Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, With the Address of the President to Congress December 7, 1915
File No. 419.11H23/41.
Minister Price to the Secretary of State.
Panama, May 15, 1915.
Sir: Referring to my despatch No. 466 of April 9, in the case of Wm. T. Harrington, I have the honor to enclose a translation of a note received from the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Panama on yesterday.
The Department’s instruction herein No. 129 of April 27 was not received until May 12, and I had not found the opportunity to transmit a note pursuant to same before the receipt of the response of Señor Lefevre, and it is just as well I think that this has happened.
We have had to make a hurried translation. After carefully considering same I shall respond to the arguments presented and in addition in compliance with said instruction No. 139, unless I am impressed later that the matter should be submitted to the Department for specific instructions.
I have [etc.]
The Secretary for Foreign Affairs to Minister Price.
Panama, May 11, 1915.
Mr. Minister: I have the honor to refer again to the polite note of your excellency No. 103 of September 8, 1914, relating to the case of William T. Harrington.
Subsequently your excellency in notes No. 122 of January 25, of this year, No. 143 of March 9, No. 161 of April 5, and in conversations with the undersigned, has insisted that the Government of Panama, after careful consideration of the arguments of the above-mentioned note, make the pecuniary reparation which the Government of your excellency demands for the cruel and inhuman treatment which it asserts was inflicted on said Harrington by the chief of police of the prison of Porto Bello, while said Harrington was serving his term of 60 days arrest and work on the construction of the road from Porto Bello to Colon. The arguments that your excellency transmitted to me in this note have for their object to show that Harrington was physically and mentally sound when he was arrested and sentenced by the police of Colon on April 22, 1910, and that, as a result of the mistreatment of which he was a victim in Porto Bello, he lost his reason and died months afterwards.
My Government being attentive to the interest taken in this case by the Department of State of the United States and to the minute study which it has made of the pertinent documents and data, I, in my turn, have considered it indispensable to make a full examination of the case in order to show to your excellency [Page 1255] the sincere desire of my Government to establish the truth and to make due reparation for abuses or injustices of any kind when really committed in this country against citizens of the friendly nation so worthily represented by your excellency.
I have now the honor to communicate to your excellency the result of my examination and the conclusions which my Government has reached in the matter.
Taking into consideration the careful inquiries made in Panama as well as those which the Government of your excellency has made in the United States in relation to William T. Harrington, it is the unavoidable conclusion of a methodical, orderly and strictly logical reasoning that Harrington did not lose his mind on account of violence and physical suffering inflicted by the police and overseers of the prisoners in Porto Bello, but that already on April 22, 1910, the date of his arrest, he suffered from mental derangement.
The proofs of this assertion are given in the following statements of witnesses:
The testimony of Mr. Benigno Andrian, the alcalde who judged and sentenced Harrington, says in its pertinent part:
Harrington did not present any bondsman, nor did he name anyone to defend him, without doubt thinking the latter unnecessary, since his guilt was public and proven and confessed by himself. Question: Did you notice in Mr. Harrington any symptoms of insanity on being examined by you? Answer: I did not note any symptoms of insanity in Mr. Harrington, but on account of his filthy clothes and other signs I understood that he had been drinking too much the day or night previous. Question: Do you know anything about the mistreatment which Harrington is said to have suffered in the public works in Porto Bello? Answer: From the statement of Lieut. Luis Hernandez, chief of police in Porto Bello, I know that Harrington seemed demented, that he never worked and that when they noticed his lack of practical judgment they sent him to the hospital.
The testimony of Charles de Reuter, from which I copy the following:
After the arrival of Harrington at the working camp on the road above referred to, I was able to observe that Harrington was not in his proper senses; that he showed the beginning of dementia. That was the reason they did not give him any work of importance, and he did what he wanted until the time when it was noticed distinctly that Harrington was demented, and the warden and Lieut. Hernandez resolved to send Harrington to the hospital in Colon to be cured.
The testimony of José F. Navas, superintendent of prisoners, makes the following declaration:
Later I noticed that Harrington was suffering as if from mental derangement and then guessed why he had been sent to the hospital to be cured, which was accomplished before his sentence expired.
The testimony of José Tomás Baltam says:
I remember that this man would never work and showed by his actions that he was not altogether in his right mind, although not exactly crazy; one day they put him to work and as he wouldn’t work, they put him again behind the bars. Question: Does the witness know anything more in relation to Mr. Harrington? Answer: The lieutenant of police stationed in Porto Bello, Luis Hernandez, seeing that Harrington would not work and that he gave indications of being demented, resolved to send him to the hospital, and on arrival at the other side to embark some Americans took him in order to send him on their own account to the hospital.
The testimony of Ex-Lieut. Hernandez, says as follows:
A little later I noticed that Harrington was not working at all and that he was throwing himself in the puddles in the road. Also, in the prison he frequently struck his companions without any cause, until at last we understood that Harrington was insane and I advised the warden to send him to Colon to be cured, notwithstanding that he had not completed his sentence.
Whatever the merits which your excellency may concede to these witnesses, their testimony almost amounts to undeniable veracity in view of the mental state of Harrington as shown by his own acts and those of other people in relation to him.
