Monday, 15th September 1913: Express Theft Arrest Due By Nightfull, The Atlanta Georgian

Reading Time: 10 minutes [1639 words]

Detectives Work on Theory That Guilty Man Will Squander $72,000 Booty.

Detective Harry Scott, Atlanta agent of the Pinkertons, said Monday that the hunt for the daring robber who looted the Southern or the Adams Express Company of $72,000 in transit from New York to Savannah and South Georgia banks had narrowed down to two or three express employees, who were being kept under special surveillance.

He anticipated an arrest during the day.

The centering of suspicion on particular employees has not caused the detectives to relax their vigilance.

On the contrary, the closest sort of a watch Is being kept on every employee of both companies who by the most remote possibility might have been connected with the bold theft.

The instant one of these men emerges into the white lights'' and begins spending money freely he will be arrested as the man who stole the $72,000, according to Special Agent Weaver, of the Southern Express, who returned to Savannah Monday from a trip to Florence.

We expect to make an arrest any time now, said Weaver.

Every man who could have possibly been connected with the robbery is under surveillance. Every other man is eliminated. It rests with two or three.

We are just waiting for him to show up, and then we will get him. He can't hold out much longer. There is either a woman back of it or the lure of the white lights. It is always that way.

He will remain under cover for a little while, but he will soon show his hand.

It is human nature for a man with that much money to put some of it into circulation, particularly with the kind of man who would come by it in that way.

At every point along the line to-day special agents are either riding or lounging around boarding houses and little depot hotels where the messengers hang out.

Sleepy-eyed agents as they come in from their runs are taken to the office of General Manager Hockaday and closely interrogated.

The search has not relinquished one bit, although the principal activity is at the New York end of the line The remote possibility, as the officials term it, of any messenger having secured the money, at first overlooked, is being thoroughly gone into.

Could anyone have duplicate seals to fasten the wire into the little lead pellets, the combination to the safe made into the express car, a duplicate of the key kept by the agent at the destination, and a duplicate of the key that unlocks the second lid to the trunk, this key being kept under the first lid in a sealed envelope, the robbery might have been made in transit.

The officials regard this as highly improbable, but they are investigating such a possibility fully.

PAGE 5, COLUMN 5

FRANK'S TRIAL NOT FAIR, SAYS PASTOR

The Rev. A. R.

Holderby Blames Popular Prejudice and Clamor for Vengeance.

The Rev. A. R. Holderby, pastor of the Moore Memorial Church, declared from the pulpit in his Sunday sermon that Leo M. Frank, convicted of the murder of Mary Phagan in the South's most notable criminal case, was the victim of an unfair trial.

The minister described the popular prejudice and the clamor for vengeance following the crime and asserted that the conditions forbade a fair trial of the accused man.

He did not attempt to pass on Frank's guilt or innocence, nor did he go into the merits of the rase itself, contenting himself with the declaration that, regardless of Frank's innocence or guilt, he was entitled to a fair and impartial trial and failed to get It.

Public Mind Was Influenced.

If the trial were conducted without vindictiveness and prejudice and the testimony ware sufficient to convict, then the verdict was just, he said.

But if on the other hand there were prejudice and a clamor for vengeance, then the trial was no fair and Impartial.

No one can deny that the public mind was inflamed at the perpetration of the crime, and justly so, and that prejudice ran high.

Then, under these conditions the trial was not fair and Impartial.

If Leo Frank has had a fair trial and has been found guilty upon the most reliable testimony and there Is no reasonable doubt as to his guilt, he should suffer the penalty of the law.

When Prejudice Runs High.

But it is a dangerous experiment to convict any man of a crime at a time when the public mind la unduly excited and when prejudice is at its height. Far better wait until sober judgment can prevail and better by far to let a dozen guilty men go unpunished than to take the life of one innocent man.

When the State hangs a man innocent of a crime it is guilty of judicial murder. No man's life or liberty are safe when either can be taken away merely upon circumstantial evidence or because public sentiment demands vengeance.

Jesus Christ was crucified under just such conditions.

