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1919

The joint resolution declared also that said cession is accepted, ratified, and 
confirmed and that the islands and their dependencies are annexed-as part of the 
territory of the United States and subject to the sovereign dominion of the 
United States. The joint resolution of annexation also provided that the laws of 
the United States relative-to public lands shall not apply to such lands in the 
Hawaiian Islands, but that the Congress of the United States should enact 
special laws for their management and disposition, and that all revenue from or 
proceeds of the same should be used solely for the benefit of the inhabitants of 
the Hawaiian Islands for educational and other public purposes.

Mr. LINDSAY.   Mr. President--

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. PERKINS in the chair). Does the Senator from 
Illinois yield to the Senator from Kentucky?

Mr. CULLOM.   Certainly.

Mr. LINDSAY. With the Senator's consent, I will ask him whether the 
provisions of the joint resolution of the two Houses of the American Congress 
were ever ratified or accepted by any legislative action on the part of the 
government of Hawaii?

Mr. MORGAN.   They were.

Mr. CULLOM,   I think they did accept it.

Mr. MORGAN.   Yes.

Mr. CULLOM. As I said, the joint resolution followed the voluntary cession by 
the Hawaiian-government, as expressed in the treaty which we failed to ratify.

Mr. LINDSAY.   The treaty failed?

Mr. CULLOM.   The treaty failed here.
I will not discuss the other provisions of the joint resolution further than to 
say that the public debt of the Republic of Hawaii, existing at the date of the 
passage of the joint resolution, including the amounts due to depositors in the 
			Hawaiian Postal Savings Bank, should be assumed by the Government of the 
United States, but the liability of the United States in this respect should in no 
case exceed $4,000,000.

Mr. President, the commission charged with the duty of investigating and 
reporting to Congress undertook the duty imposed upon it by the act, and 
made their report, which is before the Senate, and a year and more ago 
reported the bill which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations, 
considered and reported to the Senate, but not acted upon by the Senate 
during that session, but which was reintroduced at the beginning of this 
session, acted upon by the Foreign Relations Committee, and re-ported again to 
the Senate.

The bill under consideration is the result, first, of the work in part by_ the 
commission, but subsequently amended in a number of particulars and reported 
to the Senate for consideration.
I will not undertake to call attention of the committee to each of the sections 
as they appear in the bill, because it would require more time than I deem 
necessary to claim at the hands of the Senate, and secondly, because I do not 
think there will be much opposition to many sections of the bill. The 
committee under-took to prepare a bill which would be most in the interest of 
the people of those islands and as near as possible, as we thought, satisfactory 
to the people of the States. In the first place, we regarded it as proper to name 
the islands as the Territory of Hawaii, the island of Hawaii being much the larger 
island of the group.

The bill under consideration provides substantially for a Territorial 
government, very largely in harmony with the governments of our Territories as 
they have existed in this country. There is, however, this difference: We found 
in Hawaii a very substantial, well-administered government existing, and which 
has existed for very many years. I desire that the Senate shall realize that the 
government over there; now called the republic, has existed very nearly as it is 
now for very many years, in other words, that that is an old country and an old 
government. It is true it has been most of the time under a monarchy, but it is 
now called the re-public of Hawaii. As I said, it has existed for many years; 
first, under a monarchy and, secondly, under what was styled the re-public of 
			Hawaii, with a president and cabinet, with a legislature and constitution and a 
code of civil and penal laws, with a supreme court, and with circuit courts and 
other minor judicial offices.

When the commission visited those islands we found that, ac-cording to their 
last census, the population numbered from 110,000 to 120,000 people and that there 
is about 7,000 square miles of territory, much the larger island being the island 
of Hawaii and containing 4,210 square miles, the other islands ranging from 760 
to about 100 square miles. The population of those islands is composed of 
about 31,000 native Hawaiians, about 8,000 half-castes, about 2,500 British, 
1,400 or 1,500 Germans, between 3,000 and 4,000 Americans, 15,000 Portuguese, 
24,000 Japanese, 21,000 Chinese, and then a few hundred from several other 
nations. It is believed now that there are perhaps 150,000 people in the Territory.
The commission and the committee deemed it wiser to prepare and report a 
measure disturbing conditions there as little as might be consistent with the 
best interests of both the islands and
this country. Hence the bill under consideration recognizes the existence of 
their system of courts, recognizes their legislature, and provides for many local 
offices for administering the laws of the Territory.
The commission also made a pretty thorough examination of the laws then in 
force, and, in view of the change from an independent government to a Territorial 
government of the United States, pro-pose to repeal in the bill before us such laws 
as we found in their statutes would necessarily have to be repealed either by their 
legislature or by the Congress of the United States; so that in the work which 
the commission performed the laws to be left in force, if the bill should pass, are 
embodied as an appendix to the report itself made to the President and laid before 
Congress.

