Tuesday, 27th May 1913 Col. Felder Ridicules Idea of Grand Jury Investigation of City Detectives Charges

Name: Tuesday, 27th May 1913 Col. Felder Ridicules Idea of Grand Jury Investigation of City Detectives Charges
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00:00Colonel Felder ridicules idea of grand jury investigation of city detectives' charges.

00:05Atlanta Journal, Tuesday, May 27, 1913, declares Chief Beavers is only bluffing and that if all

00:12the allegations made by the police were true, it wouldn't be a case for the grand jury as he has

00:18violated no law in seeking evidence of corruption. In Police Department, Chief Beavers confers with

00:23solicitor Dorsey in references to laying whole matter before jury. He expects the solicitor's

00:29cooperation, James Conley, is identified by Mrs. Arthur White as the negro she saw lurking near

00:34the elevator of the pencil factory on day of the tragedy. This is H of a family row and no

00:39place

00:40for a stranger, says Toby Colonel Thomas B. Felder. Tuesday ridiculed the statement of Police Chief

00:45James L. Beavers that he would insist upon the grand jury making a searching investigation of

00:51the charges against Colonel Felder and also the counter charges published by the latter against

00:55the police and detective departments. Colonel Felder appeared to be very much amused while

01:00discussing Chief Beavers' declaration, which he branded as bluff and bluster.

01:04I don't believe Beavers has the least idea of going before the grand jury, he said, but even should he

01:10do so there is nothing for the grand jury to consider. If all the charges which the police and detectives

01:15have made against me were true, no law has been violated. I have a perfect right to seek truthful

01:21evidence from whatever source I may choose. If the grand jury cares to investigate my charges against

01:26the police and detective departments, I will have no hesitancy in supplying it with a list of the

01:31disorderly houses and gambling places which are operated in Atlanta without police interference,

01:37and an amazingly long list it will be too. Why there are more houses of an immoral character in

01:42the territory between the Baptist Tabernacle and the Governor's Mansion than ever existed in the old

01:47segregated district, and places of this kind are scattered throughout the city, no section being

01:53immune from them. Colonel Felder was disinclined to give out any extended statement Tuesday, but

01:58admitted that he was gathering material which might later form the basis of a sensational exposé.

02:03Chief confers with the solicitor. Chief Beavers' Tuesday reiterated his determination to take the

02:08entire controversy before the grand jury. He conferred with Solicitor General H. M. Dorsey during the

02:14morning, and he quested the solicitor to aid him in submitting the matter to the grand jury.

02:19Solicitor Dorsey stated that he was very busy in the Superior Court with other cases and would be

02:24engaged all this week, but that on next Monday, or any time thereafter, he would be in a position to

02:30go

02:30into the case with the chief. Following his conference with the solicitor, Chief Beavers expressed

02:35the opinion that Mr. Dorsey would lend him every assistance in getting both the charges against

02:40Colonel Felder, and those made by him against the police and detective departments before the grand jury.

02:45When the grand jury adjourned last Saturday, it was not to meet this week unless specially called by the

02:50solicitor. Foreman L. H. Beck reiterated his statement of Monday that he has not called a special meeting of the

02:56grand jury, and at present has no intention of doing so. It is said that, unless warrants are drawn and

03:02someone

03:02committed to the grand jury, Solicitor Dorsey will not himself take the initiative in starting a probe. It is within

03:08the

03:08province of the grand jury members themselves, however, to hear the testimony of whom they please

03:13and when they please. Neither Chief Beavers nor Chief Lanford shows any disposition to permit the

03:19matter to drop without an investigation, and their efforts to institute a grand jury probe will probably

03:24be continued until there is some action.

03:28Bunner's sick man has withdrawn. It became known Monday evening that the Burns detective had withdrawn

03:33from a further investigation of the Fagan case. C.W. Tobey, the Burns man who has been here for two

03:39weeks,

03:39announced that he came down here to investigate a murder case, not to engage in a petty political row.

03:45This is an H of a family row and no place for a stranger, he is quoted as saying. Mr.

03:50Tobey intimated

03:51that he, Burns detectives, might continue a secret investigation of the Fagan case, but that he would leave

03:56either Tuesday or Wednesday for Chicago. Tuesday morning, Carl Hutchison, a young lawyer connected with Colonel Felder's

04:02law firm, addressed an open letter to Police Chief Beavers and Detective Chief Lanford, in which he

04:08accuses them of permitting disorderly houses to operate on Ivy, Spring, Pryor, and other streets.