A man who has so cultivated his intelligence as to become a competent machinist and engineer, as it is asserted Harrington was, even to the point of being employed by the Canal Commission, is not only unbalanced but crazy if he goes dirty about Colon, steals a bottle of ginger ale in a saloon and, when pursued by the proprietor and a policeman, flees like a criminal. This is very significant because it is a repetition of a similar one in which, according to Irene Edwards, another witness, Harrington having stolen an orange from her the same day he stole the bottle of ginger ale.
It appears that after his arrest Harrington passed the night in prison and on being sentenced the following morning he made no defense, received quietly his sentence of 60 days, made no protest, nor request for changing his sentence to a fine, nor any request at all. Afterwards, without soliciting protection from any [Page 1256] of his compatriots, very numerous in Colon, he was taken away in a tug owned by the I. C. C., manned by American employees; he arrived at New Porto Bello, the camp of the I. C. C. in Porto Bello, where all the chiefs and employees were Americans, and, without requesting intervention or protection from any of them, he was conducted to the Panaman jail at Porto Bello. So near to the town of Porto Bello and the American camp of New Porto Bello, constantly in communication with each other, it is remarkable that Harrington did nothing to free himself from his sentence and the violence and torture which it is said were inflicted upon him in prison. Any other American citizen, even if not an employee of the I. C. C. in the class of Harrington (and he too would have so proceeded if he had been sane), would have refused to pass the night of April 22 in jail but would have given bail and on the next day would not have acquiesced in a sentence of 60 days for taking a bottle of ginger ale without appealing to the protection of other people and would have taken legal steps to lessen his sentence.
This would have been easy for him in the city of Colon where so many of his compatriots live and are on the streets, many of them employees of every rank in the I. C. C. And if the measures taken in Colon had proved inefficacious something could have been done in New Porto Bello where he landed in a place composed exclusively of Americans and where he could defend himself and recover his liberty.
The acts and omissions of individuals show the exact state of their reason by comparison with the acts and words of normal people under the same circumstances. Thus Harrington’s conduct showed conclusively that he lacked mental balance when he was arrested by the police and sent to the public works at Porto Bello. It is evident that the alcalde of Colon would not have given Harrington 60 days if he had not concluded from his clothes and manners that he was one of the many thieves and vagabonds who in Colon are a social menace.
The opinion of the doctor of the insurance company in which Harrington was insured does not constitute proof because the mental condition of Harrington was not to be discovered in a brief examination of his organs and viscera, but by observation of his actions. There are many cases of crazy people in which a cerebral disturbance does not show at the first glance.
The same observation is to be made in respect to the examination of Harrington by the district doctor of the I. C. C. two days before he was arrested. Recently arrived on the Canal Zone, and seen only once by his doctor, the diagnosis of his nervous condition by this doctor is not to be admitted as an indisputable scientific conclusion.
The affidavits of Harrington’s fellow workmen in the United States, taken since his death and when there was a question of obtaining an indemnity for his widow from the Government of Panama, do not inspire the conviction necessary to admit the allegation, as it is recognized the world over that witnesses are inclined to be influenced by the hope or desire to help or damage somebody.
It will be said that in spite of the foregoing the fact remains that Harrington’s legs were wounded and inflamed and that the wounds were undoubtedly caused by the stocks. This can not be effectively contradicted, but it is not proved that he was placed in the stocks more than once for a few minutes. His mental derangement admits the supposition that he himself caused the wounds in attempting in an access of rage to free his feet from the stocks. Moreover, in order to justify putting Harrington into the stocks it suffices to take into account the following remark of the predecessor of your excellency, Mr. H. Percival Dodge, who ended his note No. 307, of March 14, 1913, in this way:
In presenting this case to your excellency my Government instructs me to say that it has confidence that the matter will receive sympathetic and equitable action and that, however possible it may be in some cases to make proper use of stocks for the restraint of prisoners, it is incontrovertible that they can be, etc.
It suffices also to consider that Harrington’s conduct in the prison because of his mental condition, not the mere cruelty of his keepers, made necessary the application of the stocks.
In case your excellency, convinced by my reasons, would argue that if Harrington was crazy he would have been sent to the hospital or an asylum instead of being submitted to the violence of the prison, permit me to say that according, to all the proofs, the mental condition of Harrington, although evidently abnormal, was not such as could immediately be recognized; and the police of [Page 1257] Porto Bello may be excused for noticing that neither the employees of the I. C. C. who ranked with Harrington as a machinist nor the doctors whom your excellency cites in his note discovered the mental derangement of this individual.
I particularly call the attention of your excellency to the fact that the conclusion arrived at by my Government agrees with that of Mr. J. P. Fyffe, Chief of the Police of the Canal Zone, in a report dated August 5, 1910, sent to Governor M. H. Thatcher, in which he says as follows:
From statements in the police report it appears entirely possible that Harrington was demented at the time of committing the theft of April 22, although there is no proof of his insanity, according to what I have been able to find out, up to the time of his arrival at Porto Bello. It appears very possible that this insanity may have been the cause of all that happened.
Corroborative of this point made by Mr. Fyffe is the short time that Harrington remained in prison at Porto Bello, Even admitting that the treatment given him was worse than that given to prisoners in Siberia, within 40 days he would not have lost his reason since none of his fellow prisoners lost theirs.
For all these reasons, Mr. Minister, my Government trusts that the Government of your excellency will not insist on making our nation responsible for the insanity and death of William T. Harrington, and that to the demands of the widow of Harrington your Government will oppose the arguments which justice will suggest when the truth in this matter is ascertained.
I avail [etc.]