rang and my wife
went down stairs to answer the door. She had on-just had a night dress
with a robe over it. I followed my wife-I wasn’t completely dressed at
that time-didn’t have my trousers or shirt on, and as soon as I could
get together-get my trousers and shirt on-I went down stairs-fol-
lowed my wife in a minute or two. I asked them what the trouble was,
and the man who I afterwards found out was detective Black, hung his
head and didn’t say anything. Now, at this point, these two wit-
nesses, Mr. Rogers and Mr. Black differ with me on the place where the
conversation occurred-I say, to the best of my recollection, it occurred
right there in the house in front of my wife; they say it occurred just as
I left the house in the automobile; but be that as it may, this is the con-
versation: They asked me did I know Mary Phagan, and I told them I
didn’t, they then said to me, didn’t a little girl with long hair hanging
down her back come up to your office yesterday sometime for her money
-a little girl who works in the tipping plant?” I says, “Yes, I do re
member such a girl coming up to my office, that worked in the tipping
room, but I didn’t know her name was Mary Phagan.” “Well, we want
you to come down right away with us to the factory;” and I finished
dressing, and as they had said they would bring me right away back, I
didn’t have breakfast, but went right on with them in the automobile,
made the trip to the undertaking establishment very quickly-I mean,
they made the trip down town very quickly, and stopped at the corner of
Mitchell and Pryor Streets, told me they were going to take me to the
undertaker ‘s first, that they wanted me to see the body and see if I could
identify the little girl. I went with them to the undertaking establish-
ment, andone of the two men asked the attendant to show us the way into
where the body was, and the attendant went down a long, dark passage-
way with Mr. Rogers following, then I came, and Black brought up the
rear; we walked down this long passageway until we got to a place that
was apparently the door to a small room-very dark in there, the attend-
ant went in and suddenly switched on the electric light, and I saw the
body of the little girl. Mr. Rogers walked in the room and stood to my
right, inside of the room, I stood right in the door, leaning up against the
right facing of the door, and Mr. Black was to the left, leaning on the
left facing, but a little to my rear, and the attendant, whose name I have
since learned was Mr. Gheesling, was on the opposite side of the little
cooling table to where I stood-in other words, the table was between
him and me; he removed the sheet which was covering the body, and took
the head in his hands, turned it over, put his finger exactly where the
wound in the left side of the head was located-put his finger right on it;
I noticed the hands and arms of the little girl were very dirty-blue and
ground with dirt and cinders, the nostrils and mouth-the mouth being
open-nostrils and mouth just full of saw-dust and swollen, and there
was a deep scratch over the left eye on the forehead; about the neck there
was twine-a piece of cord similar to that which is used at the pencil fac-
tory and also a piece of white rag. After looking at the body, I identified
that little girl as the one that had been up shortly after noon the day pre-
vious and got her money from me. We then left the undertaking estab-
lishment, got in the automobile and rode over to the pencil factory. Just
as we arrived opposite the pencil factory, I saw Mr. Darley going into
the front door of the pencil factory with another man, whose name I
didn’t know; we went up to the second floor, the office floor, I went into the
inner office, hung up my hat, and in the inner office I saw the night watch-
man, Newt Lee, in the custody of an officer, who I think was detective
Starnes-the man who had phoned me. I then unlocked the safe and
took out the pay roll book and found that it was true that a little girl by
the name of Mary Phagan did work in the metal plant, and that she was
due to draw $1.20, the pay roll book showed that, and as the detective had
told me that someone had identified the body of that little girl as that of
Mary Phagan, there could be no question but what it was one and the
same girl. The detectives told me then they wanted to take me down in
the basement and show me exactly where the girl’s body was found, and
the other paraphernalia that they found strewed about; and I went to
the elevator box-the switch box, so that I could turn on the current, and
found it open. In reference to that switch box being open or shut-it
was open on that occasion, however-I had given instructions to the fac-
tory to keep it open, and those instructions were given because a member
of the fire department had gone through all that part of the city, and the
National Pencil Company, among others, and told us that no switch box,
no box in which an electric switch was situated, could be locked up, but
had to be open, so it could be easily accessible in case of fire, so they
wouldn’t run any risk of electrocuting anybody, or if they wanted to
move quickly, they could throw it on and start the elevator-you couldn’t
lock it up, the firemen wouldn’t know where the key was. However, I
turned on the switch, started the motor, which runs the elevator, going,
then Mr. Darley and a half dozen more of us and the detectives got on
the elevator; I got on the elevator and I started to pull the rope to start
the elevator to going, and it seemed to be caught, and I couldn’t move it,
I couldn’t move it with a straight pull, and couldn’t get it loose, so I
jumped out, we all got off, and I asked Mr. Darley to try his hand-he’s
a great deal larger man and a great deal stronger man than I was-so he
was successful in getting it loose-it seemed like the chain which runs
down in the basement had slipped a cog and gotten out of gear and needed
somebody to force it back; however, Mr. Darley was successful in get-
ting it loose, and it started up, and I got on and the detectives got on and
I caught hold of the rope and it worked alright.
In the basement, the officers showed us just about where the body
was found, just beyond the partition of the Clark Woodenware Company,
and in behind the door to the dust bin, they showed us where they found
the hat and slipper on the trash pile, and they showed us where the back
door, where the door to the rear was opened about 18 inches. After look-
ing about the basement, we all went back upstairs and Mr. Darley and
myself got some cords and some nails and a hammer and went down the
basement again to lock up the back door, so that we could seal the factory
from the back and nobody would enter. After returning upstairs, Mr.
Darley and myself accompanied Chief Lanford on a tour of inspection
through the three upper floors of the factory, to the second floor, to the
third floor and to the fourth floor, we looked into each bin, and each par-
tition, and each dressing room and each work room, and even passed
through the metal room and looked into that very dressing room that
has figured so prominently in this trial, and neither Mr. Darley nor my-
self noticed anything peculiar on that floor, nor did Sergeant Lanford,
Chief of the Atlanta detectives, notice anything peculiar. We then re-
turned to the front, and took out of the clock the slip on which Newt Lee
had punched the evening previous, and that clock slip, of course was
dated April 28th (Defendant’s Exhibit 1).
I removed the clock slip from the clock, and in the center of the
sheet, between the top and bottom, I remember the No. 133 and the num-
ber 134, 1 wrote on it “Taken out 8:26 A. M.” (Defendant’s Exhibit 1),
and two lines under it, with a casual look at that slip, you can’t see it.
I can see it. When looking casually at that slip (Defendant’s Ex-
hibit 1), you see nothing, and by the way, this sheet has been identified, it
is the one to which reference has been made so many times, and if you
will look at it, you will see the date, April 28th, which we put on there on
the evening of Saturday, April 26th, but if you will look opposite those
numbers 133 and 134 (Defendant’s Exhibit 1), and look very carefully,
you can see where there has been erased from it what I put on there that
morning in pencil to identify it, the words “taken out 8-26,” and two
lines, which it seems has been erased, but they couldn’t erase it carefully
enough, they even erased some of the printed line which runs across that
sheet. This is the sheet that I took out on Sunday morning, and looked
at the clock to notice what time it was, and I laid it up against the dial of
the clock, the glass face of the clock, and wrote down there the time which
the clock then registered. I told them the sheet was just like you see it
there, and I brought it to the office and Chief Lanford put it in his pocket;
I then went into the office and got another time slip and dated it April
28th, similar to this one which was taken out, and which one it would re-
place, and I put it back into the time clock to be used by the night watch-
man that night and by the help when they came to work on Monday morn-
ing. After taking this slip out, Mr. Darley and myself casually looked
over the slip to see if there were any errors, and we noticed over there
that no successive numbers had been skipped, that is, the numbers on
that slip are arranged successively, one, two and three, and the time
alongside of each one, and there was no single line skipped, but we didn’t
notice the actual time shown by the punch, we only noticed that the suc-
cessive punches were made at the time which the punches themselves
showed. After putting a new slip in the clock, we all went out of the fac-
tory and went downstairs and locked the door, and I was going to go
down to the office, to police headquarters, because the officers said they
wanted to show me some notes which they said were found near the body
and the padlock and staple which they showed me had been withdrawn,
and which they said had been taken down to the station the first time
they had Newt Lee down there.
