Tuesday, 29th July 1913 Frequent Clashes Over Testimony Mark Second Day of Frank Trial

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HERE ARE THE TWELVE MEN WHO WILL DECIDE FATE OF LEO M. FRANK

J.F. HIGDON, F-E WINBURN, A.L. WISBEY, W.F. MEDCALF, A.H. HENSLEE, W.M. JEFFRIES, M. JOHENNING, C. J. BASSHART, F. VAN L. SMITH, J. T. OZBURN, D. TOWNSEND, M.S. WOODWARD

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After Rosser's Fierce Grilling All Negro, Newt Lee, Asked for Was Chew of "'Bacca-Any Kind"

He Looks Like a Negro, He Talks Like a Negro, and He Has the Wit and the Manner of Darkies in Old-Time Slavery Days Was on the Stand Three Hours Tuesday Morning

"All I wanted was a chew of 'bacca. Yes, sir, dat was all," said Newt Lee after he had testified for three hours Tuesday morning at the Frank trial, had answered question upon question, had experienced all the exquisite delights of a real cross-examination."

"I can't say I was tired. Naw, sir, not 'zactly that. I jes needed the 'bacca. Soon as I left the stand, the first thing I did was to ask for a chew, and then I felt all right."

"Mr. Rosser was putty terrible, wasn't he? Sorter wants you to say things jes his way. But I was there to tell the truf and I told it."

"LAWYERS AND DETECTIVES."

"Lawyers and detectives are sorter alike when they comes to askin' questions. I'd 'bout as soon be talked to by one as another. Lawyers, though, don't 'buse youn like detectives, that's a fact."

"But when folks don't do you right, you jes know they hurtin' they souls and ain't doin' you any real harm. That's the way to look at things."

"Naw, sir, I didn't get mad when Mr. Rosser kept tryin' to make me say what he wanted said. Court's a place where you 'spect to be questioned, and there ain't nothin' to do but jes answer the best you kin. They certainly worked on me, but all I needed was a little bit of 'bacca."

"I'M PUTTY STOUT."

"I'm what you'd call putty stout. I used to trim two carloads of lumber every day, one oak 'nother poplar, when I was workin' at a coffin factory. Took two men to clean up after me. So, course I didn't mind sittin' there answerin' questions a few hours. I would have liked a little 'bacca, but course I couldn't chew there before all them white folks. But it certainly did taste sweet when I was finished. All I asked was a big chew and a spittoon."

"I guess they had me up there an hour and a half yesterday, and 'bout

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AFTER ROSSER'S FIERCE GRILLING, NEGRO ASKED FOR "CHEW OF BACCA"

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three hours this mornin'. But I'm putty stout."

"Today makes three months and two days since I was arrested. I counts the time at police station jes like that in jail. They ain't any difference. And they say they goin' ter keep me two weeks longer. Well, I "

"ANY KIND OF 'BACCA."

"Yes, sir, guess a little 'bacca would help. Jes any kind, boss, you can chew. Man said he was goin' ter bring a hat by this mornin' but I guess his memory's bad.

"Are you from Newnan? Thought maybe you was. I know folks there, don't you chew? Naw, sir? Little bit of 'bacca, boss, and you don't even mind lawyers."

Newt is a negro who talks like a negro, who looks like a negro, and who, as he says, can chew more 'bacca than any other man in Georgia.

This negro, who has the wit and the manner of an "old timey darky," has been the most interesting and the most important figure so far in the Frank trial. Attention has centered in him. His naturalness, his wit, has given life and color to the hearing.

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FACTORY GIRLS EAGER TO TESTIFY FOR FRANK

Thirty Girls and Men Are Waiting to Appear as Character Witnesses

Thirty girls and men who are employes of the National Pencil factory are waiting to testify to the good character of Leo M. Frank.

"Every girl employed at the factory believes that Mr. Frank is innocent," said Miss Rebekah Carson Monday afternoon. "He was as kind as an employer could be. There never was a time when he wasn't considerate of every one employed at the factory. But at the same time, he was a man with two ideas. And they were his wife and his business.

"If he hadn't been so intent upon his work, he would have taken a half holiday on that Saturday and he wouldn't now be accused as he is. It was his faithfulness to his work which caused him to be accused of this murder.

"He's not guilty. I'd still believe in his innocence even though he was convicted ten times over.

"Everyone employed at the factory believes as I do. Everyone knows that Mr. Frank was kind and gentle, and that he was honest and straight in everything that he did. You won't find an employe of the factory who doesn't really believe that and who isn't ready to testify to it before a jury."

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QUESTIONS DIRECTED AT NEGRO INDICATED AN EFFORT TO THROW SUSPICION UPON WATCHMAN

"We Might as Well Begin to Show the Negro a Criminal Now as Later," Declared Attorney Rosser, in Arguing for Admissibility of His Questions Negro Was Taken Over His Testimony Many Times in Effort to Break Him Down

INDICATIONS TUESDAY ARE THAT TRIAL WILL LAST MANY DAYS, PROBABLY AS LONG AS TWO WEEKS

Morning Session Enlivened by Clashes Between Attorneys.

Every Point Is Bitterly Contested Frank Keeps Serene and Untroubled Throughout Session Full Story of Testimony Given by Witnesses During the Morning

After a luncheon recess of an hour and a half Tuesday the trial of Leo M. Frank was resumed at 2 p. m. with Police Sergeant L. S. Dobbs still on the witness stand. The morning session was given over to the continued examination of Newt Lee, the negro night watchman, and the direct and cross examination of Sergeant Dobbs.

There were frequent clashes between the attorneys for the defense and the solicitor during the morning. Every point was bitterly contested, and once the jury was sent from the room while the lawyers argued the fine points of the law. It was evident that the case was to be fought at every point.

The most significant feature of the morning session was an intimation by Attorneys Rosser and Arnold, counsel for Frank, that they might seek to connect the negro night watchman with the murder. It was during a colloquy between the lawyers for the defense and the state relative to the admissibility of the negro's testimony as to what was said to him by the police officers about the contents of the notes found beside Mary Phagan's body.

Solicitor Dorsey made the point that the notes had not yet been introduced as evidence and unless the defense was seeking to impeach the witness or to connect him with the crime it was not proper for him to be questioned concerning the contents of the notes.

Then Attorney Rosser declared: "We've got to commence somewhere and at some time to show the negro is a criminal and we might as well begin here as anywhere else."

Attorney Arnold made the point that the negro's comment on the contents of the notes immediately after they were read to him indicated a previous knowledge of them.

No further effort, however, was made to connect Lee with the murder. The negro was on the stand altogether just four hours and forty-five minutes. The tedious and detailed examination of this witness indicated that every point in the case would be hard fought by both sides. He was led back and forth over the same ground, it being the evident intention of the defense to discredit his statements relating

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Frequent Clashes Over Testimony Mark Second Day of Frank Trial

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relating to unusual agitation on the part of Frank on the day of the murder.

Sergeant Dobbs' testimony concerned the finding of the girl's body, and the two notes which were picked up near it. Also the condition of the body when found.

During Tuesday afternoon other officers will probably be introduced to give similar evidence, and it is believed the undertaker, who prepared the body for burial, will also be put on the stand.

Court officials believe now that the trial will run well into a second week and that James Conley, the negro sweeper, will be on the stand for two or three days. It is not known when the state will call Conley, but he will doubtless be the climax witness, and all the energies of the defense will be directed toward breaking him down.

Frank followed the progress of his trial Tuesday with great interest and apparent satisfaction. He listened intently to everything said in the court room and frequently he conferred with his attorneys. He often smiled while conversing with his wife and mother who sat beside him.

About fifty spectators retained their seats in the court room throughout the recess, foregoing lunch and fresh air in order to insure for themselves good seats at the afternoon session. Mrs. Frank and her husband lunched together in an ante-room of the court. The jury returned from lunch and a short walk at 1:50 o'clock.

Court reconvened three minutes early, at 1:57. Sergeant Dobbs continued on the stand. He was asked a few questions in cross-examination by Attorney Rosser and then Solicitor Dorsey took up the re-direct examination. The solicitor brought out additional points about the finding of the body. He stressed the fact that the trimming of the girl's hat has never been found so far as the sergeant knows. Sergeant Dobbs identified some blue ribbon as the same that was on Mary Phagan's hair when her body was found.

