Kansas City journal. [volume] (Kansas City, Mo.) 1897-1928, 1899-08-08
TRIAL WILL NOT END 1T.
Dreyfus Affair but an Episode In a
Gigantic Struggle In
France.


NEW YORK, Aug. IN. ]. Cornely. of
the Paris Figaro, cables to the Herald:
1.-THE Dreyfus affair will not be ended with
the trial at Rennes. Suppose Dreyfus Is
condemned. The adversaries of the army
will not abandon the campaign they have
started against it. and which, for that
matter, has not produced any appreciable
result, since it has not diminished by a
centime the appropriations made for mil
itary purposes, nor lightened the sacrifices
which the country gladly accepts for Its
army, nor interfered in the least degree
with the discipline that obtains in that
same army.
so, in the same way, the intellectuals'
who have reasoned out their conviction of
the prisoners innocence, will not renounce
that On the strength of a trial with closed
doors, secret documents or gratuitouS as
serverations. They want good current coin,
and to induce them to acquiesce IN a YER
dict of guilt it will be necessary to prove
to them by irrefutabe arguments that they
have been mistaken.
"If, on the other hand, Dreyfus is ac-
quilted, one must be excessively naive to
imagine that the people who have played
their last card in his guilt will accept
their failure without word and betake
hs % saEe Seer se saer luck nes
"The fact of the matter is that the Drey-
fus affair is only for few simple and
honest people like you and me; AS far as
sharpers and the immense crowd of their
dupes-the 'affaire Dreyfus' Is merely a
new episode in the stubborn fight they have
been waging for a quarter of a century to
possess themselves of the power they lost
by their blunders and imprudence.
THE political parties have raised their
heads and sniffed which way the wind is
blowing. The Boulangist coalition has been
renewed; the anti-Semites and Nationalist
being reconstructed; the Bonapartists come
out, followed by the Royalists cherishing a
fond hope of making the movement serve
their purposes.
"These parties are we'll aware that sue
cessful street risings are no longer possible,
and that, even We're they possible, they
would not be in favor of reaction. Popular
disturbances, however, would give the re-
actionists chance to gain control of the
army. But would it not be an even more
admirable plan to gain control of the army
without any street disturbances?
THAT is why the honor of the army
was Invented; the reason for the invention
of all those absurd and deceitful catch
phrases intended to persuade the man in
the street that the army has been dragged
in the mud and that it will only be re-
habilitated when, having become master of
the government, It can riddle with shot
who entertain doubts of the guilt of Drey-
fus.
We'll. that is preparing the way for civil
war. 1t is a criminal undertaking which
would dishorcr the army if it could pos
sibly prove successful.
And it is for this reason that the prey-
fus affair is rot merely the Dreyfus affair.
1t is a screen behind which are gathered
the anti-Semitic and Caesarean legions.
Now: as We have nothing and nobody
to put in the place of what now exists in
France, as the victors would necessarily
quarrel among themselves the day after
| their victory; as military governments are
always beIlicose governments. as the cam
paign that has lasted over two years has
shown us the intolerance, malice and want
of capacity Of all this rabble. with nothing
better to offer us than a renewal of the
revocation of the edict of Nantes or St.
Bartholomew or the dungeons of the In
| abaut to obtain an undeniable, patent and
| puSlic proof of the guilt of Dreyfus-or his