The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-09-22
ZOLA'S LETTER.
Full Text of the Novelist's EpistIe to
Nine. Dreyfus.

MmS- OE5y1us
New York, Sept. 22-The Journal and
Advertiser prints a dispatch from Paris
giving the full text of Emile zola's let
ter TO Nine. Dreyfus, as follows:
Dear Madame:-Your husband and
those who defended him have been ex-
posed to the vilest insults and even to
bodily injury. For my part, there are
organs belonging to the gutter press
and men so tainted with moral dirt
that I have struck them from my life,
from my memory. For me they are no
more. have driven them completely
from my thoughts as if never had al
ready swallowed them.
1T is such forgetfulness of atrocious
insults that recommend to the inno-
cent man who has suffered the wrongs.
He is so much apart, so far avobe
them all, that they should not be able
to reach him. May he come to life again
under your care, and under the clear
sunshine of universal sympathy shown
for him.
Peace be to the martyr who has such
need of repOse, and around him now, in
retreat, may there be nothing but love
and caresses. AS for US, madame. we
shall continue to fight. We shall to-
morrow go on with the struggle for
justice just as sternly as we pursued it
yesterday We shall exact rehabilita-
tiOn of the innocent man less for the
sake of him, who has already so much
glory, than for France, which would
assuredly be killed by this excess of in
fanny.
Our task will be the regeneration Of
France in the eyes of the Universe,
which will take place when the in
famous judgment has been quashed. A
great country cannot live without JUS
tice, and ours will remain in mourning
just as long as the stain of insult is
levelled at the highest jurisdiction and
the violation of the most primitive
rights shall remain.
1.-The social fabric crumbles when the
guarantee of law no longer exists, and
there is in this violation of right, such
an element of insolence and bravado so
impudent that we cannot ignore it. We
cannot bury body secretly without
showing our shame to our neighbours
The whole world has seen and heard,
and it is before the whole world that
PREPARATION should take place. To de-
sire a France without honor is crimi-
nal.
without doubt foreigners will come
to our exhibition. They will overflow
Paris, just as numbers are attracted to
a fair by the sound of music and flare
of lamps; but should that satisfy our
pride, should we not value esteem as
highly as the money of the outside
world? We shall exhibit our science,
our art and our industry.
Should we dare to exhibit our JUS
tice one can imagine Devils Island re-
constructed and exhibited. For me the
shame of it is intOlerable. I don't IN
derstand how the exhibition can be
opened unless France takes her rank
again among the nations. When honor
has been restored formally to the con-
demned man honor will be restored to
France-nOt before.
ALLOW me to say in conclusion, mad
anne, that you may depend on those who
have restored to your husband his free
dom to restore to him his honor. Not
one of US will give up the fight. We
know well that we fight for justice and
for our country. The splendid brother
of the condemned man will again set
the example of courage, wisdom and
justice.
I'VE have not been able all at once to
restore your husband to you, freed from
lying accusations We ask yet a little
patience, trusting that your children
will not be much older before their
name shall be legally purged of all
bIemish.
Poor children, I see them again in
the arms of their father. 1 know with
delicacy, you have kept them in COM
plete ignorance. They believed their
father away on journey, and when
they became inquisitive at long alb
sence, what could you tell them when
his innocence was as yet only believed
in by one or twO-your heart must have
broken.
But in these last few weeks, when
could have wished that you had taken
your two children by the hand and con-
Quoted them to the prison in Rennes,
that they might have had forever in
their minds the picture of their fathers
heroism. You could have told them
all that he had unjustly suffered, what
moral grandeur was his, with what
tenderness they should love him, in or
der to make him forget Ubiquitous men
with their little souls.
They would have benefited by this
demonstration of manly virtue. 1t is
not now too late. Some evening, under
the lamp, and in the peace of family,
their father can take them upon his
knees and tell them the tragic history.
1t is necessary that they should know,
in order that they may respect and
adore him as he deserves. When he has
spoken they will know that there is
not in the world a great herO-martyr
whose suffering has so profoundly
touched mems hearts. They will be
proud of him, and will bear his name
with glory as the name of a very brave
man, who has borne himself sublimely
under the most frightful suffering
which fraud and cowardice could in
dict-
THE day will come when the son and
daughter, not of the condemned man,
but of his prosecutors, will have cause
to blush. Accept, madame, my pro-
foundest respect. (Signed)
II