The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1893-04-10
PARSONS PLAIN. TALK.
THE TEXT OF HIS INTERESTING
LETTER TO THE "SUN."
He Tells the American People That
There is Not a Drop of Royal
Blood In Kaiulani's Veins.

- 20 q ebohhiSoo ldDOI, SOIIlGIlInGS,
to deprive the public of illusions or to
protect it from being victimized by a
scheme to create illusions for it. Never.
theless, the effort now making to play
upon the sympathies of the American
people in the interest of Princess Ka-
iulani renders it imperative that some
one who knows the facts regarding the
so-called royal personages Of the Haw-
allan islands should place those facts
before the people.
An American, was born in Ho-
nolulu, my parents having formerly
lived there number of years, and the
sources of the information about to be
set down here are authentic. To make
clear the baselessness of any claim
which has been or may be advanced
because of the royal character of the
deposed Queen Liliuokalani or the
Princess Kaiulani, | must review brief
ly the history OF the succession to the
throne of Hawaii.
"In the first place, the monarchy
there is not hereditary. It is appointive
or elective. The sovereign appoints
his or her successor, and in selecting
that successor may ignore the children
or other members of the sovereign's
own family. There is absolutely no
rule of descent or relationship in the
case.
"If the sovereign dies without ap-
pointing a successor, then an election
is held by the people, who thus choose
by ballot the next occupant of the
throne, as the executive office is there
termed. For several past reigns no
children OF a sovereign have survived
to be named as successors to the crown,
even had any of the recent rulers wish
ed to appoint one OF his children.
The kingship or queenship, therefore,
has not even directly been connected
with blood or lineage, but has passed
at hazard from one individual to an
other and in one instance was de.
termined by popular election.
"At that time there was extant a
Hawaiian of what is called chief blood,
but not of high rank, whose name was
Paakea.
"Kalakaua, the son of this Paakea,
stood as candidate for king and was
elected. 1t will be seen from this that,
while the monarchy was not hereditary,
and had simply been passed along by
appointment to one and another Ka-
mehameha, even any possible shadowy
claim of royal lineage and succession,
which might have been assumed if the
Kamehameha line had continued. was
entirely wiped out by the extinction of
that family and the introduction of
another family represented by Kala
kaua, man not so much as distin-
guished by high rank.
"His two sisters, Lydia, afterward
known as Liliuokalani Paakea, and Ii
kelike Paakea, had married foreigners
of no social standing, without wealth
or any other notable attribute known
to the world Lydia's husband was
John Dominis, worthless American,
of extremely dissipated habits, who
when sober enough to do anything
held clerkship in some commercial
house in Honolulu. His mother had
been for many years the proprietor of
the best bearding-hou in that capital,
and was worthy woman.
"John broke her heart by marrying
this native girl Lydia, now the deposed
Queen Liliuokalani He was not him
self shining light in any sense, and it
was generally thought that Lydia was
quite his equal, or perhaps his superior.
But among the Americans in Honolu-
lu in those days, marriage with'a native
was held to involve the direst social ex-
tinction. Kalakaua's other sister Ii
kelike, mother of the Princess Kaiula-
nj, who has just arrived in this coun-
try, was entirely unknown to Honolulu
society. She had married an obscure
young Englishman named Cleghorn.
"In the early California days a
swarm of emigrants from Sydney, Aus
tralia, the drift of California gold seek
ers had come to Honolulu. They were
of the poorer class of English colonists
in Sydney. The father of young Cleg'
horn was one Of these waits. He
started the smallest kind of shop in
the native and Chinese quarter of the
town, and gained poor but, at that
time, apparently respectable living.
His son married Likelike, but no one
ever heard of them until Kalakaua be-
came king, when both Mrs. Cleghorn
and Mrs. Dominis were transformed
into royal princesses at single stroke
by the mere work of Kalakaua, and
their husbands we're provided with gov
eminent places. Poor John Dominisr
was made governor of the island o.
Oahu, on which the capital city Homo
. lulu stands, and Cleghorn became the
collector of customs.
Kalakaua's dissipated habits carried
him suddenly off the stage in January
1891. He had named his sister, Mrs
Dominis formerly Lydia Paakea), a
his successor, and so she came to thu
throne little over two years ago a
Queen Liliuokalani. She, in turn
named her niece, Kaiulani, the daugh
ter of LikelIke, or Mrs. Cleghorn, a
the next incumbent of Hawaii's highes
place, Those two men, John Domini
~ ,,oo.c or,o