Baron Fava to Mr. Hay.
Washington, October 14, 1900.
Mr. Secretary of State: Your excellency was pleased to express to me, in your esteemed note of the 12th of June last, in reply to my protest of the 6th of May of this year, the sentiments of high reprobation of the Federal Government for the unspeakable acts of violence committed the year before at Tallulah against Italian subjects.
But you reminded me of the dual nature of the Government in the United States and of the inadequacy of the Federal laws, which the President had, within the bounds of his powers, endeavored to remedy.
Lastly, your excellency informed me that since the failure of the proper authorities to indict or bring the guilty to any form of trial had been established, it was the President’s intent that the case should, on the coming December, be laid before Congress for the purpose of relieving the families of the Italian subjects who had fallen victims to that slaughter.
I have the honor to take formal notice of that communication, which I shall not fail to bring to the knowledge of the Government of the King. I am sure it will appreciate the explicit condemnation with which the Federal Government, hampered by the working of its powers in conjunction with those of the States, has branded, by the mouth of your excellency, the excesses of Tallulah and the doings of the judicial authorities of Louisiana.
Yet this straightforward and spontaneous condemnation will afford it a well-founded plea for insisting upon the now pressing necessity of preventing the recurrence of such frequent deeds of blood, which can not but find encouragement in their present impunity. This can not be accomplished without appropriate laws for the protection of the safety reciprocally guaranteed by the treaties, and your excellency correctly surmises in adverting, in the note which I am answering, to the efforts made in that direction by the President, within the bounds of his powers. The two bills in that sense now pending in Congress are indeed the outcome of the earnest recommendations made in his message of December last, and I am confident that it will be pleased to continue till the end the exercise of his efficient action toward convincing those legislative bodies that the approval of the two bills under discussion will happily remove the only but frequent causes of difference between our two countries, whose mutual friendship is so strong.
Now, with respect to the purpose of the President, as communicated [Page 724] by you, concerning an indemnity for the families of the lynched Italians, I am of opinion that the Government of the King has no right to object to or to refuse a measure taken in an absolutely spontaneous manner by the Administration and Congress of the United States, especially if such a measure should be, in strict justice, extended to such of the relatives of the lynched Italians who had assumed the citizenship of the United States as have remained Italian subjects.
But a measure of that character, prompted by considerations of humanity toward the families of the victims, can not dispose of the question raised for the Italian Government by the cruel slaughter at Tallulah. It has asked no more than the effective course of justice and the protection guaranteed by the treaties. As affecting the relations between the two Governments, the question can not be solved otherwise than by provisions of law similar to those contained in the Davis and Hitt bills now pending in the Senate and House of Representatives, which modify the Federal jurisdiction. It would therefore be desirable not to let the indemnity measure for which the President purposes to call upon Congress assume or be given the character of a final solution to the unpleasant question. Nothing could be more contrary to the true condition of things.
It is for your excellency alone to judge what will be the best means of attaining this end and of preventing influences in both Houses to use that act of humanity for an argument against carrying out Federal legislation for the protection of aliens now under consideration in the American Parliament.
By way of simple suggestion, I take the liberty of saying that the, difficulties which I submit to the high consideration of your excellency might be eluded if the proposition for the indemnity to the families of the victims were presented after the approval of the two abovementioned bills, which approval is, I believe, made secure by the good and efficient offices of the President and the Administration.
Be pleased, etc.,