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Blount Report: Affairs in Hawaii

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              HAWAIIAN  ISLANDS.					1207

Their inventors will cease to be backward. Every man here will have an opportunity. The islands are rich in material 
resources. We have Pearl locks and other grand harbors. There is prosperity in store for all. We have been extremely 
fortunate in having men here who have accepted public office as a public trust. They are able and self-sacrificing 
gentlemen, worthy of our trust and confidence, and entitled to our support.
H. T. Waterhouse made a few timely and effective remarks in the native tongue. The effort was received with every 
mark of cordiality and favor. This translation was furnished by Rev. Sereno Bishop : [Pointing to the motto 
"Aloha."] "That is our foundation, to live in love to each other. The light has broken upon us; we have lived in 
darkness-let us now embrace the light. The doors of the former palace were open to-day for the poor and needy to 
enter, and that movement will enlarge the opportunities of the poor. Then go forward and secure liberty and pros-
perity.
Attorney-General W. O. Smith said, in speaking for the Government, that if any one feeling should animate our 
hearts it should be a union of gratitude and pride. I am proud of the conduct of the people and of their support of the 
Government. The natives, many of them, not clearly understanding the situation, have evinced confidence in us. 
Their behavior merits the greatest commendation. The Government has had to contend with many difficulties; the 
people have been patient; there has been no exercise of the ballot; self-interest has "been subordinated to public 
interest; men have been brave, courageous, and forbearing. It has been no easy task to act as wet nurse to an infant. 
The child has had the measles and the colic, and it has even been threatened with a spanking; but it is now a lusty 
little one, able to walk. We are working for one, great destiny-stability of government. We will secure it in 
annexation. Let there be a continuance of the noble subordination of self-interests, and we shall, march on to victory.
Judge Robertson said he was thankful for the opportunity to lift his voice as an Annexationist. He was in the United 
States when the Queen committed her fatal error. He recognized the effects of the happenings when accounts were 
wired across the continent. He knew that the sentiments which were then uppermost were the same sentiments 
which forced Kalakaua to dismount his high horse in 1881 and drew Bob Wilcox from his gasoline tank in 1889. He 
had been amused at the complaint of an English man of war's man upon being called a boy. "Old men for council, 
young men for war.'' The services of the "boys" were in demand a few weeks ago when it looked us if "our great and 
good friend" Grover Cleveland, would force us to fight. He was with the boys. The speaker had not been an ardent 
Annexationist until about one year ago. Having been born here he was proud of the autonomy of Hawaii. Now he 
was convinced that a higher state of citizenship would be the possession of all who went into the American Union 
with Hawaii. As Robert Lincoln said, every man is the equal of every other man in the United States. Some of the 
Royalists are saying that Liliuokalani will be given back her throne. There was no such thing as her throne. She had 
forfeited it when she abolished constitutional government.
Walter G. Smith said the 17th day of January was a date of note in the political history of the world. On that day in 
1792 the people of France condemned a despotic king to death and gained that liberty which, from the dream of the 
philosopher, had become the possession of the subject. That day marked the inauguration of the republican 
movement in Europe. It dispelled the belief that a country without a king or a church without a bishop meant chaos 
and infidelity. The events of that January day had brought men to their senses. They saw that the attributed divinity 
of a monarch was but the figment of their inherited fears and superstitions. The feudal principle then received a 
wound that defied all surgery. A century after that day in France came a day in Hawaii when the last independent 
sovereign on the Western Hemisphere lost her throne and the last recognized dynasty on this side of the globe was 
expunged from the calendar of princes. Then the 17th of January gained the right to be known as one of the world's 
democratic holidays. Let it approve the fact that it is a sign set eternal in the heavens of history that kings and queens 
and potentates shall be no more and that the reign of the people has begun. There is nothing more inspiring in the 
annals of 1776 than the unwavering front this people preserved in their great emergency.
On one side was the chief of 60,000,000, here an armed body of a paltry thousand; there was the greatest of modern 
powers with its armies and fleets, here a few lone rocks in the ocean without a fort upon their pinnacles or a gun 
upon a deck; there was a government whose President declared that our dethroned queen should reign again; there 
was a little hand of men who said that she must pass over their dead bodies first. In our harbor was the broadside of 
a possible foe, here on shore was a battalion behind its sandbags. The odds were great, but the patriots of Hawaii 
took them. If the American people had not intervened there might have been a new Thermopylae. While we look 
back with pride we must look forward with

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