Always bothered me with the simple minded “It must have been Leo because why would whiteliners push away an opportunity to hang a black guy!!!!???”
Antisemites never think deeper than surface level begging the question, it’s very disappointing. Although I dislike the ADL for their approaches to antisemitism it’s undeniable that Frank was not the culprit (at least to anyone who’s gone further than simple minded ignorance)
Great article and welcome back to (hopefully frequent) writing. This reminded me of two themes David Cole writes a lot about. One is how desperate even avowed white supremacists are to participate in the negrolatry that permeates American culture, and the other is how police investigators often reproduce the same mental habits as conspiracy theorists.
One tiny quibble is that I don't know if "make water" is specifically an African-American expression. I first encountered it Gulliver's Travels, when Gulliver is able to put out the fire at the Lilliputian palace by urinating on it. That said, I know it is not unusual for old-fashioned English terms to live on in American dialect, white or black.
It could certainly be broadly southern more than specifically black and I couldn't find much in a cursory search. Oney quotes William Smith writing "It may be that living in the South all my life, I am unable to speak authoritatively, but I venture the assertion that the term 'make water' is found a thousand times more often in the language of Southern negroes than in [that] of white Cornell alumni." Conley had also used it elsewhere whatever the case.
It is totally an Irish expression " Did you ever see Mary make water, it makes such a terrible stream, it flows for a mile and a quarter and you cannot see Mary for steam" a rude poem from Irish schools.
Fwiw I'm 59 grew up in Minnesota lower class American Jew, until I was 7 my mom used to say do you need to make wet or make a bop and I've never heard either since nor have I heard of make water
It’s sad what happened to Mary Phagan, like as you said they don't care for her. Still what did sell me over the case was how inconsistent the case was.
A great and important article, though I still think Frank is the most likely culprit and Conley was his cover-up accomplice, who kept changing his story to distance himself from his involvement. The fact that Conley was a known criminal (though apparently never accused of murder or rape) but was still found innocent makes this even more impressive, while Frank was accused of indecent behavior or even sexual molestation by multiple women. Mailing a letter written by one black employee to implicate another black employee is an advanced plot pointing to a sophisticated perpetrator. Still, it's very important to be able to study the other side of the story. The case certainly isn't as clear-cut as many activists want us to believe.
I'm not sure what you mean by "The fact that Conley was a known criminal (though apparently never accused of murder or rape) but was still found innocent makes this even more impressive". The women coming forward was addressed in the article by talking about the pressure campaign surrounding this case and so did the "Mailing a letter written by one black employee to implicate another black employee" theory. Why would Frank be so eager to cast suspicions on Newt Lee if he was trying to frame Conley? And, if he was just trying to blame Newt Lee or make it seem like it was Mary Phagan who wrote it, this could be easily disproven by analyzing either of their handwritings kind of like how Conley's lawyer analyzed Conley's handwritings. And what would even be the point of involving Conley in this case, it just seems like a liability, if Conley is smart enough to lie and change his story to attempt to save his ass, why would he just go along with writing the note for Frank in the first place? Surely he could deduce that this is attempting to frame either him or the night watchman in such a scenario.
Well, even though he was a known criminal he was found innocent in this case, which is quite remarkable. And even though he was a known criminal, he apparently was never accused of rape or murder, which seems also quite important.
The sexual harassment complaints by other women against Frank seem to have been genuine. Of course they were used as part of the prosecution's strategy.
It looks like the cover-up strategy partially failed, but the mysterious letter appears to have been part of it. It seems to have been part of a deceptive scheme. Frank probably had an IQ of 120 while Conley probably had an IQ of 80.
Well not murder, but attempted murder. And not rape, but the Defense's theory was more about the theft aspect, and Conley was clearly a serial, sometimes violent thief. The notes could conceivably be part of a coverup by Frank, but I don't think that's likely given Frank's behavior and the faults of Conley's stories. Some of Frank's accusers would retract their statements after the trial, only to retract the retractions, and you end up with this big mess of contradictions and hearsay. If Frank was lascivious as he was accused, which may be most likely nonetheless, there also notably wasn't any accusation of rape, certainly not murder made against him, as far as I know.
"If Frank was lascivious as he was accused, which may be most likely nonetheless, there also notably wasn't any accusation of rape, certainly not murder made against him, as far as I know." Is this sentence trying to say "If Frank was lascivious as he was accused, which may be most likely nonetheless, then we would expect there to be accusations of rape by these women, and it is also worth noting that he didn't have any prior murder accusations made against him."?
