The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-09-09
At the Finish.
ately dor

T may be that in the Dreyfus case
the die will be cast even before the
news pages for this mornings edi-
ton of the Standard are closed At
this hour. well beyond midnight, the
known fact is that the famous case is
reaching its climax. The nights early
news was to the effect that a conclu-
sion may be reached and the fate of
the prisoner decreed before the people
living in our part of the world are well
started on the routine of Saturdays
daily life. Quite possible it is, however,
that the final deliberations may pro-
long the hours that intervene before
the decision reached at Rennes is an
nounced.
1t has not been possible for the
American public to draw intelligent
conclusions from the progress of the
Dreyfus trial or to make reasonably
safe forecasts respecting it's outcome.
The summaries of the proceedings that
have been furnished for the use of the
American press are undoubtedly a
faithful resume of, what has been said
and done in the court room at Rennes
but the methods of procedure are so
unlike those to which we are accus-
toned as to make the reports of the
trial confusing or, often, to present
them to American judgment more like
a travesty than a carefully conducted
trial
To be sure, the reading public in the
United States has more than sus-
picion that the court intends to find
Dreyfus guilty, or that, at any rate,
these judges are not at all disposed to
ascertained truth. Or, to put it in
palmer form, prevailing opinion seems
to be that these judges if they dare to
do it, will find Dreyfus guilty-they will
be guided not at all by the facts which
the trial has brought out, but by the
relative degree of courage they happen
to possess to defy the worlds public
opinion, at the moment when they
reach the climax. The world at large
is prepared to hear that the decision is
against the prisoner; if it is the other
way, the world will simply conclude
that, in the end, considerations drawn
wholly from expediency, prompted the
tribunal to abstain from doing that
which, to all appearances, it had fully
| intended to do.
Whichever way the decision runs, it
is not at all probable that France will
have heard the last of the Dreyfus case
when the decision now momentarily
awaited is made public. Undoubtedly
there will be more of it. Agitators of
every ilk are waiting to take advantage
of the connection that will follow. The
French military service is alive with
disturbers who in case of an acquittai
will be ready to foster disturbances. On
the other hand, the prisoner has back
ers who never will yield, and even
within government circles are those
who will help these friends of Dreyfus
to foment new troubles.
To all appearance, American public
opinion is that Dreyfus is the victim
of heinous outrages. His vindication
would be hailed in our country with
almost universal satisfaction. If he is
condemned, that will be regarded as
the outcome of one more intrigue in the
confusing web of conspiracy which
| from the first has had Dreyfus for its
victim. That is to say, we do not be-
lieve that an assertion by the tribunal
at Rennes to the effect that the pris-
oner is guilty will convince the Ameri-
can public that in fact he is guilty as
| charged.