Now, gentlemen, I have heard a great deal, and so have you, in this
trial, about nervousness, about how nervous I was that morning. Gen-
tlemen, I was nervous, I was very nervous, I was completely unstrung,
I will admit it; imagine, awakened out of my sound sleep, and a morning
run down in the cool of the morning in an automobile driven at top speed,
without any food or breakfast, rushing into a dark passageway, coming
into a darkened room, and then suddenly an electric light flashed on, and
to see the sight that was presented by that poor little child; why, it was
a sight that was enough to drive a man to distraction; that was a sight
that would have made a stone melt; and then it is suspicious, because a
man who is ordinary flesh and blood should show signs of nervousness.
Just imagine that little girl, in the first blush of young womanhood, had
had her life so cruelly snuffed out, might a man not be nervous who
looked at such a sight? Of course I was nervous; any man would be ner-
vous if he was a man. We went with the officers in the automobile, Mr.
Rogers was at the driving wheel, and Mr. Darley sat next to him, I sat on
Mr. Darley’s lap, and in the back was Newt Lee and two officers. We
rode to headquarters very quickly and on arrival there Mr. Darley and
I went up to Chief Lanford’s office where I sat and talked and answered
every one of their questions freely and frankly, and discussed the mat-
ter in general with them, trying to aid and to help them in any way that
I could. It seemed that, that morning the notes were not readily acces-
sible, or for some other reason I didn’t get to see them, so I told them on
leaving there that I would come back that afternoon, which I ultimately
did; after staying there a few minutes, Mr. Darley and myself left, and
inasmuch as Mr. Darley hadn’t seen the body of the little girl, we went
over to Bloomfield’s on Pryor Street and Mitchell, and when we went in-
to the establishment, they told us somebody was busy with the body at
that time and we couldn’t see it, and we started to leave, when we met a
certain party with whom we made arrangements to watch the building,
because Newt Lee was in custody at that time. Mr. Darley and I then
went over to Montag Brothers to see if any of the Montags had come
down town that morning, we arrived at their place, and found the same
was locked, and that nobody was down there. We walked from Montag’s
place on Nelson Street down to Mitchell and Forsyth Streets, where I
bade Mr. Darley good-bye, and I walked down Mitchell Street to Pryor,
where I caught a Georgia Avenue car and rode to the house of Mr. Sig
Montag, our General Manager, corner of Glenn and Pryor Streets, and
called on Mr. Montag and discussed with him at length and in detail what
I had seen that morning and what the detectives had to say. After my
conversation with him, I returned to my home at about a quarter to
eleven, my home was 68 E. Georgia Avenue; I washed up and had my
breakfast in company with my wife, in the dining room, and while I was
eating breakfast, I told my wife of the experience I had had that morn-
ing. After I finished my breakfast, I left the house and went around to
the home of Mr. Wolfsheimer, and at Mrs. Wolfsheimer’s house we
found quite a company of people, and the conversation turned largely
on what I had seen that morning; also, among those who were present,
were Mrs. L. G. Cohen, Mrs. M. G. Michael, Mrs. Carl Wolfsheimer,
Julian Michael, Philip Michael, Miss Helen Michael, Miss Virginia Sil-
verman, Miss May Lou Liebman, Julian Loeb and Herman Loeb. After
staying there about an hour with my wife, I went in her company to visit
the home of my brother-in-law, A. E. Marcus, whose home is situated on
Washington Street opposite the Orphans’ Home; on our arrival there,
the nurse Lucy told us that no one was at home, and we could find them
probably at the home of Mrs. Ursenbach; we then went over to the Ur-
senbach house, which is situated on the corner of Washington and Pul-
liam Streets, and visited at that place, and saw Mr. and Mrs. A. E. Mar-
cus, Mr. and Mrs. Chas. Ursenbach, Harold Marcus, Mr. and Mrs. Ben
Wiseberg. Of course, the conversation was about the little girl that had
been killed in the pencil factory basement that morning, of which fhey
had heard, and we discussed it generally, although it was at that time as
much a puzzle to me as it was apparently to everybody else. After stay-
ing here until about one o’clock or a little after, I returned with my wife
to my home at 68 E. Georgia Avenue, where we took our lunch together
with my parents-in-law, with Minola McKnight serving. After dinner,
read a little while, and finally caught the ten minutes of three Georgia
Avenue car going down town. I got off at the corner of Pryor and
Mitchell Streets, and went into the undertaker Bloomfield ‘s, where I saw
a large crowd of people nearby on the outside; on entering I found quite
a number of people who were working at the pencil factory, among whom
were Mr. Schiff, Herbert Schiff, N. V. Darley, Wade Campbell, Alonzo
Mann, Mr. Stelker, and Mr. Zyganke. I chatted with them a few min-
utes, and I noticed that the people who were going in to see the body were
standing in line and moving in, and that others from the factory were
going in and I thought I would go in too and pay my respects, and I went
and stood in line, and went into the room again and staid a few minutes
in the mortuary chamber; the little girl had been cleaned up, her hair
had all been cleaned and smoothed out, and there was a nice white sheet
over the rest of her body. I returned to the front of the undertaking es-
tablishment, and stood chatting with Herbert Schiff and Mr. Darley un-
til the party with whom we had made arrangements came up, and we gave
them the keys with instructions as to watching the plant that night. Then
Mr. Darley and Mr. Schiff and myself went down to police headquarters
and went up into Chief Lanford’s office, and the three of us stood talking
there, answering all sorts of questions that not only chief Lanford, but
the other detectives would shoot at us, and finally Mr. Darley said he
would like to talk to Newt Lee; then he went into another room, and I
presume they brought Newt Lee up from the cell, so he could talk to him.
After Newt Lee was gone, the detectives showed us the two notes and the
pad back with still a few unused leaves to it, and the pencil that they
claimed they had found down in the basement near the body. Of course,
Mr. Schiff and myself looked at those notes and tried to decipher them,
but they were written exceedingly dim, and were very rambling and in-
coherent, and neither of us could recognize the handwriting, nor get any
sense out of them at all. One of these notes (State’s Exhibit Y) was
written on a sheet of pencil pad paper, the same kind as that of this sheet
which still remained on the pad back; the other (State’s Exhibit Z) was
written on a sheet of yellow paper, apparently a yellow sheet from the
regulation order pad or order book of the National Pencil Company; this
sheet was a yellow sheet with black ruling on it, and certain black print-
ing at the top. These are the two notes (State’s Exhibit Y and Z) (indi-
cating papers). At the top of these notes where it showed the series and
date, and you can see it has either been worn out or rubbed out (Defend-
ant’s Exhibit Z), but the date was originally on there, and down below
here is the serial number; now, both of those notes were written as
though they had been written through a piece of carbon paper and the
date said Jan. 8, 1911; the order number is so faint or erased here that I
can It even see what that is, but there is no trace of a date on this one at
all, but it was there distinctly visible when Mr. Schiff and myself looked
at it. We continued answering any questions that the detectives wished
to put to us looking to a possible solution of the mystery, when Mr. Dar-
ley came in and said if they didn’t want him any further, he would go off,
that he had an appointment. A few minutes thereafter, Mr. Schiff and
myself left police headquarters, and went down Decatur Street to Peach-
tree Street, and down Peachtree Street over the viaduct to Jacobs’ Ala-
bama and Whitehall Street store, and went in, and each of us had a drink,
and I bought a cigar for each of us at the cigar counter. Mr. Schiff had
an appointment to meet some friends of his at the Union Depot that af-
ternoon, and it was a little too early, so we took a walk around by the
pencil factory, walking up Alabama to Forsyth Street and down Forsyth
Street on the side opposite from the factory, to the corner of Hunter and
Forsyth, where we noticed the morbid crowd that had collected out in
front of the factory; we stood there about a minute or two and then con-
tinued walking, and then went up East Hunter Street back to Whitehall
Street, and back Whitehall to the corner of Whitehall and Alabama,
where Mr. Schiff waited until I caught an Alabama Street or Georgia
Avenue car and returned to my home. I returned to my home about a
quarter to four, and found there was no one in, as my wife had told me
that if she wasn’t at home, she would probably be at the residence of Mr.
