Baron Fava to Mr. Hay.
Washington, D. C., November 29, 1899.
Mr. Secretary of State: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 27th instant, whereby your excellency informed me of the abolition of the Italian bureau of immigration at Ellis Island, to take place on the 1st of January next. You were then pleased to append a private note of your own, in which you explain to me that the Treasury Department gave notice of this abolition to the Department of State by means of a letter of the 22d instant, and that special circumstances connected with the death and funeral of the lamented Vice-President prevented the communication of a more [Page 428] speedy notification. Your excellency thus excused the Treasury Department on account of the fact that this abolition was received through subordinate channels and through the press, to which fact alone your excellency appears to attribute my note of the 25th instant.
Thanking your excellency for your courteous explanations, I am sorry to be obliged to say that they in no wise change the painful impression made upon my mind by this sudden measure, which, it appears, the Treasury Department has taken without the knowledge of the Department of State.
The Italian bureau of immigration, although established by means of a letter from the Treasury Department, has continued to exist for five years with the authorization of the Federal Government, and has formed the subject of constant diplomatic communications with the honorable the Department of State. It had an official character and was recognized by both Governments.
The lack of regard, which is regretted by me, lies, therefore, not only in the date when the abolition of the bureau was communicated to me, but especially in the fact that the measure itself was adopted and carried out without any previous notice to me. You will admit, I trust, that I had a right to expect to be consulted by your excellency, with whom alone I can have official relations, before the abolition of a bureau which was maintained by the Government of Italy with the amicable consent of the Federal Government.
I am therefore constrained to maintain the protest which I have already had the honor to send your excellency as an inclosure to my note of the 25th instant, and again to express to you the hope that, inasmuch as the matter is one of an international character, in which the Department of State is the only one that is competent to judge, you will be pleased to cause the suspension of the measure in question, so that it may be examined and discussed with this royal embassy.
The reason stated for the action taken against the bureau of immigration, namely, that in this case a privilege was asked for by other powers and not granted to them, does not seem to me to be such as to exclude the discussion for which I asked.
Italian emigration, owing to the number and quality of the emigrants, presents special conditions which amply justified a special treatment. No other emigration feels so strongly the necessity of being protected immediately after landing. The Italian Government, in asking to furnish this first protection through its bureau, complied with the obligation to furnish protection which is incumbent upon Governments toward their own citizens, but it also offered valuable aid to the Federal Government, which can not do otherwise than take an interest in these persons, a great many of whom will become citizens or parents of American citizens. The cordial relations which have always existed between our two countries could not, in my opinion, have led to a sudden abolition of the Italian bureau, but to a wider discussion of the modifications which it might properly have undergone in order to be made to harmonize with the internal requirements of the United States Government and with those common purposes of protection which ought to actuate us in the case of Italian immigrants.
The assurances of good will which you were pleased to give me in our conversations lead me to trust that the question will be placed upon this ground.
Be pleased to accept, etc.,