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2444 I was not aware of the enormity of section 101 of the bill when it came out of the committee of which I have the honor to be a member; but it not only says that she shall not now have any right, but that she shall be forever debarred from all claim of right in any court or in any tribunal that may now exist or may hereafter be constituted, 1 have spoken longer than I cared to, and I should like to have a vote on the amendment, and upon that vote will depend whether or not I will call up another amendment I have submitted. Mr. CULLOM. Mr. President, 1 have never been able, so far as I am concerned, to satisfy myself entirely whether or not the late Queen of the Hawaiian Islands had any interest after she was overthrown which would give her a right to recover anything from the United States, but I supposed that if she had she would not undertake to get it by a direct appropriation by Congress. I presumed she would pursue her remedy, if she had one, in the courts of the United States, and the courts, if she had any title and interest in the Crown lands, so called, would render such a verdict as would be just to her. I still think that that is the right course and that it is not a good thing to come in here with an amendment proposing to appropriate $250,000 for her without knowing whether she is entitled to half that much or twice that much. Everybody knows that if we adopt the amendment it will not be two years before she will come for another installment, more or less. Mr. CLARK of Wyoming. If the Senator will read the amend- ment he will see that she could not. She is barred absolutely. Mr. CULLOM. If she is barred absolutely, she perhaps would not take the money unless she thought it was all she was entitled to or more. She had no title to those lands at all, but she had a sort of arrangement by which she got rentals, from year to year, under the old system that existed for years back. Mr. JONES of Arkansas. Will the Senator from Illinois permit me to interrupt him? Mr. CULLOM. Certainly. Mr. JONES of Arkansas. The provision of this amendment is that this amount is to be paid to the "late Queen * * * for all right, claim, or interest she may have or claim to have in or to the said Crown lands herein mentioned;" and the Senator himself admitted that she had no personal right in the land - that it belonged to the crown. His idea is to make this provision by way of compensation for the wrong of the Government of the United States in overthrowing her and depriving her of this power; but the trouble, it occurs to me, is that we are recognizing the right of ownership in her personally to these lands which never did exist. Mr. CLARK of Wyoming. The Senator from Arkansas is splitting hairs there. Mr. CULLOM. I hardly understand the temper of the Senate or of any body apparently on these questions. After we have gone on and recognized what took place there and after we have finally accepted the cession of the islands, Senators in this body turn around and begin to abuse the Government of the United States for everything it has ever done with reference to those islands, when all of us in this Chamber pretty nearly voted for the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands. Mr. JONES of Arkansas. I did not. I beg pardon. I was paired against the joint resolution. Mr. BACON. 1 did not. Mr. CULLOM. A great majority of the Senate did, as I remember. Mr. BACON. I did not. Mr. CULLOM. But whether they did or not, after it is finished, after we have accepted the islands, it seems to me there ought to be some time in our history when we will talk about something else and stop abusing the people or the Congress or the country for accepting the islands or the manner of their acceptance. There ought to be a statute of limitations, it seems to me, which would run to estop Senators and Representatives and other people from finding fault eternally with what the Government does after it has been done for years and years, especially when in the judgment of the people of the United States we did right. So far as I am concerned, I do not want to abuse the Queen. She was overthrown. She substantially abdicated, as a matter of fact, voluntarily, by her own act. But I am not going to discuss that. The question is now what we ought to do, whether anything, for her now that she has become a private citizen. I happen to know that she is here in this city now. or has been until recently. I do not know whether she is actually here now. But she has been consulting lawyers in the District of Columbia to know what her rights are. Now, we propose to appropriate $250,000 for her to live on. If the Senate wants to do it, it can do so; but in my judgment there ought to be a more intelligent way of determining whether she has any rights, and then what those rights amount to. Mr. TELLER. What section is this? Mr. CLARK of Wyoming. Section 101. Mr.TELLER. I should like to ask the Senator a question. Why did the committee see fit to put in section 101 and cut off any right she might have? Why do they not let her go to the courts, if she has any chance? Mr. CULLOM. That