Ursenbach, I proceeded over there, coming up Washington Street in the
direction of the Orphans’ Home, and on Washington Street, between
Georgia Avenue and the next street down, which I believe is Bass Street,
I met Arthur Haas and Ed Montag and Marcus Loeb, who stopped me
and asked about things they had heard about the little girl being dead in
the pencil factory, and I stopped and discussed it with them, and I was
about to leave them when Henry Bauer came along in his automobile and
stopped where I was and he asked me what I knew about it, and I had to
stop and talk with him; and I finally got loose from him and went over to
the home of Mr. Ursenbach on the corner of Pulliam and Washington
Terrace, and when I arrived there, I found Mr. and Mrs. A. D. Marcus,
Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Ursenbach, and my wife, and a little later Mr. and
Mrs. Sig Selig came in. Here again the subject of conversation was
what I had seen that morning and what the detectives had told me, and
what I had told them and how the little girl looked, and all about it, as
far as I knew. I stayed there until about 5 o’clock, when Mr. Ike Haas,
the Vice-President of the pencil factory, telephoned me to come over to
his house, and I thereupon went over there, and on arriving at Mr. Haas’
home, which is situated on Washington Street right across the way from
the Orphans’ Home, I talked to him about what I had seen that morning,
and what I could deduce from the facts that were known and what the
detectives had told me. I stayed there until about 6 o’clock. On arrival
at Mr. Haas’ I saw there his wife, Mrs. Haas, his son, Edgar Haas, and
a cousin of my wife’s, Montefiore Selig. My wife had left word with
Mrs. Haas that I should call for her at the residence of Mr. Marcus,
which is next door, or just a few doors away, and I went by and called
for my wife at six o’clock and a few minutes before seven my wife and I
left the residence of Mr. Marcus and started down Washington Street
towards Georgia Avenue on our way home. On our way home, we met
our brother-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Ursenbach, going to the house from
which we had just left. We reached home about seven or a little after
for supper. After supper, I started to read the paper; between 8 and
8:30, I phoned up to my brother-in-law, Alex Marcus, and asked him if
he would come down, but he said he thought he would not that evening,
on account of the rain. I continued reading there in the hall that night
or evening. There was company at the house of my father and mother-
in-law, among the company being the following people, to the best of my
recollection, Mr. and Mrs. Paul Lippman, Mr. and Mrs. Ike Strauss and
Mr. and Mrs. Carl Wolfsheimer. About ten o’clock, all the company
left, and I went upstairs with my wife and retired about ten o’clock.
The next morning, I arose about seven o’clock, and washed and
shaved and dressed, and while I was so occupied, the door bell rang, and
my wife again answered the door, and there were two detectives down
there, one was John Black, and the other, I believe, Mr. Haslett, Haslett
of the city detectives; I finished dressing and went downstairs, and they
told me they wanted me to step down to headquarters with them, and I
told them I would, but I stopped and got my breakfast, finished dressing
and got my breakfast before I went with them. We walked from my
home on Georgia Avenue down to Washington Street down to police
headquarters, walking the whole way. On the way down, I asked detec-
tive Haslett what the trouble down at the station house was, and he said:
“Well, Newt Lee has been saying something, and Chief Lanford wanted
to ask you a few questions about it;” and I said: “What did Newt Lee
say;” “Well, Chief Lanford will tell you when you get down there.”
Well, I didn’t say anything more to him, went right along with him, and
when I got down to police headquarters, I sat in one of the outer offices
that the detectives use, it wasn’t the office of Chief Lanford, he hadn’t
come down yet, that was about between 8 and 8:30 when I got down there.
Well, I waited around the office possibly an hour, chatting and talking to
the officers that came in and spoke to me, but I still didn’t see anything
of Chief Lanford; and bye and bye, probably after an hour, half past
nine perhaps, Sig Montag and Herbert Haas, a couple of my friends,
came up and spoke to me; I was conversing with them, and possibly at
10 o’clock I saw Mr. Luther Rosser come up, and he said: “Hello boys,
what’s the trouble?” And Mr. Haas went up to him and spoke to him,
and they were talking together and a few minutes later Chief Lanford,
who had in the mean time arrived and who seemed to be very busy run-
ning in and out answering telephone calls, came in and says: “Come
here,” and beckoned to me; and I went with him and went into his room,
in his office, and while I was in there, to the best of my recollection, any-
how it is my impression now, that this very time slip (Defendant’s Ex.
1), on which at that time that “taken out at 8:26,” with the two lines un-
der it, had not been erased, was shown to me, and in looking over it and
studying it carefully, I found where the interval of an hour had occurred
three times during the time that Newt Lee had been punching on that
Saturday night, April 26th. When I had first looked at it, I only noticed
that every line had a punch mark on it, but I didn’t notice what time the
punch marks themselves were on; this time I studied the slip carefully,
it was the same slip I had taken out of the clock, Chief Lanford or one of
the officers handed it to me at police headquarters, which I absolutely
identified with the writing which was on it, which you can readily see if
you look now, even though it has been erased. There seemed to be some
altercation about Mr. Rosser coming in that room, and I heard Mr. Ros-
ser say: “I am going into that room, that man is my client;” that was
the first intimation I had that Mr. Rosser was going to look after my in-
terests in this matter. Chief Beavers stated that he wanted me to give
him a statement, and he said: “Mr. Frank, will you give us a state-
ment’?” And I said: “Certainly, I will give them a statement,” I con-
sidered it only right that anybody that was at that factory that day
should give the police a statement, telling who he had seen, where he had
gone and what he had done; and I gave them a statement freely and un-
reservedly, while I had no idea that I had to make a statement at that
time, I did give it to the very best of my ability, freely, and answered
every question that was put to me. Mr. February was sitting on the op-
posite side of the table from where I was sitting, Chief Lanford
was sitting at a desk, and Mr. Rosser was sitting quite a distance
away, probably twenty-five feet, sitting in the front window with his
back to us. After I had given the statement, several of the officers
came into the room, among them being Chief Beavers, and Chief Beav-
ers and Chief Lanford and Mr. Rosser were apparently having a sort of
conversation, and I overheard Mr. Rosser say: “Why, it is -preposter-
ous, a man who would have done such a deed must be full of scratches
and marks and his clothing must be bloody.” I imagine Mr. Rosser must
have had an inkling that they were suspicious of me, and as soon as I
heard that, I turned and jumped up and showed them my underclothing
and my top shirt and my body, I bared it to them all that came within the
range of their vision, I had everything open to them, and all they had to
do was to look and see it. After that, Mr. Rosser insisted that two of the
detectives, Mr. Black and another detective, accompany Mr. Haas, Mr.
Herbert Haas, and myself to my home and look over my soiled clothing
for the past week, which I anticipated had not been given to the wash-
woman. They complied with this request; Mr. Black and another detec-
tive and Mr. Haas and myself went over to the corner of Hunter and
Washington Streets, and caught the Washington Street car and rode to
Georgia Avenue and went to my home, and on this car my mother-in-law
was sitting, returning to her home from town. On reaching 68 E. Geor-
gia Avenue, I found there my wife’s grandmother, Mrs. Cohen, and my
father-in-law, Mr. Selig. The detectives immediately went upstairs to
my room with Mr. Haas and myself, and I took the laundry bag in which
my soiled laundry is always kept and emptied it out on the bed, and they
examined each and every article of clothing that I had discarded that
past week, and I again opened the clothing which I was then wearing,
and which was the brown suit which I have here, this brown suit (Defend-
ant’s Exhibit 49) is the same suit I wore that Saturday, April 26th, and
Monday April 28th, and I have worn that suit continuously since then
until the weather became so hot, and it has neither been pressed nor
cleaned since then, and I show it to you for your examination. The de-
tectives were evidently perfectly well satisfied with what they had seen
there, and of course they left without any further remarks with Mr.