04:13Neither of the chiefs saw fit to make a detailed reply to Mr. Hutchison. Chief Beavers remarked that

04:18Mr. Hutchison was but a small cog in the gang machine, and that he did not care to dignify him

04:23with notice. Chief Lanford said, I am too busily engaged with important matters to give time to a

04:28controversy with small fry like Mr. Hutchison. If he has evidence that disorderly houses are

04:33operating in Atlanta, he should submit it to the chief of police or to me. His complaints would

04:38receive the same careful attention as those of any other citizen. James Conley is identified. It was

04:44announced Tuesday morning by the city detectives that Mrs. Arthur White, wife of a machinist at the

04:49National Pencil Factory, had identified James Conley, the Negro sweeper, as closely resembling the

04:55strange Negro she saw lurking near the elevator in the factory shortly after noon of Saturday, April

05:0026th, the day of the Fagan murder. Conley is the Negro who swears that on Friday, April 25th,

05:06he wrote two notes at the dictation of Superintendent Leo M. Frank, and that the notes he wrote were very

05:12similar to those published as having been found by the dead girl's body. Mrs. White, who it is

05:18admitted by several witnesses, including Frank himself, visited her husband on the third floor of the

05:24factory, between twelve noon and one p.m. on Saturday, April 26th, has consistently maintained

05:30that while ascending the factory stairs, she noticed a Negro man standing near the elevator.

05:35No other witness, not even Frank, who was in the office on the same floor as that where the Negro

05:40was alleged to have been, has stated that a Negro was in the factory at the hour named. At first

05:46it was

05:47thought that Mrs. White must have been mistaken. However, since Conley confessed to writing the notes,

05:52the detectives have laid more stress on Mrs. White's testimony. According to the detectives,

05:58Mrs. White has picked Conley from a dozen other Negroes and declared she believes him to be the

06:02Negro she saw near the elevator. Believe he wrote notes Saturday. This leads the detectives to believe

06:09that if Conley wrote the notes which he says he wrote, that he must have written them on Saturday

06:13instead of Friday. The Negro, however, sticks to his story that he wrote the notes on Friday about one

06:19o'clock. According to the several times corroborated testimony at the coroner's inquest,

06:25Arthur White and another machinist named Denham were at work on the third floor of the pencil

06:29factory, April 26th. Sometime between twelve and one o'clock, Mrs. White called to see her husband,

06:35and about one o'clock, Frank came up and announced that he was going to lunch and would lock the

06:39door,

06:40that if Mrs. White wished to get out, she had better do so then.

06:44Mrs. White left the factory ahead of the superintendent.

06:46White and Denham continued their work until after Frank returned from lunch about three o'clock,

06:52when they, too, left the factory.

06:54Hell of a row, says Toby.

06:56This is a H of a family row and no place for a stranger, says C.W. Toby of Chicago,

07:01criminal

07:02investigator for the Burns Agency, who is chucking up the job of getting more conclusive evidence

07:07against the murderer of Mary Fagan, who Toby says he believes is Leo M. Frank, who has been indicted for

07:13the crime. Toby, who has not yet left the city, intimates that probably Burns operators will take

07:18up the case if certain evidence, which he believes to be in existence, is not produced. Should the

07:24Burns people take up again or continue the work, he says, their investigation will be a secret one,

07:29not an open probe such as he has conducted.

07:32I came down here, says Toby disgustedly, to investigate a murder case, not to engage in a

07:37petty political row. All of this stuff seems to have been brewing some time, and it has just now

07:42come to the surface. From the very first it has been repeatedly said that I was here to get further

07:47graft charges against the city police and detectives, and there has always been an undercurrent of

07:52sentiment against me and my work. Called in too late. In the first place I was called in too late

07:58for

07:58the sort of a job it is. When I first heard of the Mary Fagan murder and was called on

08:02the job,

08:02I thought it was a fresh case. I came here 23 days late, and I found that the thing was

08:08being worked

08:08from many different angles, and that many of the witnesses had been interviewed by the solicitor's

08:13men, the Pinkerton man, the city detectives, and many newspaper reporters. Of course they were tired

08:19of talking about the case, and I hesitated at asking them to tell their stories again, simply for

08:24the benefit of the Burns people. I didn't stop at that, but now that the Mary Fagan murder is almost

08:30forgotten in a bitter political row in which every man is trying to cut his neighbor's throat,

08:34I have to call the deal off. I have never tried to get anything against the city detectives or police,

08:40and I have never been even requested to make any sort of an investigation for them,

08:43but still that seems to be what everybody thinks I am here for. Work not blocked. Despite reports I have

08:50never found myself blocked by the city detectives, it is true that the people have gotten tired of

08:55telling their same stories over and over again, and that is all of the trouble I have experienced.

