The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1903-04-25
DREYFUs ASKS REHEARING.
Lengthy Appeal Made to the French
Minister of War.

/
D ARTS April 22HAlfred Dreyfus has
submitted to Minister of War
Andre a lengthy letter, in which
he asks for reopening of his case by
an investigation by the minister as
/ the supreme head of military justice.
| The letter, which is dated Paris, April
mas been living quietly here for some
time. 1t promises to cause ire
mendous agitation among the various
! elements of the political groups for
and against Dreyfus. The first part
OF the letter is an earnest plea that
the court which condemned him at
Rennes was improperly Influenced,
first, by the annotated document
ascribed to President William, and,
second, by the false testimony of one
of the witnesses, Czernuski.
AFTER arguing on the extent to which
these contributed to his condemnation,
Dreyfus recalls in graphic terms the
long series of horrors to which he has
been subjected. The letter throughout
is couched in a highly dramatic style,
which is likely to make it one of the
notable papers of the case.
1t refers to EsterhaZy as zone VINO
stands before the entire world as the
culDrit."
An Earnest Plea.
One of the leading passages. showing
the rhetorical style, is as follows:
Il will not recall, Mr.. Minister, what
have endured since 1894. Picture to
yourself the horrors of a soldier whose
whole life was devoted to duty, to
work, to loyalty and to profound de-
votion for his country, and who in an
instant is stripped of his good name
and despoiled of the honor of his wife
md h c a11i
soldier is subjected to horrible suffer-
ings. They seek to crush him physic-
ally, to annihilate him morally. He is
absolutely innocent of all crime and
struggles in vain to penetrate the mys-
terry, proclaiming his innocence and
struggling with all the forces of his
mind and body for that supreme pleas
ure of vindicating his good name and
character. Days, months, years pass
thus in most cruel agony, amid the
tortures of murderous climate. AT
last he was brought back to France,
the guilty one is discovered and the
soldier hears himself proclaimed in
nocent by those who before reviled him
as traitor. 1t was thus, Mr.. Minister,
that I hoped to see my martyrdom
ended
But alas! # returned to find
the devotion of friends who had battled
deadly hatreds had been Embossed.
Demand for Justice.
"In the processes of 1894 I was
stabbed in the back. / cannot imagine
how such conditions can prevail
through falsehood and deception, but so
it was, and my second condemnation
was but an aggravated reaffirmation of
what occurred in 1894. When the guilty
one was known and unmasked and
EsterhaZy was recognized as the au-
thor of the treason, the same men who
had cheated justice in 1894 again sought
in 1899 to cheat Justice for the second
time by the same criminal maneuvers.
Conscious of these methods, the gov
eminent of the republic will not permit
itself to keep in prison one who IS
known to be innocent.
I'm constant thought of ultimate le-
gal revision, 1 have reassembled little
by little all the divergent elements of
testimony contributing to my convic-
ton l have scorned calumnies and
falsehoods. 1 have remained silent
with the firm conviction that justice
would surely have its day of triumph.
The victim of criminal tactics and vio-
lation of the law twice committed
against me, I now address myself to
the supreme chief of military justice,
and, supporting myself by new facts
which have been elected and by the
existence of the pretended bordereau
annotated by Emperor William, beg
to ask that you institute an inquiry,
first. upon the uses MADE OF this false
document at Rennes and the conse-
quences it produced on those render
ing judgment; second, upon the false
and fraudulent testimony of Czernuskf
at Rennes.'
After a deferentiaI salutation the let
ter is signed alfred Dreyfus."