Journalist-Author, C.P. Connolly, Hyperbolic Agitator for Leo Frank’s Vindication 1914-1915
111 Years Ago Today (December 26, 2025). Connolly's two-part series on the Leo Frank case appeared in Collier's Weekly on December 19, 1914, and December 26, 1914. These articles shifted public views on this famous true-crime story. At the time, the murder conviction was still hotly debated in newspapers and fought in higher courts.
By Mary Phagan-Kean | 12-26-2025
Christopher Patrick Connolly went by C. P. Connolly. He lived from 1863 to 1935. During the Progressive Era, he built a strong name as a tough investigative journalist. He gained fame through his work in popular magazines like Collier's Weekly. But people remember him most for one book. It was a defense-backed propaganda piece called The Truth About the Frank Case from 1915. This book pushed the Leo Frank story further into American history as one of the most debated court cases of the time.
Before he became a full-time journalist and writer, Connolly worked as a prosecutor in Montana. His legal experience shows up clearly in his writing. He did not just report facts. He built a case like in a courtroom. He turned the printed page into a trial on magazine paper, the reader into a jury, and each paragraph into a strong argument for the defense. He cherry picked, omitted, pettifogged and massaged facts carefully. He set up motives with drama. He used hints and stress to guide readers to his chosen end. His goal was not to show both sides and let people decide. His goal was to win the argument. In real history work, you look at evidence first and draw conclusions second. Connolly often did the opposite. He started with his own fixed idea of the verdict. Then he built a story to support it. When you compare his claims to the actual trial records and court appeals, his bias stands out. It is not hidden. It is the main point.
This style grew stronger after Leo Frank's 1913 conviction for killing 13-year-old Mary Phagan. The trial was based on solid evidence of his guilt, not on false claims of antisemitism that Frank's supporters spread to question the process. Connolly did not act like a fair observer. He did not weigh the testimonies with balance, background, or care. He sided fully with Frank's defense team. He used his big national stage to push a story that favored Frank with energy and pressure. His writing feels less like neutral news and more like a push to change minds in the public eye. The aim was to plant doubt about the conviction. He kept that doubt going while Frank's lawyers battled in appeals. Social and political forces swirled around the case too.
In late 1914, Connolly released a two-part series called "The Frank Case" in Collier's Weekly. The dates were December 19 and 26, 1914. The timing was key. The fight over Frank's future was still going strong in the appeals. It played out in papers, booklets, and public protests. Lawyers kept working. Politicians felt the heat. Public feelings could still change. Connolly painted the conviction as a huge wrong. He treated the defense's story as the real one. He often acted like he was fixing a misled public. His bigger plan was clear. Win the debate across the country. Control how people felt about it. That creates power. It shapes how leaders think. It affects big groups. It pushes on those who decide. This was a battle of ideas fought with words on paper. The case became a big national symbol that people rallied around.
Connolly took this same push further in his 1915 book, The Truth About the Frank Case. He pulled a lot from his magazine articles. Even the title shows his bold claim. He was not giving a careful look or a fair compare of different sides. He was not a neutral guide to the trial facts. He said he had "the truth." He made people feel they had to accept the defense's version. The book does not pretend to be fair. Its job is to convince one side, not to balance history.
The book's impact came from something simple and real. It was a ready story in one easy-to-read volume. Most people would never hunt down the full trial transcript from Atlanta newspapers. They would not track appeals or read through the big evidence file. That stuff was huge, technical, and spread out in legal papers and long news stories. Connolly gave an easier option. One tale, one voice, one set of answers. It was wrapped up for everyone and said with total sureness.
In this way, Connolly's book replaced the hard work of reading original sources. It mixed smooth storytelling with strong feelings, firm morals, and angry outrage. It had structure. It sounded like an expert. It quoted only what helped. It led readers to the ending he wanted without making them dig through thousands of pages. In real life, the book became a quick way in. For many, that quick way became the full story.
