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The Murder of Mary Phagan – Part 4

Concerning mainly the Pinkerton Detective Agency and chief detective Harry Scott.

Pinkerton History:

From Protecting Mid-Western Railways to Providing Corporate Risk Management to Clients Across the Globe

  • 1819 – Allan Pinkerton born in Glasgow, Scotland
  • 1842 – immigrates to US
  • 1847 – joins Chicago police
  • 1849 – 1st detective in Chicago
  • 1850 – Pinkerton Detective Agency founded
  • 1850 – The Pinkerton Code is created: Accept no bribes, Never compromise with criminals, Partner with local law enforcement agencies, …

A typical example of the jewish version of Pinkerton and Scott’s role is provided in The Lynching of Leo Frank:

Coincidentally, Leo Frank hired the services of the Pinkerton Detective Agency to investigate. Recognizing the public climate against Frank, Harry Scott, the chief Pinkerton detective, admitted that they changed their efforts and decided to gather evidence against Frank, since the Pinkertons would be chased out of Atlanta if Frank were to be set free.

Pinkerton Detective Agency, at leofrank.org, is a 1917 court document, part of the lawsuit Pinkerton brought (and ultimately prevailed in) against Frank’s employer, the National Pencil Company, to win payment for services rendered.

Much ado about this lawsuit was made by Stephen Goldfarb (an ashkenazi surname) in an article titled Framed, published in October 1996, in Volume 47, Issue 6 of American Heritage. A copy of this article is archived at leofrank.org under the more apt title, Leo Frank Was Framed According to Stephen J. Goldfarb, an Atlanta (Fulton County) Librarian.

A newly discovered document casts a disturbing light on exactly how Frank’s prosecutor won his case

The reason that the National Pencil Company refused to pay Pinkerton’s bill can be found in the Amended Motion for the New Trial, in which National Pencil claimed that Pinkerton “did not seek honestly and in good faith to ascertain the truth, but, on the contrary, endeavored dishonestly and in bad faith to suppress and distort the truth and to bring about the conviction of Frank regardless of guilt or innocence.” Even though the court found against the National Pencil Company, a fair-minded reading of the Brief of Evidence—a 134-page document that summarizes the trial and whose accuracy was ratified by lawyers for both sides—and of supporting papers strongly suggests that Pinkerton wanted Frank to be found guilty and worked toward that end.

The National Pencil Company’s case against Pinkerton turned on the actions of the agency’s employee Harry Scott. As assistant superintendent of Pinkerton’s Atlanta office, Scott was in charge of the investigation of the Phagan murder from the day after her body was discovered in late April until sometime in August, the month Frank was convicted. Ironically it was Leo Frank himself, as manager of the pencil factory, who arranged with Scott to hire Pinkerton. Not only did Scott take an active part in the investigation, he also supervised all the numerous Pinkerton employees looking into the crime.

Of course, NPC lost their case – their argument that Scott and/or Pinkerton did something wrong was not convincing. It’s more sensible to conclude that the representatives of NPC were the ones operating in bad faith. First, by hiring Pinkerton in the first place, out of a desire to direct the investigation, to exonerate Frank by, for example, framing one or both of the black employees. Second, out of a desire not to pay their bill.

Goldfarb admits Scott’s testimony was a “devastating setback for the defense”, because it:

undermined the veracity of the defendant’s [Frank’s] testimony. Worse still, Scott posed not only as a disinterested third party whose only concern was the truth but as an employee of the defense.

Though the trial had been under way for several days, Scott was the first witness who really aided the case against Frank.

[Lead defense attorney] Rosser was emphatic about how the changes in Scott’s testimony had damaged the defense.

The purpose of Goldfarb’s article, reincarnating this old case in which the argument he favors lost, is to continue Rosser’s effort, to “contradict Scott’s damaging testimony”. How does he do it? By turning reality on its head. Rather than accept that Scott had integrity, was an honest man, Goldfarb defames him, claiming the opposite.

Goldfarb spends the bulk of his effort waving his hands about Scott’s “contradictions”. Dancing all around Scott’s well-known flip-flop – hired by Frank to find the criminal, and then finding that Frank was that criminal – Goldfarb’s argument is that Scott was the real criminal.

From this he leaps to a conclusion (his “inescapable” premise all along), which it turns out is based on a literal conspiracy theory:

In itself this document, the Brief of Evidence, which has for so long lain dormant, does not prove guilt or innocence. It does, however, add substantially to the evidence that Leo Frank did not receive a fair trial. In fact, the conclusion that he was railroaded is now inescapable.

Whatever his reasons, Harry Scott was a key figure in convicting Frank of murder. Less certain, but still highly suggestive, was the malign role played by the prosecutor, Hugh Dorsey. Here ambition was certainly a motive, and a successful one, for Dorsey was twice elected governor of Georgia. This document strongly suggests that Dorsey urged witnesses to embellish their testimony, even lie under oath, to build a case against Frank.

The picture that emerges from this civil trial over an unpaid bill is of a conspiracy between the prosecutor Hugh Dorsey and Harry Scott of Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency to find Leo Frank guilty of murder. Although we will almost certainly never know just what was said between Dorsey and Scott, their collaboration seems to have assured that Leo Frank would not receive a fair trial for a crime he almost certainly did not commit.

