St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-12-18
A HURRAH

If a case should be CD trial in a court,
and, after the plaintiff had put In all his
testimony, his attorneys and the plant
if and all his witnesses should rise and
shout to the jury that the case was
proved and direct them to return a YER
dict for the plaintiff, and keep on shout
Ing and clamoring and filling the room
with their din, the procedure would be
precisely on a par with the course the
Republican papers are pursuing in the
case OF Hawaii.
They have sworn eX-Minister Stevens
and Minister Thurston and eX-some-
thing Carter. and had a speech from
their attorney Hatch, and raised a
clamor i'll their papers; and now they
assume that their case is fully proved,
and i~nsolently and imperiously demand
that the case be dropped forthwith.
They have not produced one disinter-
eSted witness. Every man yet heard
from has his finger in the pie and a per-
sonal interest in the success of the fill
clustering scheme. They now, like the
C%onfederates in '61, only want to be let
alone" That is all any other burglar
ever wants after he has looted the house
and bagged his swag and gotit secreted.
The Pioneer Press, whose first utter.
ances on the case were guided by its
moral sense, or what it keeps as such
for dress parade occasions, now says
that it makes all the di ference in the
world that the flibusters have sue
ceeded in overthrowing the native gov
eminent. This again is the attitude of
fhn n rn1 - yrhn hos rnhhnd th0 hat,r n
and securely gotten away with the
plumber and has it safely in his house.
If he had been captured while entering
the house or getting away from it, he
would have no just cause of complaint;
but having fully completed his rob-
berry, "that makes all the difference in
the world"
Another paper plays on the claim that
the marauders are sons of missionaries
who went there to convert the natives
to the doctrines and practices of Christ.
Desperation of resourc could hardly
go farther. A burglar might make some
claim to the validity of his claim to the
stolen goods on the ground that he had
succeeded, but we doubt if aver the
Pioneer Press would accept the further
plea urged by the Tribune, that it was
all right because the burglar was the
son of a minister, as being valid or even
eXculpatory.
But, as we have frequently said, the
relative merits of the revolutionists and
the natives have nothing to do with our
case. We may even admit that in the
broader view it is better that Pres
ident Dole should rule than it is that
Queen Liliuokalani should reign. If
such a change had taken place without
our connivance or aid, we might regard
it as advantageous to the cause of civili-
Zatlon. But any argument resting on
this basis is irrelevant; it does not ad-
dress itself to the only question we have
TO decide. That is, did our minister and
troops aid in the overthrow? Neither
mere declanatlon, nor national pride, nor
anything else should or can hide this
single and simple question, nor the plain
course duty prescribes for u as a nation
to pursue as that question may be an
swered. We can always afford. as men
or nation. to do what is right; we can
never afford, individually or nationally,
to do what is wrong.