File No. 311.651T15/23.
The Italian Ambassador to the Secretary of State.
Washington, June 24, 1912.
My Dear Mr. Secretary of State: With my three previous communications3 under the dates of April 7th, #689, May 31st, #994, and June 21st, 1911, #1133, I had the honor to recommend to the usual courtesy of your excellency that the case of the lynching of Angelo Albano, occurred at Tampa, Florida, on September 20th, 1910, should be settled without any further delay.
As I have not received to this date any answer on the subject, I beg to recapitulate the status of the question, in the firm belief that your excellency will be able to give a definite answer to the solicitations of my Government on the matter.
By its note3 of November 7th, 1910, the Department of State transmitted to this Royal Embassy the copy of a letter, with enclosures, [Page 616] of the Governor of Florida, promising to communicate a further report of the said Governor, which was expected.
With the note1 of February 28th, 1911, your Department sent to the Embassy the copy of a letter which it had sent to the Governor of Florida, reading, inter alia, as follows:
Should the facts, as finally elicited, sustain the construction put upon them by the Italian Embassy, and should it be found, after careful consideration, that the law applicable thereto is as laid down by that Embassy, the Department is confident that you will consider it necessary and just to meet any international obligation imposed by such a situation and that failing to apprehend and punish those responsible for the outrage, the State of Florida will be prepared at once, should the circumstances and the rules of international law require it, to make adequate satisfaction for the death of Albano, whose Italian nationality, in the absence of any countervailing evidence of naturalization, seems now fairly established.
Since the date of the aforesaid letter, no facts which would tend to contradict the findings reached by the Italian Embassy have been notified to the same, nor have the conclusions of law stated by the same been controverted in any way. In fact, this Embassy has not been notified that the Governor of Florida did ever answer the letter addressed to him by the Department of State on February 28th, 1911, nor that the authorities of that State did ever take any action in consequence of the letter in question.
The Department of State, by its aforesaid note of February 28th, 1911, introduced in the proceedings of the lynching at Tampa an occurrence in Catania, Italy, consisting of a fight between two American sailors and some Italians, but the Italian Embassy could not see any connection whatsoever, or even an analogy, between the two cases, and it replied accordingly with the aforesaid note of April 7th, 1911.
In consideration of what is above stated, and according to the orders of my Government, I must insist again that an adequate indemnity be granted without any further delay, for the lynching of the Italian citizen Angelo Albano.
I have the honor to enclose a memorandum2 of some other similar cases, in which such an indemnity was paid for lynchings of Italian subjects.
Trusting that your excellency will take up the matter to that effect, I beg to renew [etc.]