Haas. I went downstairs and conversed with my folks down there until
dinner time, which was served to my father-in-law and my mother-in-
law and my wife and myself b-y Minola McKnight. About that time, Mr.
and Mrs. Wolfsheimer came in and conversed with us, Mr. Wolfsheimer
telling me that he would take me down town that afternoon in his auto-
mobile. After dinner, I telephoned down to the office and telephoned to
Mr. Schiff, and told him to get Mr. Montag’s permission for the Pencil
Company to put on a detective, preferably a Pinkerton detective, to
work with and assist the city detectives in ferreting out the crime, as an
evidence of the interest in this matter which the National Pencil Com-
pany was taking, I thought it was no more than we ought to do, and I
also told Mr. Schiff I would be down town between half past two and
three. After conversing with my folks, I went around the corner to Mr.
Wolfsheimer’s house and got in his automobile, and he took me down
town to his place of business, which is situated on Whitehall Street near
Mitchell, and I got out of the automobile there and walked over to the
Forsyth Street plant of the pencil factory, and on going into the office, I
saw the following men there: Mr. Herbert Schiff, Mr. Wade Campbell,
Mr. Darley-Mr. Holloway was out in his place in the hall, and Mr. Stel-
ker and Mr. Quinn and Mr. Ziganke, these foremen were sitting around
there because we had shut down there, as they told me, due to the fact
that the plant was wholly demoralized, the girls were running into hys-
terics, they couldn’t stick at their work, they were crying and going on
over what had happened there. I spoke to the boys who were there in
the office about the happenings of that morning, of course, at more or
less length. Then Mr. Quinn said he would like to take me back to the
metal department on the office floor where the newspapers had said that
Mr. Barret of the metal department had claimed he had found blood
spots, and where he had found some hair. Mr. Quinn took me to the lit-
tle lathe back in the metal department, and explained to me that Mr. Bar-
rett had told him just the same as he said here, that those strands of hair
were so few in number that he didn’t see them until he turned the handle
and they wound around his fingers, and moreover that the position of the
handle of the tool which that handle actuates on that tool, that small
lathe, was in the same relative position to the work in the lathe as when
they left it on Friday evening previous to that Monday. They then took
me over to the place in front of the dressing room where it was claimed
the blood spots were found. Now, I examined those spots, I didn’t ex-
amine them standing up, I didn’t depend on the light from the windows,
but I stooped right down to those spots, and I took a strong electric flash
lamp that we had around there and looked at them and examined them
carefully, and I made a certain conclusion after that examination. Now,
gentlemen, if there is anyone thing in and about a factory, after my
seven years of practical experience in factories, that I do know, it is the
care and condition of factory floors. Now, take that metal plant, for in-
stance, that plant, as you know, is a place where we reform and shape
and spin sheet brass, and of course, of necessity, we use a great deal of
lubricant there; now, the lubricant that is used on this eyelet machine,
these large machines that change the sheet metal from a ribbon into a
shape, we use that form of lubricant which is known as haskoline com-
pound; now, the main ingredients of that compound are, for practical
purposes, soap and oil, and in use, it is diluted to a great extent with
water so it can flow easily onto the tools or onto the metal, so that the
tools that they use it on won’t get brittle or smeared up, and that has-
koline compound is carried to these little machines in the metal room,
right almost up to that dressing room, and that haskoline remains on
them and sticks to them, and you are apt to find that haskoline com-
pound on the floor there anywhere around in that metal room near any
of those machines, and when it is spilled on the floor, it is not scoured
up, but it is just swept up with a broom. Moreover, a point that has not
been brought out, so far as I know, right opposite that dressing room is
kept the scrap brass, the scrap barrels in which the scrap metal from the
eyelet machines is put, and that is full of haskoline compound, that metal
being put into the barrel of course, with the fluid on it, it flows to the bot-
tom and is apt to get out of the bottom of that barrel onto the floor. But,
getting back to the floor of the metal room, there is a constant spilling of
lubricants, and, as I say, it is composed largely of soap and oil, and that
floor, by actual experiment, is covered to a thickness varying from a
quarter to a half inch, that is, you can scrape away that much before
you get down to the original color of the wood; moreover, on top of that
grease soaked floor, there is dirt more or less, and then somebody comes
along with a water sprinkler and sprinkles it to sweep it up, and they go
over the top of that, it don’t sink into the floor, and the result is there is
coat after coat of grease and dirt on that floor. Now, with reference to
those spots that are claimed to be blood that Mr. Barrett found, I don’t
claim they are not blood, they may have been, they are right close to the
ladies’ dressing room, and we have had accidents there, and by the way,
in reference to those accidents, the accidents of which we have had rec-
ords, are not the only accidents that have happened there; for instance,
a person cuts a finger; that is an accident, we give first aid to the injured
in the office, and we don’t have any report on that, the only reports we
have are of those accidents that incapacitates the health, where they de-
mand the money for the time that they have lost due to the accident, and
we will have our Employers’ Liability Insurance Company to pay the
employees, but where people just cut their fingers and they go back to
work, we don’t make any record of that, and we have people cutting their
fingers there very often, and when they cut their fingers, their line of
travel is right by that place where Mr. Barrett found those spots, right
to the office. Now, we use paint and varnish around there, a great deal
of it, and while I don’t say that this is not blood, it may be, but it could
also have been paint, I have seen the girls drop bottles of paint or var-
nish and have them break there on the floor, I have seen that happen
right close to that spot, but the main point about it is this, gentlemen:
when I got down and looked at it, you could have scratched away from
the top of those dark stains an accumulation of dirt that was not the ac-
cumulation of a day or two days or three days or three weeks, but it was
at least three months, from off the top of those spots, without touching
the spot itself. Moreover, that white stuff was unquestionably, in my
opinion, haskoline compound, and it was dry and it had to be put on, be-
cause it showed all evidences of having been swept, so it had to be put on
the wood in a liquid state; if that had been fresh red paint, or if that had
been fresh red blood, and that haskoline compound, that soap in it, which
is a great solvent, should have been put on there in a liquid state, it
would not have showed up white, as it showed up then, but it would have
showed up either pink or red, and where the spot of blood was, or what-
ever it was, that stuff was white, and not pink or red.
I returned after making this examination from which I noticed two
or three or four chips had been knocked up, the boys told me, by the
police that morning; I returned to my office and gathered up what
papers I had to take over to Montag Brothers, and I took over the finan-
cial report which I had made out the Saturday afternoon previous, and
I talked it over with Mr. Sig Montag. I had a good long conversation
with Mr. Montag with reference to the occurrences that morning and we
decided that since the papers had stated that I was being detained at
headquarters, it would be best to let my uncle, who was ill, and who is an
elderly man, being over 70 years of age, and who was on the point of
taking a trip to Europe, and I didn’t want him to be unnecessarily
alarmed by seeing in the papers that I was detained, and I wrote a tele-
gram to Mr. Adolph Montag informing him that I was no longer in cus-
tody, that I was all right, and that he could communicate that to may un-
cle. That was so that my uncle should not get hold of an Atlanta paper
and see that I was in custody and be unnecessarily alarmed.
I returned from Montag Brothers to the pencil factory, being ac-
companied by one of the traveling men, Mr. Hein, Mr. Sol Hein, and on
my arrival at the factory I went up into the office and distributed the
various papers all over the factory to be acted on the next day. In a few
minutes Mr. Harry Scott of the Pinkerton detectives came in and I took
him aside into my office, my private office, and spoke to him in the pres-
ence of Mr. N. V. Darley and Mr. Herbert Schiff. I told him that I ex-
pected that he had seen what had happened at the pencil factory by
reading the newspapers and knew all the details. He said he didn’t read
the newspapers and didn’t know the details, so I sat down and gave him
all the details that I could, and in addition I told him something which
Mr. Darley had that afternoon communicated to me, viz.: that Mrs.