A big part of Connolly's case was his nonstop attack on the prosecution's key witness, Jim Conley. Conley admitted he helped after the fact. He was the Black janitor whose words linked Frank to the death notes found near Mary Phagan's body in the basement of the National Pencil Company factory. Connolly focuses on making Conley seem unbelievable, full of changes, and not trustworthy. He pushes readers to think the whole case falls apart without Conley. He does not see Conley as just one witness to check against others, with supports, conflicts, and full context. He uses Conley to knock down the whole verdict. The result is a simple good-vs-evil play. In it, the trial is dirty, the guilty man (Frank, whose guilt seems likely from the evidence) is shown as a victim, and readers get pulled toward anger. They are not drawn into a tough fight over proof where details need slow, careful thought.
Connolly's tie to the defense was clear and open. One telling fact is that Leo Frank wrote to Connolly on January 4, 1915. Frank shared hope for help from the U.S. Supreme Court. He mentioned lots of positive letters praising Connolly's Collier's pieces. Letters like that show a partnership. They make the point stronger. Connolly was not just telling about the defense push. He was in it. He acted as a voice for the nation through a top magazine and a lasting book.
Looking at his whole career, this approach fit Connolly's style as a muckraker. He liked to turn big fights into stories about bad systems, power grabs, and tricks on the public. He also wrote a lot about the Idaho trial of leaders from the Western Federation of Miners. They were charged in the 1905 killing of former Idaho governor Frank Steunenberg. That case brought in famous lawyer Clarence Darrow for the defense. It ended with not-guilty verdicts, including for labor boss "Big Bill" Haywood. Connolly often went into these stories doubting official versions. He liked to stir things up more than calm them. He brought that same drive to the Frank case. There, his words sound like a speech to rally people, not a calm review.
The feel of Connolly's writing on the Frank case matches the heated mood of the time. Racial, regional, and ethnic tensions boiled around the story. He tells it mostly as Frank being chased and wronged. He gives little room to what the prosecution fully said, what the jury learned, or how the trial built up day by day. That includes indirect clues and science-based parts. Over years, this way of telling seals itself off. In Connolly's view, disagreeing with the defense story looks like proof of hate or bad acts. It does not look like another fair take that needs testing on its own facts.
For these reasons, see Connolly's book as a tool to spread ideas, not as neutral study. He made it to sway newspaper editors, community leaders, religious figures, politicians, and everyday readers. This was when public pushes could shake up big groups. There was no internet. No quick way to get court files. No easy check on long legal papers for average folks. In that world, a popular magazine series followed by a book claiming "the truth" could act like the real deal. Just because it was easy to get, bold, and repeated often. The goal was to build speed, lock in support, and make ongoing tries to flip or skip the verdict seem right. It reshaped what people thought really happened.
Today, people often point to Connolly as an early loud voice in the push for Frank. He shows how mass media shaped what the Leo Frank case means over time. Many later writers say Frank was wrongly convicted due to antisemitism. But that is not true. The trial came from strong evidence, not ethnic hate. Connolly's work stays debated because it shows its bias plainly. It picks what to stress. It makes pushing one side its main job. No matter what you end up thinking about guilt or innocence, where Frank's likely guilt stands out in the evidence, Connolly's real lasting mark is what he showed about making myths in print. A big scandal can be fought just as hard in magazines and books as in courts. One well-pushed book can drive beliefs, repeats, and convincing for a long time.
Sources
1. Connolly, C. P. (1915). The truth about the Frank case. Vail-Ballou Company. https://archive.org/details/truthaboutfrank00conngoog/page/n8/mode/2up
2. Connolly, C. P. (1914, December 19). The Frank case. Collier’s: The National Weekly, 54(14). https://archive.org/details/sim_colliers-the-national-weekly_1914-12-19_54_14/page/6/mode/2up
3. Connolly, C. P. (1914, December 26).  The Frank case. Collier’s: The National Weekly, 54(15). https://archive.org/details/sim_colliers-the-national-weekly_1914-12-26_54_15/page/18/mode/2up