Mr. President, I know it will be said that these laws referred to to be repealed 
and laws referred to to be continued are unknown as to exactly what they are by the 
Senate or by Congress or by anybody else outside, unless they have looked into 
them. But the laws to be retained are in a volume connected with the report, 
and the subject was thoroughly investigated by the commission, having on it 
two gentlemen, President Dole, of the republic, and Judge Frear, of the 
supreme court, both of them very familiar with the statutes, and both of them 
assisted largely, if they did not do most of the work, in selecting for repeal those laws which would evidently and plainly be in antagonism with the provisions of the bill 
which we reported; and most of them also are unnecessary in view of the 
changed condition of that government into a Territorial government belonging to 
the United States.

The bill also by its fourth section declares that all persons who were citizens 
of the republic of Hawaii on the 12th of August, 1898, are. declared to be 
citizens of the United States, and in the fifth section it is declared that all the 
laws of the United States not locally inapplicable, except as specified, shall 
have the same force and effect within the Territory as elsewhere in the United 
States. The section provides, however, that section 1850 of the Revised Statutes 
of the United States shall not be applicable to the Territory. But it is provided in 
the sixth section that the laws of Hawaii not inconsistent with the Constitution or 
laws of the United States or the provisions of the bill when it shall become a law 
shall continue in force, subject to repeal or amendment by the legislature of 
Hawaii or the Congress of the United States.

The question is raised whether, under that section, any act passed in the 
future would be subject to repeal or amendment by the Congress of the United 
States. That section ought perhaps to be amended so that it shall read that the 
laws of Hawaii now in force or hereafter to be enacted not inconsistent with the 
Constitution or laws of the United States shall continue in force, subject to 
repeal or amendment by the legislature of Hawaii or the Congress of the 
United States.

Section 1890, referred to in the fifth section, provides that no corporation 
or association for religious or charitable purposes shall acquire or hold 
property valued at over $50,000. This section, if allowed to apply to the 
Territory of Hawaii, would interfere with the Kamehameha schools and the 
Young Men's Christian Association ownership of property, as either amounts to 
more in value than $50,000. Hence it was insisted by the friends of the school 
as well as of the Young Men's Christian Association that their educational and 
charity work should not be interfered with.

Mr. PLATT of Connecticut. Would it interrupt the Senator if I should ask him a question?

Mr. CULLOM.   No, sir.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Illinois yield to the 
Senator from Connecticut?

Mr. CULLOM.   I do.

Mr. PLATT of Connecticut.   I inquire of the Senator whether he thinks that 
the right to hold property by such a corporation should be entirely unlimited 
or whether some other limit ought to be fixed?

Mr. CULLOM.   I think, perhaps, there ought to be a limit, but this school is a 
great institution, founded many years ago.   I suppose that the property came 
from the Kamehameha estate. I think it would be very unfortunate that such an 
institution should be interfered with by limiting the amount to the sum specified 
in the original statutes.

Mr. PLATT of Connecticut. I think the Senator is quite right about that, but 
the question arose in my mind whether there should not be some limitation as 
to the amount of property to be held. There is almost always such a limitation 
in Territorial bills.

Mr. CULLOM. That is true; and if I knew how much the institution held, I 
might be able to answer definitely as to what the limit should be; but I really do 
not know. I should be willing to limit the amount to what the institution now 
has.
The eighth section of the bill provides for the abolition of the offices of 
president, minister of foreign affairs, minister of the interior, minister of finance, 
minister of public instruction, auditor-general, deputy auditor-general, surveyor-
general, marshal, and

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