Lynchings of Italians in the United States

SAGGISTICA 18 Rope and Soap Lynchings of Italians in the United States Rope and Soap Lynchings of Italians in the United States Patrizia Salvetti Translated from the Italian by Fabio Girelli-Carasi BORDIGHERA PRESS Library of Congress Control Number: 2015959520 COVER PHOTO: Originally published in Italian as Corda e sapone: storie dei linciaggi di Italiani negli USA Donzelli, 2012 © 2017 translation Fabio Girelli-Carasi © 2012 Italian version by Donizelli Editore All rights reserved. Parts of this book may be reprinted only by written permission from the author, and may not be reproduced for publication in book, magazine, or electronic media of any kind, except for purposes of literary reviews by critics. Printed in the United States. Published by BORDIGHERA PRESS John D. Calandra Italian American Institute 25 West 43rd Street, 17th Floor New York, NY 10036 SAGGISTICA 18 ISBN 978-1-59954-101-3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction to the English Version (vii) Fabio Girelli-Carasi Translator’s Note (xiii) ROPE AND SOAP Foreword (xvii) Introduction (3) 1. The Beginning of Impunity (37) 2. The Great Lynching and the False Lynching (47) 3. Not Only the South: In the West (81) 4. In the Old South (91) 5. When Law Enforcement Acts: Nine Potential Lynchings That Did Not Happen (135) 6. The Last Lynching of Italians (147) 7. America Interrogates Itself (167) Index of Names (181) INTRODUCTION TO THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION Fabio Girelli-Carasi he extraordinary documentary value of Patrizia Salvetti’s re- T search is so evident that it makes it almost redundant to label it “a seminal study.” I don’t think anyone will doubt that this work will open new horizons and an entire new field of inquiry for scholars interested in the phenomenon of Italian immigration to the United States — in its entirety and from several different perspectives: not only history, but anthropology, cultural studies, political science, and even constitutional law. Every page is full to the rim with new information based on pri- mary sources, accurately referenced to documents contemporary of those horrifying events that go under the name of lynchings. Borrowing an expression from another realm of academic inquiry, the readers will confidently conclude that this research is the equivalent of “basic science,” the kind of discovery that is bound to propel the discipline in a new direction while contributing to the multifaceted debate on the relation between Italy and her daughters and sons who were forced to leave. A few aspects of the phenomenon of lynchings of Italians in the United States are already known, at least in specialized circles. Among researchers on Italian American studies the most gruesome episodes had already been documented and investigated, although not completely digested. First among them was the largest mass lynching ever perpetrated on American soil, the infamous massacre of 13 individuals of Italian descent in New Orleans in 1891, an atrocity that saw the complicity of the press and the explicit approval of the city’s “prominents.” An even smaller group of scholars is also acquainted with the Tampa lynching of 1910, although the notoriety of the events prob- ably owes more to the context in which they occurred: the struggle vii by labor unions against what today we call “management” and which Italians, then and now, simply call “i padroni.” Patrizia Salvetti’s study, however, is not simply a catalog of racist crimes committed against Italian citizens of recently naturalized U.S. nationals who had left “the Old Country” both to conquer a dream and to escape a nightmare. This book tells us why and how those lynchings were committed, it connects them to the broader topic of white power and white dominance, how it was enforced and main- tained in a large portion of the country. It also tells us that lynching was applied to Italians as a special treatment sanctioned by political motives that found in racism their alibi. It also tells us, most damn- ing to the eternally distracted Italian consular institutions – what could have been done to prevent the repeating and the spreading of those barbarous acts beyond the boundaries of some dark corners of the Deep South into sunny new frontiers from Florida to Colora- do and as far north as Pennsylvania. Salvetti’s work has dug deeply into the mother lode of official correspondence between the Italian government all the way up to the office of the prime minister via the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Ministero Affari Esteri — MAE) and the Italian diplomatic corps and its effort to offer a modicum of protection to their citizens by pressing the counterparts in the U.S. Department of State. For Ital- ian Americans, accustomed and inured to the culture of paternalistic neglect dispensed by Italian diplomats in this country (no need to expand on the topic here), it will be both of