DOBBS' TESTIMONY.

The solicitor read a transcript of the testimony given by Sergeant Dobbs before the coroner's jury relating to the indications that Mary Phagan's body had been dragged.

The transcript was right, said the sergeant. The dragging seemed to have started at the corner of the elevator shaft. Using Mary Phagan's umbrella as a pointer, the solicitor had the sergeant trace the line of the dragging marks.

It showed that the body had been taken out of the elevator and pulled around the corner of the elevator shaft under the ladder. By this testimony the solicitor evidently expected to lay his plan for combatting the possible theory that the defense might advance, that the body was taken down the ladder itself.

The solicitor asked the sergeant if it would be possible for a man to carry the body down the ladder. It was hard for a man to go down by himself, said the sergeant; and no ordinary man could have carried the body down.

The solicitor then asked the sergeant about a photograph of the rear door of the basement. The photograph appeared in the same frame with the diagram. The photograph showed the hasp in place and the bar across the back of the door.

Sergeant Dobbs said that the bar was in that position when he saw the door, but that the hasp was pulled out and the lock was lying on a platform immediately at the right. The bar evidently did not interfere with the opening of the door, for the door slides and does not swing.

Sergeant Dobbs said that the hasp was not bent and evidently had been pulled straight out. He identified the lock and hasp themselves, the solicitor handing them to him.

The sergeant stated that the body was cold when he found it. He identified the low-quarter shoes. One of them, said he, was on one foot of the body and the other was found on the trash pile near the boiler.

The dead girl's hands were folded across her breast (beneath her body.) The body was rather stiff, but he could work the fingers at the joints.

Leo M. Frank, the accused, was reported to have been sleeping soundly when the deputies went up to awake him in the jail Tuesday morning to take him to court for the second day of his trial.

Frank arrived at court, under charge of Sheriff Mangum, very shortly after 7 o'clock, and his breakfast was brought to him there from his home.

A crowd of several hundred people was gathered around the doors of the court house at 8:30 o'clock.

Mrs. Leo M. Frank, the wife of the accused, and his mother, Mrs. Ray Frank, of Brooklyn, appeared together in the court room about fifteen minutes before the trial was due to resume. Judge Roan, presiding, arrived shortly after them and went into the seclusion of his chambers. Lawyers for both sides arrived at five minutes to 9 o'clock.

Frank entered court at 8:50 o'clock and resumed his seat between his mother and his wife.

LEE RESUMES TESTIMONY.

Judge Roan went upon the bench at 9 o'clock and convened court. The jury brought in and Newt Lee, the negro night watchman on the stand at adjournment Monday afternoon, was recalled to the witness chair.

Just before court was convened, the doors were opened for a few moments and the crowd surged in until the 250 seats in the room were filled, leaving a hundred or more disappointed people outside the doors, which then were shut.

Attorney R. R. Arnold examined the diagram of the pencil factory which the state introduced Monday.

Attorney Rosser resumed his cross-questioning of Newt Lee. For the first half hour of this interrogation Mr. Rosser sought to develop from the negro just how close he got to the dust bin before he saw the body. He wanted the negro to estimate in feet, which the negro was reluctant to do, preferring to measure distances by objects or persons in the court room. The negro did estimate distances in feet, however, qualifying his estimates by "about."

Mr. Rosser evidently was endeavoring to make the negro admit that he could not see into the dust bin from the toilet; that he would have found it necessary to go closer in order to see into the bin. As a result of the cross-questioning, the witness said that after he left the toilet he raised the lantern above his head and walked four or five feet toward the dust bin. He was then a good way from the body.

WITNESS BECOMES NETTLED.

When he first saw the feet of the body, the negro declared, he did not believe it was a body lying there. He then was scanning the dust bin to see if there was any fire there.

Mr. Rosser asked him a number of questions as to why he did not look into the dust bin on his former trips to the basement that night, and questioned him also at considerable length as to the relative location of the dust bin and the toilet, asking if it was not true that the dust bin was not considerably at his right at the end of a partition. The negro became nettled at Mr. Rosser's insistent questioning on this point, and rising to his feet and clapping his hands he declared, "I'm going to tell you just like it is!"

He then explained that the dust bin was diagonally opposite where he stood and in plain view.

Mr. Rosser asked him how far it was from the trap door to the dust bin.

"Isn't it about 125 feet?"

The negro said he didn't know, but it was a long way.

Mr. Rosser asked the negro why on his preceding trips into the basement that night he did not go farther back than the ladder. He had gone farther back, said the negro twenty-five feet or so.

"On this particular trip you went back beyond the toilet, didn't you?"

The negro said yes, that he would have gone farther than he did if he hadn't seen the body. He walked up close to the body with his lantern over his head. He wanted to see, he said, if it was an "natural" body. He didn't know but what it might have been an "unnatural" body.

He didn't know how long he looked at it, he said, before he went to call the police. He didn't stand there ten minutes, or five.

"I LIT ER RAG."

"Two minutes?" "I don't know, sir." "Two seconds?" "I don't know, sir, but I'll tell you the truth. I held up my lantern and looked good and just as quick as I found out it was a natural body I lit er rag!" The bailiffs rapped for order in court.

The face of the body was "all dirty," said the negro. Several white spots showed through the dirt, however, and the body's hair was "frizzly." He realized at once that it was a white person, said he, and hurried away. He led the police to the basement and showed them the body by their electric searchlights, said he.

He didn't know how long it was until the police decided it was a white girl. They arrested him right away, said he, and sent him upstairs. Before that, however, he heard one of the officers say, "This is just a child. She must have been killed two or three days."

He didn't remember whether they carried him back to the basement any more that morning. Some days later the officers took him from police station to the basement. The negro didn't notice whether the rear basement door was open when the officers came. He was positive that it was not open earlier in the night.

The negro, describing the position of the body, declared that the girl was lying on her back with her head turned over so that the left side of her face was up. He saw blood, he said, on the left side of her head.

The attorney cross-examined the negro on his statements made at the coroner's inquest, and examined the negro for half an hour or more with the evident purpose of discrediting Lee's testimony of Monday afternoon relative to Frank being agitated on the afternoon of April 26.

TILT IN COUNSEL.

This examination led to a lively tilt of the opposing attorneys. Attorney Rosser was reading from the record of the coroner's inquest on Lee's testimony regarding Frank's actions when he first saw J. M. Gantt at the door of the factory that afternoon. According to the record as read by Mr. Rosser, Lee did not say at the coroner's inquest that Frank jumped back but did say that he looked frightened. At the inquest, according to Mr. Rosser's reading, Lee did say that he supposed Frank was frightened because he had fired Gantt from the position of bookkeeper.

Mr. Rosser wanted the witness to repeat that remark. Solicitor Dorsey was objecting immediately. It was a matter of opinion, said the solicitor, and when the negro expressed that opinion he did not know what he, Dorsey, now knows, and what the jury will know. After the attorneys had wrangled for some fifteen minutes over the point, Attorney Rosser turning to counsel for the state said:

"I want to accommodate my young friends whenever I can."

Attorney Hooper, who was sitting down, remarked, "Well, you've got to accommodate me on this."

"No, I haven't," said Mr. Rosser.

"Yes you have," returned Mr. Hooper.

"The man hasn't been born that I've got to accommodate," retorted Mr. Rosser. After registering a strenuous objection that Mr. Dorsey had tried to lecture him, Mr. Rosser proceeded. Judge Roan ruled that the negro's opinion was inadmissible. Mr. Rosser read the opinion, however, without getting an answer from the negro upon it.

LEE DENIES RECORD.

Newt Lee, the witness, took vigorous issue with the record.

"Boss, I can't help what they write there," said he. "I'm telling all I know about this."

Mr. Rosser then went back to the finding of the body and read the record on that, wherein it appeared that when Lee realized it was a body he leaped from where he stood and went up the ladder. The negro demurred at that way of putting it, preferring to say that he "lit out."