I'm just saying that if it's significant Conley wasn't accused of rape or murder outside this case, then it should probably be significant Frank also wasn't accused of rape or murder outside the case.
In the case of Frank it's not really significant, since everybody agrees he hadn't been a criminal. It's actually more significant they accused him even though he had no criminal record. The theft theory wasn't considered credible at the time. I personally suspect a Frank + Black helper + failed cover-up theory remains most likely. But again your article is very helpful and certainly shows the case isn't as clear-cut as many assume. Apparently it's not even totally clear if Mary was raped at all?
what cover-up strategy? I laid out all of the potential cover-up strategies involving the letter and why this would make no sense? You're just dodging at this point
Nobody can lay out "all of the potential strategies". Somebody wanted to put blame on somebody else and placed false evidence, that much is clear. It's even possible that the letter should deceive in two or three ways, about its author, the patsy, and the killer.
Yeah it's logically and physically possible, as in it doesn't entail a contradiction or violate the laws of physics, but besides that it's not saying much to point out the possibility of what you're claiming. I have no idea why you are engaging in such obvious mental gymnastics to maintain your position that Frank likely killed Phagan. Why would there be bloody fingerprints on the basement door, when Frank is the superintendant who could have used a key to get out? Why did the 3 workers on the fourth floor testify, before any of Conley's affidavits, that they saw Frank acting normal shortly before leaving the factory? Why were the two notes written in such a way where the first note which doesn't explicitly allude to Newt Lee was scribbled down haphazardly, while the second note, which did, was written much neater? It all points to Conley.
No, nobody can lay out "all of the potential strategies", even if that were "logically and physically possible" (it isn't). Your hypotheses are largely irrelevant because Conley himself already acknowledged he helped Frank. The question is, who committed the assault.
> Conley was wordless for minutes. He stared dumbly out the window and twisted his fingers. Suddenly, he exclaimed: “White folks, I’m a liar!” “Good! We thought so all the time. Now, we want you to write a bit.”
Here is another excerpt from this source that I found interesting:
> “You see that! It’s enough to hang you. You don’t know what it is, and you couldn't guess it in a year. It’s dead- wood, nigger. It’s dead-wood. You'd better kick through or we'll pull it on you.”
I find it especially interesting that Scott had access to the original handwritten note, the reproduction that he had Conley write, and a bill signed by Conley, but did not present either of the latter two as evidence in the trial.
> If in devising them, Frank was instead perhaps trying to pass blame onto Conley, then why was he so intent on blaming Newt Lee before Conley was detained by sheer accident? And, at least in keeping with the narrative of Affidavit II, why would Frank even go out of his way to involve another person in such a crime simply to utilize his handwriting?
I found this inquiry interesting, it seems to suggest that Frank should prefer to frame an accomplice to the crime over his uninvolved employee. It is also interesting to me that Frank seems to have hired Conley, who had an extensive criminal history, to sweep floors and lock doors, at a higher hourly rate than the skilled machinists in his factory.
> Smith eventually drafted a 100-page comparative study of the phraseology and verbiage of the notes with Conley’s own language as used elsewhere, notably during the cross-examinations at the trial, finding them fully consistent: this was exactly how Conley talked, and was unlikely to be a simple imitation quickly cooked up by Frank. Smith naturally had no luck relating these findings to his former colleagues.
I find it convincing that Conley wrote this note in his own words, rather than by Frank's exact dictation, but the suggestion that Frank would not have had him do this to frame Lee is strange. Why would this not be the action of an accomplice, who then crafted a testimony to avoid being found guilty as an accessory to murder in court?
> While there would be debate at the trial over whether superintendent Becker’s order pads had been stored in the basement (per the testimony of Herbert Schiff) or in the closet near Frank’s office (per Chambers, Gantt, and Otis), they clearly would not have been in use by Frank himself. On the other hand, Dobbs and Anderson, members of the first police dispatch to arrive at NPF, would recall seeing “paper and pencils down there” in the basement, scattered among the filth.
I found this point interesting, is the suggestion that Frank would be unable to find paper to write a murder note in the basement where he left his victim? And that he would have had to look in his office or his closet instead?
> As Frank’s lawyers would argue: “in running the elevator down, the investigators smashed into the stool, and the smell of it revealed its existence. Now mark you, if they had brought the body down in the elevator on Saturday it would have smashed the excrement then.”
I find this argument interesting, to me it sounds like an assertion that the stool had been stepped on only once, for the first time, during the investigation. I am unsure what made Frank's defense so sure this.
