Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, With the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress December 3, 1907, (In two parts), Part II

File No. 2976/8.

Memorandum from the Italian Embassy.

[Translation.]

Royal Embassy of Italy,
Washington D. C.,, December 9, 1907.

In the night of December 6–7 last some five hundred armed and masked men invaded the town of Hopkinsville, Ky., took possession of every means of communication, terrorized the citizens, and destroyed property, the value of which is estimated at $200,000.

The destroyed property includes the factory of the Tandy & Fairley Tobacco Company (incorporated in the State of Delaware), in which was tobacco belonging to the tobacco agency of the Italian Government, worth about $15,000 (subject to correction one way or the other).

Considering that the strife between the growers’ association and the independent growers is as acute as it can be;

That the threatening conditions in the region were a matter of common knowledge, being repeatedly adverted to by the press and especially the local newspapers (The Hopkinsville Kentuckian, The Evening Post, The Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle, The Courier-Journal, of Louisville, etc.);

That the royal embassy long ago denounced orally and in writing those conditions to the Department of State from which it received, under date of January 10 of this year, the assurance that “the governor asks this department to assure you that the Kentucky authorities will do everything possible to protect the treaty rights of your Government along the lines indicated in the department’s note to you of December 21, 1906;”

That while it is intimated in the said note of December, 1906, the agents of the Italian Government may, like the American citizens, have recourse to the courts, the answer that can be returned to this is that it is not a case of “redress,” but of “protection;” protection implying “defense, shelter from evil, preservation from loss, injury, or annoyance” (Webster), while “redress” takes place after the injury only, by way of “deliverance, remedy, relief,” and the treaty plainly speaks of “protection:” “The citizens of each of the high contracting parties shall receive in the States and Terrietories of the other the most constant protection and security for their person and property “(Art. III, treaty of February 26, 1871).

On all these grounds the royal embassy deems it its duty to have the Department of State take notice of the lack of protection of Italian property, and to ask that it will ascertain the responsibilities incurred and reserves the right to claim, if and when the occasion arises and in any and every manner warranted by the circumstances, indemnification for the damages, direct and indirect, resulting from that lack of protection.

At the same time the embassy of Italy invokes the protection for which the treaty provides, in the sense of the word in both the English and Italian languages, that is, preventive defense, for the following factories owned by companies which are all incorporated in the State of Delaware and hold tobacco purchased by the Italian Government:

• Stahl Tobacco Company, Paducah, Ky.
• Griffin & Pitt Tobacco Company, Murray, Ky.
• Gardner & Walker Tobacco Company, Mayfield, Ky.
• Fields Hamlett Tobacco Company, Fulton, Ky.
• John Hodge Tobacco Company, Madisonville, Sebree, Slaughterville, and Henderson, Ky.
• Hayer, Sory Tobacco Company, Clarksville and Springfield, Tenn.
• H. B. Douthit Tobacco Company, Paris, Tenn.
• Lewis & Moss Tobacco Company, Martin, Tenn.

From the information at hand in the embassy it appears that the local means of protection for the above-named factories (police, fire, brigade, etc.) are, with the possible exception of Clarksville and Paducah, far below those available at Hopkinsville.