Hawaii holomua = Progress. [volume] (Honolulu) 1893-1895, 1894-02-13

proud States are sufficiently fami-
liar, and. in the chance for popu-
lar appeal in change of legislators
and an administration, citizens
rest content. Taxation in the
Islands has never been
oppressive. averaging scarcely
one per cent.
While the acerbity of politics
increased, and civilization itself
seemed to go backward; while
party reformers complained of
the Queen S vicious appointments.
of her meddlesome interference
in affairs. and OF the increasing
instability of official tenure,
which under old King Kalakaua
was almost permanent by COM
parison with these two later
successors-natives on the other
side lamenting that foreigners of
race. citizens still owing
their allegiance elsewhere, had
come to their Pacific coast poor.
to am SIS rich fortunes, to absorb
the crown lands to themselves,
and at length TO claim paramount
ascendency in the public admin
istration, regardless of earlier
prerogatives, of earlier fund
amental law. and. as they thought,
to the impoverishment and sub
lection of their own primitive
ce,-American sojourners be-
gan almost spontaneously to look
forward with hope and desire to
a closer amalgamation with the
United States. Other friends of
civilization and stability, having
no strong interest to exert apart.
German, and Norwegian.
came to sympathize with them;
most foreigners. in fact, upon
these islands, who control ed or
owned invested capital all the
great sugar-producers, in fine,
except Claus Spreckels. But
while the greater part of this
influential minority were content
to let events shape their own slow
course, an ardent band of annexa-
ton enthusiasts and malcontents
pushed forward insurrectionary
schemes in secret. under the
secret favor. as they often repre-
of President Harrison
and his Secretary of State. To
stir up among American men at
home the sluggish spirit of dis
tant acquisition was of course the
still formidable task; but this they
attempted to do in various articles
which attracted immediate notice
in our country, but which are now
recalled with retrospective inter-
est; published, as they were, at
various times during the last two
years in the "Neu York Tribune"
in the "Kennebec Jonrnal," which
Minister Stevens of Maine had
edited, and in various presses on
the Pacific coast, one of which,
shortly before the final session of
our last Congress, predicted under
bold head lines that a new national
topic was shortly to be sprung in
the annexation of Hawaii. Ex
Premier Thurston, native born
who appeared to have
visited the United States in 1912,
to make secret stipulitions With
the Harrison administrations was
the moving spirit of all this agitat-
ion; and his lately published plea
for annexation, made up with
much financial and historical re-
search, is stated by himself to have
been written, except for its two
iual pages, before the revolution
took place.t To such instruction
ary counseis, Minister Stevens,
friend and ardent admirer of Secre-
tary Blaine, gave more, probably,
than dlplomotic countenance; for
his close personal sympathy and
with the bold spirit
If the course is revealed more and
more clearly In each new counter
statement that he has made since
Blount's report was pubiis he'd. In
speeches made by him in Honolulu,
IN the 4th of July, 1891. and later,
On Memorial Day, 1892, contempt
IF the sovereign and government to
which he came accredited was but
teebly yelled. Indeed, it is the
common charge of royal adherents
who felt the atmosphere of his hos
.ility, that our legation was the
headquarters where Americans
met commonly to discuss by what
practical means these islands might
most quickly be brought under the
of the United States;
md thol gu no secret league OF
may really have
been organized, suspicious were so
soon aroused among the natives
aud in governing CT
les. that a Hawaiian league was
ormed to protect the autonomy of
he kingdom.
We reach now that memorable
snd somewhat unexpected crisis of
the Is of January, 1898,
when events to which the Queens
,wn indiscretion largely contri-
,uted gave American scjourners
lpon the Sandwich Islands the
evolutionary opportunity for
which some, no doubt, had hope
ulIy planned, but which to the