The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1889-11-19
Chs 9aily 92llstia.
TUESDAY, NOV. 10, 1889.
GOOD WORDS FOR THE NATIVE.

who processes TO be earnestly seek
ing the cause of the decline of the
Hawaiian race publishes in paper
called the Friend, an extract from
the diary of a gentleman who visit
cd these islands in 1922. Such
matter, however designed in pre-
sent publication, is not in the inter-
est of justice to the Hawaiian race,
but liable to blind justice and TO
prevent the outside world from Sec
ing those good points in the Ha-
waiian character TO which they are
so justly entitled, namely, kindness,
generosity, nobleness of heart, and
above all their honesty as a class,
for where in any city of America
can one sleep with doors and win
dows open without fear of losing
the shirt from his hack or rings from
his fingers and ears, and his scalp
perhaps likcwisey The native lla-
waiian is good material of which TO
make Christians but is entirely too
honest to make an available polili-
clan and hence his being ignored by
those seeking place and power. Was
the object of the extract referred to
published TO increase race prejudice
as well as to cast slur upon the
royal ancestors of the Hawaiian
race, or to show the great good de-
rived to the race from their contact
with foreigners? He describes the
very lowest state and condition of
those he speaks of in his diary of
1922, rs in contrast with the best
regulated society of his own people
and leaves the reader to draw the
inevitable conclusion. In order to
prove the great amount of good
they have done-and they are en-
titled to great credit for some things
that they have done for the Ha-
waiian race-was it necessary, was
it charitable to call upon the bones
of their ancestors to arise and con-
fess before q self-constituted trib-
unal how very wicked they were,
male and female, before the advent
amongst them of the foreigner.
Were it not well for the crusaders
of reformation to throw the mantle
of charity over the bones of the Ha-
waiian race rather than slur them
for little indiscretion on the palt
of their ancestors, who seem to have
become unduly elated over the ar
rival amongst them of the author of
the diary of 1922, and especially of
those foreigners who came here in
the winged ship" to introduce
civilization and Christianity amongst
them? The Hawaiian may justly
charge that the cause of the decline
of the native American Indian race,
was bad rum, bad morals and bad
treatment at the hands of the for
eigner. "Let those without sin
cast the first slur." That the IIa-
waiians were idolators is true, but
what people even at the present day
is free from the faint of idolatry in
some form? Some there are who
profess great love for their Creator,
but is not their love and worship of
the dollar greater? AS for supersti-
ton many there are also claiming to
be classed amongst the most en-
lightened nations who have their
superstitions still clinging to them,
and if the untutored mind of the
native, who has not had the advan-
ta2es for 1889 years of the higher
order of civilization, regarded the
advent of the foreigner amongst
them as an evil omen and the cause
Of some great convulsion of nature,
who can blame them? Those who
have never experienced can little
conceive the awe-inspiring feelings
caused by sight of the surging,
secthing and serpent-llke Kissing of
the red-hot waves of liquid lava as
they hurl themselves against the
walls of the crater Kilauea. 1t is
not surprising then that supersti-
ton seized upon them when Mauna
Loa, at the supposed bidding of
Pele, the goddess of the volcano,
should belch forth from its deep
caverns its dread thunderbolts, toss
ing the red-hot riven rocks like rain
upon the mountain sides and caus-
ing the earth TO quake and tremble
from sea to sea, and launch forth its
rivers of lava as if to burn from the
soil the very footprints of the ravish-
ing invaders and their lascivious
crew. Until the advent of the for
eigner amongst them the people of
these Islands were alone in the en-
joyment Of their own little paradise,
for hitherto they had dwelt in peace
full security beneath the sheltering
branches of Towering vines and
spreading palms, eating the fruit
that their Creator had provided
them. No wonder that they looked
with suspicious awe upon every YES
sci that neared their shores bring
ing the stranger with his death deal
ing cargo of rum.
What effect upon the morals OF
the Hawaiian race such means OF
civilization has had time alone will
determine. Posterity will judge
and those who slur the Hawaiian
race for the faults of their ancestors
and for their inability at the pre-,
sent day To cope with the more fay-
ored race in their efforts for place