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

Here is the translated text as follows:

W. J. COOKE. 649

He makes a most remarkable statement, yet doesn’t produce a witness. No one, on oath, you will notice, has dared to state that Mayor Candler and Mrs. Hirsch had these frequently mentioned improper relations. Here is Cook, who immediately rushes round to the husband’s office to nobly tell what he has seen. He leaves a note on the husband’s desk saying, “See me at once.” This is on Wednesday. Yet the husband is in town from the following Friday until Sunday, and Cook never told him anything about it!

Gentlemen, that note business was all arranged. Think of the bravery of Mrs. Hirsch in going to get that note. Oh, yes, she saved a shooting by a jealous husband, no doubt. Never a fireman rushed into the scorching flames with greater bravery than she displayed. Why did Cook tell Mr. Adair all this stuff about the terrible crimes he has committed? To make himself out a terrible fellow and scare Mr. Candler, as he thought. Gentlemen, the workings of the criminal mind are sometimes very strange. He wanted to impress upon the Mayor that he was a dangerous man; he thought his hair would stand on end with fear. It was camouflage of the most transparent variety. The worst thing that Cook had done, the meanest, lowest thing of all, was to bring an article of woman’s underclothing into this courtroom and flaunt it in the eyes of the public, to show it and then not put it in evidence. I don’t believe for a minute that he got that garment from the floor in the office, as he says he did. He has had time to get dozens of pairs since then. He could have bought a pair, or the woman could have given him a dozen pairs.

Pretty soon, my old friend Cooper is going to talk to you. He is running for the United States Senate. He is going to make you an old-fashioned campaign speech. I hope you've all got your umbrellas ready to keep off the spray.

Here they are, trying to drag in the mire the reputation of one of Georgia’s foremost citizens, known far and wide as Atlanta’s “first citizen,” a man whose activities are all constructive, who has erected colleges, endowed universities, and contributed to the betterment of society.