Mr. Hengelmüller to Mr. Sherman.
Washington, December 30, 1897.
Mr. Secretary of State: I have had the honor to receive your note of the 28th instant, relative to the well-known occurrences which took place at Lattimer, near Hazleton, Pa. You thereby inform me, Mr. Secretary of State, that you have received a communication from the governor of Pennsylvania, stating that judicial proceedings against the persons who are charged with killing and wounding, on the occasion of these occurrences, both Austrian and Hungarian subjects will be held in the course of the coming month. You add that the aforesaid governor has at the same time declared that he is in possession of several reports on the subject, but that their communication might interfere with the judicial proceedings, and that he will consequently report to the Federal Government when said proceedings are terminated.
In reply to this communication I can not avoid, Mr. Secretary of State, calling your attention to the fact that the recent declaration of the governor of Pennsylvania is not only openly at variance with the position taken and the promises made by the Federal Government in the matter, but also with his own previous declarations.
[Page 63]In view of the importance and gravity of the case, I here take the liberty briefly to recapitulate the various phases through which it has passed in the course of our verbal and written discussions.
Immediately after the conclusion of the investigation made by our officers concerning the circumstances of the catastrophe at Lattimer I had the honor to call your attention, Mr. Secretary of State, both verbally and in writing, by my note of the 28th of September last, to the case, and, reserving the presentation of our claims for indemnity in behalf of our countrymen who had suffered disaster and of their surviving relatives, I further had the honor to request that an investigation might be held by the Federal Government. My note was accompanied by reports of the examinations of 13 eyewitnesses (among which were the sworn statements of several American citizens) and also by a perspicuous account of the entire occurrence, and I laid special stress upon the circumstance that, according to all the information that had been received, our countrymen had met death or received their wounds not owing to unlawful resistance to the legally constituted authorities, and therefore not through their own fault or by an unfortunate accident, but through an unwarranted, illegal, and, as it appears, abusive exercise of the sheriff’s official authority.
The justice of our request for an investigation was recognized by you, Mr. Secretary of State, and my Government had the more reason to expect that an investigation would be held, and that it would soon be informed of the result, inasmuch as I shortly afterwards received the assurance, in your note of October 9, that the case would receive from the Federal Government the speedy and careful attention which its gravity demanded.
I was further informed, on the 12th of October, by your note No. 196, that the governor of Pennsylvania had been requested to investigate the case, and that the result of his investigation would be communicated to me without delay.
On the 11th of November I was again compelled to address you in relation to the matter, and received in consequence, on the 22d, a copy of a communication which had been addressed to you by the governor of Pennsylvania, according to which the investigation was not yet fully terminated, and the report of General Gobin, who had had command of the troops in the vicinity, had not yet been received. This communication was accompanied by an expression of the hope that the report of the investigation, Mr. Secretary of State, would soon be sent to you.
On the 24th of December I was apprised by your note No. 206, as a result of the additional efforts made by me, that the Department of State had received a telegram from the governor of Pennsylvania, according to which the report of the sheriff of the county was the only thing needed for the termination of the investigation, and that report was expected in a few days.
According to the newspaper reports which lie before me, an indictment against Sheriff Martin and his posse was found by the grand jury at Wilkesbarre on the 26th of October. The fact that the accused persons were to be brought to trial can not have been unknown to the governor of Pennsylvania on the 17th of November and 24th of December, when he sent the above-mentioned statements to you, Mr. Secretary of State. His refusal at this time to make known the result of the investigation before the termination of the trial reveals an entirely new phase of the question, and one that is at variance with his previous declarations.
Three months and a half have elapsed since the occurrence at Lattimer. I do not know when the trial of the persons who are charged [Page 64] with the commission of the outrages in question will begin, and no one can now predict when it will be definitely ended. I do not know, moreover, what is the technical basis of the indictment of Sheriff Martin and his posse, but my Government can in no case consider the technical question of his guilt or innocence of the crime with which he is charged as being synonymous with the question whether those victims of the catastrophe, who had a right to their protection, are entitled to indemnity or not.
The Imperial and Royal Government has, from the outset, had no reason to doubt the correctness and accuracy of the conscientious investigation held by its consular officers, who secured sworn depositions of witnesses, with which the accounts given by the American press agreed. It would have been impossible, in view of the facts shown by that investigation, for it to do otherwise than reach the conviction that an outrage had been perpetrated by the representatives of authority of the State of Pennsylvania upon its subjects who were slain or wounded, full redress for which it has a right to expect from the Federal Government. When the Imperial and Royal Government instructed me to request, as a preliminary step, the Federal Government to institute a careful investigation, it cherished the hope that the Federal Government would be glad to ascertain the facts for itself, and to secure a basis, well established by both parties, for the subsequent treatment of the case.
Your note of day before yesterday, Mr. Secretary of State, with the mere communication of the last answer of the governor of Pennsylvania, destroys this hope, and is practically tantamount to a declaration that it is impossible for the Federal Government to institute an investigation or to receive official information, in any definite time, in a case which occurred on the 10th of September last in the territory of the Union, and which has attracted public attention, in a high degree, both here and in my native land. Yet, much as my Government regrets this turn of affairs, it can not consider itself thereby relieved of its duty to take measures in behalf of its killed and wounded countrymen, and it has instructed me to declare that it must hold the Federal Government responsible for the injury suffered by its subjects on the occasion of the occurrences in question, and that it must ask of it a just and adequate indemnity for the victims of the catastrophe who were mentioned in my note of September 28.
In having the honor to ask your kind mediation, Mr. Secretary of State, for the fulfillment of these instructions, I avail myself, etc.,