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

Here is the translated text as follows:

292 X. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

Though he's a mighty bright man, it is true that some of the pay envelopes were left over on Friday, but he didn't know whose they were. Helen Ferguson says that on Friday she asked for Mary Phagan's pay and that Frank refused to give it to her, saying Mary would come the next day and get it herself. Magnolia Kennedy swears to the contrary. You have one or the other to believe. Consider, though, that this be true! How would Frank know who would be in the factory when Mary Phagan came? How did he know she was coming on Saturday? Some envelopes went over to Monday and Tuesday. How would he know whether she would come on Saturday or either of these latter days?

Now, what else have they put up against this man? They say he was nervous. We admit he was. Black says it, Darley says it, Sig. Montag says it—others say it! The handsome Mr. Darley was nervous and our friend Schiff was nervous. Why not hang them if you're hanging men for nervousness? Isaac Haas—old man Isaac—openly admits he was nervous. The girls—why don't you hang them, these sweet little girls in the factory—all of whom were so nervous they couldn't work on the following day!

If you had seen this little child, crushed, mangled, mutilated, with the sawdust crumbled in her eyes and her tongue protruding; staring up from that stinking, smelling basement, you'd have been nervous, too, every mother's son of you. Gentlemen, I don't profess to be chicken-hearted. I can see grown men hurt and suffering and I can stand a lot of things without growing hysterical, but I never walked along the street and heard the pitiful cry of a girl or woman without becoming nervous. God grant I will always be so. Frank looked at the mangled form and crushed virginity of Mary Phagan and his nerves fluttered. Hang him! Hang him!

Another suspicious circumstance: He didn't wake up when they telephoned him that morning the body was found. That might depend on what he ate that night; it might depend on a lot of other things. Some of us wake with the...

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