The recurrence of these distressing manifestations of blind mob fury directed at dependents or natives of a foreign country suggests that the contingency has arisen for action by Congress in the direction of conferring upon the Federal courts jurisdiction in this class of international cases where the ultimate responsibility of the Federal Government may be involved.  The suggestion is not new.  In his annual message of December 9, 1891, my predecessor, President Harrison, said:  It would, I believe, be entirely competent for Congress to make offenses against the treaty rights of foreigners domiciled in the United States cognizable in the Federal courts.  This has not, however, been done, and the Federal officers and courts have no power in such cases to intervene either for the protection of a foreign citizen or for the punishment of his slayers.  It seems to me to follow, in this state of the law, that the officers of the State charged with police and judicial powers in such cases must, in the consideration of international questions growing out of such incidents, be regarded in such sense as Federal agents as to make this Government answerable for their acts in cases where it would be answerable if the United States had used its constitutional power to define and punish crimes against treaty rights.  A bill to provide for the punishment of violations of treaty rights of aliens was introduced in the Senate March 1, 1892, and reported favorably March 30.  Having doubtless in view the language of that part of Article III of the treaty of February 26, 1871, between the United States and Italy, which stipulates that “The citizens of each of the high contracting parties shall receive, in the States and Territories of the other, most constant protection and security for their persons and property, and shall enjoy in this respect the same rights and privileges as are or shall be granted to the natives, on their submitting themselves to the conditions imposed upon the natives,” the bill so introduced and reported provided that any act committed in any State or Territory of the United States in violation of the rights of a citizen or subject of a foreign country secured to such citizen or subject by treaty between the United States and such foreign country and constituting a crime under the laws of the State or Territory shall constitute a like crime against the United States and be cognizable in the Federal courts.  No action was taken by Congress in the matter.

I earnestly recommend that the subject be taken up anew and acted upon during the present session.  The necessity for some such provision abundantly appears.  Precedent for constituting a Federal jurisdiction in criminal cases where aliens are sufferers is rationally deducible from the existing statute, which gives to the district and circuit courts of the United States jurisdiction of civil suits brought by aliens where the amount involved exceeds a certain sum.  If such jealous solicitude be shown for alien rights in cases of merely civil and pecuniary import, how much greater should be the public duty to take cognizance of matters affecting the lives and the rights of aliens tinder the settled principles of international law no less than under treaty stipulation, in cases of such transcendent wrong-doing as mob murder, especially when experience has shown that local justice is too often helpless to punish the offenders.