and the normal workday began at 6:00 a.m. and ended at 6:00 p.m. Mary Phagan had earned only ten cents an hour at the National Pencil Company. Children were exploited—especially in the cotton mills.
I thought of my father’s description of his grandmother Mary Richards Phagan, whom the factory bosses would hide from the labor inspectors.
It was probably inevitable that family and communityties, another bulwark of tradition, began to weaken, despite people’s struggles to hold onto them, and they grew increasingly resentful of those whom they considered to be their exploiters.
I realized, as my research began to clarify a lot of things for me, that little Mary Phagan, white, pretty, well- liked, just short of fourteen, a laborer in a factory or “sweat shop,” came to stand for what was good, pure, sweet and exploited about the South. And that Leo Frank, a Northerner, a Jew, superintendent, part owner of the factory, and well-to-do, would have fit perfectly the idea of the outsider which Southerners traditionally held in such suspicion and the exploiter of whom they were growing increasingly resentful. The entire family believed that he killed Mary Phagan. So did I.
On April 28, 1913, Leo Frank sent a telegram to Adolph Montag in New York:
Atlanta, Ga. Apr. 28, 1913
Mr. Adolph Montag,
c/o Imperial Hotel, New York.
You may have read in Atlanta papers of factory girl found dead Sunday morning in cellar of pencil factory. Police will eventually solve it. Assure my uncle I am all right in case he asks. Our company has case well in hand.
Leo M. Frank
On April 29, 1913, three days after little Mary Phagan’s body was discovered, the Atlanta Georgian reported that four suspects were being held. The headline read: “IS THE GUILTY MAN AMONG THOSE HELD?”
These men were:
1. A black night watchman, who is thought to know much more about the crime than he has told, but who has not been regarded as the perpetrator.
2. A former street car conductor for whom a strong alibi has never been established, and from whom suspicion is shifting.
3. A black elevator boy, who has never been held as a material witness, but against whom no evidence has been obtained.
4. A former employee of the National Pencil Company was located at the Plant Saturday and identified as being the “man with a little girl on Saturday night.” In neither the conductor’s nor the elevator boy’s case do police place much dependence on the so-called identifications.
All of these men were cleared. At that time, neither Leo Frank, the factory superintendent, nor Jim Conley, the pencil factory janitor, appeared on the list. Leo Frank was at police headquarters that day but police were quoted as saying, “Frank is not under arrest,” but that “he was under police guard for his own personal safety,” and that “there are no charges against him.”
What led to the eventual arrest of Leo Frank, the factory superintendent?
When Newt Lee, the night watchman who discovered the body of little Mary Phagan, was questioned by the police, he stated that he had been at the factory on April 26, 1913, and that when he began working at the pencil factory, Mr. Frank had told him to report at 6:00 p.m. on weekdays and at 5:00 p.m. on Saturdays. He said that, on Friday, the 25th of April, Leo Frank told him, “Tomorrow is a holiday and I want you to come back at four o’clock. I want to get off a little earlier than I have been getting off.” Frank had plans to go to the baseball game with his brother-in-law. The game started at 4:00 p.m. Newt Lee said that he arrived at the factory at about three or four minutes before four. He then told the detectives:
The front door was not locked. I pushed it open, went on in and got to the double door there. I was paid off Friday night at six o’clock. It was put out that everybody would be paid off then. Every Saturday when I get off he gives me the keys at twelve o’clock, so that if he happened to be gone when I get back there at five or six o’clock I could get in, and every Monday morning I return the keys to him. The front door had always been unlocked on previous Saturday afternoons. After you go inside and come up about middle ways of the steps, there are some double doors there. It was locked on Saturday when I got there. Have never found it that way before. I took my key and unlocked it. When I went upstairs I had a sack of bananas and I stood to the left of that desk like I do every Saturday. I says like I always do “Alright Mr. Frank” and he come bustling out of his office. He had never done that before. He always called me when he wanted to tell me anything and said, “Step here a minute, Newt.” This time he came up rubbing his hands and says, “Newt, I am sorry that I had you come so soon, you could have been at home sleeping, I tell you what you do, you go out in town and have a good time.” He had never let me off before that. I could have laid down in the shipping room and gone to sleep, and I told him that. He says, “You needs to have a good time. You go downtown, stay an hour and a half, and come back your usual time at six o’clock.” I then went out the door and stayed until about four minutes to six. When I came back the doors were unlocked just as I left them and I went and says, “Alright, Mr. Frank,” and he says, “What time is it?” and I says, “It lacks two minutes of six.” He says, “Don’t punch yet, there is a few worked today and I want to change the slip.” It took him twice as long this time than it did the other times I saw him fix it. He fumbled putting it in, while I held the lever for him and I think he made some remark about he was not used to putting it in. When Mr. Frank put the tape in I punched and I went downstairs. While I was down there Mr. Gantt came from across the street from the beer saloon and says, “Newt, I got a pair of old shoes that I want to get upstairs to have fixed.” I says, “I ain’t allowed to let anybody in here after six o’clock.” About that time Mr. Frank come bustling out of the door and run into Gantt unexpected and he jumped back frightened. Gantt says, “I got a pair of old shoes upstairs, have you any objection to my getting them?” Frank says, “I don’t think they are up there, I think I saw the boy sweep some up in the trash the other day.” Mr. Gantt asked him what sort they were and Mr. Frank says “tans.” Gantt says, “Well, I had a pair of black ones too.” Frank says, “Well, I don’t know,” and he dropped his head down just so. Then he raised his head and says, “Newt, go with him and stay with him and help him find them” and I went up there with Mr. Gantt and found them in the shipping room, two pair, the tans and the black ones. Mr. Frank phoned me that night about an hour after he left, it was sometime after seven o’clock. He says, “How is everything?” and I says, “Everything is all right so far as I know,” and he says “Goodbye.”
There is a light on the street floor just after you get in the entrance to the building. The light is right up here where that partition comes across. Mr. Frank told me when I first went there, “Keep that light burning bright, so the officers can see in when they pass by.” It wasn’t burning that day at all. I lit it at six o’clock myself. On Saturday I always lit it, but weekdays it would always be lit when I got there. On Saturdays I always got there at five o’clock. This Saturday he got me there an hour earlier and let me off later. There is a light in the basement down there at the foot of the ladder. He told me to keep that burning all the time. It has two little chains to it to turn on and turn off the gas. When I got there on making my rounds at seven o’clock on the 26th of April, it was burning just as low as you could turn it, like a lightning bug. I left it Saturday morning burning bright. I made my rounds regularly every half hour Saturday night. I punched on the hour and punched on the half and I made all my punches. The elevator doors on the street floor and office floor were closed when I got there on Saturday. They were fastened down just like we fasten them down every other night. When three o’clock came I went down the basement and when I went down and got ready to come back I discovered the body there. I went down to the toilet and when I got through I looked at the dust
