At a critical point in the evolution of the trench Dreyfus Affair, Emile Zola wrote a 6,000-word open letter to the president of France under the headline }'Accuse. This celebrated letter took a festering social and political issue that had all of France in an ultraheightened state of agitation and pushed it past its boiling point as well as past superheated steam. The issue was the false accusation and conviction of a French army captain of treason (anyone acquainted with this incredible story recognizes this description as a caricature). The critical point for the preparation of the letter was that all of France and a significant proportion of Europe and the U.S. were in turmoil over an enormous miscarriage of justice.
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