09:01Toby first announced his intention of quitting the investigation to Solicitor General H.M. Dorsey

09:06Monday evening. He determined to drop the probe last Friday afternoon, when the journal's exclusive

09:11story told of charges of attempted bribery lodged against his employer, Colonel Thomas B. Felder,

09:17by the city detectives. Toby says that the presence here Monday of Dan P. Lahan, superintendent of the

09:23Burns Southern office, had nothing to do with his decision to quit the case. He says that he simply

09:28notified Mr. Lahan of his decision as a matter of courtesy. If I did continue the work on the

09:33Fagan matter, I would get credit for trying to expose the city detectives, and that I am not doing,

09:38says Toby. May make secret probe. While he says that he is convinced that Frank is the murderer,

09:44Toby says that the evidence is the hands of the public is not conclusive, and that Burns men will

09:49make a secret probe if certain features do not develop at the proper time. Toby declares that

09:54the confession of James Conley, the Negro sweeper, that he wrote the notes for Leo M. Frank, is a bad

10:01feature of the case. Conley says he wrote the notes Friday, Toby remarked, yet I can't believe that the

10:07crime was premeditated. If he had said Saturday, it would have been different. His story puts a new

10:12angle on the matter. Toby is bitter over efforts to blacken his character and arraigns his former

10:17employers, the Pinkerton Detective Agency, denies kidnapping charge. Relative to his alleged attempt

10:22to kidnap the incubator baby in Sedan, Cannes, Toby says that he was working under the Pinkertons,

10:28who simply located the baby for a woman from whom it had been kidnapped. In the matter, he says he

10:33knew

10:33only the head of the Kansas City Pinkerton Agency. When located the baby, he wired the official,

10:39who told him to await the arrival of parties with a letter of introduction. These parties, a lady and a

10:44gentleman, arrived and presented the letter. He then dropped the case, he says, after telling them

10:49where the child was. Subsequently, they attempted to kidnap the baby, he says, and were caught. The

10:55Pinkertons, he said, try to blacken the character of every man who quits them, and that is what they

11:00have done to me. An interesting feature of the Fagan case Tuesday morning was a visit to police

11:05headquarters of Newtley's real wife, from whom he has been separated for more than five years.

11:10This is the first time she has attempted to communicate with the Negro, although the woman

11:15with whom he boards and who is said to be his wife has repeatedly visited police headquarters.

11:20The Negro's wife, after conferring with the detectives, went to the tower with Detective Starnes,

11:25promising to assist the police in getting the truth out of her husband.

11:28Colonel Felder silent. Colonel Thomas B. Felder.

11:32Tuesday morning had no comment to make upon the action of the Burns detectives in severing

11:37their connection with the Fagan murder case investigation.

11:40I have nothing whatever to say, remarked Colonel Felder, in reply to question from a journal

11:45representative. Will you issue any statement during the day? he was asked. I don't know.

11:50I will have a conference with my friends and decide that later, said he. Newtley sticks to his

11:55original story. Attorney Bernard L. Chappell, counsel for Newt Lee, the Negro night watchman

12:00of the National Pencil Factory, who is held under direction of the coroner's jury in connection with

12:05the murder of Mary Fagan, Tuesday morning requested the jailers at the tower not to permit anyone to

12:10see his client unless he was present. The attorney fears that someone might make a false affidavit as

12:15to what the Negro said. He declares that he has never himself conferred with Lee unless one of the

12:20jailers was present. Lee has never varied from the story he told to the coroner's jury. He still

12:26maintains that he knows nothing of the murder beyond the fact that he discovered the Fagan

12:30child's body in the Pencil Factory basement about three o'clock Monday morning, April 27th,

12:36and that he immediately notified the police. The Negro also reiterates his statement that

12:41Superintendent Leo M. Frank sent him away from the factory when he called there about four o'clock

12:46Saturday afternoon, April 26th. He says he cannot understand why the superintendent seems so anxious

12:52for him to go away.

12:57Factory Girls Hope Murderer is Punished

12:59One of the young ladies employed at the National Pencil Factory where Mary Fagan met her death,

13:04who does not wish her name used, has addressed the following letter to the editor of the journal.

