The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-11-30
CURIOUS DREYFUS CASE
FRENCHMEN DO NOT CARE wHETH-
Err THE MAN is INNOCENT OR NOT.
Their Bitter Hatred OF the Jews and
of the Army Has Swallowed Up
All Humane Feelings.
G. w. Stevens. in london Mail.


Dreyfus?
You must not ask me. for I know nothing
at all about it. My only reason for writing
of it with this sole qualification is that
mine is exactly the state of mind of most
Frenchmen
All L know about it you have very
briefly. 1t seems that Dreyfus was a traitor
and Esterhazy forged the ''bordereau." and
Picquart forged the petit bleu." and Henry
forged the ''preuve absolute" and Du Patty
de Clam forged the "dossier secret" and
five successive ministers of war, with sun
dry chiefs of the general staff, connived at
the whole business. That is the impression
that remains ON the confused mind Of the
stranger. Also, that the prime minister
opens the private letters of the German
ambassadors daughter, and the Kaiser
wrote letters to Dreyfus beginning my
dear ALI"
That is ALL 1 don't In the least know
whether Dreyfus is guilty, and don't care;
1t is not my affair. And that is exactly
the state of mind of France.
They don't care?" you ask in amaze
ment No. they don't care a sou. Then
why all this trouble about Dreyfus?" That
is where, very naturally, English people so
wrong. The guilt or innocence of Dreyfus
has nothing whatever to do with the case.
In England it is incredible; in England it
would be impossible. Nothing arouses Eng
liSh feeling like a miscarriage of justice,
least, a possibly innocent man-is SUFFERING
a cruel penalty for vile crime cost what
1t may we should cry, he must get justice.
We should cheerfully topic over the Brit
iSh constitution, If necessary, to get the
wrong put right.
If, In addition to this, we thought there
was reason to think that great number of
the chiefs of the state and of the army
We're in a kind of conspiracy, either TO
bring about or to gloss over such mis-
carriage of justice, that would only make
us the more resolved to see to the bottom
of the whole matter and wash out the
whole stable.
That would be our state of mind; but
until you realize that 1t is utterly foreign
and incOmprehensiDle to French ways of
thinking, you need not trouble to read any
thing more about DreytuS,
Dreyfus is innocent" you may say to a
"On the whole, think he probably is. if it
were worth while going into Such an old
question. But if ! had my way / would
have had him made away with years ago
before he had brought all this disorganiZa
tion upon our country His supporters are
the little France party, the Professionals, the
Jews, the foreigners-everybody whom the
patriotic Frenchman naturally distrusts.
The people that his supporters attack are
the heads of the army which every good
Frenchman naturally defends. The Drey-
fusards have brought us SO low that all the
world can insult US. Oh, yes, if l had my
way J would shoot Dreyfus and be done
with it.
NOT LOGICAL.
OF course, the Dreyfusard would reply
that these evil results are due not to his
party, but to the anti-Drey fusards. ''If
ministers and generals have condemned the
innocent, broken the law suborned per-
jury and connived at forgery 1t is not our
fault that the state is troubled when we
denounce them, but theirs who have made
denunciatiOn necessary"
Such are the most reasonable arguments
you hear on either side. but you really hear
very little of them. The question of the
guilt or innocence of Dreyfus has long been
left behind; he has become merely battle
cry. Inc question OF responsibility for the
troubles of the state Is almost left behind,
too. And now the Dreyfus question has
come to be more like an early Christian
has ever been so bitter as the hatred of the
orthodox for the hereto and Of the hereto
for the orthodox. The hatred of Dreyfusard
for anti-Dreyfusard and contrariwise is
quite religious in it's fervor-the same fury
of vituperation, the same persecution, the
same severing of friendships and ties of
Dreyfus, T" is enough to save or damn.
The rival factions have come now to
wider issues than the guilt or innocence of
one man or even a gang. They now take
sides according as they hate the army or
hate the Jews.
You would say the army, as a whole-be-
ing France-was hardly a fair mark for
hatred Least of all would you expect
Frenchmen to hate it. military people
which almost every street in Paris reminds
them, thrilling percepubly when a regiment
but marches down the street-an occurrence
of every day, which awakens no kind Of
France is the last country in the world TO
go army batting
Vet o% IL 4Io
side. Just because the army is France, be-
cause every Frenchman must pass through
its ranks it accumulates much unpopularity.
The Soclalistic workingmen Of the towns
hate 1T on principle. The peasants, it Is COM
plained-M. Drumont, the Jew Halter, the
army worshiper, has said it himself-return
to their villages diseased in body and mind
by the debauches of garrison life with no
respect left for God or woman. spoiled for
nurtured youth the army is often a purga-
tory-in French it would be called a CAL
vary. He is at the mercy Of sergeants, and
the French sergeant, like all men, and espe-
cially all Frenchmen, raised from nothing
to a position of small authority. can be a
brutal tyrant. Many of them come out OF
the army with their patriotism utterly dead,
and say so openly. Even the keenest old SOL
diers will tell you that the poor food and
out finished soldiers in one, two or three
life
THE ARMY CRITICISED.
These are not my criticisms, and I have
no idea whether or how far they are well
grounded; they are all the criticisms of
Frenchmen. Not that criticism is exactly
the word for the way Frenchmen generally
put it. Undoubtedly the army has been
abused most violently and is every day;
that, you will remember. was the question
over which NJ, Brisson rode for his fall
But the hatred of the a7rny-at any rate
the violence with which it finds utterance-
is hardly comparable with the hatred of the
Jews. How far the masses of the French
No Westerner naturally likes an Oriental:
there is always an underlined barrier of mlI-
tual repugnance between them; but that
kind Of strangeness is nothing like the
gnashing fury OF your true Partisan anti
Jew.
l do not think it would ever have oc-
CURED to the Paris workman by himself to
imagine that the Jews are the root of all
evil. But 1t has occurred to NJ. Drumont and
others to put the case to him in that light
and he is ready enough to see it, What any
sane man expects to effect by the anti
Jewish crusade-other than obvious person.
al ends-I hardly know. tt is quite conceiV-
able that body of astute men knit to-
unites the Jews might get ex-
cessive power into their hands in a weakly
governed country like France. Whether this
is actually the case at this moment l do
not know enough TO tell. That they have
given vast sums Of money and energy to
but that is only natural.
However, with reason without it, the
fight against Jews goes on with almost in
conceivable ferocity. / wish / had space TO
iibre Parole and Anti-Juif One of their
merry conceitS Is to spell Jewish names