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

Here is the translated text as follows:

B12 X. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS

I have hitherto neither accepted nor rejected the offers. If the court imposes a fine beyond my ability to pay, I shall accept them without hesitation. However, if the fine is within my means to discharge, I shall pay it myself. The insinuations of the court are unfounded, and if you, sir, have been tempted by misapprehension or misinformation to make them, your mistake should be corrected.

Judge Perkins: I believe we have nothing to do with parties; we are only to consider the subject before us. I wish you had thought it proper to make an affidavit of your property. My role here is not to inquire whether a party in whose favor you may be, or you, are to pay the fine. I shall only consider your circumstances and impose a fine which I think is adequate; we ought to avoid any oppression. It appears that you depend chiefly upon your profession for your support. Imprisonment for any time would increase the fine, as your family would be deprived of your professional abilities to maintain them.

Judge Chase: We will take time to consider this. Mr. Cooper, you may attend here again on May 1.

The court sentenced Mr. Cooper to pay a fine of four hundred dollars, to be imprisoned for six months, and at the end of that period, to find surety for his good behavior—himself in a thousand dollars and two sureties in five hundred dollars each.

Mr. Cooper’s defense, which he wrote himself as a review of the whole administration, attracted great attention. His imprisonment for an offense thought so trivial became a popular subject for electioneering declamation. President Adams himself thought the matter had gone too far and would have pardoned him had Mr. Cooper not issued a letter stating that, far from asking for clemency, he would not accept it unless coupled with an acknowledgment by the President of the breach of good faith involved in the publication of the alleged provocative letter. Of course, nothing could be done but to let the imprisonment run its course. This it did, and the fine was paid. Forty years later, at the same time as that imposed upon Lyon (see 6 Am. St. Tr., 687), it was repaid with interest. Wharton's State Trials, p. 670.