Goldfarb’s lame argument echoes the jewish consensus. It isn’t about the murder of Mary Phagan. It’s about Leo Frank being a victim. “Wrongly accused, Falsely convicted, Wantonly murdered.” Or as Goldfarb puts it, HE WUZ FRAMED!

Well, it’s either that or Scott and Dorsey were honest men who collaborated to convict Frank because they were convinced he was the murderer. Goldfarb’s desire to malign them instead makes him just another in a long line of Frank apologists, willing to say or do whatever is necessary to exonerate Frank, inverting reality, defaming and even framing others in the process.

Why? What are their motives? I think it’s out of care for their own kind, to help a member of their tribe, to help their tribe, to help themselves as members of that tribe. The jewish reaction to the murder of Mary Phagan is a sterling example of ethnic solidarity, of typical jewish behavior.

There are reasons to believe Frank was guilty which stand apart from any supposed malfeasance by Scott or Dorsey.

100 Reasons Leo Frank Is Guilty, published at The American Mercury on 26 April 2013, is more like 100-plus paragraphs which fall into a handful of main categories. Among the two themes in the first 50-odd points is the one I’ve focused on this installment and the last – manipulation of the investigation, in particular via private investigators.

19. Almost immediately after the murder, pro-Frank partisans with the National Pencil Company hired the Pinkerton detective agency to investigate the crime. But even the Pinkertons, being paid by Frank’s supporters, eventually were forced to come to the conclusion that Frank was the guilty man. (The Pinkertons were hired by Sigmund Montag of the National Company at the behest of Leo Frank, with the understanding that they were to “ferret out the murderer, no matter who he was.” After Leo Frank was convicted, Harry Scott and the Pinkertons were stiffed out of an investigation bill totaling some $1300 for their investigative work that had indeed helped to “ferret out the murderer, no matter who he was.” The Pinkertons had to sue to win their wages and expenses in court, but were never able to fully collect.

20. That is not to say that were not factions within the Pinkertons, though. One faction was not averse to planting false evidence. A Pinkerton agent named W.D. McWorth — three weeks after the entire factory had been meticulously examined by police and Pinkerton men — miraculously “discovered” a bloody club, a piece of cord like that used to strangle Mary Phagan, and an alleged piece of Mary Phagan’s pay envelope on the first floor of the factory, near where the factory’s Black sweeper, Jim Conley, had been sitting on the fatal day. This was the beginning of the attempt to place guilt for the killing on Conley, an effort which still continues 100 years later. The “discovery” was so obviously and patently false that it was greeted with disbelief by almost everyone, and McWorth was pulled off the investigation and eventually discharged by the Pinkerton agency.

21. It also came out that McWorth had made his “finds” while chief Pinkerton investigator Harry Scott was out of town. Most interestingly, and contrary to Scott’s direct orders, McWorth’s “discoveries” were reported immediately to Frank’s defense team, but not at all to the police. A year later, McWorth surfaced once more, now as a Burns agency operative, a firm which was by then openly working in the interests of Frank. One must ask: Who would pay for such obstruction of justice? — and why?

35. Pinkerton detective Harry Scott, who was employed by Leo Frank to investigate the murder, testified that he was asked by Frank’s defense team to withhold from the police any evidence his agency might find until after giving it to Frank’s lawyers. Scott refused.

46. In May, around the time of disgraced Pinkerton detective McWorth’s attempt to plant fake evidence — which caused McWorth’s dismissal from the Pinkerton agency — attorney Thomas Felder made his loud but mysterious appearance. “Colonel” Felder, as he was known, was soliciting donations to bring yet another private detective agency into the case — Pinkerton’s great rival, the William Burns agency. Felder claimed to be representing neighbors, friends, and family members of Mary Phagan. But Mary Phagan’s stepfather, J.W. Coleman, was so angered by this misrepresentation that he made an affidavit denying there was any connection between him and Felder. It was widely believed that Felder and Burns were secretly retained by Frank supporters. The most logical interpretation of these events is that, having largely failed in getting the Pinkerton agency to perform corrupt acts on behalf of Frank, Frank’s supporters decided to covertly bring another, and hopefully more “cooperative,” agency into the case. Felder and his “unselfish” efforts were their cover. Felder’s representations were seen as deception by many, which led more and more people to question Frank’s innocence. (Atlanta Georgian, May 15, 1913, “Burns Investigator Will Probe Slaying”)

The second main theme has to do with to circumstances and evidence, including Frank’s own words and behavior.

44. Several young women and girls testified at the inquest that Frank had made improper advances toward them, in one instance touching a girl’s breast and in another appearing to offer money for compliance with his desires. The Atlanta Georgian reported: “Girls and women were called to the stand to testify that they had been employed at the factory or had had occasion to go there, and that Frank had attempted familiarities with them. Nellie Pettis, of 9 Oliver Street, declared that Frank had made improper advances to her.

The image is from The Atlanta Constitution › 13 July 1913, via The American Mercury. The caption reads:

Detective Harry Scott (in Panama hat) of the Pinkertons, who played the hunch that Jim Conley, the negro, knew something of the girls murder. The accompanjing figure is Detective John Black, of police headquarters, whose work in operation with the Pinkerton man did much to solve the crime. Great dependence will be put in their testimony at the coming trial of Leo Frank, charged with the murder of Mary Phagan.

 
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