The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-06-19
OPPOSITION TO ANNEXATION.

1t is evident that the Hawaiian an
nexation treaty is not going through
the senate without serious opposition;
whether the opposition will be sufficient
to prevent the securing of the requi-
site two-thirds vote nece ssary to rat
ification remains to be seen. It is I'M
likely that any effort will be made to
lam" it through, as such a process
would surely intensity the opposition
and probably increase it. So far as
the people and press are concerned the
question is going to be discussed chiefly
from non-partisan point of view, and
it will be discussed much the same
way in the senate, though there prob
ably all the Republicans will favor it
and surely some of the Democrats.
There is going to be some very strong
opposition to the treaty from sections
/ of the Republican press. Thus the New
York Commercial Advertiser says:
The United States does not want the
Hawaiian archipelago. There is no
place for it in our federal system. There
| is no room for it under our flag. Its pop
ulation is of the most undesirable char
acter. with its tens of thousands of
Asiatic coolies, its degraded native ele-
ments and its sprinkling of cosmopoli-
tan Adventures from every quarter of
the globe. We have quite enough OBJ
/ jectionable people under our institu-
tions now, without adding to their
number and saddling ourselves with
another race problem. Hawaii is more
than 1000 miles from our shores. If
we had it. we should be compelled TO
fortify /, and garrison it at great eX-
pense in order to hold it in case of war.
Our navy is as get insufficient to defend
our own coasts. If we take possession
of this distant group of islands in the
Pacific, we should be compelled to build
an enlarged fleet to protect it. Great
armor-clads are enormously expensive.
We do not desire to construct any more
of them than we need for our own use.
1t is the taxpayer who pays the piper
in the end, and the ownership of
Hawaii would entail a heavy increase
in our governmental expenditures.
If we leave the safe policy under
which we have grown strong for nun
dred years and begin to reach out to
sea for more territory, where shall we
stop? If Hawaii is to be annexed, why
not Cuba? And then there are the re-
mainder of the West IndieS-BritiSh,
French, Danish and Spanish. Equally
valid arguments could be framed by
our jingoes for the appropriation of
these by purchase or by conquest, even
if we had to fight half Europe in order
to get them. This prospect of disas-
ter, confusion and bloodshed is enough
TO make every sober-minded person
condemn instantly all attempts to an
mex any territory whatever beyond the
borders of our own continent. We have
more land, more resources" and a
greater diversity of population already
than we know what TO do with. All
our brains and energy are required to
put our own national household in or
der We can keep Hawaii from being
annexed by any other nation in time
of peace by declaring that we should
regard such an act as unfriendlv to
the United States. That is all that
ought to be done.
These are arguments of weight and
are deserving of much consideration. 1t
is a far easier matter to inaugurate
foreign policy radically different from
that pursued in the past than it is to
tell what will be it's ultimate tendency.
Whatever may be the fate of the treaty
it is a time for calm elaboration
rather than indecent haste.