216	HAWAIIAN  ISLANDS.
let her. Now she has changed her mind; she makes a sort of excuse for what she 
did, and says she will never do it again.
It seems to me that the question that your committee has to ask now, and which 
is for you gentlemen here in the meeting to decide is this: Are you satisfied with the 
assurance given in to-day's proclamation signed by the Queen and the four ministers, 
and will you consider this matter ended, or do you desire greater and stronger guar- 
antees for the safety and preservation of your life and liberty and property? I am 
one of the citizens' committee of public safety; my views on the situation are ex- 
pressed in the resolutions which have just been read, and I trust you will show that 
you are of the same mind as the committee by adopting these resolutions.
Hon. H. P. BALDWIN. I feel, with the rest of you, that the actions of the Queen 
have put the country in a very critical situation. Before this revolutionary act of 
Her Majesty we were getting along. A ministry had been appointed which would 
probably have been able to pull us through. The McKinley bill had put the whole 
country into a critical situation. We were working up new industries. Mr. Dil- 
lingham was trying to build a railroad around this island. The Queen seems to 
have blinded herself to all these things. She has followed a whim of her own - a 
whim of an irresponsible body of Hawaiians - and tried to establish a new consti- 
tution. We must stop this; but we must not go beyond constitutional means. I 
favor this resolution, but think the committee should act within the constitution. 
There is no question that the Queen has done a revolutionary act; there is no doubt 
about that. The Queen's proclamation has not inspired confidence; but shall we 
not teach her to act within the constitution? [Loud calls of "No."] Well, gentle- 
men, I am ready to act when the time comes.
J. EMMELUTH wished to say a few words on the situation. He had heard the 
Queen's speech at the palace, and noted the expression of her face. It was fiendish. 
When the petitioners tiled out he reflected on the fact that thirty men could paralyze 
the business of the community for twenty-four hours. It was not they that did it, 
hut the schemers behind them, and perhaps a woman, too. It was not the Hawaiians 
that wanted the new constitution; not those who worked. This was the third time 
that he had shut his doors, let his men go, and came up to this building. It would 
be the last time. If we let this time go by we would deserve all we would get. An 
opportunity came puce in every lifetime. It had come to us, and if we finished as 
we should, a repetition of last Saturday would never occur in this country again. 
[Applause.] We must stand shoulder to shoulder. There was but one course to 
pursue, and we would all see it. The manifesto of this morning was bosh. "I won't 
do it any more; but give me a chance and I'll do it again." If the Queen had suc- 
ceeded last Saturday, myself and you would have been robbed of the privileges 
without which no white man can live in this community. "Fear not, be not afraid," 
was written in my Bible by my mother twenty-five years ago. Gentlemen, I have 
done. As far as the Hawaiians are concerned, all have an aloha for them, and we 
wish to have laws enabling us to live peaceably together.
R. J. GREENE. Fellow citizens, among the many things I never could do was to 
make an impromptu speech. I have tried it over and over again and never succeeded 
hut once, and that was after five weeks' preparation. Our patience has been ex- 
hausted. We all agree about the case. The question is, the remedy. John Greene, 
of Rhode Island, entered the war of the Revolution and served throughout. His 
son, my father, served through the war of 1812, until that little matter was settled. 
In 1862 John Greene, my father, stood before a meeting like this, and said he had 
four sons in the war, of whom I was the youngest, and would serve himself if he was 
not too old. This experience has biased my judgment as to some matters of civil 
government. It is too late to throw obstacles across the path of its progress here. 
I have adopted this flag and am loyal to it, but I am not willing to go one step back 
in the matter of civil liberty, and I will give the last drop of Rhode Island blood in 
my veins to go forward, and not back. [Cheers.]
Chairman Wilder read the latter part of the resolution.
It was passed by a unanimous standing vote, without a dissenting voice, and 
amid tremendous cheers, after which the meeting broke up.

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