The Leo Frank case and the founding of the Anti-Defamation League
A factory superintendent was convicted on evidence the governor himself did not believe. Two years later he was taken from prison and hanged.
In April 1913 thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan was found murdered in the basement of a pencil factory in Atlanta. Leo Frank, the superintendent, a Jew from the North, was charged. The chief witness was the janitor Jim Conley, whose account changed four times; the crowd outside shouted "hang the Jew" to the jury through open windows, and the judge asked Frank not to be present for the verdict, for his own safety.
Governor John Slaton studied the record, commuted the sentence to life, and wrote plainly that he did not consider the guilt proved. Troops had to guard his house, and he left the state. On 16 August 1915 twenty-five men—among them a former governor, a senator's son and a sheriff—took Frank from the prison at Milledgeville and hanged him at Marietta. No one was prosecuted.
Already in 1913, while the trial was going on, a B'nai B'rith lodge founded the Anti-Defamation League, with the purpose written into its charter: "to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all". It became America's principal watch on antisemitism.
In 1986 the State of Georgia pardoned Frank posthumously—not declaring him innocent, but acknowledging that the state had failed to protect his life and to punish his killers.
Sources
Documents of the period
- Charter of the Anti-Defamation League, 1913 — «to stop the defamation… and to secure justice and fair treatment to all»
- Governor John Slaton's commutation order, 21 June 1915 — the governor refused in writing to hold the guilt proved
- Posthumous pardon, Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles, 1986 — acknowledging the state's failure to protect the prisoner's life
Basis: documents and evidence.