Mr. Hengelmüller to Mr. Sherman.
Washington, January 24, 1898.
Mr. Secretary of State: I have had the honor to receive the two notes which you had the kindness, Mr. Secretary of State, to address to me on the 8th and 20th instant, relative to the occurrences which took place September 10, 1897, at Lattimer, near Hazleton, Pa. [Page 79] In view of the information contained in the latter of these notes concerning the reports made to the Federal Government relative to those occurrences, I do not think proper to enter into a thorough discussion of that portion of the former note which has special reference to the statements made in my communication of December 30. I feel, however, that it is my duty to remark that my Government has not claimed the right to decide for itself the question whether its subjects who were injured in that catastrophe are, according to international law, entitled to an indemnity; and further, that it has had no intention to base its attitude on this subject solely upon the reports received by it. What it has asked, from the outset, of the Federal Government, has been a thorough investigation of the case, and such an investigation was unreservedly promised to it. The subsequent delay, and the final statement of the governor of Pennsylvania, which was communicated to me by your note of December 28, and in which he announced that he would not send the reports on the subject that were in his possession until after the termination of the trial, did indeed, lead us to the assumption that it was impossible for the Federal Government to hold the promised investigation. At this stage of the question, the Imperial and Royal Government felt compelled to declare to the Federal Government that it was not relieved, by this impossibility, of its responsibility to us. As, according to the reports which lay before us, the case was one that furnished ground for a claim for indemnity, and as we had no other information, and no other appeared to be obtainable, I was instructed to declare that we held the Federal Government responsible for the injury done to our countrymen, and that we asked of it a just and adequate indemnity.
This discussion belongs, however, to an earlier stage of the question, and seems to be rendered unnecessary, Mr. Secretary of State, by the information contained in your last note. The reports which, according to that note, have been received by the Federal Government from the adjutant-general of Pennsylvania, from General Gobin, who commanded the troops of the National Guard that were called out owing to the occurrences at Lattimer, and, finally, from the sheriff of Luzerne County,” himself, present the occurrences in question, in many important particulars, in an aspect different from that in which they were presented in the reports received by us, which were sent as inclosures to my note of September 28. This difference in the presentation of the case would especially seem to call for a comparison and scrutiny, as accurate as possible, of the material on both s ides, which is based both upon the statements of persons who participated in the incident and upon those of persons who took no part therein. In consideration, however, of the circumstance that the Federal Government, according to your note of January 20, Mr. Secretary of State, considers the question of the way in which all the occurrences actually took place as an open one, I think it proper for me now to refrain from any discussion of the merits of the case, and I take note of your declaration that the Federal Government suspends its decision during the pendency of the trial which is about to take place, and that it expects the facts of the case to be fully elucidated by that trial. I have the honor, at the same time, to express my warmest thanks to the Federal Government for the intention which it has expressed of sending a representative to be present at that trial, and to request you, Mr. Secretary of State, to convey this expression of gratitude to the proper quarter.
In the meantime I take the liberty to call special attention to the fact that, according to the reports transmitted to the governor of Pennsylvania, fire was opened on the workmen taking part in the march [Page 80] by the sheriff’s deputies, although they had received no order to that effect. This statement agrees with the account given in my memorandum of September 28, and I refer to it as a further proof of our oft-repeated assertion that the question of the accused sheriff’s guilt, or of his innocence of the crime with which he is charged, is not synonymous with the question whether the victims of the catastrophe are entitled to indemnity.
I avail myself, etc.