was my idea; that she should go to the courts. Mr. TELLER. Strike out section 101. Mr. CULLOM. The Senator from Alabama [Mr. MORGAN] and one or two others explained that section the other day, and I should be glad to have the Senator from Alabama explain it again for the satisfaction of the Senate. I confess that I have always felt that it was not right to insert it, because it deprives her of the opportunity to do what I think she has a right to do, if she has. any interest in the land, and that is to find out what it is through the courts of the country. Mr. PETTIGREW. Mr. President, in January, 1893, there was a friendly government existing in the Hawaiian Islands, possessing treaty relations with the United States and maintaining itself, preserving order, life, and property. About that time 18 men, some of whom were citizens of Hawaii, some of them citizens of the United States, and some subjects of Germany, met in an office in Honolulu and conspired together to overthrow the established friendly government. These revolutionists sent one of their number to the United States minister and told him what their plans and purposes were and made an arrangement with, him by which the marines of the United States on the war ship Boston in the harbor of Honolulu were to land and protect the conspirators and help to overthrow this friendly government. The marines did land. These men addressed a letter to our minister, asking him to land the marines and troops to protect life and property, and they fixed the hour at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. After they had made the request for the landing of troops and he had arranged for their landing, these 13 men sent one of their number to our minister asking him to defer the landing until the next day. If there was danger to life and property, why did they want to defer the landing until the next day? There was no danger to life and property. Life and property were being protected, and peace and quiet and safety existed. The troops were to be landed to enable the conspirators to overthrow a friendly government. The minister had already ordered the landing of the troops, and while their emissary was at the office of our minister the troops were put ashore from the vessel, a hundred and eighty of them, and they marched not to any point in the city where they could protect life and property, not to the American consul's office or the resident minister's office, not to the heart of the business section of the city of Honolulu, but to Arion Hall, a little building 75 yards from the government building. Why did they march to that point? Simply because our minister had agreed that if these 13 con- spirators would take possession of the government building and there read their proclamation declaring the government over- thrown, he would recognize them. The next day these 13 men marched to the government building in two squads, so as not to attract attention, marched on two different streets, and having come to the government building, where there was no armed force, no revolutionists, nobody but the janitor and the clerk inside, they proceeded to read their proclamation declaring the government of Queen Liliuokalani overthrown. The marines in the meantime had been drawn up in line with their Gatling gun within 75 yards of the scene. The Senator from Illinois [Mr. CULLOM] said the Queen abdi- cated; that she surrendered her government. What are the facts? Immediately upon reading this proclamation, without any armed force to protect them except the marines of the United States, they went to the American minister and secured a recognition of the government instituted by the 13 men, and sustained by nothing unless it was the marines of the United States. The marines had assumed a threatening attitude. The committee also sent an emissary - Mr. Damon - to the Queen. Here is what she said. Here is her letter upon this subject: I, Liliuokalani, by the grace of God and under the constitution of the Hawaiian kingdom, Queen, So hereby solemnly protest against any and all acts done against myself and the constitutional government of the Hawaiian kingdom by certain persona claiming to have established a provisional government of and for this kingdom. That I yield to the superior force of the United States of America, whose minister plenipotentiary, His Excellency John L. Stevens, has caused United States troops to be landed at Honolulu and declared that he would support the said provisional government. Now, to avoid any collision of armed forces and perhaps the loss of life, I do, under this protest and impelled by said force, yield my authority until such time as the Government of the United States shall, upon the facts being presented to it, undo the action of its representatives and reinstate me in the authority which I claim as the constitutional sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands. Done at Honolulu this 17th day of January, A. D. 1893. LILIUOKALANI, R. SAMUEL PARKER, Minister of Foreign Affairs. WM. H. CORNWELL, Minister of Finance. JNO. F. COLBUBN, Minister of the Interior. A. P. PETERSON, Attorney-General.