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

Here is the translated text as follows:

102 X. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

You see him without a cause, and with a frantic look scattering a frightened multitude. You see him passing, after night, a sentinel whose duty compelled him to shoot. You see him the victim of insane impulses, which he has no power to resist. The prosecution is hard-pressed by these facts. Mr. Gale endeavors to explain the affair of the revolver by holding up Worrell as such a strict disciplinarian that, for mere loud talk in open day, he would kill soldiers and citizens! The argument is a suicide in logic, for such a disciplinarian would not, after night, violate at peril of his life, a discipline essential to the safety of every military post.

Up to the hour of his desertion, in all his life, who ever connected the name of Worrell with an act or sentiment of dishonor? His life, as I said, is before you, and however you decide this cause, the fact is overwhelmingly established that a more honorable, upright, honest young man than Edward Worrell never enlisted under the banner of his country. "The past at least is secure." The gallows cannot rob him of his character for gentleness; for high and honorable aspirations; for a scorn of all meanness; for a refined manliness; for invincible honesty. And now I ask you, jurors, when before in your experience, in the larger experience of humanity, did it ever occur that such a man, on a sudden, in a moment, becomes a horse thief and murderer? I put the question to your consciences. I put it to the prosecution and especially to him (Mr. Bay) who is to follow me. The annals of crime do not furnish a case. I defy one well-authenticated case of such sudden voluntary revolution of the moral nature of a man. Insanity has presented this perversion a thousand times.

"I took an interest in Worrell," said the witness for the State, "and told him I was glad to witness his promotion."

Who did not take an interest in Worrell wherever he has been? Was he not always an object of interest and regard? It is not simply that from the camp and from civil life, no whisper of imputation can be brought against him; but the evidence is positive and affirmative and universal—that for all the qualities of a man which recommend him to the heart, he was universally admired and respected.