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carrying out the true principles of our democracy. We work in a spirit of self-respect for ourselves and of goodwill toward others; in a spirit of love for and of infinite faith in mankind. We do not blindly refuse to face the evils that exist; or the shortcomings inherent in humanity; but across blundering and shirking, across selfishness and meanness of motive, across short-sightedness and cowardice, we gaze steadfastly toward the far horizon of golden triumph.

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If you will study our past history as a nation you will see we have made many blunders and have been guilty of many shortcomings, and yet that we have always in the end come out victorious because we have refused to be daunted by blunders and defeats have recognized them, but have persevered in spite of them. So it must be in the future. We gird up our loins as a nation, with the stern purpose to play our part manfully in winning the ultimate triumph, and, therefore, we turn scornfully aside from the paths of mere ease and idleness, and with unfaltering steps tread the rough road of endeavor, smiting down the wrong and battling for the right as Greatheart smote and battled in Bunyan's immortal story.

LABORI

FERNAND LABORI was born in 1859, and after receiving a liberal education

was admitted to practice at the Paris bar. For a good many years he remained unknown outside the ranks of his profession. His opportunity came when Émile Zola published an address to President Faure, accusing certain officials and army officers of conspiring to convict Captain Alfred Dreyfus of selling military secrets to Germany. The result was Zola's arrest for libel. At the trial which followed he was defended so ably by Labori that, when the latter emerged from the court-room, he had become one of the most celebrated lawyers in France. At the second trial of Captain Dreyfus before the courtmartial held at Rennes in August, 1899, Labori was employed to defend the accused, and on the 14th of the month was shot on his way to the courtroom and severely wounded. In spite of the wound, he appeared before the court-martial after little more than a week's absence, and conducted the case to the end.

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THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST DREYFUS

EFLECT what the word of a minister of war must

mean to military judges, whatever their good faith. The superior pledges his word, and they take it. But what an abyss of iniquity! If, again, such things were to occur amid the storms of war, it would be a different thing. What, then, matters one man's life, or a little more or less of justice? But these things took place in a state of peace when the country was perfectly secure. Or, again, if our army were an army of mercenaries, soldiers only, accepting the responsibilities of the military trade, which in that case is only a trade, perhaps then I would bow. But this is a matter of the national army; a matter that concerns all the young men of the nation, who

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are liable to have to appear before a military tribunal; a matter that concerns your sons, gentlemen..

Your sons, innocent or guilty, are liable to be sum moned before a military tribunal. You see that we introduce no venom into the debate. You see that the rights of the nation, the liberty of all, civilization itself is at stake; and if the country, when it shall know the truth and its full significance, does not revolt in indignation, I shall be unable to understand it.

That, gentlemen, is why it is necessary that those who understand and measure the gravity of this affair should take the floor; why it is necessary that all men of goodwill, all true liberals, those who believe in the innocence of Dreyfus and those who do not, those who know and those who do not know, should unite in a sort of sacred phalanx to protest in the name of eternal morality; and that is what M. Zola has done.

In spite of closed doors, gentlemen, and by the great mass of Frenchmen who could not know at what price the verdict had been secured, Dreyfus might have been forgotten. But there was a little fireside in mourning where memory remained, and with memory hope. This fireside was that of the Dreyfus family, in regard to which so many calumnies have been spread; and, since this court refused to hear M. Lalance, let me read you what he has just said and published in the newspapers. I read from "Le Journal des Débats":

"The Dreyfus family consists of four brothers-Jacques, Léon, Mathieu, and Alfred. They are closely united-one soul in four bodies. In 1872 Alsatians were called upon to choose their nationality. Those who desired to remain Frenchmen had to make a declaration and leave the coun

The eldest,

try. The three younger so chose, and left. Jacques, who was past the age of military service, and who, moreover, had served during the war in the Legion of Alsace-Lorraine, did not so choose, and was declared a German. He sacrificed himself in order to be able, without fear of expulsion, to manage the important manufacturing establishment which constituted the family estate. But he promised himself that, if he had any sons, they should all be Frenchmen. The German law, in fact, permits a father to take out a permit of emigration for a son who has reached the age of seventeen. This son loses his German nationality, and cannot re-enter the country until he is forty-five years old. Jacques Dreyfus had six sons. In 1894 the two elder were preparing for the Polytechnic School and Saint Cyr. After the trial they had to go away; their career was broken. Two other brothers were in the Belfort School. They were driven out. What was the father to do, knowing that his young brother had been unjustly and illegally condemned? Was he to change his name, as other Dreyfuses have done? Should he abandon his projects, and resolve to have his sons serve in the German army for a year, that they might then re-enter the paternal house, and live in a city where the family was respected, and where everybody pitied and es teemed it? Had he done that, no one would have thrown a stone at him. In 1895 and 1896 his third and fourth sons reached the age of seventeen. He said to them: 'My children, you are now to leave your father's house, never more to come back to it. Go to that country where your name is cursed and despised. It is your duty. Go.' And finally, in 1897, the father left his house, his business, and all his friends, and went to establish himself at Belfort, the city of which they wanted to make a fortress. He demanded French naturalization for himself and his two younger

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There you have a document to oppose to the floods of calumny and falsehood. In this family there were two

members whose convictions could not be shaken, M. Mathieu Dreyfus and Mme. Dreyfus, whose fidelity is perhaps the most striking evidence of the innocence of her husband, for she, indeed, must know the truth. Mme. Dreyfus had lived beside this man; she knew his daily life; she saw his attitude throughout the trial; she knew the absence of proof; she knew what you yourselves know now, gentlemen. And she had seen the perseverance and firmness of her husband in ascending this Calvary; his courage at the moment of degradation; his attitude, always the same, even up to the present moment.

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think it is indispensable that you should hear this cry, always the same, as strong as ever, in spite of the prolongation of the torture. I read you a letter from the Iles du Salut, dated September 4, 1897:

DEAR LUCIE—I have just received the July mail. You tell me again that you are certain of complete light. This certainly is in my soul. It is inspired by the rights that every man has to ask it, when he wants but one thing—the truth. As long as I shall have the strength to live in a situation as inhuman as it is undeserved, I shall write you to animate you with my indomitable will. Moreover, the late letters that I have written you are my moral testament, so to speak. In these I spoke to you first of our affection; I confessed also my physical and mental deterioration; but I pointed out to you no less energetically your duty. The grandeur of soul that we have all shown should make us neither weak nor vainglorious. On the contrary, it should ally itself to a determination to go on to the end, until all France shall know the truth and the whole truth. To be sure, sometimes the wound bleeds too freely, and the heart revolts. Sometimes, exhausted as I am, I sink under the heavy blows, and then I am but a poor human creature in agony and suffering. But my unconquered soul rises again,

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