PAGE 14, COLUMN 1

THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN

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At 20 East Alabama St., Atlanta, Ga.

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Governor Slaton's Judicial Appointments Give Satisfaction Able and Courageous Men Placed Where They Can Best Serve the People.

Governor Slaton's judicial appointments, just made public, prove that our able executive is not to be influenced by politicians or others in filling offices.

The gentlemen named are well known.

They are able, and have served the public well in the past.

Judge Hill, in accepting the appointment to the new Atlanta circuit, sets a fine example to other men in public places, for the position he gives up on the Appellate Court bench is ranked higher than the place to which he has been assigned.

Judge Hill undoubtedly considered it his duty to the public to make the change.

He is the distinguished son of one of Georgia's intellectual giants.

He has an enviable record as a lawyer.

His knowledge of the law has given him a commanding position among able and thoughtful lawyers.

His place in the legal history of our State is fixed and permanent.

And he possesses in a very marked degree one of the most important qualifications any judge can have"COURAGE!

He knows the law.

He is intensely human.

He is unafraid.

Mob clamor, trials by orators in and out of the pulpit and trials by newspapers of important cases do not influence him.

He is a just judge, who tempers justice with mercy, but believes the laws of the Commonwealth must be enforced.

The other appointees, Judge Roan, Charles S. Reid and George M. Napier, are equally satisfactory.

This newspaper congratulates Governor Slaton upon the selections he has made.

Thaw's Persecution a Legal Farce

Harry Thaw is being hounded as relentlessly in Vermont and New Hampshire as he was in the Dominion of Canada.

The story of Thaw's pursuit and prosecution, with Sheriffs, Constables.

Immigration Officers and high-priced lawyers joining in, makes as disgraceful a chapter of the attempted administration of justice as could be supplied from the annals of the Middle Ages.

First, Thaw is seized illegally in Canada and held illegally till W. T. Jerome has an opportunity to get on the State payroll and hurry to Canada, there to continue the bedeviling of Thaw begun seven years ago.

Next, Jerome, holding a commission as a Deputy Attorney General of the State of New York, gets himself arrested as a common gambler and locked up in the cell that first held Thaw" a shameful performance.

Once out of jail, he jumps into the automobile in which he had intended to rush Thaw through two States and hastens out of Canada despite the warning of the authorities that this would be jumping bail.

While Jerome was crossing and recrossing the border the Canadian immigration authorities took Thaw by force out of his prison and dragged him over the line.

This was done despite a solemn writ from the King's bench ordering Thaw to be produced for a habeas corpus hearing in Montreal.

Jerome's part in this high-handed proceeding was to be at the line waiting for Thaw when he was ejected from Canada.

His own troubles, however, had mixed his plans and he was not present.

In spite of the flouting of the law by the Canadian immigration officials, inspired by Jerome, Thaw was out of Canada and once more free.

There was no immediate necessity for his deportation.

He was doing no harm in Coaticook and in a position to do no harm.

He objected strenuously to being freed in such a manner, yet here he was, an American citizen, in his own country, convicted of no crime and beyond any recognized power of extradition.

You would imagine that he would have at least received fair treatment in his own country.

But you would be wrong.

In every part of Vermont and New Hampshire Deputy Sheriffs swarmed on Thaw's trail and within a few hours he was arrested without warrant or extradition papers and again held until the always tardy Jerome should appear and take charge of him.

Why were the Canadian immigration officials in such a hurry to deliver Thaw into the hands of Jerome that they rose superior to the courts of their country?

Why were the New England sheriffs obsessed with such a mad desire to lock up a man who had never violated a statute of their State and never, according to a jury, committed a crime in any other State?

Why have precedent and order and decency and law been calmly set aside in shameful pursuit of a citizen to whom the Constitution of the United States supposedly guarantees the rights and privileges of all citizens?

Why does the chase of one man, already punished by seven years of jail in a madhouse for ridding the world of a white laver, cause authorities in two countries to abandon their regular duties as if an outlaw were devastating the countryside?