The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1897-04-10
CAN YOU VOTE?
Tax Provision Will Keep
Many Out.
One Man Stopped by Unknown
Debt of Sixty CentS-Sugges-
tons For Remedy.

Business with the local Board OF
Registration is painfully dull. So dull
in fact, that the members have not
enough TO do TO keep themselves warm
Up to o'clock Thursday night IS per-
sons, including Doctor Rodgers, had
expressed a desire to vote and were ac-
cepted by the powers. But good
many with the same inclination were
denied the pleasure and will therefore
not be allowed to say who shall go TO
the next Legislature. The main trouble
the last day of December to go over
without pungling up to the tax col
lector now find themselves mot in it. y
One of these gentlemen, a full Hawaii
an, was sore distressed yesterday when
told that he had no show for vote.
1t was Captain Hookano of the police
force, and his case is rather peculiar.
He has not been in the habit of pay
ing taxes on his furniture, and was
not aware that the assessor had seen
his household belongings and valued
them at $3.50. He paid his personal
taxes promptly and went to the regis
tration Office yesterday to get a voting
certificate. Chairman Davis looked the
matter up and found Hookano sixty
cents shy. The gallant captain has al
ways prided himself more on his vot-
ing franchise than on his knowledge
of English, and he showed his disgust
for the tax assessors, after being told
of the condition of affairs by saying in
an undertone:
"Sisty cents? Wot t'ell!'
But he said no more; the surprise
and shock was more than he could
bear. Now Hookano wants the cOnsti-
tuition amended. AS so few have regis
tered and so many been rejected dur
ing the time the books have been open
it looks as though the vote polled at
the next election will be small. An
other obstacle in the way of getting
new votes is the peculiar clauses in
the constitution relating to deniZation
first and second class, naturalization
and special service letters. While these
clauses are in force the men who did
not assist in forming the Government
in 1893, but who are ready to support
it now, cannot vote. But the greatest
obstacle in the way of many citizens
becoming voters is the clause referring
to the payment of taxes prior to Janu-
airy 1, 1897 In the opinion of a gen
tleman interested, "any citizen, under
the terms of the constitution, not in
debted to the Government for taxes,
should be allowed to vote. 1t matters
not if the ink on the tax receipt is
still wet when he offers to register.
This is one of the things in the con-
stitution which needs amending"
THE clauses were put there for a
purpose, and they serve we'll, but they
act against desirable Americans and
Europeans as we'll as the undesirable
class. Take, for instance, an Ameri-
can who came here in 1885, and who
failed for any reason to assist in form
ing the Provisional Government or
supporting it in 1898, he is excluded
from the list entitled to special
rights of citizenship, no matter how
faithful he is to the Government to-
day. The same man is excluded from
special letters of deniZation because,
unfortunately, he did not live here
seven years before the Constitution
was promulgated and he cannot be
naturaliZed, as there is no naturaliza
ton treaty between the United States
and Hawaii. Fifteen hundred white
farmers might come here from the
United States, but under the terms of
the Constitution, as that document
now stands, they would have no voice
in the election of the men who sit in
the Legislature or become a part of
the Government.
I'm the United States one of the
qualifications of men employed by the
municipal or Federal, is
that they shall be voters, but that is
not the case here; electors are some
times given the hooty-tooty while
Johnny-come-lately gets the billet"