Mr. Rosser called the negro's attention to the fact as he stated it that nowhere in the record of the coroner's inquest did he state that it took Frank twice as long on Saturday to put the tape on the time clock as it had on a previous occasion. Lee contended that he had told the coroner's jury that it took "longer," but Mr. Rosser couldn't find that in the record. The negro said nobody asked him at the inquest to make a comparative statement.

The negro appeared to be holding his own remarkably well under the rigid cross-examination by Mr. Rosser. He argued with the attorney without hesitancy, and took open issue with the inquest record whenever the attorney contended that it conflicted in minor ways with his testimony in court.

THE NOTES.

Mr. Rosser asked Lee if he was in the basement when the police found some notes beside Mary Phagan. Before Lee could reply to the question Solicitor Dorsey objected. The notes themselves would be the best evidence on that point, he said.

Attorney Rosser argued that he wanted to show Lee's ready interpretation of these notes. What Lee said is not admissible, returned Mr. Dorsey, because Lee himself was not on trial.

Attorney Reuben Arnold for the first time since the trial began spoke up in court. If Lee had made damaging admissions, he argued to the court, they would be relevant and admissible.

Before the court could rule, the solicitor asked that the jury be taken out of court so the question could be argued. If evidence tending to involve Lee had to come before the jury, said he, he wanted it to come in the shape of admissible evidence and not from the argument of opposing attorneys and "in the right way." The jury was taken out. This was the first time the jury had left court.

MOTHER AND SISTER OF MARY PHAGAN AT TRIAL

-Staff Photo by Winn.

Dressed in deep, mourning, with black dresses, black veils, and black veils, and black hats, Mrs. J. W. Coleman, mother of Mary Phagan, and Miss Ollie Phagan, the dead girl's sister, are at the court house every day attending the trial of Leo M. Frank.

Attorney Arnold addressing the court, contended that any substance or fact connected with the witness Newt Lee, which would show that he had something to do with the killing, is admissible. Although the night watchman admits having discovered the body, and late at night at that, he denies all previous knowledge of the crime and says that two notes were found by the body. The meaning of these notes, said Mr. Arnold, is obscure and doubtful.

ARNOLD READS NOTE.

"We expect to show that the witness testified that two notes were found," said he. "That the officers endeavored to read them to him and that they were obscure in meaning. One of them read this way. 'He said he would love me. Laid down. Play like the night witch did it, but that long tall black negro did it by his self.'"

"The man who wrote that note was trying to lay the crime on a long tall black negro. It was a clumsy effort to exculpate some other man. As soon as the words 'night witch' were read to the witness, he spoke and said 'That means me. I'm the nightwatchman.' This shows that the negro had knowledge of these notes. On the stand here he has appeared very dense and ignorant. Mr. Rosser has been compelled to question him at great length to bring out the slightest fact. In this instance, however, he interprets this note in a second and a half."

Solicitor Dorsey was asked by the judge to restate his objection to this.

"This conversation, your honor," said the solicitor, "occurred between this witness and somebody else. Even had it been with Frank, the defendant, it would not be admissible. He is asked if a man did not read a note to him. The defense concedes that it was a note. They have got this note in their hands at this moment. I contend that it is not admissible to go into the contents of any paper, as the paper itself is the highest and best evidence, and no such paper has been introduced at this trial.

"It is not proper for the defense to attempt to go into the contents of this note by this witness. Such a course would not be proper except for the purpose of impeaching the witness and even then it is necessary to have the highest and best evidence which is the note itself."

HOOPER SPEAKS.

Attorney Hooper, for the state, cited a case to show that the question would be inadmissible.

"If they undertake as they have indicated here," said he, "to put the crime on somebody else, that would put a different aspect on the matter. But until they do train their guns on some third party, no such evidence can be admitted."

Attorney Rosser replied by saying:

"Your honor, we've got to commence somewhere to show him as a criminal. We can commence here as well as anywhere else."

Solicitor Dorsey insisted that the defense, through the line of questions put to the negro, was seeking to put the notes in evidence. This was denied by Attorney Rosser. The defense simply is using the notes to refresh its memory, said he, and to suggest questions for the witness.

JUDGE ROAN'S RULE.

Judge Roan ruled that anything was admissible which tended to show that this witness expressed anxiety or trepidation. While ruling that the cross-examination could proceed as begun by the defense, he announced that he would not permit the defense to go into the contents of the notes. The judge said further that it is for the jury to interpret the conduct of the witness. The jury was brought back and the cross-examination was resumed.

Mr. Rosser, reading from the note, asked Lee:

"Didn't one of the police begin to read this from the note: 'The tall black slim negro did this. He will try to lay it on the night' and when he got that far didn't you say, 'Boss, that's me?'"

Solicitor Dorsey again objected, but Judge Roan held against him.

Lee asserted emphatically that he did not exclaim, "Boss, that's me." He said that he did say, "Somebody must have been trying to put it off on me."

This concluded the cross-examination of the negro.

On redirect examination, Solicitor General Dorsey asked:

"Did you ever know Jim Conley?"

"I met him the first time in jail the other day."

"Did anybody try to put this off on you?"

"No, sir."

"Did Mr. Frank ever try to put it off on you?"

The question was objected to by the defense, and the judge ruled for the defense.

"Whom have you talked to about this crime?" continued Mr. Dorsey.

"I talked to you and to some of the officers."

"Did you ever talk to Mr. Arnold here?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you know that he was an attorney for Mr. Frank?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you ever decline to talk to anybody about this?"

"No."

"Have you ever tried to conceal anything?"

"No."

Mr. Dorsey then brought from the negro the statement that Frank had remarked on the length of time it took him to fix the tape on the clock the second time and that was the reason the negro claimed to remember the incident.

About twenty minutes were consumed in the examination of a diagram of the building which the solicitor offered, the negro identifying parts of the picture.

THAT "THIRD DEGREE."

Resuming the cross examination of Lee, Attorney Rosser brought out from him again the location of the laboratories and machines, etc., in the rear of the second floor of the factory. The attorney questioned him also about the basement and its lighting conditions. Mr. Rosser questioned him about his treatment since arrest who questioned him, how they dealt with him, etc.

Lee denied vehemently that the police had discharged a pistol close to his head to frighten him. Mr. Rosser asked him if the police hadn't cursed and abused him, and even prayed for him.

"Well, they never prayed much," answered the negro. Attorney Rosser then asked him if the detectives didn't question him continuously, one after another, and drive him almost crazy. "They didn't drive me crazy, but I didn't get much sleep for a few days after I was arrested," answered the negro. "As soon as I would lay down, somebody would call me and start in to questioning me."

Mr. Rosser asked him about interviews with detectives, singly and in pairs or greater numbers; particularly about one said to have taken place in the jail recently when he was present with Jim Conley, Attorney Hooper, Solicitor Dorsey and Detectives Campbell and Starnes. Lee said that for the first two days in jail he was bothered all the time with questions, but after that he was left alone, and after the inquest he was willing to stay in jail because he wasn't molested much.

Solicitor Dorsey asked the negro if Mr. Frank talked to him in the county jail.

"No, sir."

THROUGH WITH LEE.

Lee was excused then by both sides. A deputy sheriff started with him back to the county jail. "I never want to get up there again," said the negro, referring to the witness stand.

SERGEANT DOBBS ON STAND.

Police Sergeant L. S. Dobbs followed Newt Lee to the stand. He related how on Sunday morning, April 27, about 3:25 o'clock a call was received at police headquarters about the murder at the pencil factory.

He, in company with Sergeant Brown, Call Officer Anderson, Britt Craig, a newspaper reporter, and W. W. Rogers, rushed to the factory in Rogers' automobile.

Arriving at the factory, they found the front door locked. About two minutes after they knocked, the negro, Newt Lee, came down and opened it. The negro told them a dead woman was in the basement, and led them down through the scuttle hole and down a ladder into the basement. There was a gas light burning dimly at the ladder.

The negro led the officers about 150 feet back toward the rear of the basement. Just in the rear of a board partition on the left, the negro pointed out a body lying on the ground. The body was that of a girl, lying on its face with the left side on the ground and the right side raised slightly.

