File No. 2976/9.

Memorandum to the Italian Embassy.

The Department of State has received the memorandum of the Italian embassy, reporting the destruction of tobacco belonging to the Italian Government in a riot at Hopkinsville, Ky., and expressing [Page 748] anxiety lest other tobacco belonging to that Government at certain other points named in the memorandum may be destroyed.

With a view to procuring all possible protection for the property interests of the Italian Government under the regrettable circumstances stated in the embassy’s memorandum, a copy thereof has been communicated to his excellency the governor of Kentucky, and that authority has been requested to report fully upon the situation and the measures which have been or may be adopted by the State for the maintenance of order in that neighborhood.

In this connection, the Department of State has recalled to the attention of the present governor of Kentucky the similar occurrences in the same region a year ago and the assurances then made by his predecessor, Governor Beckham, that the Kentucky authorities would do everything possible to protect the treaty rights of the Italian Government along the lines suggested in the department’s letter of December 21, 1906, to the Italian ambassador. The department expresses the hope that the efforts taken to protect these interests at the present time may be such as to prove entirely effective.