Los Angeles herald., 1891-03-25
WEDNESDAY,, MARCH ab, 1891.
1HE eovRRNMENr AND ALIENS.

THE GOVERNMENT AND ALIENS.
There is good deal of confusion in
most peoples minds as to the duties of
the government toward aliens dwelling
in the country. and as to the govern
ment's responsibility to other govern
ments in cases where the subjects or cit
izens of these other governments
suffer injury. There is no treaty be-
tween us and other governments which
guarantees to aliens any rights not en-
joyed by our own citizens. Nor has the
federal government any power to en-
force claims for an alien the government
could not enforce for a citizen. When
these propositions are stated they be-
come evident enough; but great many
people forgot these plain and funda-
mental principles in the excitement
growing out of the New Orleans lynch
ing.
All that our treaties guarantee, under
ssthe most favored nations" clause, is
the protection of our laws. The guar
antee is simply that aliens coming here
under such treaty terms shall find our
courts open to them as to our own peo-
pie, where they can sue for their rights,
and implead their injurers. While
these rights are accorded to aliens, no
foreign power has or can find any casus
belli under any treaty. The treaties do
not guarantee the alien at all against
the unlawful acts of individuals singly
or in mobs, excepting 30 far as the
courts having jurisdiction in any given
cases can and will grant relief for wrongs
suffered, or punish offenders justly
amenable to our laws.
Aliens come here to live, surely on no
better terms than we enjoy ourselves.
They come here to take their chances, as
citizens Of the republic do under our
laws. If one person or one hundred per-
sons burglarize the house of citizen,
he uses the properly constituted author
tiles to find, take and bring to justice
the offenders. The alien has no better
guarantee than this that his home shall
not be burglarized. The same course
Of reasoning will apply to highway rob-
berry. or any other form of injustice. 1t
will not fail in it's cogency if applied to
murder in any of it's forms. If citi
zen is unlawfully killed his representa-
tives through the authorities where the
offense is done have a right to see that
due diligence is used to bring the offen-
ders before the proper courts and have
them punished. It is the duty of the
authorities to do this whether the dead
person has or has not any one to look
after his rights. If mob kill a man or
destroy his property, the persons
wronged have right under our laws to
collect damages from the municipality
whose authorities failed to maintain the
peace. These damages must be proven
before competent courts, and collected
under formal judgment OF. such courts.
All these premises are quite as true ap-
piled to the case of any alien owing al
legiance to any foreign power. No less
q statesman than Daniel Webster was
the first to explicate these principles on
the part Of the United States.
Yet they were utterly forgotten by
about every person who was called upon
to act in the case of the men killed the
other day in New Orleans. From the
italian minister, the president, and Mr..
Blaine, all the way down to the news
paper reporters who handled the news,
these principles were lost sight of.
1t seemed to be taken for
granted at all points that the
nationality of the dead men cut some
figure in the affair, to be taken for
granted that the men were subjects of
the king OF Italy, and that that power
might in the most heroic spirit and in
the most summary manner ''send her
ironclads to the mouth of the Missis-
sipri"-in other words declare war if she
chose. Perhaps she might. There has
never been discovered any way to pre-
vent some people doing wrong things,
and Others doing foolish things. But
Italy never could have had any shadow
of right for such an act. Had the eleven
men killed in the New Orleans jail
been all Italians, subjects of the king
OF Italy, that monarch would have
had the right under our treaty
with Italy to demand that the question
of their death should be subject for
rigid investigation under the laws of the
state where the. killing was done, and
there his functions would have ended.
When those who committed the
act have been tried in the courts of Lou
isiana, and when the friends of the
dead men have been given all proper
facilities to sue for civil damages under
the laws OF the state, the matter must
end. The men killed turning out to be
American citizens, that is manifestly
the status of the case. Had they been
aliens could it be otherwise? If the
Italian government, after the trial,
should be persuaded that miscarriage
of justice had taken place, and should
elect to press that question upon our
government, the question would become