The sergeant couldn't tell at first glance whether the body was that of a negro girl or a white girl. He noticed the dark hair on the head. He turned the body over. The face was covered with dirt and dust. With a clean piece of paper he wiped the dirt from the one side of the face and saw that the body evidently was that of a white girl.

DESCRIBES WOUNDS.

To satisfy himself further as to the color of the body, the sergeant said he raised the skirt just above the left knee and saw that the skin was white. He noticed on the face where he had wiped it several slight wounds such as might have been made by the "picking" of a pocket knife.

A large cord was around the neck. The end of the cord trailed from the right side of the throat. This cord was drawn tight and had sunk deep into the flesh. A ruffle torn evidently from some underclothing was tied also around the neck but not so tightly as the cord.

There was a bruise on the right side of the head. Apparently it had been made by a blow. The hair was matted with blood. Sergeant Dobbs continued that after examining the body he called Lee, the night watchman, and questioned him about the matter, accusing him of having committed the crime or of knowing something about it.

He asked the negro how he happened to find the body in the dark basement. Solicitor Dorsey stopped the witness at this point and directed him not to give any hearsay evidence to tell only what he saw himself.

"I looked around to see what I could find," said the witness, "and discovered a couple of notes."

Picking up some documents from his table, the solicitor started to hand them to him but changed his mind. He picked up a cord and some other articles which had been placed on the witness stand and asked Sergeant Dobbs:

"Have you ever seen this cord before?"

IDENTIFIES CORD.

The witness identified it as the cord which he found around the dead girl's neck.

The solicitor held out his arm and had the witness loop the cord around his wrist and explain to the jury just how it was tied around the girl's neck. The witness called attention to the slip knot in the cord. He also identified the strip of ruffle which was found around her neck.

There was not a great deal of blood on the head and hair, said he. The blood on the outside of the hair was dry, but down close to the scalp it was moist. The place where the body was found was damp.

The solicitor handed to him some documents which were identified by Sergeant Dobbs as the two notes and the tablet he had found near the body. The notes were enclosed in celluloid covers, front and back, with tape holding the covers together at the edges.

Sergeant Dobbs said that he did not know who the dead girl was, when first he saw the body. Later, said he, he learned that it was Mary Phagan. He described the position of the body, saying that the head was pointing toward the front of the building and was close to the partition.

The notes, said he, both were found under the sawdust near the head. Scratching around with his stick, he uncovered them. The tablet was just a few inches from the notes. He ordered that Lee be taken to the station house and locked up, said the sergeant.

He said that Newt Lee was cool and calm when he saw him first and that at no time did the negro seem to be excited. His attention was called to the diagram of the factory interior, produced Monday by the solicitor, and he pointed out the position of the body when he found it.

After Sergeant Dobbs had identified the diagram, Attorney Rosser took up the cross-examination. For the defense, Mr. Rosser questioned him closely as to the demeanor of Newt Lee when the police arrived, and Sergeant Dobbs repeated that the negro was calm.

SCRATCHED FOR NOTES.

He did not remember saying at the inquest that the negro seemed to be very excited, he said. Mr. Rosser stressed the point that the sergeant had found the notes only after raking his stick through the sawdust.

He also brought out the fact that there was considerable trash, a number of pieces of paper, and several pencils, lying around in the basement. One of the girl's shoes and her hat had been found, said the sergeant, on a trash pile in front of the boiler.

In reply to questions Sergeant Dobbs declared that it looked to him as if the body had been dragged on its face. There was a trail in the dirt leading from the elevator to the point where the body was found, he said; and in addition the face looked as if someone had dragged the body, holding its feet.

Mr. Rosser asked the witness if he was certain that this trail led from the elevator, and when the witness answered "yes," he read the record of the coroner's inquest wherein the sergeant had testified, he said, that the trail led from the corner near the ladder.

Mr. Rosser questioned him regarding the police test of Lee's ability to see the body from the point at which he claimed to have been standing when he first spied it. Sergeant Dobbs said that it was possible to see the "bulk" of the body, but would have been difficult if the person had not been looking directly for some object.

Attorney Rosser brought out the fact that there was blood on the girl's underclothing and that this blood was dry; also that the blood on her face was dry, but moist at the roots of the hair on the scalp.

The sergeant admitted that he found the finger joints of the body movable. The staple on the back door looked as if it recently had been pulled out.

COURT TAKES RECESS.

Attorney Rosser developed from the witness the statement that when he reached the word "night" in reading one of the notes, Newt Lee exclaimed, "That means the night watchman." The witness declared that the strip of underclothing around the girl's neck was over, not under, the cord. At this point Attorney Rosser completed his cross-examination, and at 12:30 o'clock the court recessed until 2 o'clock.

PAGE 4, COLUMN 7

MINCEY IN ATLANTA, BUT HAS NOT BEEN TO TRIAL

Agent Who Said That Conley Told Him of Killing "a Girl" May Testify

W. H. Mincey, who has made affidavit that James Conley, the negro sweeper, practically confessed to him as being the murderer of Mary Phagan, is in Atlanta but has not yet gone to the courthouse where Frank is being tried.

At the time of the murder, Mincey was employed here as an insurance solicitor. On the day of the murder, he says that he met Conley at the corner of Carter and Electric streets.

The negro, according to the affidavit, was drinking, and when the solicitor mentioned insurance the negro flared into anger.

"I've killed a girl today," the affidavit charges Conley, the negro sweeper, with having said. "I don't want to hurt anybody else."

Several weeks ago Mincey left Atlanta to take a position as school teacher. But attorneys for the defense say that he has returned, and is now here.

PAGE 5, COLUMN 1

SCENE IN COURT ROOM WHERE LEO M. FRANK IS ON TRIAL FOR HIS LIFE

PAGE 5, COLUMN 1

SCENE IN COURT ROOM WHERE LEO M. FRANK IS ON TRIAL FOR HIS LIFE

This photograph was made while Newt Lee was on the stand Monday afternoon. It shows: (1) Leo M. Frank, the accused; (2) Mrs. Leo M. Frank, his wife; (3) Mrs. Ray Frank, his mother; (4) Attorney Reuben R. Arnold; (5) Attorney Luther Z. Rosser; (6) Solicitor Hugh M. Dorsey, who is questioning Newt Lee; (7) Attorney Frank A. Hooper; (8) Judge L. S. Roan, who is presiding over the trial; (9) Newt Lee, the negro night watchman, on the witness stand. Immediately in front of Frank and to the left of the judge and the witness sit the twelve jurors who must decide Frank's guilt or innocence.

PAGE 5, COLUMN 1

Lawyers Hammer Lee for Two Hours at Monday Afternoon Session

Negro Nightwatchman Who Found Mary Phagan's Body in National Pencil Factory on Stand-Girl's Mother and Newsboy Examined

Newt Lee, the negro nightwatchman who found Mary Phagan's body in the pencil factory basement, was hammered by the defense for over two hours, on the witness stand Monday afternoon.

Mrs. J. W. Coleman, mother of the murdered child, and George W. Epps, a playmate who came to town with her on the fatal day, testified in that order, Mrs. Coleman being the first witness called to the stand when the trial started.

Newt Lee was the third witness. The testimony of the others had been brief, under direct and cross-examination. Newt Lee's direct testimony was not extensive, but his evidence under cross-examination by Attorney Luther Rosser filled out the rest of the afternoon, and he still was on the stand under cross-examination when court recessed for the night.

At 3 o'clock court re-convened. The jury, which had lunched in a downtown restaurant under guard of two deputy sheriffs, and then had been locked in its room, entered court. Leo M. Frank, the accused, re-entered court and resumed his seat between his wife and his mother.

Mrs. J. W. Coleman, mother of Mary Phagan, the murdered girl, was called as the first witness. She took the stand at 3:05 o'clock.

Attorney Arnold had announced that the defense might call a number of newspaper men. He might call every man at the press table, he said. Solicitor Dorsey agreed to suspend the rule and to allow them to remain in court.

Mrs. Coleman was attired entirely in black, with a black veil.

Solicitor Dorsey asked Mrs. Coleman what relation she was to Mary Phagan.

