The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1899-08-08
THE ROMANCE OF THE GREAT
TRIAL.

The second trial Of Captain Drey.
fus has commenced. What its outcome
will be no man with any assurance of
correctness dare forecast. That the
opinion of the world and the sentiment
of the French President and his Cabinet
holds to his innocence counts for some
pliance Of the corrt-martial. That the
Court of Cessation distinctly declared
that Dreyfus was not the author of the
bordereau, and sent him to new trial
with almost a mandate for a verdict
of acquittal, cuts but small figure,
That appellate court has distinctly de,
clared that the man shall be tried on
the bordereau count alone is nothing,
for we are already told that the ordeY
will be disobeyed by the new court
martial.
Under the law of France the accused
must prove himself innocent, but now
that Dreyfus has been held guiltless by
the highest court of the Republic he
stands on a different footing and upon
the state the burden Of proof rests. To
Americans it is astounding to learn that
man merely accused is presumed
guilty until he proves his innocence. To
us such presumption is worse than
merciless. it is inhuman.
Aside from the principal himself. thA
most romantic figure in the trial is tha
witness, Lieutenant Colonel Georges
Picquart This splendid specimen Of
honest manhood Is an Alsatian now
aged As years. AS youth he was
driven from his native soil by the Ger.
mans. Inflamed by his wrongs he en-
tered the army and rapidly rose to high
rank by virtue of his native ability, his
courage and his sterling integrity. In
1895 he. became the chief of the depart
ment of information on the general
staff AS such he had possession OF the
secret archives of the staff.
One day in examining these paperA
he was struck by the similarity OF the
handwriting in documents filed by Es-
terhazy. and that in the bordereau. He
instituted an investigation and was as.
founded by the proof positive that Es-
terhazy and not Dreyfus was the au.
thor of that scrap Of paper upon which
Dreyfus had been condemned. Fur
Their research revealed positive evidence
that Dreyfus was the victim of a plot
Matched in and carried out by the gen.
eral staff of which he (PicquarD was
a member. His honesty of soul re-
volted and he went to his chiefs and
disclosed what he had discovered. He
was fatty told to close his mouth or
it would be worse for him.
I'm few days he was summarily re-
moved and sent to the. border on 8
tour of inspection. This completed he
was ordered to Algiers to keep him out
of the way and promote his death. Be
fore leaving he called upon his attor-
ney and told him sufficient, without
violating his oath to the staff, to en-
able the attorney to defend his honor
If he never returned. For this he was
arrested, court-martialed and sent to
prison to await decision in his case.
There he lay for a year.
One day the Colonel was notified that
he would be removed to a. distant fort
ress and be placed in dungeon. He
was called before the military court to
receive formal notice of the change and
undergo some examination.
In the meanwhile Esterhazy had
confessed. Henry had committed sui
eide, and the clerk Of Henry had like
wise taken his life. these two being the
tools under compulsion in forging doc
uments to bolster the conviction Of
Dteyfus. Before the court Colonel
Picquart stood and with uplifted hand
said: IF I shall be found dead, and if
there shall be discovered in my cell
the rope of Lemecier-Picard a staff
spy who was reported to have hanged
himself, or the razor of Henry, shall
have been assassinated. I am not the
kind of man who commits suicide"
Picquart was sent to his dungeon be-
cause he was an honest man. To one
of the staff who appealed to him to
reverse his statements on the ground
that Dreyfus was only a Jew, he re-
piled: "He is a man: he is suffering
innocentIy. I can afford to suffer also
if through me justice is accom-
plished."
Then came the decision of the Court
of Cassa ton on the first charges filed
against Picquart, but new ones on
other, counts were preferred. Next
came, the decision of the Court of Cas-
sation that Esterhazy did write the
bordereau, and that Dreyfus did not
On that it was impossible longer in the
face of an offended world to hold the
gallant Alsatian in prison, and he was
liberated This man knows the whole
truth about Dreyfus. Will he be per-
mitted to tell it?
Those who dolorously tell of the pitt
able condition of the American cam
paign in Luzon are either self-deceived
or woefully misinformed. We hold
Manila: Aguinaldo does not have the
shadow of a hope Of regaining it. We
have all the chief ports under block
ade. Aguinaldo has no navy with
which to break it. We control the
/. rreat bay OF Manila and dominate the
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