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

Here is the translated text as follows:

288 X. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

Of course, Dalton left an oozy trail behind him; wherever he went, he did that. You can still feel it in this courtroom. Of course, too, Dalton may have gone into the pencil factory that day and left his cozy, slimy trail there, but otherwise, there's nothing against the factory, and you know there's not, for our great quartet—Starnes and Campbell and Black (oh, how I love Black; I always want to put my arms around him whenever I think of him), and Scott, for he was with that crowd; they tried their very best to find something that would show that factory up as a vile hole.

Well, there's another reason that proves conclusively that it was not the assignation place Dalton and Conley name it. It has always been wrong for men and women to commit fornication and adultery, but it's always been done, and the world, as long as it was done decently and quietly and not bragged about and blazoned forth in public places, has rather allowed it to go unchecked, but it's not so now.

You know, I know the working people of this state and this city. I've always worked with my head, and it's never been my good fortune to be one of the working people, but there are no silken ladies in my ancestry, nor are there any dudish men. I know the working men and the working women because that blood runs in my veins, and if any man in Atlanta knows them, I do, and I tell you that there are no 100 working girls and women in Atlanta who could be got together by raking with a fine-tooth comb who'd stay there at that factory with conditions as bad as they have been painted, and there are no 100 working men here so thin-blooded as to allow such conditions there.

Frank's statement to the jury was Frank's handiwork only, and neither he nor Mr. Arnold knew what Frank was going to say when he got on the stand. Look at the statement this man made to you, and it was his statement, not mine. I can prove that by the simple reason that I haven't got brains enough to have made it up, and Mr. Arnold (though he's got far more brains than I) could not have made it. Mr. Arnold might have given it the same weight and thickness, but not the living ring of truth.