Blount Report: Affairs in Hawaii
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HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 1201
enemies are powerful and insidious, and though some work secretly and others openly all are united to defeat the
objects of the January revolution. It is for us to remain steadfast to those objects, no matter who or what may prove
false to them; no matter who or what may conspire or oppose; no matter what self-interest may undermine; no
matter who may come with the olive branch in one hand and a dagger in another. This is our highest public duty.
There is but one political goal and watchword for us all and that is annexation. It in the beginning and end of our
political alphabet. It is the best hope of the Americans in Hawaii, and of thousands who are not Americans except in
principle, and it is the brat that could happen to the natives,
" Whatever comes and whatever proposals of government may be, we must be true to the objects of the revolution or
we shall be undone by the forces now at work against us. But what, it may be asked, if annexation is long delayed, if
the wait becomes one of years? What if we are left to work out our own salvation first? Fellow-citizens, in that
event, the best thing we can do is to work it out on the American plan and by the exercise of Anglo-Saxon pluck,
and leave the rest to the Ruler of all nations, 1 sometimes think that Providence may have a great political work for
this little island community to perform before our common hopes may be secured and realized. It is in such small
confines that God has set the mightiest forces of the world's affairs in motion. Events upon a narrow strip of sea
shore, among the fishers and the poor, have swayed the world for nineteen centuries.
" Some of the brightest chapters of civilization and the strongest ones of philosophy, and the most heroic ones of
war, opened among the isles of Greece. Upon the narrow ledges of Switzerland a few plain people and a few plain
rules did more for mankind in one unhappy day than all the empires. Among the sea-girt hills of Corsica was born
the genius of Napoleon. In Haiti all men were once taught the might of a free people. Nor is this all. From those little
islands in the northern seas where the British flag first reddened the dull air, the strongest tides of civilization have
flowed for a thousand years in a continuous stream. You might take those islands and put them in the midst of one of
the many great American lakes and they could not be seen from the shore; but their very name to the Zulu of the
Cape, to the bushman of Australia, to the redman of the forests of Manitoba, to the high and the low all over the
earth is the incarnation of one of the world's affairs. Surely the opportunity to do great things and useful things is not
dependent upon the size of the theater. It may be, for ought we know, that Hawaii has some historical function to
perform before her identity is merged into the greatness of the Union.
"No man can foresee where and how the responsibility is to fall; but if it should he for us to spread ideas of free
government through the thousands sent among us from the coast of Asia; if it becomes our privilege to inspire the
same eagerness for liberty among them which the colonial Americans lodged in the minds of their French allies, and
which the latter put to such good service on the 17th of January, 1793, why that is a duty which all true Americans
would be proud to perform as the best homage they could pay to the Fatherland, to the flag they yet hope to see
waving over the North American continent, and to the principles which they believe will some day dominate the
world. Whether annexation comes now or is deferred for a generation, in either case there are American principles to
teach and American duties to perform on the Hawaiian Islands which our people will uphold with courage,
administer with prudence, and defend, if needs be, with their lives. And if such years are to come and stern duties
befall, I am sure that none of us will forget that annexation is the end that must be sought, the object that must and
shall he won. It is that which will give Hawaii diversified industries; fill the land with the instruments of modern
progress; connect it with the cable systems of the world; multiply its population by a score; expand its commerce
and its trade; upbuild its civilization; give peace to all its people, and strengthen the authority of the American
Republic in this great ocean.
"It is a prize worth working for, and one upon which courage and patience will not be wasted. Standing here upon
ground once consecrated to the pomp of monarchy, face to face with the deroyalized house of government, knowing
no flag so dear as the Stars and Stripes, we appeal to our countrymen to open their gates to us of kindred blood; but
we pledge ourselves, if that can not be, to be at least worthy of the service by the work we shall do on this soil for
the glory of American principles."
NOTES OF THE DAY-SOME OF THE HAPPENINGS OF YESTERDAY BRIEFLY REVIEWED.
Two large bon fires, in honor of the day, were made on the peninsula at Ewa, by the Portuguese, from 7 till 8
o'clock.
The decorations of the executive building and grounds surpassed anything of the kind ever attempted.
F R 94-APP II--76
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