El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1913-11-02

~ HE trial of Jew, Mende1 Bells,
at Kief, might be considered far
\ cial were it not so pathetic. The
man is not on trial for murder, but
for ritual murder" and with him
every Jew and Judaism is on trial If
the facts are Eue and if the accusa-
lions are correct, then Juraism and the
Jew should perish from the face of the
earth, and the sooner they do so the
better. If they be false, as false they
placed before the bar of public opinion
and counted with nations unworthy or
a place in this Goth century Of enlight-
ment. As JenlSin Lloyd Jones has said,
the quarrel is not between America
enlightenment and ignorance, between
enlightment and Ignorance between
liberty and oppression"
The Facts in the Case.
What are the facts of the case? On
March 25, 1911, the body of an II year
old boy, Andev Yushinsky, was found
cruelty murdered in the city Of Kfef,
Russia This boy was the child OF
criminals and often visited a playmate,
whose home was a rendezvous for bur-
glars. There seems little doubt that
the child was murdered by some mem
Der of this gang Of thieves, whose Sc
crets he had often heard and at the
time threatened to disclose Minschuk,
the chief Of the Kief detective bureau
at the time OF the arrest. declares, his
investigations had convinced him that
Mendel Bells was not the murderer of
the boy and that the boy was not muir
dered for ritual purposes" And for
this frank statement he was dismissed,
tried twice and finally convicted to
hard labor for one year. The president
of the court, now trying the case, in
an interview has said: The proofs
against Bells are weak. The witnesses
IT. -
life respectable people would entertain
nothing but utmost contmept for such
people"
Yet for the death of this child Mem
del Bells, a clerk in the brick yards,
was arrested for committing ritual
murder" For this crime he has been
kept in Jail two and a half years and
the trial is now in progress at Kief
Now Mendel Bells is a hard working
man, trying to rear a family on a SAL
airy Of IS week. Even in police rid
den antisemitic Kief, his reputation to
the time of his arrest has been above
reproach. And such an admission by
the police cannot be underestimate.
Every pretext is seized to make the life
of the Jew unbearable, since not every
Russian Jaw has the right to reside
in Kief, and had any ,pretext presented
itself Mendel Bells would have been
expelled long ago. His indictment on
this preposterOus charge forced even
one ant1semitic paper to mercilessly
assail the government.
Peculiar Legal Procedure.
Now 1t might be well to explain a
popularity of Russian law procedure.
When q man is arrested and accused of
a crime, the statements of the wit
nesses against him are not taken down
under oath Thus men are forced to
say just what the government desires
them to say; they will agree to many
things they know untrue simply to
court the favor of the officials and es-
cape discomfort. Upon such evidence
the accused is put in jail. When the
case is presented to court different
picture is apparent and the testimony,
as in this case is often directly opposed
to the original And for this reason.
The witnesses are sworn by their
priests These priests at the same time
tell them the meaning of an oath and
the terrible penalty for perjury. Thus