13:09Nothing has ever been said of the girls of the Pencil Factory until after the terrible murder,

13:13but since then there has been one continuous talk, just as if we were to blame. We are just

13:19as anxious to see the guilty punished as the rest of the public, and we all loved Mary Fagan just

13:24as

13:25much as we possibly could. If the public only would interest itself to look into other factories and

13:30stores, they would find the girls in the Pencil Factory are just as good as any other working girls.

13:36It looks mighty hard that we have to work in the place where our little friend was so horribly

13:40murdered, but we are only poor working girls, trying to make an honest living, and we try not to think

13:46of the tragedy any more than possible, and we have the interest of the factory too much at heart to

13:51desert in times of trouble. We all hope and pray the guilty will be punished and the innocent given

13:57freedom, for we all think our superintendent has a soul himself, and that he would not think of such a

14:03thing, much less commit such a horrible crime."

14:09Gieseland corrects story of Testimony Deutsch. Gieseland, with the Bloomfield Undertaking Company,

14:15wishes to correct the statement published in the journal that he said before the grand jury

14:19that in his opinion Mary Fagan was assaulted before she was murdered.

14:23The grand jury, knowing that I was not an expert and not qualified to talk on the subject, said Mr.

14:29Gieseland, did not ask me if the little girl had been assaulted and I expressed no opinion during the

14:34course of my examination by the jury.

14:39Carl Hutchison Issues Open Letter to Chiefs

14:42Carl Hutchison, a young attorney associated with the firm of Anderson, Whitman & Dillon, has written the

14:48following open letter to Chief of Police James L. Beavers and Chief of Detectives N. A. Lanford,

14:53accusing them of permitting disorderly houses to operate on a number of streets in the city.

14:58J. L. Beavers, Chief of Police, Atlanta. Newport, Lanford, Chief of Detectives, Atlanta.

15:03In your great crusade against Sodom and Gomorrah, with your immaculate robes of puritanism,

15:08I accuse you in all your glory with allowing certain houses on Ivy Street, the business of which is to

15:14barter in immoral and indecent practices, to continue in flagrant operation, and you know it.

15:20If you do not, every sensible citizen of this city who knows anything of the world does. If you do

15:26not

15:26know these things it is your duty to know, and you should be discharged from your high pedestals for

15:30dereliction. I accuse you of allowing similar houses to operate on certain parts of Spring Street,

15:36and you know it. If you do not, you should be removed from office for dereliction of duty.

15:40I accuse you of allowing similar houses to operate in a certain section of Pryor Street,

15:45and you know it. If you do not, you should be removed from office for dereliction of duty.

15:50I accuse you of allowing similar houses to operate on a certain section of Central Avenue,

15:55and you know it. If you do not, you should be removed from office for dereliction of duty,

16:00alleges Gambling Place. I accuse you of failing to take cognizance of a certain house in Ivy Street,

16:06to which I called your attention several weeks ago, where young men were inveigled to gamble away

16:11their money, the mistress thereof being the banker and the recipient of these ill-gotten gains.

16:17And you know it, and should be removed from office for dereliction of duty. I accuse you and numbers

16:23of your forces with being cognizant of these facts, and yet you, the great crusade leader,

16:28stand idly by and fold your lordly hands. I accuse you with allowing even yet low-class hotels in this

16:34city to exist and practice their nefarious games of lowly gain, and you know it, and should be

16:40removed from office for dereliction of duty. If you cannot turn up these places, there are hundreds

16:45of people who can. I can use infantile detective work and turn up dozens of them within a few days,

16:51and you know this can be done. And if you fail to get busy and continue to parade your great

16:56genius,

16:56you should be removed from office for dereliction of duty. Charges Police Protection. I accuse you with

17:03protecting these places because of your lax methods in keeping the houses within our midst closed,

17:08and you know it, and should be removed from office for dereliction of duty. I accuse you of closing

17:13Manhattan Avenue and converting our entire municipality into a red-light district. And you know it,

17:19and unless you change conditions at once, you should be removed from office for dereliction of duty.

17:23I accuse you of retaining on your force men unfit to protect the decent citizens of Atlanta,

17:28and you know it, and should be removed from office for dereliction of duty. I accuse you of knowing

17:34where numbers of houses which exist by immoral practices are located, and you know it, and you

17:39should be removed from office for dereliction of duty. Do you think that the public will be hoodwinked

17:43forever? Do you know that the public is so gullible as to believe all of this bourgeois about the great

17:49work that you are continuing? Yes, you closed Manhattan Avenue, but what did you do for the remainder of

17:54the city? You and your bunch are very sore because you were unable to ferret out the Fagan murder,

17:59and you know it. When the Solicitor General called in outside aid, numbers of your hirelings were very

18:05much perturbed and became insanely jealous. That is why all of this hatched-up bunch of lies and

18:11slanders have been issued against Thomas B. Felder, whose shoes you are unworthy to untie, and you know it.

