Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1898-02-09
THE DREYFuS TROUBLE.

THE DREYFUS TROUBLE.
The trial of Emile lola in connection
with the Dreyfus matter is, so far as
it has gone, more like an opera bouffe,
with a tragic undercurrent than any
thing else. Whether Capt. Dreyfus
was or was not guilty Of betraying
army secrets is uncertain since the
court that condemned him was secret,
and since has persistently refused to
give out the evidence on which he was
adjudged guilty, while its members
have refused to testify at the lola
trial. Beyond the fact that certain
discriminating unsigned paper was al
legged to be in his handwriting, there is
no other testimony against Dreyfus
that has been made public. On that
point experts in handwriting differed,
the first to whom the paper was sub
mitted declaring positively that it was
unlike the writing of Dreyfus, with
which he compared it. 1t was under
stood that information had been furn-
ished to the German government and
that Dreyfus was a spy in regular Ger
man pay. On the other hand, the Ger
man Emperor was reported to have
given the French President his per-
sonal assurance that Dreyfus had no
part in the alleged disclosures. The
court claimed to have other unques-
tionable proofs of his guilt, but never
divulged or even limited at the nature
of those proofs. Dreyfus was publicly
disgraced and sent into solitary con-
fnement on distant island, where he
has since remained a Gagged prisoner
cut off from communication with the
world he left behind.
Then came the Esterhazy incident
Suspicion was directed to him as the
writer of the discriminating paper,
and the friends of Dreyfus insisting
that Esterhazy should be tried, a mock
trial-it can scarcely be dignified with
any other name-was held. 1t was
announced in the beginning that moth
ing would affect the sentence of Drey-
fus. He was condemned justly, and
there could be no reopening of his
cas-. But if Esterhazy was the writer
of the paper, which was the only pub
licly admitted cause for the condem-
nation of Dreyfus. the punishment of
the latter was unjust. AS matter of
course Esterhazy was acquitted for
had he been found guilty how could
Dreyfus be kept imprisoned without
revealing some other ground for his
condemnation?
The determination Of the govern
ment and the army authorities to keep
Dreyfus imprisoned and to conceal the
evidence in his case naturally reused
suspicious that he had been made a
scapegoat for someone Of higher rank.
He was of Jewish origin and, there
fore, race prejudice was counted on
to counterfeit the demands of justice
and common sense. When the novel
list, lola, took up the case of Dreyfus
and proclaimed his purpose to secure
justice for him, even though the gov
eminent appeared determined to pun
ish the innocent in order to screen the
guilty, he was warned to keep quiet.
Instead he challenged the authorities
to bring the case to the courts and at
once furnished occasion by making di-
rect personal accusations against the
highest army authorities. He was in
dicted and is now on trial, but this has
had no effect on Zola's cause He is
defiant and insistent
The excitement in excitable France
has been intense. The race prejudice
against the Jews has spread through
France and even to Algiers.
To strengthen the case of the gov
eminent against Dreyfus it was al
legged that new evidence of his guilt
were discovered in the contents of a
waste paper basket at the German en-
bassy in Paris. Baron Won Bulow, the
German minister for foreign affairs,
made a solemn statement before a
committee of the Reichstag that not
only was the waste basket incident a
sheer invention. but that there had
never been relations of any kind be-
tv cen German representatives or
agents and Dreyfus. This was giving
an official lie direct" to the charge
on which Dreyfus was condemned. 1t
cannot but serve to strengthen lola
anG his adherents.
If the Kaiser should get up some
morning in a bad temper when the
French anti-Dreyfus papers are saying