Home: The Annexation Of Hawaii: A Collection Of Document
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3720 The people of the Hawaiian Islands, according to the authorities, in their present condition and as a whole, among all our new possessions, are perhaps best fitted for the representative govern- ment of a United States Territory. Even in these islands, however, it has been found necessary to restrict suffrage and safeguard by legislation their admission as a Territory. The Hawaiian group numbers seven inhabited islands and a dozen rocky or sandy reefs and shoals, with a total population of a little over 109,000. In this estimate of population the Japanese laborers imported since the passage of the annexation resolution (about 20,000) are not included. These islands are directly in the track of the ocean-going steamers between our western coast and China, and valuable to us for coaling stations, for their trade, and because of their proximity to our coast. We can easily care for and protect them. A considerable part of the population, composed of the Asiatics - the Chinese and Japanese - and part Hawaiians (mixed Hawaiian and foreign blood; is undesirable; but the native Hawaiians are orderly, peaceable, intelligent, industrious, and have shown steady ad- vancement under the influence of education and Christianity since the advent of the first missionaries from New England in 1820. In the language of the report of the Hawaiian Commission - The free school, free church, free press, and manhood suffrage have marked their progress. The government of the islands has shown the same progressive development. For sixty years it has been administered under a written constitution. The first constitution was promulgated in 1840. The trade of the islands with the United States, considering their size and population, is valuable and extensive. According to the best statistics. the exports of the United States to the Hawaiian Islands in 1899 amounted to more than $10,000,000. THE imports from the Hawaiian Islands into the United States amounted in 1899 to more than $31,000.000; and, Mr. Chairman, whether it true, as a general proposition, that trade follows the flag, certainly in relation to Hawaii it seems to be true, and doubtless the annexation of the Hawaiian islands will in the future be of advantage to the United States, as it already has been, by reason of this extensive trade and the character of the majority of its people. With the Philippine Islands, however, Mr. Chairman, it is en tirely different. These islands, lying as they do about 680 miles from Hongkong, in China, and about 7,000 miles from the western coast of the United States and in the far Orient, requiring as they are now doing, and will continue to do, a large standing army and navy and involving an immense expense, as well as possible foreign complications, can not eventually prove advantageous to our people. The total number of islands in the Philippine Archipelago is unknown. According to the best authorities they have never been counted, but their estimated number ranges all the way from 600 to 2,000. It is said by Morris in his handbook: The actual number does not probably exceed 1,200, if every barren rock be included. The best estimate of the land area in these islands is about 115,000 square miles. Many of them are unimportant in size, mere rocks in the ocean. Several hundred are large enough to be inhabited. The largest two of the Philippine Islands, respectively the farthest north and the farthest south, are Luzon and Mindanao. As compared in area with the American States, the whole group of the Philippines, according to the best authorities, is of nearly the same extent as the New England States with New York and New Jersey added. The population, like the number and area of the islands, is equally indefinite. According to the best statistics, the popula tion of the group is variously estimated at from 7,000,000 to 12.000,000, The missionaries made an estimate in 1885 which showed 9,500.000. The inhabitants of these islands belong to three distinct races, namely, the Malayan, the Indonesian, and the Negrito. The Negritos do not number to-day more than 25,000. It is stated in a recent compilation upon the Philippine Islands, made pursuant to a resolution of the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE], Senate Document No. 171, that within a comparatively short time this race of Negritos has completely disappeared from several of the islands which it formerly inhabited. So far as at present known, the Indonesian race is found only in the large island of Mindanao, the surface of which constitutes about one-third of the total land area of the archipelago. The re- mainder of the archipelago is occupied by the Malayans, composing the great majority of the inhabitants of the Philippines. These Malayans have intermarried with Chinese extensively, and to a limited extent with Spaniards and other Europeans. These people, Mr. Chairman, I insist, we do not want and we should not have as an integral part of the American people. We can not and ought not to make citizens of them, and to hold them as colonies is contrary to the genius and spirit of our Government