> 7. The police would even suspect him of falsifying Lee’s time slip and planting a bloodied shirt, though these were speculative and never proven.
I find it interesting that both Lee's time slip and the bloodied shirt found at his residence are mentioned here without further explanation. The time slip was part of Frank's initial testimony, he first stated that it was punched correctly, but then claimed it was not punched correctly, which allowed Lee to commit the murder and leave the factory to discard the aforementioned shirt. No traces of body odor were found on the shirt, which appeared to have been soaked in blood without being worn. I also find it interesting that these details are presented as having been provided by "the police" and not as a part of Frank's own defense.
Overall, the most interesting aspect of this case and this article to me was the insistence that Conley's guilt and Frank's guilt were mutually exclusive. To me, all the details that incriminate Conley seem consistent with a criminal hired by Frank to aide him in crime. Of the affidavits mentioned, that of Minola McKnight was not mentioned, which is also interesting to me, if not a bit partial. Overall, I would like to see your rebuttal to a more thorough and impartial analysis of the case that supports Franks guilt, such as https://www.leofrank.org/confession/
I'll add that I commented on this article on X on Feb. 19 though my account is currently private. Unz claims the Franks' cook "came forward" with her affidavit, but that's totally false; he includes not a word of the crucial context that she'd always denounced the story as put on her lips by her husband and the police. (If Unz had read Oney's book like he claims then chapter nine is all about this scandal. Dinnerstein also discusses this.) And anyone who's read the above will recognize the obvious problems with presenting Conley as himself merely "coming forward" voluntarily because he'd "begun to fear that he might be made the new scapegoat." There are other minor issues but most everything else in the American Pravda article I've addressed.
Always bothered me with the simple minded “It must have been Leo because why would whiteliners push away an opportunity to hang a black guy!!!!???”
Antisemites never think deeper than surface level begging the question, it’s very disappointing. Although I dislike the ADL for their approaches to antisemitism it’s undeniable that Frank was not the culprit (at least to anyone who’s gone further than simple minded ignorance)
Great article and welcome back to (hopefully frequent) writing. This reminded me of two themes David Cole writes a lot about. One is how desperate even avowed white supremacists are to participate in the negrolatry that permeates American culture, and the other is how police investigators often reproduce the same mental habits as conspiracy theorists.
https://web.archive.org/web/20170616235121/http://takimag.com/article/how_your_bs_conspiracy_theories_help_the_state_david_cole/print
Great piece.
One tiny quibble is that I don't know if "make water" is specifically an African-American expression. I first encountered it Gulliver's Travels, when Gulliver is able to put out the fire at the Lilliputian palace by urinating on it. That said, I know it is not unusual for old-fashioned English terms to live on in American dialect, white or black.
It could certainly be broadly southern more than specifically black and I couldn't find much in a cursory search. Oney quotes William Smith writing "It may be that living in the South all my life, I am unable to speak authoritatively, but I venture the assertion that the term 'make water' is found a thousand times more often in the language of Southern negroes than in [that] of white Cornell alumni." Conley had also used it elsewhere whatever the case.
It is totally an Irish expression " Did you ever see Mary make water, it makes such a terrible stream, it flows for a mile and a quarter and you cannot see Mary for steam" a rude poem from Irish schools.
It could also be a black expression too since blacks in the south's dialect was influenced by scotch-irish people around them
Fwiw I'm 59 grew up in Minnesota lower class American Jew, until I was 7 my mom used to say do you need to make wet or make a bop and I've never heard either since nor have I heard of make water
It’s sad what happened to Mary Phagan, like as you said they don't care for her. Still what did sell me over the case was how inconsistent the case was.
Excellent work as usual. This is the type of content that's sorely lacking out there. I'm working in a book in the 9/11 hoax theories myself.
A great and important article, though I still think Frank is the most likely culprit and Conley was his cover-up accomplice, who kept changing his story to distance himself from his involvement. The fact that Conley was a known criminal (though apparently never accused of murder or rape) but was still found innocent makes this even more impressive, while Frank was accused of indecent behavior or even sexual molestation by multiple women. Mailing a letter written by one black employee to implicate another black employee is an advanced plot pointing to a sophisticated perpetrator. Still, it's very important to be able to study the other side of the story. The case certainly isn't as clear-cut as many activists want us to believe.