White had told him that on going into the factory at about 12 o’clock
noon on Saturday, April 26th, she had seen some negro down by the ele-
vator shaft. Mr. Darley had told me this and I just told this to Mr. Scott.
After I told Mr. Scott all that I could, I took him around the building,
took him first back to the metal room and showed him the place where
the hair had been found, looked at the machinery and at the lathe, looked
at the table on which the lathe stands, and the lathe bed and the floor un-
derneath the lathe, and there wasn’t a spot, much less a blood spot un-
derneath. I showed him the other spot in front of the dressing room,
and I took him to the fourth floor and showed him where I had seen
White and Denham a little before one the first time and about three the
second time. Then I took him down into the basement and made a thor-
ough search of the basement, and that included an examination of the
elevator well which was at bottom of elevator shaft, and I noticed Mr.
Scott was foraging around down there and he picked up two or three or
may be four articles and put them in his pocket, and one of them I spe-
cially noticed was a piece of cord exactly like that which had been found
around the little girl’s neck. We then went back and I showed him where
the officer said the slipper had been found, the hat had been found and
the little girl’s body was located. I showed him, in fact, everything that
the officers had showed us. Then I opened the back door and we made a
thorough search of the alleyway and went up and down the alleyway and
then went down that alleyway to Hunter Street and down Hunter to
Forsyth and up Forsyth in front of the pencil factory. In front of the
pencil factory I had quite a little talk with Mr. Scott as to the rate of the
Pinkerton Detective Agency. He told me what they were and I had Mr.
Schiff to telephone to Mr. Montag to find out if those rates were satis-
factory. He phoned back the answer that he would engage them for a
few days at any rate. Mr. Scott then said: “Well, I don’t need any-
thing more,” and he says “The Pinkertons in this case, according to
their usual custom in ferreting out the perpetrator of this crime will
work hand in hand with the city officers.” I said: “All right, that suits
me.” And he went on his way. About that time my father-in-law
joined the group over in front of the factory and after talking for some
time my father-in-law and I left and we arrived home about 6:30 I
should judge, and found there my mother-in-law and my wife and Min-
ola McKnight, and we had supper. After supper my two brothers-in-
law and their wives came over to visit with us and they stayed until
about 10 o’clock, after which my wife and I retired. On Tuesday morn-
ing I arose sometime between seven and seven-thirty, leisurely dressed
and took my breakfast and caught the 8:10 car coming towards town,
the Georgia Avenue car, and when I went to get on that car I met a
young man by the name of Dickler and I remember paying the fare for
both of us. When I arrived at the pencil factory about 8:30, I imme-
diately entered upon my routine work sending the various orders to the
various places in the factory where they were due to go, and about 9:30
I went on my usual trip over to Montag Brothers to see the General Man-
ager. After staying over there a short while I returned in company with
another one of their traveling men, Mr. Jordan. At the corner of For-
syth and Hunter Street I met up with a cousin of my wife’s, a Mr. Selig,
and we had a drink at Cruickshank’s soda fount at the corner of Hunter
and Forsyth. Then I went up into the factory and separated the papers
I had brought back with me from Montag Brothers, putting them in the
proper places, and sending the proper papers to the different places. I
was working along in the regular routine of my work, in the factory and
about the office, and a little later detectives Scott and Black came up to
the factory and said: “Mr. Frank, we want you to go down to headquar-
ters with us,” and I went with them. We went down to headquar-
ters and I have been incarcerated ever since. We went down to head-
quarters in an automobile and they took me up to Chief Lanford’s office.
I sat up there and answered any questions that he desired, and I had
been sitting there some time when detective Scott and detective Black
came back with a bundle under their arm. They showed me a little piece
of material of some shirt, and asked me if I had a shirt of that material.
I looked at it and told them I didn’t think I ever had a shirt of that de-
scription. In the meantime they brought in Newt Lee, the night watch-
man brought him up from a cell and showed him the same sample. He
looked at it and immediately recognized it; he said he had a shirt like that,
but didn’t remember having worn it for 2 years, if I remember correctly,
that is what he said. Detectives Scott and Black then opened the pack-
age they had and disclosed the full shirt (State’s Exhibit F) of that ma-
terial that had all the appearance of being freshly stained with blood,
and had a very distinct odor. Newt Lee was taken back to the cell.
After a time Chief Langford came over to me and began an examination
of my face and of my head and my hands and my arms. I suppose he was
trying to hunt to see if he could find any scratches. I stayed in there un-
til about 12 o’clock when Mr. Rosser came in and spoke to the detectives,
or to Chief Beavers. After talking with Chief Beavers he came over to
me and said that Chief Beavers thought it better that I should stay
down there. He says: “He thinks it better that you be detained at head-
quarters, but if you desire, you don’t need to be locked up in a cell, you
can engage a supernumerary policeman who will guard you and give you
the freedom of the building.” I immediately acquiesced, supposing that
I couldn’t do anything else, and Mr. Rosser left. Now, after this time,
it was almost about this time they took me from upstairs down to the
District Sergeant’s desk and detective Starnes-John N. Starnes, I
think his name is, came in and dictated from the original notes that were
found near the body, dictated to me to get a sample of my handwriting.
Have you got those photographs there? (Photographs handed to the
defendant). I wrote this note (State’s Exhibit K) at the dictation of
Mr. Starnes, which was given to me word by word, and of course I wrote
it slowly. When a word was spelled differently they usually stopped-
take this word “buy” for instance, the detective told me how that was
spelled so they could see my exact letters, and compare with the original
note. Now I had no hesitation in giving him a specimen of my handwrit-
ing. Now, this photograph (State’s Exhibit K), is a reproduction of the
note. You see, J. N. Starnes in the corner here, that is detective Starnes,
and then is dated here, I put that there myself so I would be able to rec-
ognize it again, in case they tried any erasures or anything like that. It
is a photographic reproduction of something that was written in pen-
cil, as near as one can judge, a photographic reproduction of the note
that I wrote. Detective Starnes then took me down to the desk sergeant
where they searched me and entered my name on the book under a charge
of suspicion. Then they took me back into a small room and I sat there
for awhile while my father-in-law was arranging for a supernumerary
police to guard me for the night. They took me then to a room on the
top of the building and I sat in the room there and either read maga-
zines or newspapers and talked to my friends who came to see me until
-I was about to retire at midnight. I had the cover of my cot turned
back and I was going to bed when detective Scott and detective Black, at
midnight, Tuesday, April 29th, come in and said: ” I Mr. Frank, we would
like to talk to you a little bit. Come in and talk to us.” I says: “Sure,
I will be only too glad to.” I went with them to a little room on the top
floor of the headquarters. In that room was detective Scott and detec-
time Black and myself. They stressed the possibility of couples having
been let into the factory at night by the night watchman, Newt Lee. I
told them that I didn’t know anything about it, that if I had, I certainly
would have put a stop to it long ago. They said: “Mr. Frank, you have
never talked alone with Newt Lee. You are his boss and he respects you.
See what you can do with him. We can’t get anything more out of him,
see if you can.” I says: ” All right, I understand what you mean; I will
do my best,” because I was only too willing to help. Black says: “Now
put it strong to him, put it strong to him, and tell him to cough up and
tell all he knows. Tell him that you are here and that he is here and that
he better open up and tell all he knows about happenings at the pencil
factory that Saturday night, or you will both go to hell.” Those were
the detective’s exact words. I told Mr. Black I caught his meaning, and
in a few minutes afterwards detective Starnes brought up Newt Lee
from the cell room. They put Newt Lee into a room and hand-cuffed
him to a chair. I spoke to him at some length in there, but I couldn’t get
anything additional out of him. He said he knew nothing about couples
coming in there at night, and remembering the instructions Mr. Black
had given me I said: “Now, Newt, you are here and I am here, and you
had better open up and tell all you know, and tell the truth and tell the
full truth, because you will get us both into lots of trouble if you don’t
tell all you know,” and he answered me like an old negro: “Before God,
Mr. Frank, I am telling you the truth and I have told you all I know.”
