Introduction
Leo Max Frank was an American Jew accused of the rape and killing of a girl. His litigation and hanging by famous citizens in Marietta, Georgia in 1915 led to the foundation of the Anti-Defamation League.
Frank was the executive of a pencil plant in Atlanta, Georgia. The case is extensively viewed as having been a mistake of fairness, with jury pressure. The examination was exaggerated by the media. The Georgia official and publisher Tom Watson applied the case to create individual political authority and maintain a revitalization of the Ku Klux Klan. (Connolly, 1914)
After Frank’s confidence new proof appeared that cast doubt on his responsibility. After the governor converted his death verdict to life incarceration, Frank was captured from prison and hanged by a crowd of prominent citizens who called themselves ‘The Knights of Mary Phagan.’ It is considered, that the son of a senator, an ex-governor, attorneys, and a prosecutor was involved in the mob.
At the period, the Jewish society in Atlanta was the biggest in the South, and Frank was the leader of the Atlanta section of B’nai B’rith, at the period of the murdering of Mary Phagan, he was twenty-nine, and had managed the factory for five years.
The fact that Leo Frank was a Jew, and rather a successful entrepreneur is rather significant. Mentioning this fact, Connolly shows the attitude to the ethnic minorities, and in spite of the fact, that Frank gave work to lots of people requiring it, the attitude of the locals was prejudiced. It may be noted in the further development of the case.
Prerequisites and facts
On April 26, 1913, 13-year-old Mary Phagan, was raped and choked soon after picking up her salary at the factory. Sentiments, though, were blazed by a story issued by the Atlanta Constitution in which Nina Formby, who ran a bordello, declared on the evening of the slaughter that Leo had phoned her, immediately asking for a room in her house for himself and a young girl. “It’s an issue of life and death,” were his words. And although Frank confirmed by lots of eyewitnesses that he was at that period keeping amused with friends in his home, the account got out that he was a deprave – and the town went crazy. (Melnick, 2000)
Georgia populist official and publisher Tom Watson, in his periodicals Watson’s Magazine and The Jeffersonian, grabbed this up and passed fictions of orgies in Leo’s workplace. A number of girls were fabricated to tell of such matters, but none of them went beyond contentions that Frank had attempted to become memorable with them. Watson’s provocative inscriptions are normally praised with rotating public judgment sturdily against Frank.
Watson at that period was too far from the populist head of the 1890s who had explicitly claimed for black political parity and racial harmony along with class processions. He had become a prominent chauvinistic, and as his own prosperity grew. Watson had also turned out to be a dynamic anti-Catholic campaigner who called for the redeployment of the Ku Klux Klan. He acted in a provocative position in the regarded here case. With their chauvinistic and anti-Jewish nicknames, Watson and the Southern press exaggerated the case and completely untamed, unconfirmed accuses.
The renovation of the Ku Klux Klan as a consequence of killing a girl makes the case rather significant for world history, as its crucial role is widely known for the whole world.
Background
Mary Phagan had started working from a young age to earn her and her widowed mother and five siblings’ living. At the age when she died, Mary was living in an Atlanta suburb. The week before her killing, a scarcity of financing at the factory had led to a decrease in her shift. She was paid just $1.20. She came to the factory to aver her pay prior to going to see the procession. Her salary was subjected by Frank.
Phagan’s friend, 13-year-old factory employee George Epps, came onward to say that Frank had philandered with Phagan and had scared her.
Frank employed two Pinkerton officers to help him establish his incorruptibility. Some spectators regarded this unenthusiastically, as the Pinkerton charity had a repute as the aggressive enforcers for American manufacturers. Frank created explanations for the whole time during which the offense could have been entrusted. Distrust was provoked by the notion that he waited a week to carry forward one critical observer, Lemmie Quinn, stating that he had forgotten. Slowly, however, the Georgian started taking Frank’s part, reacting to anger from Atlanta’s Jewish society at what they saw as a serious unfairness being revealed. Temporarily, the foundation prolonged to condemn the police for their lack of improvement. (Connolly, 1914)
Processes
On October 31, Judge Roan rejected a movement for a new process for Frank. His capital punishment date was put off for April 17, 1914. On February 24, Conley was condemned to a year on a chain squad for his role in Phagan’s assassination.
