Baron Fava to Mr. Hay.
Washington , April 2, 1900 .
Mr. Secretary of State: By your excellency’s esteemed note of the 31st instant I am apprised that, in reply to the communications sent to Governor Foster by you in compliance with the note which I had the honor to address to you on the 15th of January last, furnishing new and important information concerning the Tallulah lynchers, his excellency, the governor, has informed you that he has transmitted these communications to the attorney-general of the State and has called that officer’s attention to them. Governor Foster adds that he has promptly complied with your desire that he should likewise call this matter to the attention of the authorities of the district in which Tallulah and Madison Parish are situated, and that he has urged them to take official action. He states, in conclusion, that “he is assured that they have done and will do their full duty under the law.”
The fact that although ten months have passed since the cruel lynching at Tallulah, and that although I transmitted even the names of the presumptive murderers to the Federal Government not one of them has been brought to justice, and that not even the slightest judicial investigation looking to this has been held, is indeed discouraging and can not induce me to share the optimistic feeling which has, even at this late day, been expressed by the governor. Certainly the authorities of Louisiana have not done their duty in the past. If they had the murderers would not hitherto have remained unpunished.
I trust that they will soon decide to act as justice requires that they should; but your excellency will share the painful surprise felt by me when I received this statement of the governor as the only reply to the grave charges and circumstances which I submitted by my note of January 15, [Page 721] I have the honor to beg your excellency to observe to his excellency, Governor Foster, that any further delay in investigating lynchers, whose names are in the mouth of everybody, is without justification, and that it is now more important than ever that I should be enabled to assure the King’s Government that the said lynchers have been criminally prosecuted in due form of law.
Accept, etc.,