The experienced lawyers who took the depositions tell us that they
passed from the same stage of doubt into the same stage of conviction.
They also began their work in a skeptical spirit, expecting to find much
of the evidence colored by passion, or prompted by an excited fancy. But
they were impressed by the general moderation and matter-of-fact
level-headedness of the witnesses. We have interrogated them,
particularly regarding some of the most startling and shocking incidents
which appear in the evidence laid before us, and where they expressed a
doubt we have excluded the evidence, admitting it as regards the cases
in which they stated that the witnesses seemed to them to be speaking
the truth, and that they themselves believed the incidents referred to
have happened. It is for this reason that we have inserted among the
depositions printed in the appendix several cases which we might
otherwise have deemed scarcely credible.
The committee has conducted its investigations and come to its
conclusions independently of the reports issued by the French and
Belgian commissions, but it has no reason to doubt that those
conclusions are in substantial accord with the conclusions that have
been reached by these two commissions.
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