"Her mother," said Mrs. Coleman.

"When did you see her alive last?"

"April 26, Memorial day."

"What time?"

"At a quarter to 12 o'clock."

"Where"

"At my home, 146 Lindsay street."

DESCRIBES HER DAUGHTER.

Continuing her testimony, Mrs. Coleman stated that Mary had helped her to do the morning's work; that she left home to go to the National Pencil factory on Forsyth street for her pay; that Mary had eaten her lunch of cabbage and bread before she left. Mrs. Coleman testified that her daughter would not have been fourteen years old until June 1 of this year; that she was unusually large for her age. Describing Mary, the mother said:

"She was fair, heavy set, very pretty, and with dimples in each cheek."

Mary was dressed that day in a lavender dress, trimmed in lace, said the mother.

The solicitor handed a suit case to Newt Garner, special deputy in his office. Garner extracting the clothing in which Mary Phagan's body was found and began arranging it on the witness stand at the feet of Mrs. Coleman.

At her first glance upon the bloodstained dress Mrs. Coleman put a fan before her face and began to sob audibly. Many spectators in the court were affected. Mrs. Frank, mother of the accused, put her own hand before her own face and bowed her head. Deputy Plennie Minor offered a glass of ice water to Mrs. Coleman. She sipped it and continued sobbing.

Solicitor Dorsey cut his examination short immediately.

"The witness is with you," said he, turning to the defense.

SHE IS CROSS-EXAMINED.

Attorney Luther Z. Rosser cross-examined Mrs. Coleman for the defense.

"Is that her hat?"

"Yes."

"Well, didn't it have something else on it when you saw it last?"

"Yes, a blue ribbon and some pink flowers."

Mrs. Coleman said she lives two blocks from the point where Mary boarded a trolley car that day. There is a store at the corner run by Mrs. Smith, she said. The witness admitted she had no way of knowing how long it was before Mary caught a car. Mrs. Coleman said she knows a little boy named G. W. Epps. He was a friend of Mary's, but not a special friend, she said.

Attorney Rosser said: "You talked to a gentleman on May 2 and isn't this what you said ?"

Solicitor Dorsey objected. The question would be admissible only in case the defense was seeking to impeach the witness, said he. The defense contested that view. After argument, the question was admitted by Judge Roan.

"Did you on May 2 say to L. D. Whitfield that Mary detested Epps?"

Mrs. Coleman did not remember. She was excused, and G. W. Epps was called. He is a fifteen-year-old boy, employed as a newsboy.

GEORGE EPPES ON STAND.

George Epps was barefooted. He made a good impression by his straightforward answers.

He had known Mary Phagan for a year before the murder. He met her coming to town, on the street car on the morning of April 26. He said that he rode with her to Forsyth and Marietta streets, leaving her there about 12:10 o'clock. She went toward the pencil factory, said he, to get her money. The boy continued that he had an appointment to meet her at Elkin-Watson's drug store at 2 o'clock. After leaving her, he sold papers until just before 2 o'clock, then went to the drug store, continuing to sell papers there. He waited for her until 4 o'clock, said he, and when she hadn't appeared by that time he went to the baseball park, selling more papers there.

Epps created a ripple of merriment by some of his answers. Attorney Rosser, cross questioning him, asked how he knew what time it was when he got on the car at Olive and Bellwood to come to town. The boy said he looked at a clock and the clock said it was 10 minutes to 12 then. Attorney Rosser attempted to shake this statement by asking why he hadn't related this incident at the coroner's inquest. Young Epps said, "Maybe I didn't tell about it, but it was there." Attorney Rosser asked: "How did you know what time it was when you got off the car?" The boy said: "I looked at the sun."

The boy was excused from the stand after having been there perhaps ten minutes.

Newt Lee, the negro night watchman at the pencil factory, who found the body of Mary Phagan, was called as the next witness.

The negro was examined in detail by the solicitor. He stated that he had been night watchman at the factory about three weeks before the murder. Before that he was night watchman for several months at the other factory of the company in East Point.

He said he knew Leo M. Frank as the superintendent in the Atlanta factory. When he came to work as night watchman at the Forsyth street factory, Frank carried him over the building, showed him everything, and told him he must report during the week days at 6 o'clock in the evening and on Saturday afternoons at 5 o'clock. On Friday night, April 25, Frank told him that the next day was to be a holiday, and directed him to report for work at 4 o'clock as he, Frank, desired to get off himself a little earlier than usual. The negro said he arrived at the factory about three or four minutes before 4 o'clock; that the front doors of the factory were closed and appeared to be locked; that he took the key from his pocket and inserted it in the lock, discovering then that the door was not locked. He entered, and half way up the stairs he found the inside double doors of the steps were locked. He had to use his key to get through them.

The solicitor inquired how he happened to have the keys, where he got them, etc.

The negro said he was accustomed to get the keys to the doors every Saturday at noon when he came to get his pay so that he could lock them Sunday morning and get in again Sunday night. On this particular week he got his pay Friday evening about 6 o'clock, he and the other employes having been advised that they would pay off at that time on account of Saturday being a holiday. He did not know whether the other employes were paid off then.

A battery of half a dozen cameras flashed in the court, startling every one and the negro in particular.

MR. FRANK MEETS HIM.

About the keys again, the solicitor caused him to repeat how he found the doors. It was the first time he ever had found the inside doors on the stairs locked, he said. He went on upstairs to a little desk in the hall where he was accustomed to stop and call to Mr. Frank "All right" as he took charge. On this occasion he put some bananas that he had down on the table, and as usual he called to Mr. Frank. Almost immediately Mr. Frank "came bustin' out" of the office, rubbing his hands.

"'Newt,' he says to me,'" testified the negro, "'I'm sorry you've come so soon. You could have been home asleep.' I said, 'Yes, sir, Mr. Frank, I sure do need some sleep.' Mr. Frank says to me, 'Go out in town, Newt, and have a good time.' I said, 'I'd rather sleep, Mr. Frank.' And he said, 'No, go out and have a good time.'"

The negro said that was the first time Mr. Frank ever had told him to go out and have a good time. There was a place in the factory, said he, where he could have slept. The negro said that Mr. Frank insisted that he needed to have a good time, however. Mr. Frank told him to stay about an hour and a half, and to come back not later than 6 o'clock; that he himself would be in the factory until then.

"I offered him some bananas," said the negro, "but he wouldn't take any. Then I went on out."

The solicitor wanted to know from the witness if Mr. Frank appeared to be nervous.

The negro answered that he did not "look at Mr. Frank's face," but Mr. Frank was rubbing his hands. He stayed out until about four minutes to 6 o'clock, said the negro, and returning found the doors unlocked just like he left them.

"As I reached the desk upstairs, I called out, 'All right, Mr. Frank.' He came out of the office and asked me what time it was. I told him it was a few minutes to 6 o'clock. It took him about twice as long as usual to fix the slip. He fumbled with it and said something about not being used to putting them in."

MEETING WITH GANTT.

Solicitor Dorsey again asked if Frank appeared to be nervous. The negro replied that he had never noticed to see if he was nervous. Lee said he did not know how to put the time slips in the clock, for he never had put one in. Solicitor Dorsey asked the negro if Frank had mentioned Gantt to him. The negro said he saw Mr. Gantt at a little after 6 o'clock at the front door of the factory. After Mr. Frank fixed the slip, Frank went into the office to get his coat and the negro, he said, punched the clock and went on down to the front door. When he opened the door, said the negro, he noticed Mr. Gantt coming across the street from a beer saloon. Gantt told him he wanted to get inside to get a pair of shoes. He told Gantt that Mr. Frank was upstairs; that he would ask him about it. Gantt replied, "No, I'll wait till Monday." About that time Mr. Frank came out of the front door, said the negro, and when he saw Gantt he jumped back like he was frightened.

The negro got up from the witness chair and illustrated how Frank jumped back. Then Gantt spoke to Mr. Frank, saying, "How do you do, Mr. Frank?" and Mr. Frank returned the salutation. Gantt asked Frank's permission to go upstairs after the old shoes. "I don't know about that," the negro said Frank replied. "I think I saw the boy sweep them up in the trash the other day." Gantt asked what sort of shoes he saw, and Frank said, "Oh, tan;" then Gantt said, "I had a pair of black ones, too. Can I go up and get them?"

