023 Page – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

Here is the translated text as follows:

PREFACE TO VOLUME TEN

xix

The learned gentleman who had previously argued that a whale could under no circumstances be classified as a fish was equally unsuccessful in his view that a negro might be the father of a white child.

In sentencing Robert McConaghy to death (p. 601), the judge remarked that for barbarity, treachery, and depravity, McConaghy's cruelty and wickedness were unmatched by the pirates of the West Indies or the savages of the wilderness. On a summer day on a small farm in Pennsylvania, McConaghy murdered the entire Brown family, except for the husband who was away from home at the time. George, aged 16, and David, aged 10, were choked to death in the woods. Jacob, aged 14, was shot in the back; little Elizabeth, the only daughter, was strangled, and then the mother's throat was cut while she lay in bed. The eldest son, John, was also shot. This case finds no parallel in our criminal records. The pirates of the West Indies have long vanished from the high seas, and the savages of the wilderness are no more. Only in the reports of the Bryce Commission on the Belgian invasion and in the report of the French government on German atrocities in northern France can one read of more horrific crimes committed in scores of hamlets and countryside in these devastated lands by a people who claim to be civilized and "cultured."

It is difficult to estimate how many of our best citizens pay tribute each year to adventurers like W. J. Cook (p. 624) and Mrs. Hirsch (p. 655). In nine cases out of ten, the innocent victim submits to blackmail rather than endure the publicity of the yellow press and the mindset of the ordinary American juror, who will take any woman's word over a man's. Meanwhile, our state legislatures seem to be...