The Italian Chargé to the Secretary of State.
Washington, D. C., June 26, 1906.
Mr. Secretary of State: In continuation of my note No. 1130, of the 20th instant, I have the honor to inform your excellency that according to a report of the Royal consular agent at Charleston, S. C., who obtained his information from the United States district attorney, the nine Italians arrested in connection with the Marion, Va., incident have not yet been released, in spite of assurances to the contrary given by the local authorities in the presence of the said judicial federal officer.
The Royal consul at Philadelphia, for his part, writes to me as follows: “Fresh earnest protests have this day came to me from other camps of the Spruce Pine Carolina Company, to which they were sent through deception and where they receive no salary whatever. Strong measures, therefore, seem to me to be imperative to secure justice for those who are held in jail without warrant, or even to prevent further conflicts that the state of exasperation in which our laborers have been put by the nonpayment of their salaries and the ill treatment to which they are subjected makes very likely.”
In submitting the foregoing, I again beg that your excellency, with a view to avoid the repetition of painful incidents, will draw the attention of the state authorities to the deplorable situation prevailing at Spruce Pine and see that justice may take its course without delay, in view of the critical condition of my fellow-countrymen.
While thanking you in advance for the answer you may be pleased to return to this and my earlier note, I embrace this opportunity to renew to you, etc.,