Mr. Sherman to Mr. Hengelmüller.
Washington, January 8, 1898.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note which you were pleased to address to me under the date of the 30th ultimo, in further relation to the killing and wounding of certain Austro-Hungarian subjects at Lattimer, near Hazleton, Pa., on the 10th of September last, which occurrence has heretofore been the occasion of correspondence between us.
[Page 66]You appear to interpret the reply of the governor of Pennsylvania to the Department’s request for the official reports of the State officer in relation to the killing of those persons as a refusal on his part to comply with the assurances heretofore given, and its communication to you as practically tantamount to a declaration, presumably on my part, “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 [your] native laud.” As to these points I am obliged to say that I am unable to admit your premise or to accept your conclusion.
The killing at Lattimer, as you justly observe, has indeed attracted attention, not alone on the part of the public, but extraordinarily so on the part of the Governments of the State of Pennsylvania and of the United States. The former has not only secured, after careful and exact investigation, full reports in the matter, but the justice of that State has found an indictment against the officer in responsible command of the armed forces at the time of the killing, and is about to place him on trial for a very grave offense against the peace of the Commonweath. This Department, as the proper organ of the Federal Government, has, step by step, been advised of the progress made in the collection of that evidence, which has now been completed on the eve of the trial of the officer to whom the guilt of the killing has been imputed. Neither now nor at any time has there been the slightest question as to the communication of every fact and circumstance bearing on the case to the Government of the United States. The question propounded is simply that of making the collected reports public at this particular time, when they might prejudice the trial of the alleged offender. As to this the government of the State of Pennsylvania and the Government of the United States are in complete accord in deeming such publicity inexpedient at this moment. On this account 1 have refrained from accepting the reports and papers which the governor has offered to place in my hands for their examination by this Government pending the trial of the accused sheriff. However much I am disposed to continue in that attitude, I can do so no longer in view of the extraordinary and unjustifiable imputation which your note conveys. The papers will be in my possession in a day or two, and, after due consideration thereof, I shall do myself the honor to communicate further with you on the subject.
I can not permit myself to pass over in silence that passage of your note in which you say:
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.
It is alleged, and so far as I know without contradiction that the men who were killed formed part of an unlawful and riotous assemblage which it became the duty of the guardians of the public peace to disperse. The essential question is whether the degree of force employed was or was not lawful. If it was not, the act constituted homicide. The justice of the State of Pennsylvania, holding that the facts of the killing as they have appeared raise the presumption that the killing was unlawful, has indicted the sheriff and his deputies on the charge of murder, and for that offense they are about to be tried. It strikes [Page 67] me that the question so presented and to be decided by the independent judicial branch has a very material bearing on the question to which you apparently seek to confine your representations; that is, whether, the victims of the catastraphe are entitled to indemnity or not. It involves the determination of a fact—whether those men were unlawfully killed by the agents of the public peace, or whether they met their death through lawful action of the authorities in repression of an unlawful act done by the men themselves.
While apparently going so far as to admit, in the words I have quoted from your note, that there is, in fact, question whether the victims of the catastrophe are entitled to indemnity or not, that admission would appear to be rescinded or ignored by the concluding passage of your note, whereby you inform me that your Government has instructed you to declare that it must hold the Federal Government responsible for the injury suffered by its subjects on the occasion of the occurrence 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 [your] note of September 28.”
It may, however, have been your purpose to give to this remarkable language an intendment which it does not bear on its face. Acting on the mistaken assumption that this Government stood powerless in the face of the supposed refusal of the government of the State of Pennsylvania to heed its representations and requests in the matter, and was uuable to investigate the facts for itself, you may have intended to say that your Government could only deal with the Federal Government touching the question of such indemnity as might be found just and adequate. But, if on the contrary, it were your intention to declare that your Government does not regard the question open as to whether an indemnity is or is not due, but assumes to decide it for itself according to its own lights, I must enter a respectful but absolute dissent from such a proposition. I am unaware of any forum known to the high public law and the principles of justice that governs the intercourse of sovereign nations whereby such an ex parte judgment can be reached.
The United States Government in the exercise of its indisputable rights of sovereignty, and in the full performance of the duties and obligations thereof, has never hesitated to meet and determine according to justice and equity any allegation of wrong suffered by the citizens or subjects of another nation within its border. You can hardly be unaware of recent instances where the unlawful killing of aliens in the States and Territories of the Union has been made the occasion of searching action by the local and Federal authorities, and where, although the facts of the unlawfulness of the killing may have been deemed to be less open to question than in the present case, the Government being unable by judicial proceedings to identify, convict, and punish the authors, has, as an act of sovereign grace, tendered, indemnity to the families of the victims, upon the results of the investigations made through the regular channels, or when those proved insufficient, to elicit the truth of the matter made through the Federal channels at command. It can certainly not be disposed to do otherwise in the present instance, and I beg to say that, if the evidence soon to be in my possession be not enough to enable this Government to decide as to its duty in the premises, no steps within my reach will be omitted to supply the deficiency.
Adding that the trial of Sheriff Martin and his deputies on the capital charge of murder is set for the latter part of the current month, I have the honor, Mr. Minister, to repeat, etc.