For a moment, said the witness, Frank did not answer. He dropped his head and seemed to be thinking. Then he looked up and said, "Yes," and turned to the negro.

"He says 'You go with him, Newt, stay with him and help him find the shoes.' We found them, both pairs, the tan and black ones, in the shopping room where Mr. Gantt said they were."

"And they hadn't been swept out, had they?" asked the solicitor.

FRANK PHONES HIM.

"No, sir," replied the negro. The negro said Frank went on up Forsyth street toward the viaduct when he and Gantt went on into the factory. He didn't know where Frank went, and he didn't see him any more that night. Frank telephoned to him just a little before 7 o'clock, and just after he, the negro, had made his round of the building. On this round, the negro stated, he had gone into the basement.

LIGHT VERY DIM.

The negro was questioned about the lights. There was a light on the street floor which he usually lit when he went on duty Saturday afternoons at 5 o'clock. On regular working days when he reported for work at 6 o'clock, said he, it was always lit. That afternoon when he came in at 6 o'clock, the second time, it was burning. The solicitor asked him about the light in the basement. It was a rule, said the negro, that this light in the basement should be kept burning all the time. When he left there early Saturday morning it was burning brightly, said he. When he went down there the first time Saturday evening the light was burning dimly, said he. The solicitor asked the negro to explain the distinction he drew.

"You've seen a lightning bug flying around and then knocked down to the ground, ain't you?" asked the negro. The solicitor admitted that he had. "That's the difference," said the negro. He further said there were two little chains on the light. By pulling one, the light was turned on full blast. By pulling the other, it would become very dim and finally go out. The light was just as low as it possibly could be, said the negro.

Lee said he made his rounds regularly every thirty minutes. He said that never during his connection with the factory had he failed to punch the clock every thirty minutes except when the pump or the engine had gone wrong.

"Were the street doors open or closed when you came at 4 o'clock?"

They were closed, said the negro.

"Up to 3 o'clock Sunday morning, did anything go wrong?"

HE FINDS THE BODY.

No, said the negro, everything was all right until then. At 3 o'clock, he said, he went down into the basement. As he left, he said: "I looked around and saw something over by the bend. I thought, it being a holiday, some of those boys had put something there to scare me. I went over a little farther and looked, and then I left."

"Tell us all about it," said the solicitor. "How did you get up the ladder? Tell us everything."

"I don't know, boss. The next thing I remember I was calling the police over the telephone. I told them what I'd found. After I got the police, I tried to call Mr. Frank, but I couldn't get him, and I kept on calling until the officers came. I guess it was about eight minutes."

"When did you next see Mr. Frank?" asked the solicitor.

"It was that Sunday morning, after I'd been locked up and then brought back to the factory. I was sitting in the office when Mr. Frank and Mr. Darley came in. Mr. Frank looked at me and dropped his head and didn't say anything. Mr. Darley said, 'Good morning, Newt. I don't believe you did it, but you must know something about it.'"

The solicitor asked the negro about the time clock and the tape. The negro said he and Mr. Frank and Mr. Darley and Officer Rogers and Newport Lanford, chief of detectives, were present when the time slip was taken out of the clock. Mr. Frank, said the negro, said that the time slip was all right.

Solicitor Dorsey asked Lee what Mr. Frank meant by the statement. Attorney Rosser objected to the question. The question finally was put in amended shape, and the negro answered that in order to be "all right" the time slip must be punched every thirty minutes from 6 o'clock on.

He explained, on the solicitor's question, that he had put his pencil in the time clock to prevent his punch putting one mark directly on top of another. The pencil had been there for some time, said the negro. Lee said he did not know what had become of the slip.

He explained that he had been locked up since the body of Mary Phagan was found.

TALK WITH FRANK.

"When I went down there with the officers," he said, "one of them put the handcuffs on me and said 'You done this!' Then I stayed a while at the station house, and I've been in jail ever since."

"When did you next see Mr. Frank?" the solicitor asked.

"That morning I rode down to the station house in the same automobile with him, but we didn't speak."

Lee was asked if he had talked with Frank on Tuesday night. He said he didn't know what night it was, but while he was held at police station one of the officers came down to his cell at night and unlocking it said, "Let's let Newt Lee and Mr. Frank have it out."

"They carried me up to another room," said Lee, "and sat me down and handcuffed me to a chair. Then they brought Mr. Frank in. Mr. Frank, he dropped his head. We was all alone.

"'It's mighty hard to be handcuffed here for something I don't know nothing about,' I said to Mr. Frank. 'What's the difference?' said Mr. Frank. 'They're guarding me. Newt, I believe you know something about it.' 'No, sir, I don't. I had to go back twice where they say it was done, and I didn't see anything.'

"'Well, let's don't talk about it,' said Mr. Frank. 'If you keep that talk up, we'll both go to hell.'"

About then, Lee said, the officers came back in and got him.

After Solicitor Dorsey closed the direct examination of Newt Lee, Solicitor Dorsey produced a large diagram of the pencil factory. It was framed behind glass, and measured about three feet by four. It appeared to be completed in detail, with a table containing the key to various marks on it. Also three photographs were produced by Solicitor Dorsey of locks and doors which figured in the testimony.

Attorney Rosser conducted the cross-examination of Newt Lee. He referred to a stenographic record of testimony by Lee at the coroner's inquest.

"Did you tell everything you knew at the coroner's inquest?" When Lee replied: "Yes," Mr. Rosser asked him how many times he had repeated the story of the crime up to the time when he took the witness chair at the trial.

Lee said he didn't know. Everybody had been asking him questions since he was arrested, it looked like, he said.

Mr. Rosser asked Lee if he had ever told before about Mr. Frank dropping his head when he came out of the factory on the day of the murder and met Gantt at the door. Lee said that he had told about it.

Mr. Rosser asked him: "Did you tell this to the coroner's jury?" Lee replied, "Yes, sir." Attorney Rosser then asked him about the shoes which Gantt came after. Mr. Rosser asked the negro if he didn't tell the coroner's jury that Frank said he had given them away to some one. Lee said "No, sir, I didn't."

He said he had told the coroner's jury that he objected when Mr. Frank told him to return to the factory at 1 o'clock Saturday afternoon. Mr. Rosser produced a transcript of the testimony given by Lee before the coroner's jury. He said he failed to find any of these points in it. "I can't help what you've got there," returned the negro.

Mr. Rosser asked the negro about his habits on previous Saturdays. On the three Saturdays prior to the day of the murder, said the witness, he had reported at noon to get his pay and the keys, and then had returned at 5 o'clock. Mr. Rosser asked him why he complained at coming just one hour earlier.

ANYONE COULD ENTER.

The defense then attempted to make the negro admit that anybody could have entered the factory through the front door, if it were unlocked, and roam around at will on the second floor unknown to Frank. The negro admitted that this could happen.

Mr. Rosser also sought to show that anybody could have entered the basement, even if the doors on the stairway leading to the second floor were locked. It would have been possible for anybody to do that, said Lee.

The negro testified that the shutters on the windows on the second, third and fourth floors were nearly all closed. On the second floor, he said, only a few at the front were open. This made it dark, he said. A light burned constantly close to a clock on the first floor, he said.

Mr. Rosser wanted to know how many time clocks there were in the factory. Two, said the negro one running from 1 to 100 and the other from 101 to 200. Mr. Rosser wanted to know which clock he punched.

"Either," said the negro, "whichever has got the slip on it."

ORDERED TO WATCH GANTT.

Mr. Rosser asked Lee if he didn't know that Mr. Frank didn't want Gantt in the factory. Frank had told him he had discharged Gantt, said the negro, and for him not to let Gantt in the factory. He said 'when you see him hanging around here, watch him.'"

Mr. Rosser asked him if that wasn't the reason why Mr. Frank was startled when he found Gantt at the door that evening.

"That's what went through my mind," said the negro. "Mr. Gantt is a big man about seven feet tall."

