International diplomatic leverage forced federal reparations for lynched Italians

Evidence

The Italian government was outraged when it learned of its citizens’ murders abroad and “insisted upon a promise that reparation would be made.” It believed that a debt was owed because the victims were “Italian citizens in foreign countries [and as such] should be accorded the full measure of protection fixed by the laws of these countries.” When the request was ignored, Italy recalled its ambassador to the United States, Baron Fava, which was followed by the United States withdrawing its ambassador from Rome. Italy “threatened military action unless the United States government paid reparations to the families of the murdered men.” — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 126

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: British diplomats justified Italian repression as a fair liberty-for-order tradeoff — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1723; Victimhood and reparation demands function as leverage in soft diplomacy, not genuine settlement — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 1242; Italian immigrants were lynched for alleged crimes without legal process. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 538