Mr. Tower to Mr. Sherman.
Vienna , December 31, 1897 .
Sir: I have the honor to report to you that in an interview which I had yesterday, at his request, with the Count Goluchowski, minister of foreign affairs, he asked me to bring to the attention of the Government of the United States the case of the Austro-Hungarian subjects concerned in the recent disturbances near Hazleton, Pa., certain of whom were either killed or wounded when the sheriff of Luzerne County gave the order to his men to fire.
The minister of foreign affairs informed me that the Austro-Hungarian envoy at Washington reported to him that, although he had presented the claims of these people or their families to the Department of State, [Page 65] he had not been able to secure recognition for them, and he urged his Government, therefore, to take formal action in the premises, in order that the Government of the United States might be induced to consider their demands. This led to a request from the Count Goluchowski that I should call upon him at the foreign office, which I did accordingly.
I replied to the minister of foreign affairs that, as far as I understood the case, in regard to which I had no official instructions from my Government, it was one that related to the maintenance of public order under the laws of the State of Pennsylvania, and that the sheriff had acted in his official capacity when he gave the command to Are upon a body of men assembled in a riotous manner, who, in spite of his summons to disperse, had persisted in conduct which threatened the peace of the Commonwealth.
He then read to me extracts from the dispatches of the Austro-Hungarian envoy in Washington, who quoted the statements, published in American newspapers, of persons declaring themselves to have been eyewitnesses of the occurrence, according to which the subjects of this Empire who had been killed or wounded were entirely peaceable and in no way concerned in or threatening a breach of public order. I said in reply to this that I believed the action of the sheriff was about to be examined by a court of competent jurisdiction in Pennsylvania, and that I felt certain no claims for damages could properly be entertained pending the decision of the court as to whether the sheriff was or was not completely justified in the steps he had taken as a public official, reminding the minister of foreign affairs at the same time that the sheriff and his men represented under the circumstances the same force which is employed, under the form of gendarmerie, for quelling mobs or preventing disorder in this Empire.
He informed me that the Austro-Hungarian envoy at Washington complained that he had asked the governor of Pennsylvania for certain information upon this subject, which the governor promised to furnish him, but that up to this time, in spite of frequent requests to do so, he has declined to keep his promise. I said to the Count Goluchowski, in reply to this, that I had no doubt that the information which the governor of Pennsylvania had referred to must depend upon the jury trial to be held in investigation of the sheriff’s conduct, and that this trial had, I believed, not yet taken place.
I promised the Count Goluchowski that I would report my conversation with him to the Department of State without delay, whereupon he requested me to urge the Government of the United States, as a matter of reciprocity and international comity, to take up and consider the question of damages in this case in so far as it relates to subjects of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
I have, etc.,