Saturday press. [volume] (Honolulu, H.I.) 1880-1885, 1883-01-20
zXE HLZ4L oNESTyOM

subject Of prime importance. With It we may
be happy, even though stepped in poverty.
But without 1t, and more especially II con
taminated by the poison Of the most horribly
revolving malady known on earth, wealth and
success and prosperity are but hollow delusions.
What will it avail us il we labor and scheme
and plead to secure a renewal Of the reciprocity
treaty and neglect the terrible scourge in our
midst, which threatens every day and night to
invade, in the most insduous and mysterious
way, the purity Of every home in the country
The history Of the past warns us to beware Of
the future. Instances, not few, can be re-
called by many here where innocent children,
young men and madens, besides numbers in
adul, life, all pure Anglo-Saxon blood, have
been sacrificed to the demon Of leprosy-a
race, with Characteristic fataism and childish.
ness, has not the will nor the power TO flee;
for it has spread over the length and breadth
Of the land like huge octopus, reaching out
its Shiny arms into every fertile valley and onto
every green plain, and graspng here and there
a victim; and the greater the number Of those
it preys upon, the more insatiate becomes its
appetite. What has happened in thee past,
under a comparatively limited growth Of the
disease, is bound to happen again and again
under its present rapid increase; and who
knows who the next victim may be2 We are
addressing those of foreign birth and foreign
blood. We appeal to you to say whether OF
no this outrage shall be allowed to continue.
Can you sit idly down and like the apathetic
native, calmly wait for the everspreading poison
to corrupt your blood or forever rob your
family circle of its purity and happiness; or
will you rise as one man and declare, in a
voice that shall shake the very heavens, that
this thing has gone far enough, and that if the
ruling class is unwilling OF incompetent to bind
the demon and circumscfibe its ravages, then
there is a class in the country who can and will
do it, We do not advocate revolution, but we
do assert that the Anglo-Saxon community on
these fair islands would be false to their in
stncts and their traditions, false to themselves
and their posterity false before Almighty God
if they permit this evil to 60 on unchecked.
The first article of the Hawaiian Constitution
acknowledges that among the inaienable rights
with which God has endowed all men, are life,
and the pursuit and obtaining of safety and
happiness. Shall we avail ourselves of these
sacred rights, or shall we, like cowardly pol
troons, quietly waive them because, forsooth,
an inert numerical majority, dead to their own
interests and dead to every sentiment of true
patriotism, place no value upon them2 1t is Of
little use to reason any longer with those men
of straw, commonly called the Kings Minis
ters. The government of kalakaua verges on
despotism, and the ministers, though not alto
gether responsible men, are much to blame for
allowing themselves to be led or driven into
doing that which their consciences must tell
them they should not do. Messrs. Gibson and
Preston are deficient in that quality Of irmness
and honesty which would lead them to stand
up manfully before the King and say "Permii
us to carry out the laws, to prevent the spread
of leprosy, or we shall resign our portfolios. VI
While we may despise them for their abeci
trucking to their sovereign for the purpose o.
retaining their Office, and must hold them par
tally responsible for the ravages of the foul
and loathsome ulcer which is eating away the
very vitals of the Hawaiian race, the main re-
sponsibility must be placed largely upon tn,
Hawaiians themselves, from the King, who, il
his unscrupulousness, is willing to sacrifice the
health and even the existence of the race in the
vain attempt to gain feeting popularity
down to the people, who, deaf to the appeal.
of reason, and blind to the experience of Older
communities, still, like a horde of children
rebel against isolation of their infected friends
Because the Hawaiians are the principal one
folly, are the "white invaders" to stand t,
one side, while they repel every exertion il
their behalf, and silently witness the ravages O
the plague and the early extinction Of the tribe
This is impossible. II the plague abound
on every side of us, we cannot escape unscathed
II the poison permeates the length and breadtl
of the land, we cannot hope for immunity
though we be purer than snow. With ou
life, we cannot regard the existing state Of af
fairs in Hawaii as anything less than gigantic
crime; as deliberate murder on large scale
and we hold David Kalakaua, as the one MAJ
who more than any other individual in tn,
country, is responsible for it. And no prophets
ken is requisite to predict that il he does no
speedily emulate the example Of Lunalilo. o
blessed memory, who, when the lepers be
sought him TO save them from banishment /,
Molokai, replied: "That is thing with whicl
I have nothing to do; il is in the hands of tn,
ministers" he may find the curse removed ans
controlled by another power, and Hawaii saved
not by itself, but from itself
Plain talk, although sometimes not alto
gether pleasant to ears which have been edu
Gated to sophistical re6nements, is neverthe
less an ingredient of human intercourse an,
mental interchange necessary to the well.beinl
Of the individual and to society. and withou
the timely and judicious exercise Of which, tn
estate we hold as mfn would soon dwindl
into that Of things, and the individual into a
au,omaton content in being swayed by ever
! petty element eNtrinsic to its being. Their
are men the world over who would ever max
their actions subsersient to what they believ
to be espediency, and our little community
) not altogether free from such class Such
sabseryieney is bu, species Of moral coward
, ice, OF a kind Of action dictated by selfish an
: unworthy objects, at once degrading to its sui
; jects and subyersive Of good community. Il
Ill