And the conversation ended right there. Within a minute or two after-
wards the detectives came back into the room, that is, detective Scott
and detective Black, and then began questioning Newt Lee, and then it
was that I had my first initiation into the third degree of the Atlanta
police department. The way that fellow Black cursed at that poor old
negro, Newt Lee, was something awful. He shrieked at him, he hol-
lered at him, he cursed him, and did everything but beat him. Then
they took Newt Lee down to a cell and I went to my cot in the outer room.
Now before closing my statement, I wish to touch upon a couple of
insinuations and accusations other than the one on the bill of indictment,
that have been leveled against me so far during the trial. The first is
this, the fact that I would not talk to the detectives; that I would not see
Jim Conley. Well, let’s look into the facts a few minutes and see whether
there was any reason for that, or if there be any truth in that statement.
On Sunday morning, I was taken down to the undertaker’s estab-
lishment, to the factory, and I went to headquarters; I went to head-
quarters the second time, going there willingly without anybody coming
for me. On each occasion I answered them frankly and unreservedly,
giving them the benefit of the best of my knowledge, answering all and
any of their questions, and discussing the matter generally with them.
On Monday they came for me again. I went down and answered any and
all of their questions and gave them a statement which they took down
in writing, because I thought it was right and I was only too glad to do
it. I answered them and told them all that I know, answering all ques-
tions. Tuesday I was down at police station again, and answered every
question and discussed the matter freely and openly with them, not only
with the police, but with the reporters who were around there; talked to
anybody who wanted to talk with me about it, and I have even talked
with them at midnight when I was just about to go to bed. Midnight
was the time they chose to talk to me, but even at such an outlandish hour
I was still willing to help them, and at their instigation I spoke to Newt
Lee alone, but what was the result ? They commenced and they grilled
that poor negro and put words into his mouth that I never said, and
twisted not alone the English, but distorted my meaning. I just decided
then and there that if that was the line of conduct they were going to pur-
sue I would wash my hands of them. I didn’t want to have anything to
do with them. On the afternoon of May 1st, I was taken to the Fulton
County Tower. On May 3rd detectives Black and Scott came up to my
cell in the tower and wanted to speak to me alone without any of my
friends around. I said all right, I wanted to hear what they had to say
that time. Then Black tore off something like this: “Mr. Frank, we are
suspicious of that man Darley. We are watching him; we have been
shadowing him. Now open up and tell us what you know about him.” I
said: “Gentlemen, you have come to the wrong man, because Mr. Dar-
ley is the soul of honor and is as true as steel. He would not do a crime
like that, he couldn’t do it.” And Black chirped up: “Come on, Scott,
nothing doing,” and off they go. That showed me how much reliance
could be placed in either the city detectives or our own Pinkerton detec-
tives, and I treated such conduct with silence and it was for this reason,
gentlemen, that I didn’t see Conley, surrounded with a bevy of city detec-
tives and Mr. Scott, because I knew that there would not be an action so
trifling, that there was not an action so natural but that they would dis-
tort and twist it to be used against me, and that there was not a word
that I could utter that they would not deform and twist and distort to be
used against me, but I told them through my friend Mr. Klein, that if
they got the permission of Mr. Rosser to come, I would speak to them,
would speak to Conley and face him or anything they wanted-if they
got that permission or brought Mr. Rosser. Mr. Rosser was on that day
up at Tallulah Falls trying a case. Now, that is the reason, gentlemen,
that I have kept my silence, not because I didn It want to, but because I
didn’t want to have things twisted.
Then that other implication, the one of knowing that Conley could
write, and I didn’t tell the authorities.
Let’s look into that. On May 1st I was taken to the tower. On the
same date, as I understand it, the negro Conley was arrested. I didn’t
know anybody had any suspicions about him. His name was not in the
papers. He was an unknown quantity. The police were not looking out
for him; they were looking out for me. They didn’t want him, and I had
no inkling that he ever said he couldn’t write. I was sitting in that cell
in the Fulton County jail-it was along about April 12th, April 12th or
14th-that Mr. Leo Gottheimer, a salesman for the National Pencil Com-
pany, came running over, and says “Leo, the Pinkerton detectives have
suspicions of Conley. He keeps saying he can’t write; these fellows over
at the factory know well enough that he can write, can’t he?” I said:
“Sure he can write. ” “We can prove it. The nigger says he can’t write
and we feel that he can write.”‘ I said: “I know he can write. I have re-
ceived many notes from him asking me to loan him money. I have re-
ceived too many notes from him not to know that he cannot write. In
other words, I have received notes signed with his name, purporting to
have been written by him, though I have never seen him to this date use
a pencil.” I thought awhile and then I says:” Now, I tell you; if you will
look into a drawer in the safe you will find the card of a jeweler from
whom Conley bought a watch on the installment. Now, perhaps if you
go to that jeweler you may find some sort of a receipt that Conley had to
give and be able to prove that Conley can write.” Well, Gottheimer took
that information back to the Pinkertons; they did just as I said; they got
the contract with Conley’s name on it, got back evidently to Scott and
then he told the negro to write. Gentlemen, the man who found out or
paved the way to find out that Jim Conley could write is sitting right
here in this chair. That is the truth about it.
Then that other insinuation, an insinuation that is dastardly that it
is beyond the appreciation of a human being, that is, that my wife didn’t
visit me; now the truth of the matter is this, that on April 29th, the date
I was taken in custody at police headquarters, my wife was there to see
me, she was downstairs on the first floor; I was up on the top floor. She
was there almost in hysterics, having been brought there by her two
brothers-in-law, and her father. Rabbi Marx was with me at the time. I
consulted with him as to the advisability of allowing my dear wife to
come up to the top floor to see me in those surroundings with city detec-
tives, reporters and snapshotters; I thought I would save her that humil-
iation and that harsh sight, because I expected any day to be turned loose
and be returned once more to her side at home. Gentlemen, we did all
we could do to restrain her in the first days when I was down at the jail
from coming on alone down to the jail, but she was perfectly willing to
even be locked up with me and share my incarceration.
Gentlemen, I know nothing whatever of the death of little Mary
Phagan. I had no part in causing her death nor do I know how she came
to her death after she took her money and left my office. I never even
saw Conley in the factory or anywhere else on that date, April 26, 1913.
The statement of the witness Dalton is utterly false as far as com-
ing to my office and being introduced to me by the woman Daisy Hopkins
is concerned. If Dalton was ever in the factory building with any woman,
I didn’t know it. I never saw Dalton in my life to know him until this
crime.
In reply to the statement of Miss Irene Jackson, she is wholly mis-
taken in supposing that I ever went to a ladies’ dressing room for the
purpose of making improper gaze into the girls’ room. I have no recol-
lection of occasions of which she speaks but I do not know that that
ladies’ dressing room on the fourth floor is a mere room in which the girls
change their outer clothing. There was no bath or toilet in that room,
and it had windows opening onto the street. There was no lock on the
door, and I know I never went into that room at any hour when the girls
were dressing. These girls were supposed to be at their work at 7 o’clock.
Occasionally I have had reports that the girls were flirting from this
dressing room through the windows with men. It is also true that some-
times the girls would loiter in this room when they ought to have been
doing their work. It is possible that on some occasions I looked into this
room to see if the girls were doing their duty and were not using this
room as a place for loitering and for flirting. These girls were not sup-
posed to be dressing in that room after 7 o’clock and I know that I never
looked into that room at any hour when I had any reason to suppose that
there were girls dressing therein.
The statement of the negro Conley is a tissue of lies from first to
last. I know nothing whatever of the cause of the death of Mary Pha-
gan and Conley’s statement as to his coming up and helping me dispose
of the body, or that I had anything to do with her or to do with him that
day is a monstrous lie.