I'm not sure what you mean by "The fact that Conley was a known criminal (though apparently never accused of murder or rape) but was still found innocent makes this even more impressive". The women coming forward was addressed in the article by talking about the pressure campaign surrounding this case and so did the "Mailing a letter written by one black employee to implicate another black employee" theory. Why would Frank be so eager to cast suspicions on Newt Lee if he was trying to frame Conley? And, if he was just trying to blame Newt Lee or make it seem like it was Mary Phagan who wrote it, this could be easily disproven by analyzing either of their handwritings kind of like how Conley's lawyer analyzed Conley's handwritings. And what would even be the point of involving Conley in this case, it just seems like a liability, if Conley is smart enough to lie and change his story to attempt to save his ass, why would he just go along with writing the note for Frank in the first place? Surely he could deduce that this is attempting to frame either him or the night watchman in such a scenario.
Danny made no suggestion that Frank tried to frame Conley. He suggested that Frank tried to frame Lee with Conley as his accomplice.
Danny made no suggestion that Frank tried to frame Conley. He suggested that Frank tried to frame Lee with Conley as his accomplice.
Well, even though he was a known criminal he was found innocent in this case, which is quite remarkable. And even though he was a known criminal, he apparently was never accused of rape or murder, which seems also quite important.
The sexual harassment complaints by other women against Frank seem to have been genuine. Of course they were used as part of the prosecution's strategy.
It looks like the cover-up strategy partially failed, but the mysterious letter appears to have been part of it. It seems to have been part of a deceptive scheme. Frank probably had an IQ of 120 while Conley probably had an IQ of 80.
Well not murder, but attempted murder. And not rape, but the Defense's theory was more about the theft aspect, and Conley was clearly a serial, sometimes violent thief. The notes could conceivably be part of a coverup by Frank, but I don't think that's likely given Frank's behavior and the faults of Conley's stories. Some of Frank's accusers would retract their statements after the trial, only to retract the retractions, and you end up with this big mess of contradictions and hearsay. If Frank was lascivious as he was accused, which may be most likely nonetheless, there also notably wasn't any accusation of rape, certainly not murder made against him, as far as I know.
"If Frank was lascivious as he was accused, which may be most likely nonetheless, there also notably wasn't any accusation of rape, certainly not murder made against him, as far as I know." Is this sentence trying to say "If Frank was lascivious as he was accused, which may be most likely nonetheless, then we would expect there to be accusations of rape by these women, and it is also worth noting that he didn't have any prior murder accusations made against him."?
I'm just saying that if it's significant Conley wasn't accused of rape or murder outside this case, then it should probably be significant Frank also wasn't accused of rape or murder outside the case.
In the case of Frank it's not really significant, since everybody agrees he hadn't been a criminal. It's actually more significant they accused him even though he had no criminal record. The theft theory wasn't considered credible at the time. I personally suspect a Frank + Black helper + failed cover-up theory remains most likely. But again your article is very helpful and certainly shows the case isn't as clear-cut as many assume. Apparently it's not even totally clear if Mary was raped at all?
what cover-up strategy? I laid out all of the potential cover-up strategies involving the letter and why this would make no sense? You're just dodging at this point
Nobody can lay out "all of the potential strategies". Somebody wanted to put blame on somebody else and placed false evidence, that much is clear. It's even possible that the letter should deceive in two or three ways, about its author, the patsy, and the killer.
Yeah it's logically and physically possible, as in it doesn't entail a contradiction or violate the laws of physics, but besides that it's not saying much to point out the possibility of what you're claiming. I have no idea why you are engaging in such obvious mental gymnastics to maintain your position that Frank likely killed Phagan. Why would there be bloody fingerprints on the basement door, when Frank is the superintendant who could have used a key to get out? Why did the 3 workers on the fourth floor testify, before any of Conley's affidavits, that they saw Frank acting normal shortly before leaving the factory? Why were the two notes written in such a way where the first note which doesn't explicitly allude to Newt Lee was scribbled down haphazardly, while the second note, which did, was written much neater? It all points to Conley.
No, nobody can lay out "all of the potential strategies", even if that were "logically and physically possible" (it isn't). Your hypotheses are largely irrelevant because Conley himself already acknowledged he helped Frank. The question is, who committed the assault.
I was interested in that “White folks, I’m a liar.” quote, here is the original source: https://archive.org/details/per_atlanta-constitution_1913-07-13_46_27/mode/2up?q=%22Conley+had+maintained+that+he+was+illiterate%22
Here is the quote in context:
> Conley was wordless for minutes. He stared dumbly out the window and twisted his fingers. Suddenly, he exclaimed: “White folks, I’m a liar!” “Good! We thought so all the time. Now, we want you to write a bit.”