Lee then related how he had let Gantt out of the factory after he had obtained his shoes. After Gantt left, said he, he put his lantern down behind him and watched Gantt until he went into a beer saloon across the street. Then he went upstairs and punched the clock.

Mr. Rosser wanted to know if he knew where the officers claim Mary Phagan's body was "found" probably meaning to ask where she was killed, for the negro answered "back in the machine room."

"Didn't you have to go by that place every half hour when you made your rounds?"

"Yes, sir." He went by there every half hour up to 3 o'clock in the morning, said the negro.

Mr. Rosser questioned him for almost an hour regarding his trips to the basement as to how frequently he made them, what his instructions were from Mr. Frank about inspecting the basement, and why it was that he just came down to the foot of the ladder on each trip except the one on which he discovered the body.

LEE'S INSTRUCTIONS.

Lee stated that while Frank had instructed him to go over the building every half hour, he had told him to go down to the basement "every now and then," to see if there was any fire down there and to see if the back door was closed. He testified that Frank had told him to stay away from the dust bin in the rear with his lantern, as it was dangerous and might catch fire.

Mr. Rosser wanted to know if Mr. Frank had given him any special instructions that night about making his rounds and going to the basement, and the negro replied in the negative. He admitted that if he had gone back to the rear door of the basement to see if it was locked, he would have had to pass the body. He insisted that if the door had been open, even slightly, he could have noticed it from the front part of the basement.

He said there was a big electric light burning outside the factory at the back, and that if the door had been open he could have seen it at once. He did not notice it open at all that night, not even when he found the girl's body.

Mr. Rosser interrupted the witness at this point to know how soon the police arrived at the factory after he called them. Lee didn't know, but he thought it was about ten minutes. He was still at the phone trying to get Mr. Frank's phone to answer, when the police got there.

Mr. Rosser asked Lee if he went any closer to the back door than the point at which he found the body of Mary Phagan. The negro said no, and admitted that body was about sixty feet from the rear door. He insisted, however, that the door was closed, but would not say whether it was fastened.

Lee stated that he made his first trip to the basement on Saturday night about 7 o'clock, and that he made several other trips there, but that he didn't go any further back than the light which burns at the elevator, until the trip when he found the body. He had been told to use that particular toilet, said the negro.

Lee said that he did not see Mary Phagan's hat, shoes or umbrella as he went to the toilet. His lanterns was rather dim and dirty, he said.

PAGE 5, COLUMN 7

Frank's Undisturbed Face Wonder of the Court Room

His Brow Does Not Wrinkle, His Eyes Do Not Quail or Even Flicker He Is Cool and Quiet

Leo M. Frank's expression of quiet confidence has surprised every visitor to the court room where he is being tried for murder.

He sits for the most part with his hands crossed, and listens coolly to the testimony or to the argument of attorneys.

Not since the trial began has he seemed the least perturbed. His manner has been quiet and contained, like that of one who is sure of himself and sure of his cause.

Yet he has not seemed indifferent. He has been attentive at all times, but his attention has been marked by as little excitement or distress as that of any spectator.

"Nerves" play no part in his attitude. He seldom changes his position, his expression is always cool and calm, his gaze is steady and attentive.

Every visitor to the court room has felt surprise at Frank's confident manner. The thought occurring to each is that he seems very different from a man on trial for his life.

His imprisonment has made him the least bit pale, but otherwise it seems to have had little effect. Evidently he endured his confinement with the same quietness, the same confidence which now makes his manner so surprising in the court room.

As he sits not far from the witness stand and directly in front of the jury, he seems the smallest man in the long wide room. The jurymen in the box, elevated above the floor, almost tower above him. He can just see the judge, and he must raise his head to look at the witnesses as they testify.

He is almost boyish in appearance. But his manner has a firmness and a determination which is very unlike that of a boy. Just back of him sit his wife and his mother. The three speak, but not very often. Like casual spectators, they attend to what the witness is saying, or to the question that the lawyer is putting.

Occasionally Frank looks at the jury and seems to scan their faces as though in an effort to discover what they are thinking. Then, and at all other times, his most distinctive feature are his eyes.

The impression which he leaves is that of a quiet, confident little man, with rather large eyes, partly hidden by spectacles.

PAGE 6, COLUMN 1

Mother's Sorrow and Newsie's Wit Play on Emotions at Frank Trial

Each of First Three Witnesses in Case Shows Distinct Personality and Entirely Different Side of Human Nature, Some Character Studies

Three of the witnesses who testified Monday afternoon at the Frank trial were more distinct as personalities than the characters you could see portrayed in any theater, except that very tragic one of a criminal court room.

Such testimony and such individuality as that of those witnesses, has kept the court room crowded by at least 200 people during every minute of the Frank trial crowded with well dressed men who lean forward in their seats, intent on every detail of the trial, every question that the attorneys ask, every answer that the witnesses give.

They are first attracted to the court room by different reasons for curiosity; but they remain because of their common interest in "character," in having a glimpse of distinct personalities, in seeing the stubbornness with which Newt Lee adheres to his testimony while lawyers try to confound him.

SORROW OF MOTHER.

Mrs. J. W. Coleman, mother of Mary Phagan, was first of the three witnesses who testified Monday afternoon. She spoke in a low voice, telling of how her daughter had left home on the day of the murder, and she seemed to have finished her testimony, when a court officer drew forth a suitcase which had been hidden behind several chairs.

Before the mother, he undid the satchel, and took up in his hands the dress and the shoes that Mary Phagan had worn when her mother last saw her. The officer first laid the dress upon the witness stand, almost under the mother's feet and placed the shoes beside it. Everyone had leaned forward when the satchel had been brought from behind the chairs; everyone, the lawyers, the audience, the jury, waited as the torn clothing and shoes were placed by the mother for her identification.

After the most hurried glance at the clothing almost touching the hem of her dress, she covered her eyes with a fan and began to sob. The solicitor general asked her no further questions, and, after a moment she left the stand and the audience leaned back. This was how the mother, without speaking, identified the clothing of her murdered daughter.

IMPUDENCE OF YOUTH.

A witness next testified who was like Samuel Weller in the freshness of youth. He was George Epps, a barefooted, tow-headed newsboy, whose impudence made the audience turn from seriousness to chuckles, and caused many to lean forward and rub his knees with the palms of his hands.

"It was seven minutes after 12 o'clock when Mary and me got off the car that Saturday morning," he said.

"Have you a watch?" asked Attorney Luther Rosser.

"Nope."

"How'd you know?"

"Tell by the sun."

"Tell to the minute, eh?"

"Sure. Tell now, if the sun was shinin' in here."

"Couldn't have been mistaken, could you?" suggested Mr. Rosser.

"Well, I guess not."

UNWAVERING TESTIMONY.

The last witness to testify in the afternoon was Newt Lee, the negro night watchman, who discovered Mary Phagan's body. He speaks with the tongue of a negro but with a wit and a doggedness that was invincible to all cross-examinations by attorneys.

This untaught negro remained upon the witness stand for an hour or more Monday afternoon, answering question after question, but never wavering in his story of how he discovered the body of Mary Phagan.

When he was pressed hard about the truthfulness of his story, he sometimes became argumentative and proved his questioners to be wrong.

"You all don't mind if I get up?" he would ask casually of the jury. "I can show you better standin' up."

At times he thought that attorneys were interfering with his story by their questions.

"Now, Newt," asked Solicitor Dorsey, "what did he say?"

"Well, if you'll just wait a minute," answered Newt. "I'll tell you."

Later on, when Solicitor Dorsey had summed up the answers that Newt had given in discussing one incident, and drew his conclusion from them, Newt sighed and leaned back.

"Yes, sir," he said, with humor which he may or may not have meant, "now you got it right."

At another time he was trying to describe to Attorney Rosser the appearance of a light in the cellar at the pencil factory.

"Wait a minute, boss," he said. "Have you ever seen a lightning bug? Have you ever knocked it down with your hat when you tried to catch it?

You know how it looks then. That's the way it was."

He Will Be Freed, Says Mrs. Frank of Husband; Few Women Hear Trial

Mrs. Leo M. Frank says of the trial of her husband:

"I'm sure that he will be acquitted. I look for nothing less than an acquittal. I know that he is innocent, and I believe that the jury also will be convinced."