The story as to women coming into the factory with me for immoral
purposes is a base lie and the few occasions that he claims to have seen
me in indecent positions with women is a lie so vile that I have no
language with which to fitly denounce it.
I have no rich relatives in Brooklyn, N. Y. My father is an invalid.
My father and mother together are people of very limited means, who
have barely enough upon which to live. My father is not able to work.
I have no relative who has any means at all, except Mr. M. Frank who
lives in Atlanta, Ga. Nobody has raised a fund to pay the fees of my
attorneys. These fees have been paid by the sacrifice in part of the small
property which my parents possess.
Gentlemen, some newspaper men have called me “the silent man in
the tower,” and I kept my silence and my counsel advisedly, until the
proper time and place. The time is now; the place is here; and I have
told you the truth, the whole truth.
THE LAST WORD AT THE TRIAL, THE ADDITIONAL STATEMENT MADE BY DEFENDANT,
LEO M. FRANK ON AUGUST 21st 1913.
In reply to the statement of the boy that he saw me talking to Mary
Phagan when she backed away from me, that is absolutely false, that
never occurred. In reply to the two girls, Robinson and Hewel, that they
saw me talking to Mary Phagan and that I called her” Mary,” I wish to
say that they are mistaken. It is very possible that I have talked to the
little girl in going through the factory and examining the work, but I
never knew her name, either to call her “Mary Phagan,” “Miss Pha-
gan,” or “Mary.”
In reference to the statements of the two women who say that they
saw me going into the dressing room with Miss Rebecca Carson, I wish
to state that that is utterly false. It is a slander on the young lady, and
I wish to state that as far as my knowledge of Miss Rebecca Carson goes,
she is a lady of unblemished character.
DEFENDANT Leo M. Frank CLOSES. TRIAL ENDS. CLOSING ARGUMENTS BEGAN.
Brief Analysis of Frank’s Testimony
Some interesting pages of Leo M. Frank’s trial testimony given to the Jury, when Frank mounted the stand on August 18th 1913, concerning Mary Phagan and his whereabouts. These pages are from the official record The State of Georgia v Leo M. Frank, Brief of Evidence, 1913.
Sunday, April 27, 1913
Leo Frank told police Mary Phagan arrived approximately 12:03.
Monday, 28 April 1913, State’s Exhibit B in the presence of Luther Rosser and Herbert Haas
At the police station on Monday, 28 April 1913, Leo M. Frank made a statement to Newport A. Lanford, Chief of Detectives, stenographed, concerning the time Mary Phagan arrived in his second floor office, saying Phagan arrived between 12:05 to 12:10, maybe 12:07. Read the original Leo M. Frank statement from the Brief of Evidence 1913: State’s Exhibit B.
Pages 185 and 186 of the Leo M. Frank Trial Brief of Evidence describes and captures the events between noon, when Leo M. Frank was working in his second floor office, and 1:10 PM, when he left his second floor office to go home for lunch (Southerners at the time called what we call today lunch using the word Dinner). Frank describes himself leaving his office one time with certainty from noon to 1:10 PM, when he went upstairs to the 4th floor, to ask Mrs. Arthur White to leave, and tell Mr. Arthur White and Harry Denham that he would be locking up the Pencil Factory Building (checking on their work and progress status).
The Inquest
When his memory was fresh, Leo M. Frank originally told the police on Monday, April 28 1913, that Mary Phagan arrived between 12:05 to 12:10, however, he would change the time of her arrival at the inquest to 12:10. On August 18th 1913, Leo Frank, changes his story and describes Mary Phagan coming to his office approximately 10 to 15 minutes after Miss Hall left his office (Miss Hattie Hall left the factory at about noon when the church bells tolled). Therefore, according to Frank’s alternative or different account, it can be estimated that Mary Phagan came into Leo Frank’s office between 12:10 and 12:15, a rough arrival span of time 5 minutes in length. It went from 12:03, to 12:05 to 12:10, to 12:10 to 12:15.
12:05 to 12:10 PM, Saturday, 26 April 1913
In response to Monteen Stover’s testimony, Leo M. Frank made a statement to the Trial Jury about unconsciously going to the bathroom to use the toilet or to urinate, it was extremely damaging. Because in order to go into the Men’s or Women’s bathroom on the second floor (which is down the hall from Frank’s second floor office), one has to go into and through the metal room. To get to the bathroom in the metal room one has to pass the dressing room, where once inside the bathroom, the Men’s and Women’s toilets are separated by a very thin partition. See State’s Exhibit A and Second Floor Aerial View in the 1913 Brief of Evidence. Would Leo Frank and Mary Phagan have gone to the bathroom at the same time?
Frank specifies the time of a possible bathroom visit after Noon when the twelve O’clock whistle blew.
Frank by saying he may have unconsciously gone to the bathroom in response to Monteen Stover, has himself traveling to and through the very specific place where factory employees identified a big 5 inch diameter fan shaped star burst blood stain on the floor and saw the discovery of hair on the Lathe handle. An employee who worked the machine said there was no way there could be hair on the handle of his machine when he left on Friday evening. Another employee testified that he swept metal room clean and did not remember a blood stain with white haskolene smeared on it in front of the dressing room (dressing room is inside the metal room). Before Leo Frank was even suspected, these discoveries were made.
At the 4 week long trial, the prosecution had spent 3 weeks bringing forward police, detectives and factory employees to describe murder evidence in the second floor metal room just before Leo Frank’s August 18th 1913 testimony to the trial Jury.
It was then follow that Leo Frank had entrapped himself by his own words beyond escape.
Then Frank alleged Lemmie Quinn came into his office hardly 5 minutes after Mary Phagan had departed from his office, putting the time Lemmie arrived at about 12:20. It was meant to make it seem impossible that Leo Frank had enough time to Kill Mary Phagan, but there were problems with this testimony.
Leo Frank and Lemmie Quinn — one week after — Leo Frank was arrested on Tuesday, April 29, 1913, “remembered” and made the newfangled claim at the Coroners inquest that Lemmie Quinn allegedly returned to the factory at 12:20, leaving a gaping hole of 12:03 to 12:19 concerning Leo Frank’s and Mary Phagan’s whereabouts.
Leo Frank is Quoted as Saying in his Trial Testimony:
She [Mary Phagan] had left the plant hardly five minutes when Lemmie Quinn, the
foreman of the plant, came in and told me that I could not keep him away
from the factory, even though it was a holiday; at which I smiled and
kept on working. He first asked me if Mr. Schiff had come down and I
told him he had not and he turned around and left.
Does that sound fabricated or contrived? Looking for Mr. Schiff?? Mr. Schiff who testified and prided himself when he testified at the trial to NEVER being absent or late in his 5 years of employment at the pencil factory, just so happens to be absent on a state holiday, April 26, 1913 when he was supposed to be there?!. Was Mr. Schiff supposed to be at work on April 26, 1913, most likely NOT and it is equally likely Lemmie Quinn never came back to the factory looking for Mr. Schiff at 12:20. For the prosecution would argue in a roundabout way – to paraphrase – the statement of Lemmie Quinn coming back sets off our highly refined bullshit detectors to red alert, red alert, red alert. It was more likely meant to provide Leo Frank with an alibi that he couldn’t have possibly killed Mary Phagan between 12:05 and 12:15 PM in the metal room.
Did Lemmie Quinn Perjure Himself at the Leo M. Frank Trial
An affidavit signed by Lemmie Quinn early on in the investigation would be submitted as evidence at the trial, making it impossible for Quinn to have been uptown playing billiards and also at the factory located in a different part of town during the exact same time. Two employees testified they saw Lemmie after he left the building at 11:30 or so, the prosecution argued the odds that Lemmie came back to the factory and asked for Mr. Schiff, who like nearly all the other employees, were off on a State Holiday is unlikely.
