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

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Here is the translated text as follows:

152 X, AMERICAN STATE TRIALS,

If the defendant committed the act, let him say so and face the consequences. It was a voluntary act on his part, and he committed it with full knowledge that he thereby justly forfeited his life. Should you find him guilty of the charge, how different even then will be his fate from that of his victim! The law, in its mercy, will give him ample time to atone for his crime, to make peace with an offended God, and to receive the parting benediction of his family. But poor Gordon was sent into eternity without warning; without even time to say, "God be merciful to me a sinner!"

The learned counsel has invoked your sympathy on behalf of the prisoner's parents, particularly the mother, who has been a daily attendant upon this trial. The appeal was unnecessary, for I presume no one within the hearing of my voice is so destitute of the kinder feelings of our nature as not to commiserate their condition. I know well the tie that binds a mother to her child, and if sympathy can lighten the burden that presses upon her heart, most cordially will we unite with the counsel in extending it. But he should not have exhausted his sympathy here; he should have saved at least a portion of it for another whose heart has also been made desolate by this foul murder.

Poor Gordon had a mother. She still lives, wrecked in body and mind. Left a poor widow when the deceased, her only son, was in his tender years, she struggled hard to give him the benefit of a liberal education, and finally succeeded, although it left her, in her old age, relying upon him for support. Nobly did he respond to the call; for from the time he reached manhood until his death, he never failed to divide with her the product of his toil. He was a son worthy of such a mother, kind, affable, and affectionate, and free from those vices which so often lead astray the youths of our country. By this cruel murder, this mother is thrown upon the charity of a cold and heartless world, and at a time of life when ill-prepared to encounter its frowns. May God in his mercy throw around her his protecting arm. Could you see her as others have seen her, bowed down by a grief too deep for tears to quench,

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