"I would rather not talk about it," says Mrs. J. W. Coleman, mother of Mary Phagan. "I don't want to express an opinion."

"I'm like my mother in not wanting to talk about the trial," says Miss Ollie Phagan, sister of Mary Phagan. "The trial is almost more than my mother can bear. She was the youngest of us Mary, I mean she was the life of our home. Now everything is different."

Few women, except those interested by relationship with parties to the case, have attended the trial. The number of men in the court room is always about 200. The number of women has never been more than seven. And the few who came out of curiosity lingered but a short while.

No one is admitted to the court room unless there is room for him to be seated. By this restriction, overcrowding has been prevented.

PAGE 6, COLUMN 3

ONE OF MARY PHAGAN'S FRIENDS

Staff Photo by Winn.

MISS GRACE HIX,

She identified the murdered girl as Mary Phagan on the morning the crime was discovered.

PAGE 6, COLUMN 5

Frank Trial Will Last One Week And Probably Two, Attorneys Say

Indications Are That Trial Will Be Longest Over Which Judge Roan Has Presided.

To Hold Two Sessions Daily

Attorneys both for the defense and for the prosecution of Leo M. Frank believe that his trial will last at least one week, perhaps, two weeks.

If the trial continues through more than one week it will be the longest over which Judge L. S. Roan has ever presided.

But, while he will expedite the trial as fast as possible, he intends to give attorneys all the time needed for the introduction of testimony and for argument.

He will hasten the proceedings chiefly by holding afternoon as well as morning sessions. The exact time at which the court will take recess for luncheon, and will adjourn in the afternoon has not been fixed. But the morning session will begin at 9 o'clock, and recess will be taken about 12:30. Court will reconvene again at 2 and will continue in session until about 5:30.

By this arrangement about seven hours a day will be spent in taking testimony, in argument or in other details of the trial.

In giving their opinion of the length of the trial, attorneys for the defense and for the prosecution said:

Solicitor General Hugh Dorsey "One week, maybe two weeks."

Attorney Reuben Arnold "One week at least."

Attorney Luther Z. Rosser "Certainly not less than one week."

The longest trial in the experience of Judge L. S. Roan, the presiding judge, was the Mitchell case at Thomasville which continued one week. But at that hearing, one witness was kept on the stand during a day and a half.

PAGE 7, COLUMN 3

Everybody's a "Reporter," Now, Else an "Old Time Friend," Says Guardian of Court House Door

"They Been 15 Reporters Here in the Last Five Minutes," He Says, "and What's Not Reporters Is Boyhood Friends I Don't Remember"

"You are?" said the man who guards the foot of the steps. "Well, son, they been fifteen reporters here in the last five minutes. They represented everything from "Nova Scotia Times" to the "Saskatchewan Gazette." Who do you report for?"

And it took a letter of identification from the whole press table to gain admittance to the Frank trial for an unoffending and rather retiring reporter who merely wished to glance over the court room and fill his brain with "genre" impressions, as one might say, local color, features, pathos, smiles, and a few trifles.

"Why," said the guardian of the steps, "folks will be anything to get in here. Look at them fifteen that came right out and said they was reporters. They was some anxious, wasn't they?

"And everybody is my friend. Honest. I never was thought of so much in my life. People I can't remember at all come up and say how we used to be boys together, and how they've had an undying affection for me ever since.

"You know," they begin, "there isn't anything I wouldn't do for you. Have a cigarette. No? Cigar. No? Well, old man, if there's ever anything you want, take it from me. I'm the guy for you to come to. Say, how about a little peep inside. Just a glimpse, you know?'

"I didn't know how popular I was. Here I've been holdin' down a job, and if I'd only known it I might be president, or something of that sort. A man as popular as I am could be anything."

This guardian of the steps is the first sentry to be passed in reaching the court room where Frank is being tried. The second stands within the door of the room. Their instructions are to let no one pass after the room has been filled to its seating capacity not even those old boyhood friends whom they can't remember ever to have seen before.

PAGE 7, COLUMN 3

Spectators at Frank Trial Make an Absorbing Study

They Come From Every Station in Life From the Ragged Newsboy to the Business Man With the Diamond Scarf Pin and the Georgia Lawmaker

The personnel of the spectators at the average murder trial is one of the most interesting phases of it, and the trial of Leo Frank for the murder of Mary Phagan is no exception to the general rule.

One glance about the court room as the case proceeded Monday afternoon showed an ever-changing kaleidoscope of ever changing faces, holding a single characteristic common to all, a look of intense interest that kept every face turned continually in the direction of the prisoner and the opposing attorneys.

EVERY CLASS THERE.

And the class of spectators. They were of every walk and station of life, from a ragged newsboy who huddled against the window to members of the state legislature and leading business men of Atlanta.

There are the leading officials of the city and county Sheriff Wheeler Mangum, Chief of Police James L. Beavers in citizens' clothes, Chief of Detectives Newport Lanford, next to him a city alderman, two seats away a member of the senate, here a prominent Atlanta attorney who has no direct interest in the case, and the groups of lawyers gathered inside the railed inclosure.

THE VARIOUS FACES.

Glance over the upturned faces. You see a man straining forward with both hands to his ears, so as not to miss a single word that falls from the lips of attorney or witnesses. He is an old man perhaps, his saffron face lined and wrinkled, his hair snow-white. And next to him is a young fellow that cannot be over twenty years of age. Thin cheeks splashed with the hectic flush, nervous hands resting on the cane, proclaim his cross. Perhaps he has one more month to live, yet he comes here to this court room to spend his last days in greedily lapping up the sordid details of a sensational murder trial.

ALSO THE SOLONS.

Who are those distinguished looking men on the back row? One is a representative and the other a senator in the state legislature. Talk to them, ask them why they are here. They smile and tell you that they just dropped by on the way from a committee meeting at the capitol.

But why?

They will laugh in an embarrassed manner and say that they wanted to have one look at the accused, to see that little brown-cheeked man almost hidden down there, in front of the attorney and his wife and mother.

That is the reason nearly every one of those people will give you for coming to the trial. "They just wanted to see Frank." Some of them enjoy a murder trial, they like to see the battle of the attorneys, the twisting of testimony. It is a detective story of absorbing interest to them.

THE IDLY CURIOUS.

But the majority are there out of mere idle curiosity. They are anxious to hear every word of the proceedings. They will climb up on the back of the seats and hover there until ordered by the deputies to sit down. They laugh when the others laugh that the lawyer for the prosecution made a point, they do not know, but they softly tap the backs of the benches in glee because someone is getting ahead.

If you look long at the crowd you are puzzled over one thing, the lack of women. They say that there were but seven women who came all day Monday to the trial as mere spectators. True Frank's wife and Frank's mother are sitting beside him, there is the sister of Mary Phagan standing with a friend over by the window, but the spectacle of fluttering gowns and beautiful excited faces that characterized the Grace trial is conspicuously absent.

Outside are as many people as inside. The sheds that border the lot where the new court house is in process of construction are swarming with men and boys. They cannot see much, only the backs of those spectators nearest the windows, but hour after hour they will cling to the top of the low roof and stare at the red bricks opposite.

PAGE 10, COLUMN 3

RABBI MARX ASSERTS HIS BELIEF IN FRANK

Can't Build Case on Pack of Lies Any More Than House on Cards, Rabbi Says

In the room directly above the one where Leo M. Frank was on trial for the murder of Mary Phagan Monday afternoon were gathered a score of friends of the accused who eagerly discussed his chances for and against acquittal.

Prominent among them was Dr. David I. Marx, rabbi of the Jewish synagogue to which Frank belonged. With other friends of the prisoner he declared emphatically his belief in Frank's innocence.

"There is no man in Atlanta," said Dr. Marx, "more eager to see justice done or to find the guilty man in this case than am I, and the very fact of this and of my presence here shows my deep belief in the innocence of Mr. Frank. The truth is obliged to come out at last. You no more can build a case on a pack of lies than you can build a house on a pack of cards without a downfall."