New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1900-01-06
DE4LJNG WITH FRENCH TRAITORS

The French Ministry continues to do well. 1t
was put into Office to save the Republic" from
the menace of the Dreyfus case. 1t accomplished
that task, if not altogether had been hoped,
at least with prOmptness with undoubted hon
esty with courage and, we may we'll believe,
with wise discretion perhaps wiser than that
of its critics. Prophecies abounded that, having
settled that case, it would resign or be turned
out. These have not been fulfilled. Indeed, on
the completion of that one task NJ. Waldeck-
Rousseau and his colleagues might well have de-
clared that they had as yet scarcely begun their
work of reform. They have proceeded without
delay and without faltering, and with, 1t is most
agreeable TO record, the general approval OF the
French nation, to correct other abuses. to root
out other evils and to strike down unsparingly
other enemies of the Republic. Evidently they
consider their mission of saving the Republic
not accomplished so long as single domestic
enemy of the Republic remains in action. In
that they are to be accounted right. Whether
through timorousness or nervousness or an ex-
aggerated regard for freedom of speech and
ton the Government of France has often toler
ated reasonable conspiracies against the Re
public which might well have been objects of
its most severe repression The monstrous Oc-
currences of the past year or two at length
brought its tolerance to an end. The day of
reckoning has come. 1t is high time.
There can be no complaint that the High
Court which has dealt with the traitors Derou-
lGde Guerin and the rest has acted hastily,
harshly or arbitrarily. 1t gave the men deliber-
ate and fair trial 1t showed the utmost posi-
BILE degree of tolerance for their mannerless an
tics And in it's final judgments it has shown
ample discrimination and sense of justice. There
has been no omnibus condemnation. Some have
boon vii tad a1OnittQ1
convicted the sentences have been applied with
fine discretion We might add that sense of
humor has been brought into play. For what
could be finer than the sentencing of Guerin, the
mad butcher of Fort Chabrol,' to confinement
in real fort and the sending Of Deroulede, the
professional patriot into exile TO be a man
without a country?
There are, of course renewed predictions of
the speedy fall of the Ministry. They may be
verified French Ministries are not long lived,
nor are their lives always commensurate in
length with the value OF their services TO the
Republic. There can be no doubt that all the hos
tile forces will be leagued together, when Parlia-
ment reassembles, with bond of nothing more
than hatred, to compass If possible the down
fall of NJ Waldeck- Rousseau and his Cabinet
just as the leaders Of those forces have been
acting together if not conspring for the over
throw of the Republic itself In the case
they have not succeeded, and there Is good
ground for hope that they will not succeed in
the other. 1t has been made perfectly plain
that attacks upon the Government are attacks
upon the Republic, that Derouede, for example,
in his eDmity against NJ Loubet. was really aim
ing TO overthrow the whole system Of which NJ.
Loubet is the head and supplant it with some
form Of military or dynastic despotism. That
fact seems to be pretty generally realized now