The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1899-09-15
DREYFUS AS HE EALLY Is.
Personal Traits Made Him Unpopular
and an Easy Victim.

$500 SNoA III u teI
And now for a word about Captain Drey-
fus personally. Let us, for once, be frank
about him and look fairly at him, rid of
the covering of sentiment and pity with
which it has been natural that he should
have been shrouded all this time.
When the world first saw him, through
the eyes Of many able correspondents as he
Rennes his appearance shocked the eyes and
minds of every one.
That a man at the age Of ~thirty-nine
should look older than many men of seven
ty, with his chalky face, wasted frame and
thin white hair, was so pitiful a proof or
all hat he had suffered that nothing but
sheer compassion controlled every pen which
wrote about him.
His voice. when he first used it, was
SO nearly the shrek of a bird or the out
cry of a WOUNDED animal that it tore the
hearts of all who heard Ii.
But remember that days and weeks have
gone by and We have seen Captain Drey-
fus six or seven hours a day and have
heard him speak a score of times, so that
We have become accustomed to his face and
voice and manner, and are able to look
upon him as a man of flesh rather than as
at first a symbol of suffering such as Gt
seems TO many has come to but one his
toric figure in the past, and that one not
wholly human.
Now, when we hear newcomer after new
conner declare that they are sorry they have
seen him and that they have destroyed
the ecstacy of their pity for him by study
Ing his appearance, we can calmly consider
the criticism they pass upon him.
~ IL iOt oHu HcNcI q nave OCCh q
good-looking man. His face is a sharp
one. 1t comes, hatchet-like, to a point at
the nose. 1t has little bead-like eyes that
are far too close together for what We
would call a frank and open countenance.
In a word, it is a shrewd face and seems
TO belong to a man who should nave been
able to keep himself out of such a mess
as he has fallen into. Perhaps, since he
has had this misfortune. his face may belle
his character.
The note or tone of his voice has great
ly changed, and We are able now to say
that he speaks with a full, round, manly
tone, such as a strong-charactered, vigor-
Gus persons should always sound. That
first note of his was the rending OF years
I'm silence, the overcoming of years of dis
use, or rust, SO to speak, in his throat
Out of the trial has come the patent PROOF
that Captain Dreyfus was never the arch
angel of sweetness and light which the
popular imagination has made him.
There has not been said against him a
single word which affects his moral charac-
ter or entities him to so much as a sip OF
the cup of bitterness which he has been
made to drain.
He is simply shown to have been un-
popular and, for the first time, we begin to
see why ii was that if circumstances re-
general staff, where Captain Dreyfus was
serving. it should have been he who was
led to the altar.
He was exceedingly vain and boastful,
and 50 curious to find out what every
body else was doing and what was in every
cupboard and envelope that IL is easy to
see how appropriately first fastened on him,
ana then suspicion strangled him.
He was forever Dragging of how easy
tciled and struggled to master; he cease
lessly boosted of his wealth to poor
devils who had nothing but the meager
pay which the French dole out to their
soldiers: he dinned into their ears de-
scriptions of his luxurious surroundings at
home and of his affairs with a class OF
women with whom his poorer colleagues
had not means 70 associate. though they
may have had the wish