Home: The Annexation Of Hawaii: A Collection Of Document
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826 HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. the rudimentary principles of government and independent citizenship. Their lawyers can not grasp the details nor the generalizations that are necessary for the successful advocate or judge. Their ministers in our Christian churches may know how to shepherd the flocks in pastures, fenced and barred; but to beat off cunning and fierce destroyers they need other qualifications than a kindly spirit and a devoted attachment. There is no educated physician of native race in practice of his profession at the islands. There is no artisan, nor mechanic, nor trader in business for himself. As masters of the smaller coasting craft they have risen higher above their fellows and done better for their employers than in any other line of business. It will take time and patience and devotion to righteousness and truth as well as genuine sympathy to uplift and adopt and then to adapt American political system to this community, but I believe that the foregoing statement of facts will show that it is, in the line of past procedure, the only hopeful way out of present difficulties, a necessity and an urgency. We, who have lived some length of time in the country, know the weaknesses of the Hawaiian race, as well as their many excellent characteristics. The evidences that have shown such weaknesses are cumulative. The incidents that have developed such weaknesses, have not often been made matters of record and so can not at a moment's notice be recalled to substantiate such statements as might be made in regard to the unfitness of the Hawaiians for such predominance, politically and socially, as has hitherto been accorded to them. Here is one incident of recent occurrences: The acting pastor of a church on Maui found that the Sunday-school superintendent was drinking heavily of sweet-potato beer and was often drunk. He brought the case before the deacons, but they decided that they would do nothing about it, for two reasons assigned: (1) Sweet-potato beer was the common food of the people; (2) drunkenness was so common that it could not be treated as an offense. Thereupon the pastor on the succeeding Sunday proceeded to read a long proclamation after the fashion set by the Provincial Government, deposing the Sunday-school superintendent for reasons assigned, as unworthy of his official position. The people of Kaumakapili church in this city who do not like the well-known opposition of their pastor to the late Queen and her misrule presented a petition for his removal. The chief reason assigned was that they had not paid him his salary in full for the last two years, and this violation of their contract they acknowledged and made it the basis of their petition. that he should be removed from the pastorate. You will find that such is the childishness of this people, only two generations removed from lowest barbarism and heathenism, that the working of the political system is utterly unreliable. If voting is their privilege, it is sufficient to pose as a special friend of Hawaiian prejudices to secure an overwhelming majority for any such partisan. ~No matter how many times he may have deceived them, any demagogue who will promise whatever they may foolishly desire at the moment is the one whom they will follow. In this desire to perpetuate what is Hawaiian, and make that predominant, they are easily led to go back to heathen practices and ideas. To break up this tendency, for their own best welfare I know nothing better than to Americanize the political system. They will then be free to choose what is for their best good, not bound to cling to what is old and effete. Social regeneration is as necessary as individual regeneration to