The well-known analytical reporter C.P. Connolly accounted broadly for the trial for Collier’s Weekly and communicated with the convict. Frank stated on December 14, 1914: “I feel with you that my eventual justification must approach, though I must admit that it is difficult for me at this period to regard just in which way it will occur.” Soon subsequently, Frank noted “I feel content that the U.S. Supreme Court will be shifted to give us some reprieve,” on Jan. 4, 1915. “I get lots of mails and many of the writers praise your editorials in Collier’s. They twisted the deception!” Frank articulated to Connolly his aggravation and annoyance toward the prosecutor and others whom he expected helped border him in a trial spoiled by anti-semitism and doubtful confirmation.
Nevertheless, on June 20, on his previous day in office, Georgia Governor John Slaton transformed the verdict of Frank from death to life imprisonment. Slaton had spent much time poring over the folders of the case and was induced that Frank was blameless. He had a few prominent petitions to back this choice; Judge Roan (who had controlled over the case and initially judged Frank to the hanging) recommended commutation, stating he had solemn hesitations about Frank’s fault. Jim Conley’s girlfriend had made it well-known that Conley had admited confidentially to her that he certainly murdered Mary Phagan, as had a cubicle mate of Conley’s. (Leff, 2004)
When the news extended in Atlanta, it reasoned a pandemonium. The police were called out to defend the governor’s house, and military law was announced. Hundreds of cars with armed men moved along the streets to the managerial home, where the mob crushed the grounds, screeched at the draped windows, and tackled the militia. Slaton was draped like a statue, and the report that he and Mrs. Slaton were leaving at once for New York reasoned the multitude to growl in annoyance. Sheriff Mangum was hauled physically into the Senate cavity at the Capitol and made to pledge that the governor had not essentially excused Leo, and confirm that he was in Milledgeville prison at that moment.
Tom Watson went on the campaign against Frank, issuing perspectives against him and any discussions of his verdict.
Lynching
On August 16, a procession of eight cars bearing twenty-five men from the Atlanta region “the Knights of Mary Phagan”, came to the Georgia State Prison approximately at 10 PM. They cut the phone wires, grabbed Frank, and left into the night. Seven of the vehicles then took back roads directed for Marietta, whereas one car proceeded as a snare in case of the chase. (Connolly, 1914)
On the sunrise of the 17th, they got to the suburbs of Marietta. There, at Frey’s Grove, near Phagan’s home, the people concluded to hang Frank. Declaring his blamelessness, Frank’s only demand was to return the wedding ring to his wife. When the lynching speech spread, crowds collected to see the hanging corpse. Several photographers were invited for the execution, and afterward, the photos were sold like postcards. Several witnesses started inflicting aggression to Frank’s corpse but a former judge, Newt Morris, induced them to stop.
Frank’s body was then transported to a mortician in Atlanta, with a line of cars following at the rear. Nevertheless, the funeral director attempted to keep the body covered; a large mod soon collected claiming to see it. After a stone was thrown into a window, governors consented to let the public see the corpse. Under police regulation, thousands of inquisitive Atlanta-area inhabitants filed by solitary file to see Frank’s body. That night his body was quickly preserved and put on a train for New York, where he was buried with ceremonies. (Connolly, 1914)
The purpose of the article by Connolly
The fact is, this chapter is aimed to be both: the analysis and the conclusion of the paper, as all the necessary facts have been given above, and such a complex case takes much time to be sorted out. Connolly gave the case as completely as it is was possible at that time. The most obvious, that the purpose of the paper was not just to sort out and analyze the case, but to keep all the possible details for the next generations, as historical facts and affairs tend to lose and gain some details for the times go by. Thus historical facts tend to change and be distorted. To prevent this, the author decided to gather all the facts, parallel occasions, and the distinguished consequences in the only paper, and it is necessary to mention, that the significance of this work is beyond any doubt. First of all, it gives a clear realization of the reasons for the Ku Klux Klan’s restoration as an organization that played its crucial role in the destiny of ethnic minorities in the USA. As a historical document, it provides a distinct description of the epoch, relations among citizens, between management and employees, the conditions of work for the factory workers, and so on.
As for the authenticity and reliability of the data, revealed in the paper, it is necessary to mention, that it is beyond doubt within the researchers, but giving such amount of details, some of which contradict each other, the article may give an impulse for the appearing of some alternative versions. But as long as more significant historical matters stay unresolved, the Leo Frank case will stay on the back burner.
References
Connolly C.P. The frank Case Collier’s Magazine, Dec. 19, 1914
Leff, Laurel. “And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank.” American Jewish History 92.1 (2004): 145
Melnick, Jeffrey. “The Night Witch Did It: Villainy and Narrative in the Leo Frank Case.” American Literary History 12.1 & 2 (2000): 113-129.