comfort and surprise to discover that in several circumstances the agents of the Italian government present in America took to heart the tragedies they were witnessing with increased frequency in the territories of their perti- nence. Some of them were courageous and forceful in advocating for the community and in advancing demands of vigorous investigation, prosecution and punishment of the killers and their associates. At times they became deeply involved on an emotional level, out- raged at what they saw as an atmosphere of unqualified brutality and the unbridled exercise of ruthless power by the authorities in charge. More than the crime, in fact, it was the impenetrable blanket of omertà by American authorities that inflamed and offended Italian viii consular agents — omertà that inevitably led to systematic cover-ups of evidence and resulted in impunity for the perpetrators and insti- gators of the crimes. One of these agents, Pasquale Corte, consul in New Orleans at the time of the infamous mass massacre, was so explicit in his condemnation of the American justice system that he put his own career at stake and was recalled to Italy by the minister for his excessive zeal (page 63). As the consulate staffers did what they could — with some signif- icant exceptions, of course — the Rome-based institutions, government and ministries, responded rather phlegmatically and, it seems, without the sense of urgency that the circumstances warranted. At the core of the dispute between Italy and the United States were not simply truculent murders of Italian citizens for which no one had ever been found guilty. The episodes of lynching were not part of the random cases of violence that ended up with the murders of Ital- ians unrelated to their identity. The so-called “people’s justice” tar- geted Italians for the same reason it also victimized African Ameri- cans, Chinese and Mexicans, because they represented a threat to the power establishment. It was a terroristic message: Strike one to terrorize all. The fact that the local authorities were conniving and at times directly involved challenged the core of the international treaty signed by Italy and the United States about the protection of their citizens on the respective foreign soil. Italians were guaranteed by the signature of the president and the ratification of the Senate that they would enjoy the same rights and protection under the law that were granted to Americans. However, the federal government re- fused to take an active part in the investigation and prosecution of these heinous crimes on the basis of the constitutional doctrine of state rights, whereby these crimes fell within the jurisdiction of the individual states while the federal government had no power to in- tervene. This caused enormous frustration on the part of Italian institutions, or at least on the part of the individuals most committed to the principles of justice, human rights and respect of sovereign dignity. At the same time, the sophistry of the argument put forth by the state ix department gave an excuse to the less committed, both in Italy and in the United States, to simply bypass the thorny and complex issue of relations between states and head straight for a palliative solution. Every lynching would result in impunity for the culprit and a mone- tary compensation for the descendants of the victims. The president would propose and Congress would approve such compensations under the guise of an act of mercy, without ever admitting that they were meant as settlement for damages. In short, charity. The Italian language press exploded with indignation every time the Italian government accepted this “blood money.” Frustration and humiliation merged together with increasing fear that the de fac- to impunity for the culprits would contribute to the spreading of crimes against Italians. And for a while, in particular in the first dec- ade of the twentieth century, this prophecy seemed correct. But Salvetti’s book doesn’t simply report how Italian institutions failed their citizens in America. Quite evenhandedly, it reports on the long, complex and extremely well-articulated strategy devised by Ambassador Saverio Fava to solve the constitutional contradiction that the American government in theory guaranteed certain rights to Italians and other foreigners, while in practice could do nothing to enforce them. Individual states were free to deny them at will. (The default argument by the State Department was that Italians indeed enjoyed the same protection as American citizens. After all, the states treated lynchings of Italians the same way they handled the lynchings of Americans, namely, they did nothing.) Ambassador Fava was supported in his effort by an American public and a media that, after decades of carnage, had become sick- ened by this practice. Also on his side was a growing number of poli- ticians in the House and the Senate.

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