The Withdrawal of the Dreyfus Play in Paris Press Dissatisfied with Government Weakness in Capitulat

The withdrawal of the Dreyfus affair play is the subject of adverse comment to-day in most of the newspapers, which complain of the weakness of the authorities in capitulating to disorder and threats of violence.

M. Jacques Richepin, the author of the play, could not prevent its withdrawal, because he was taken ill last week with appendicitis, his wife, Cora Laparceri, a well known actress, explained today.

Pierre Dreyfus, the son of Colonel Alfred Dreyfus, the hero of the Dreyfus affair, was approached by the Press to-day to get the opinion of his father on the withdrawal of the play. He replied that he could not make any statement, but he seemed to be pleased that the play had been withdrawn, suggesting that his father and his family had not liked the revival of the old controversy which it had started.

The League for Combating Antisemitism, in publishing a strongly-worded protest against the withdrawal of the Dreyfus play. as a result of rioting and intimidation, declares that it intends to take steps to arrange for a revival of the play.

Slight incidents occurred this evening at a meeting of the Faubourg Club here, the largest French debating society, at which addresse on the Dreyfus affair were delivered by Dr. Bruno Weil, one of the leaders of the Union of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith and an authority on the Dreyfus affair, and by Maitre Alexadre zevaes, who was associated with the Dreyfus case about thirty years ago.

The hall was packed. When Dr. Weil appeared on the platform there was some expression of hostility, but it was drowned by cheering and clapping by the greater part of the public.

Speaking on the German share of responsibility for the Dreyfus affair, Dr. Weil took the view that whatever was thought of the silence of the German Military Attache in Paris, Colonel Schwartzkoppen, there was no doubt that feeling in France at the time being what it was anything that Schwartzkoppen or any other person would have said would have had no effect. The anti-Dreyfusards did not believe von Buelov, so why should they have believed Schwartzkoppen? he asked.

Something of a sensation was created by the appearance on the platform of Esterhazy’s daughter, who caused a scene during the performance of the play, by attacking the author, M. Richepin, in his office at the theatre, with a horse-whip. Availing herself of the right given by the Club to anyone present to take part in the discussion, she insisted that her father had not been a traitor, but had only carried out the orders of the military chiefs, doing his duty as a soldier by taking the responsibility upon himself for a course of policy dictated by the military regime. The people who were really guilty, she said, were the generals, who exploited Esterhazy for their own purposes.

Several speakers of the Camelots du Roi and the “Action Francaise” movement also came on the platform, but they were received with a great deal of hostility.