The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-03-06

| mained passive throughout the day. IN
| the confusion and excitement of the
hour Mr.. Dole and his associates at
tached no significance to that clause,
| thinking it q mere rhetorical flourish.
| But it proved to have far-reaching con-
sequences.
The queens own organ, the Bulletin,
did not allude to any significance in
| those words for over two weeks. At
| the time it spoke of the United states
! forces as remaining quiet in their quar-
ters, that paper evidently having no no.
! tion that their presence was any mem
ace to the queens party. The well
! known truth was that the affairs of 81
to perfectly understand that they had
! and SO had educated the queens forces
no possible chance of success in any
! battle with the white citizens With
800 armed natives rallied around her.
she was cowed and helpless before the
we'll known courage and resolution of
| the whites. $50 of whom were already in
array against her.
Mr.. Paul Newman, long the queens
backstair adviser and a very shrewd
| person, is credited with causing the
| insertion of the significant clause. 1t
| was certainly employed with most sue
cessful effect a month later upon Mr.
| Cleveland, and helped to convince him
that a weighty duty devolved upon him
to Investigate and rectify an outrageous
| wrong alleged to have been committed
| by Stevens and Wiltse in dethroning
the queen and seating a usurping gov
ernment, all which was purely an in
venton of the royalists. But. Mr.
Cleveland. biased by his prejudice
against Blaine, swallowed whole the
ingenious concocton, and went prompt
ly to work in noble consciousness of
| heroic championship of WrOnged Vir-
| tue! His commissioner, Blount, eager
ly caught the spirit of his employer,
and busily raked together everything
J possible that tended to confirm
! the presidents foregone conclusion.
! Blount's natural prOcivities as south
| ernor We're antagonistic to Stevens
Puritanism, as well as to that of the
| missionary party in the provisional
government. He fulfilled his task of
! investigation with great industry, but
no impartiality, producing bulky re-
port of evidence which Mr.. Greshom
and Mr.. Cleveland treated as unques-
tionable gospel, finally settling the
| whole question.
THE BLOUNT REPORT.
1t was, to speak mildly, most
strange inadvertence, that in all his
official deliverances on the subject, Mr..
Cleveland treated the eXparte inquiries
| made by Mr.. Blount as having con-
! sttuted the formal trial of a case re-
ferred to the presidents arbitration
between the deposed queen and the
provisional government. On the
strength of such trial. Mr.. Cleveland
formally pronounced his decision
through Minister Willis on December 49,
demanding that President Dole should
| surrender the government to Liliuo-
| kalani No explanation can possibly
be given by Mr.. Cleveland of his gigan-
tic blunder in supposng that a trial of
the case had been had. In the first
place, the provisional government had
never, by any word or act submitted
| the case to his arbitration. Secondly
| they never We're notified of the time
and place of such trial. No intimation
was ever conveyed to them that Mr..
Blount was sent to inquire into their
right to exist. or that it formed the
subject matter of his inquiries Until
his report was published they We're to-
tally ignorant that his inquiries We're
not as they supposed chiefly directed
to the expediency of annexation, as he
obtained from them masses of statis-
ties calculated to throw light thereon.
|
royalists and accommodating their evil
dence and their very secretly made afIl-
davits to prove the completely of Stew
ems and Wiltse with the revolutionists,
he examined much smaller number of
the provisional party, and them in such
artful way as to prevent the real mean
! ing Of their testimony, they being to-
i tally ignorant of what he was aim
i ing at.
Mr.. Blount never asked Mr.. Stew
ems a question about his own course.
Nor did he question any member of
Mr. Doles cabinet, nor any of the Off
GERS Of the Boston. All these chief ac-
tors in the business he avoided ques-
tioning, while he gathered up all the
royalist opinions as to what the others
said, did and intended. But what to-
tally invaldated his whole proceeding
as trial Of the case was its secrecy.
None of the accused provisional gov
! ernment We're present, or knew that
their case was being tried. The ac-
cused were not allowed to hear the evil
dence, or to cross examine the wit
nesses. The truth is that Mr.. Blount
never considered himself to be trying
case for the presidents arbitration
He was merely making a preliminary
search, unhampered by legal rules, and
. worked III u wholly partisan manner,
He was, perhaps, as much surprised as
any one to have his Investigations
treated as the formal trial of the case
, I 1t is most difficult to conceive how
statesmen like Mr., Gresham and Mr.
Cleveland could have been betrayed
into such course of not only atrocious
injustice, but colossal laundering.
have no doubt that Mr. Cleveland hon
estly and blindly believed that he was
= acting noble and pious part as the
4 champion of justice to a defenseless
r woman and a wrOnged aboriginal peo-
pie BY this phantasm of his magina-
ton he seems to have been so carried
| away as to neglect all the ordinary
precautions for arriving at the truth
and ascertaining where Justice Law.
The evidence subsequently taken by
the senate committee developed great
deal of essential fact, dispelling the
idea of any agency of Stevens and
' Wiltse in the dethronement Had Blunt
7, made open inquiry, inviting evidence
and cross examination, q totally differ
ent conclusion would have been una
voidable. Evidently Mr.. Cleveland is
. apt to make up his mind without due
, investigation, and then to adhere OBJ
stinately to his mistaken conclusions.
IT becomes the honorable duty of the
new administration, with the aid of
= congress, TO rectify this grievous and
4 cruel error of Mr.. Cleveland, as well as
= what they consider his mistakes in
tariff and finance We looly with tho