Mr. Iddings to Mr. Hay.
Rome, Italy, July 23, 1901.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt on Sunday, July 21, of the following telegrama (of July 20).
Pursuant to this instruction, I sought an interview with the minister of foreign affairs which was fixed for, this morning, and in the conversation which has just ended I expressed to M. Prinetti the assurances of the Government at Washington as declared in your telegram. I also left with him a memorandum on the subject reading as follows:
The governor of Mississippi is investigating the alleged lynching at Erwin, Miss., of persons born in Italy. The United States Government will take all legal steps which the facts may warrant to secure justice against the guilty persons.
The minister did not express any opinion in regard to the information and assurance which I gave to him. He even omitted to thank me for the communication, but the omission was, of course, unintentional. He did express, however, an earnest hope that in this the fifth case [Page 287] of lynching (as he said) of Italian subjects in the United States within a few years the guilty persons might be punished, especially since they were known. It seemed singular to him that Congress had not acted upon the President’s recent suggestions to pass some law which would authorize the Federal Government to intervene in some way in the proceedings of justice in the individual States of the Union when occasion requires; but he feared that Congress would do nothing. I agreed with him in hoping that the President’s suggestions might be acted upon, and explained to him, as has been explained to previous ministers, the difficulty, often on account of local feeling, which exists in certain parts of the United States, as well as in Italy (in Sicily, for instance), of always obtaining exact justice in cases of certain crimes. M. Prinetti contented himself in reply by reaffirming his hope that this last “of a series of lynchings” would be adequately punished.
I may add that we are entirely in ignorance in the embassy of the details of this incident at Erwin. The Italian papers give no particulars, simply saying that another case of lynching has occurred, and as yet the American newspapers which might inform us have not come.
I am, etc.,
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