Baron Fava to Mr. Olney.
Washington, November 27, 1895.
Mr. Secretary of State:
From the correspondence had with the Department of State relative to the killing of five Italian subjects at Walsenburg, Colo., in the month of March last, and especially from the notes which your excellency was pleased to address to me on the 13th and 24th of June last (Nos. 37 and 43), it appeared evident that the authorities of the State of Colorado were firmly purposed to do all in their power in order to detect and punish the murderers. In a letter, a copy of which was sent to me with your excellency’s note of June 13 (said letter having been addressed on the 8th of that month to the governor of the aforesaid State), the district attorney of the third judicial district promised that at the October term of the Huerfano County district court, or even sooner, a grand jury would be empaneled in order that it might carefully investigate the lynching at Walsenburg.
Your excellency remarked, in your esteemed communication of June 24th, at the delay in such investigations was simply due to the fact that it was impossible for the district attorney and the grand jury to hold them before the regular time for the session of the court, which had not sat in that county since the date of the lynching.
I need not remind your excellency how desirable it is to avoid delay in securing the detection and punishment of the guilty parties, which is desired both by the United States Government and that of the King and how much it would conduce to this object if the time for the session of the court in Huerfano County could be fixed at an earlier day,” since the date mentioned by the district attorney of the third district in June last can no longer be considered correct.
For the reasons above stated I trust that your excellency, whose lofty spirit of justice is well known to me, will be pleased once more to use your good offices with the authorities of the State of Colorado, to the end that they may expedite, as far as possible, judicial proceedings against the Walsenburg lynchers.
Be pleased to accept, Mr. Secretary of State, a renewed assurance of my highest consideration.