The Dreyfus family’s secretive tactics fueled public suspicion of guilt

Evidence

The skepticism of the radical and socialist press, strongly colored as it was by anti-Jewish feelings, was strengthened by the bizarre tactics of the Dreyfus family in its attempt to secure a retrial. In trying to save an innocent man they employed the very methods usually adopted in the case of a guilty one. They stood in mortal terror of publicity and relied exclusively on back-door maneuvers. They were lavish with their cash and treated Lazare, one of their most valuable helpers and one of the greatest figures in the case, as if he were their paid agent. Clemenceau, Zola, Picquart, and Labori—to name but the more active of the Dreyfusards—could in the end only save their good names by dissociating their efforts, with greater or less fuss and publicity, from the more concrete aspects of the issue. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 305

Categorization

• QUESTION: Interesting mechanism: the appearance of guilt, not guilt itself, is what the public reads — a point about optics that could carry into how the ‘Other’ is judged by its manner of defense.