The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1893-12-16
LILIUOKALANPS STATE
MENT.

Mr.. Blount would have done bet
ter for the Administration if he hac
not taken the statement of the de
posed Hawaiian queen; certainly
Mr.. Gresham has not strengthened
her case by publishing the docu
ment. The story, even as she tells
it, goes far toward justifying the
revolution which dethroned her.
And then in what she says about
herself, as well as in her references
to Mr.. Cleveland, she appears and
makes him appear ridiculous be-
fore the world.
Out of her own mouth the ex-
queen is convicted of being the first
aggressor-of attempting to over
throw the Hawaiian Constitution,
which she had sworn to support
when she succeeded to the throne.
And her own account of the affair
puts it in the most absurd light.
She relates, in the most naive man
ner, how with two members of the
Legislature she started in to make
the new Constitution ;" how she
completed it and placed it in the
hands of one of her Ministers. who
afterward insisted that he had not
read it. Then she tells how, after
taking counsel with Marshal Will
son to prevent an uprising, she
prorogued the Legislature and sum-
moned her Ministers and others to
see her sign this new Constitution
in the "blue ROOM" And she
seems to be astonished and indig-
nant that there should have been
any objection to this method of
procedure.
And, by the by, we have a curl
Gus and significant story concern
ing the destruction of this instru-
ment of government which the
supplemented queen had prepared
by the aid, or at least with the
knowledge, of two members of the
Legislature. The members of the
Provisional Government have as
serted, and their supporters con-
tend that the object Of Liliuokalani
was to practically exclude the
whites, who own nearly all of the
productive wealth of the islands,
from all participation in the gov
eminent. If the queen and her re-
tainers deny this, she has at any
rate, on her own confession, put it
out of her power to disprove the
statement.
In a letter addressed to one S.
M. Damon, and given out by the
State Department, she says that
the new constitution and all of the
copies have been destroyed; the
original by her own hand, and the
copies and the draft by her orders.
By this act she confesses that she
was engaged in a scheme which
she cannot now justify.
1t seems Liliuokalani has been
confident all along that she would
be sustained by President Cleve-
land. She is personally acquaint-
ed with him, having met him in
1887 during his first term. And
so she hailed his re-accession as a
good omen. So when Mr.. Blount
arrived at the Islands he brought
relief. And in all this she recog-
nizes high sense of justice and
honor in the person "who is the
ruler Of the American Nation"
The queen has caught on" to
use vernacular phrase of the Gay.
She has estimated Mr.. Cleveland at
his own valuation of his official
self. She therefore did not appeal
to the American people, to the Gov
eminent of the United States, but
to the "ruler of the American Ma
tion," confident that she would find
sympathy and secure aid. "And 1
have not been disappointed" she
remarks, while some of US wonder,
albeit foolishly perhaps, at her con-
fdence.-S. F. Chronicle.