Dorsey Would Suggest the Final Analysis on Lemmie Quinn’s returning to the factory at 12:20 PM to Leo M. Frank’s office Asking for Lemmie Quinn is Total Crock of Contrived Bullshit.
The Real Unaccounted for Time of Leo Frank, from Noon to 12:35 PM, Saturday, 26 April 1913
Leo Frank said he did not remember Mrs. White coming momentarily stepping into his office at 12:35 PM, coming up behind him and thus being startled by her, though Frank gives her the benefit of the doubt and says it was likely so during his statement to the Jury.
Mrs. White recalled at the trial startling Leo Frank in the outer office while he was at the safe door at 12:35PM. Jim Conley alleged Leo Frank put Mary Phagan’s purse in the safe ostensibly as the place where the Purse of Mary Phagan temporarily disappeared to until it could be disposed.
12:45 PM, Saturday, 26 April 1913
Frank puts himself upstairs on the 4th floor at 10 minutes to 1PM speaking with the only 3 people in the building, two laborers Mr. Arthur White and Mr. Harry Denham, and one wife, Mrs. Arthur White, according to the best of Frank’s recollection and knowledge (BOE, 1913). Frank said he went upstairs to Tell everyone he was locking up the building and leaving, he was clear to Mrs. White she needed to leave – unless – he suggested, she wanted to be locked in the building, but when Mrs. White went down to Leo’s office on the way down from the 4th floor and glanced in at him, she saw Mr. Frank relaxing at his desk and he had not put on his hat or coat.
More Inconsistencies in Leo Frank’s Own Story
On page 187 of the official record, Frank says he called his brother in law to cancel their appointment to go to the baseball game. Frank said the reason he canceled was because he had too much work to do. Why is Frank behind on his work when his associates claimed he can get all the work he needs to get done within 1 to 3 hours? What work does Frank actually have to do at the factory on a Saturday evening and on a State’s Holiday, when he had planned to go to the baseball game? Frank at a different time during the investigation told the Coroners Inquest Jury, saying he canceled his appointment to go to the ball game because of inclement weather, implying fear of getting sick (catching a cold). So which was it getting sick or too much work? and if Leo Frank was afraid of getting sick, why did Leo Frank claim he spent time at the Confederate parade that afternoon, and why did Leo Frank claim to spend time at the Confederate parade if he had so much work to do? Weather, Work, Parades? Something is setting off our highly refined bullshit detectors, because Leo M. Frank keeps changing his story.
https://www.leofrank.org/georgia-archive/B056/D260-B056-1218.JPG
More on the Specifics on Time
Is Frank suggesting he has pencil factory work or murder clean up work to do? The question one asks more specifically is why if Leo Frank has so much work to do does Frank allege he took 1.5 hours to get back to the office after he finished eating lunch? Why does Frank say he went to look at the parade if he also claims he has so much work to do and if he is worried about the inclement weather and catching a cold (implying getting sick) why is he out and about in the “inclement weather”?
More than one Bathroom Visits Revealed
Frank is unsure of his “unconscious” bathroom between 12:05 and 12:10, but he clearly remembers his bathroom visit just before Newt Lee arrives at the factory a few minutes before 4pm on page 188 of the official record. Why does Leo M. Frank “sorta kinda” forget some bathroom visits, yet remember others? How often did Frank go to the bathroom which requires passing through the metal room? By Frank’s statements he puts himself twice in the second floor metal room, Frank seems to be making it really easy for the prosecution. It would be the first time Leo Frank would reveal he made not just one but two bathroom visits at the trial.
https://www.leofrank.org/georgia-archive/B056/D260-B056-1219.JPG
4pm, Saturday, 26 April 1913, Newt Lee Arrives
Leo Frank said he told Newt Lee that he had work to do and assertively sent him out of the factory, and instructed him to come back at no later than 6:30 PM. Frank certainly seemed to have a lot of work to do on a Saturday Holiday when no one is expected to work and it was starting to get late. Frank said he started the work day at 8:30 AM, it was becoming quite a long work day on that infamous Saturday. Once Lee was forced out of the building this gave Leo Frank an additional 2.5 hours for either “office paper work” or murder clean up. Strangely during the testimony of Leo Frank, he suggested Newt Lee neglected his work (not finding the body sooner), and was supposed to carefully inspect the basement and other floors every half hour. It was as if Leo Frank as annoyed that Newt Lee did not discover the murder pinned to him earlier.
The Truth of the Matter
Newt Lee likely neglected his job of very carefully inspecting the basement every half hour, so when Leo Frank call the factory at 6:30 PM to no avail and again at 7:00 PM finally getting Newt Lee on the phone to see if everything was alright and what Leo Frank was really doing was seeing if Newt Lee found the body, it left Leo Frank perturbed the bad timing. Leo Frank calling the factory on a Saturday was something he had never done before according to Newt Lee which by itself does not point guilt, but when put into context it tended to be another variable of suspicion against the superintendent.
7PM, April 26, 1913
Newt Lee testified that Frank wanted to know if everything was okay at the factory. Was Frank expecting Newt Lee to reveal he had discovered the body? Most Likely. Frank says he was checking to see if a former employee he had fired, J. M. Gantt, who was allowed to get his shoes (chaperoned with Newt Lee) had left the building. Though Newt Lee said Frank never asked about the former employee. This was a contradiction of word between Newt Lee and Leo Frank, the Jury likely took the side of Newt Lee, because the defense Lawyers could not break down Newt Lee as an unreliable witness on the stand late July 1913. It also started to look like Leo Frank was unequivocally trying to direct suspicion on Newt Lee with notes, a contentious time card and then suggestions of job neglection.
Steve Oney suggested if Freud had been watching and listening to Leo Frank’s testimony, he would have said Leo Frank was trying to hide something (People vs. Leo Frank, 2009)
4 Hours of Non Sense
Frank continued to talk about the minutiae of the work he had to do that day. During Franks 4 hour testimony, he had spent nearly 3 to 3.5 hours of it going over incomprehensible pencil mathematical production and sales computations to the Judge and Jury, leaving them numb. Leo Frank then snuck in what the Jury wanted to hear, spending less than 30 minutes to an hour talking about the important details that the Jury needed and wanted to hear, which was evidence to substantiate an alibi, an alibi which makes it an impossibility, that Frank was in the second floor bathroom and metal room murdering Mary Phagan.
Even Trivial and Immaterial Evidence Sounded Contrived
The whole thing about Leo Frank saying his wife was perfectly willing to be locked up with him sounded like total bullshit considering she didn’t visit him for nearly 2 weeks after his arrest.
The bullshit Leo Frank keep shoveling became unpalatable for the Jury.
References:
Leo M. Frank Trial, Appeals and Aftermath Bibliography
Primary Sources:
Available for review and download, please visit: Leo M. Frank, Plaintiff in Error, vs. State of Georgia, Defendant in Error. In Error from Fulton Superior Court at the July Term 1913. Brief of Evidence 1913. See: Internet Archive version of Leo M. Frank, Plaintiff in Error, vs. State of Georgia, Defendant in Error. In Error from Fulton Superior Court at the July Term 1913. Brief of Evidence 1913
Within the Brief of Evidence 1913: State’s Exhibit B, April 28, 1913
Map of the second floor: Second Floor Aerial View
Within the 2 volume 1,800+ page Georgia Supreme Court Case file is the 318 page Brief of Evidence, in the Leo M. Frank Murder Trial. See volumes 1 and 2.
Argument of Hugh M. Dorsey in the Leo M. Frank Murder Trial also on archive.org a review of the Argument of Hugh M. Dorsey
All the Trial Testimony of Jim Conley that Leonard Dinnerstein Obfuscated: https://www.leofrank.org/jim-conley-august-4-5-6/
Secondary Sources:
The Murder of Little Mary Phagan By Mary Phagan-Kean, the Great Grand Niece of Mary Phagan. Buy the book on Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Little-Mary-Phagan/dp/0882822101
The People vs. Leo Frank, by Ben Loeterman and Chief Consultant Steve Oney (2009)
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