Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 11.pdf/29

 12

of that race. The greatest equity judge in the history of the English Court of Chan cery, with the single exception of Lord Hardwicke, is not only admitted, but as serted, by the English bar to have been Sir George Jessel, an orthodox Jew. Judah P. Benjamin, an exiled American, though born a British subject, placed himself in a few years at the very head of the bar of Eng land, and left behind him a work on a department of the commercial law which will survive as a masterpiece for generations to come. Members of that race will be found in the front rank of the legal profes sion in every American city. Simon- Sterne, one of the first lawyers of New York, was the secretary of Mr. Tilden's committee of one hundred that overthrew the Tweed ring. Edward Lauterbach is, at the time of this writing, in the front rank of a movement to preserve the independence of the judiciary of New York from the control of a political "boss." Any attempt at a catalogue of eminent American lawyers would include such names as Julius Rosenthal and Adolph Moses, of Chicago; Nathan Frank and David Goldsmith, of St. Louis; Napthaly, of San Francisco; Jonas and Lazarus, of New Orleans; an honorable list which would reach into every considerable city of the union. Nevertheless, because he was a Jew, it was easy in France for the real criminals to make a scapegoat of Dreyfus, or for his co-criminals, if he was guilty, to unload the whole responsibility for the crime or crimes upon him. Among the documents extracted from a pocket or a waste basket in the apartment of Major S., the German military attache, when it was burglariously entered, as already stated, was a paper giving the details of the last plan which had been determined upon by the French high staff for the mobilization of their armies on their eastern frontier in the event of a war with the Dreibund. This document was in the handwriting of some one, and was signed with the initial " D."

It is inconceivable that any one engaging in a treasonable correspondence would use his own handwriting; it is impossible to im agine that a member of the Hebrew race would be so reckless or simple-minded. The fact that this document, called the "Bordereau]' ] was not typewritten, but was chirographic, almost demonstrates the inno cence of Dreyfus. Notwithstanding this, Dreyfus was charged with being the author of it, and upon this charge was tried by court-martial. The photograph of the doc ument, which was taken in the apartment of Major S., was not produced in court against Dreyfus; neither he nor his counsel was permitted to see it. What was produced was a copy of it —-we understand, a pen copy, an attempted facsimile made by Esterhazy. Upon the objection of Dreyfus and his counsel, Maitre Demange, the court, as is the custom with military tribunals, re tired for deliberation. In their ante-room the secretary of war, General Mercier, visited them, and there exhibited to them the pho tographic copy of the Bordereau, and made explanations to them such as cannot be secretly made to judges, even by a govern ment official, in the just, orderly and decent administration of justice.2 Upon the inspec tion of the document and the explanations thus made to them in secret, they convicted Captain Dreyfus. After a conviction so in famous, so contrary to every obvious sugges tion of judicial propriety, of the victim whom they had determined to immolate, he was taken out before a battalion of troops, paraded in front of the £eole Militaire, and there publicly degraded from his military office. The insignia of his rank, even his buttons, were cut off, his sword was broken, and he was sentenced to imprisonment for life upon a hot and malarial island off the coast of French Guiana. A proceeding so outrageous, when related to English and 1 A word meaning a detailed memorandum. 2 Some of the accounts say that the visit was made by some of the official subordinates of General Mercier.