Here is another excerpt from this source that I found interesting:
> “You see that! It’s enough to hang you. You don’t know what it is, and you couldn't guess it in a year. It’s dead- wood, nigger. It’s dead-wood. You'd better kick through or we'll pull it on you.”
I find it especially interesting that Scott had access to the original handwritten note, the reproduction that he had Conley write, and a bill signed by Conley, but did not present either of the latter two as evidence in the trial.
> If in devising them, Frank was instead perhaps trying to pass blame onto Conley, then why was he so intent on blaming Newt Lee before Conley was detained by sheer accident? And, at least in keeping with the narrative of Affidavit II, why would Frank even go out of his way to involve another person in such a crime simply to utilize his handwriting?
I found this inquiry interesting, it seems to suggest that Frank should prefer to frame an accomplice to the crime over his uninvolved employee. It is also interesting to me that Frank seems to have hired Conley, who had an extensive criminal history, to sweep floors and lock doors, at a higher hourly rate than the skilled machinists in his factory.
> Smith eventually drafted a 100-page comparative study of the phraseology and verbiage of the notes with Conley’s own language as used elsewhere, notably during the cross-examinations at the trial, finding them fully consistent: this was exactly how Conley talked, and was unlikely to be a simple imitation quickly cooked up by Frank. Smith naturally had no luck relating these findings to his former colleagues.
I find it convincing that Conley wrote this note in his own words, rather than by Frank's exact dictation, but the suggestion that Frank would not have had him do this to frame Lee is strange. Why would this not be the action of an accomplice, who then crafted a testimony to avoid being found guilty as an accessory to murder in court?
> While there would be debate at the trial over whether superintendent Becker’s order pads had been stored in the basement (per the testimony of Herbert Schiff) or in the closet near Frank’s office (per Chambers, Gantt, and Otis), they clearly would not have been in use by Frank himself. On the other hand, Dobbs and Anderson, members of the first police dispatch to arrive at NPF, would recall seeing “paper and pencils down there” in the basement, scattered among the filth.
I found this point interesting, is the suggestion that Frank would be unable to find paper to write a murder note in the basement where he left his victim? And that he would have had to look in his office or his closet instead?
> As Frank’s lawyers would argue: “in running the elevator down, the investigators smashed into the stool, and the smell of it revealed its existence. Now mark you, if they had brought the body down in the elevator on Saturday it would have smashed the excrement then.”
I find this argument interesting, to me it sounds like an assertion that the stool had been stepped on only once, for the first time, during the investigation. I am unsure what made Frank's defense so sure this.
> 7. The police would even suspect him of falsifying Lee’s time slip and planting a bloodied shirt, though these were speculative and never proven.
I find it interesting that both Lee's time slip and the bloodied shirt found at his residence are mentioned here without further explanation. The time slip was part of Frank's initial testimony, he first stated that it was punched correctly, but then claimed it was not punched correctly, which allowed Lee to commit the murder and leave the factory to discard the aforementioned shirt. No traces of body odor were found on the shirt, which appeared to have been soaked in blood without being worn. I also find it interesting that these details are presented as having been provided by "the police" and not as a part of Frank's own defense.
Overall, the most interesting aspect of this case and this article to me was the insistence that Conley's guilt and Frank's guilt were mutually exclusive. To me, all the details that incriminate Conley seem consistent with a criminal hired by Frank to aide him in crime. Of the affidavits mentioned, that of Minola McKnight was not mentioned, which is also interesting to me, if not a bit partial. Overall, I would like to see your rebuttal to a more thorough and impartial analysis of the case that supports Franks guilt, such as https://www.leofrank.org/confession/
I didn’t notice Leo Frank without glasses looks like Jordan Bardella
To get the other side of the story, the side that says Leo Frank is guilty, this article is worth reading:
https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-the-leo-frank-case-and-the-origins-of-the-adl/
I'll add that I commented on this article on X on Feb. 19 though my account is currently private. Unz claims the Franks' cook "came forward" with her affidavit, but that's totally false; he includes not a word of the crucial context that she'd always denounced the story as put on her lips by her husband and the police. (If Unz had read Oney's book like he claims then chapter nine is all about this scandal. Dinnerstein also discusses this.) And anyone who's read the above will recognize the obvious problems with presenting Conley as himself merely "coming forward" voluntarily because he'd "begun to fear that he might be made the new scapegoat." There are other minor issues but most everything else in the American Pravda article I've addressed.