18:17I accuse you of retaining a large number of leather heads for detectives. Detectives? That is a joke,

18:23isn't it? And you know it, and you should be removed from office for allowing such an army

18:27of incompetence to work with your departments. You know, and I know that these fellows secure

18:32their offices through political pull and not through efficiency. They are Sherlock Holmeses

18:36when it comes to resting blind tigers and negro crap players, but beyond tat they would not know

18:41a clue if they saw it tagged. In the Fagan case, the newspaper men are the ones who turned up

18:46the first

18:47clues of any merit, and you know it, and should be ashamed of that crowd down there to allow the

18:52members

18:52of the fourth estate to put one over on you. But you know newspaper men have brains, and brains are

18:57required to make detectives. Now volley forth again your promulgation of purity, and tell the people

19:03of this great city what large men you are and how you protect the citizenry of this great commonwealth.

19:09If you haven't the addresses of the houses to which I refer, call at my offices within three days,

19:14and I will give you a bunch of them. Friends of mine have advised me against printing this card.

19:19Some have feared for my life but afraid of you and your crowd. Never. I am not afraid of anteing

19:25that lays down its firearms and comes at me like a man in fair play. Now lay on Macduff and

19:30damned be

19:31him who first cries. Hold enough. Carl Hutchison. He's a little cog in gang machines, says Chief,

19:37small fry shooting birdshot, smiled Chief of Police James L. Beavers, when told Tuesday morning of the

19:42open letter of Carl Hutchison attacking him and charging that he knowingly allowed disreputable houses to

19:48operate in certain sections of the city. Hutchison is just a little cog in the gang machine trying

19:54to divert attention from the real issue and is not worth answering, the police official said.

19:59Chief Beavers referred a journal reporter to the record of the Henderson Hotel case

20:03and refused to comment further on Hutchison, who is an attorney associated with the firm of Felder,

20:08Anderson, Dillon, and Whitman. As a result of a raid on the Henderson Hotel in January and the arrest

20:14there of a man and woman, J. F. McFarland, who was represented by attorney Hutchison, preferred

20:18charges against five policemen, Sergeant G. C. Fane, Officers S. H. Arrowood, J. F. Weichel, C. E. Williams,

20:25and J. E. McDaniels. Attorney Hutchison attacked the policemen who made the raid in statements at

20:30police court and hearing of the charges against them was set for trial before the police commission.

20:35The case was reached and attorney Hutchison asked a postponement, saying that his client had been

20:40called out of the city. The case was postponed until the next regular meeting of the police

20:44commission, one month later, and then neither attorney Hutchison nor his client appeared to

20:49press the case. Secretary February acted under orders. Chief of Detectives Newport A. Lanford

20:55has issued the following statement fully explaining the connection of his secretary, G. C. February,

21:00with the Felder dictograph incident. When it became known that Mr. T. B. Felder was willing to try to

21:05bribe one of my men to get information in the Fagan case or anything else that might be in the

21:09department, Mr. Collier first approached me and told me that he had suggested February to Colonel

21:15Felder. I then called February into my office and the matter was explained to him and he was

21:19instructed to go ahead with negotiations. I was fully cognizant of every move and Mr. February acted

21:26with my full authority and approval. Police do not believe Conley guilty of crime. The detectives laugh

21:32at the theory that James Conley, the negro sweeper who says that he wrote notes at Superintendent

21:37Frank's dictation, is guilty of Little Mary Fagan's murder. In commenting on the matter,

21:43Chief of Detectives Lanford said Tuesday afternoon, We are not entirely satisfied with the affidavit

21:48Conley has made, but we have never considered him in the light of a principal or a voluntary accomplice in

21:53the crime. E. F. Holloway, day watchman at the factory, says that he has always been suspicious of

21:59the negro Conley. It was Mr. Holloway who caught the negro washing what at first were supposed to

22:04be blood stains from his shirt. Conley, Mr. Holloway says, often came down to the factory before it was

22:10time for him to go to work, and he would sit watching the girls employed at the factory as

22:14they came in. These circumstances, Mr. Holloway says, have made him regard the negro with suspicion

22:19since the crime.

Tuesday, 27th May 1913 Col. Felder Ridicules Idea of Grand Jury Investigation of City Detectives Charges

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