Show DREYFUS SENTENCE QUASHED Among the dispatches printed this morning is one from Paris that Drey fus will be accorded atrial having been sentenced without one and that the entire en-tire investigation will be reopened Friends of justice and believers in fair play everywhere will be glad to hear of this The courtmartial has been supreme I su-preme in France As a result justice has been ignored the rules of evidence have been disregarded and the rights of accused persons trampled down The arbitrary power ot the court martial has made this so Military tribunals tri-bunals are not necessarily unfair but they have greater opportunities to be so than have civil courts The right of the civil government to review and if deemed advisable to revoke the findings of the martial courts must be recognized in a republic re-public In France this right has been publc I denied and all who insisted upon it I were branded as traitors and threatened threat-ened with death Several times the court of cassation I assumed the authority strenuously denied by the military chiefs in relation rela-tion to the Dreyfus investigation Each time i was circumvented by the enemies ene-mies of civil power When the reopening of the case seemed seem-ed assured a month or six weeks ago the military governor of Paris ordered Colonel Picquart tried by courtmartiaJ There was only one object I was to put this brave and conscientious officer out of the way to dispose of him before his evidence could be produced by the court of cassation to justify a revision of the Dreyfus case The civil court summarily ordered a I stay of proceedings in the Picquart courtmartial This was on the 8th of December last Colonel Picquart has been confined for some time in the CherchMidl prison at Paris There is I hope ahead for both Dreyfus and Pic quart It is evident that the supremacy of the military power in France is losing los-ing ground It has not been many months since an order of reproval from I a civil court directed against a martial tribunal would have caused a riot French people are becoming partisan One class favors the army another the people In the event of revolution the former would have the arms and the latter the numbers But France may avert civil war if the army quits blustering the mob clamors for fair play and racial and creedal prejudice is curbed If acts of treason actually occurred a the court of cassation has ascertained ascertain-ed let the guilty parties be punished but no scapegoat be made to bear their sins to Devils island |