The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-01-11
ANOTHER PRETENSE.

the agility with which the ad-
vocates Of the annexation of Ha-
wall have skipped from pretense to
pretense in their furtherance of the
project. They have scanned the daily
news report, and have been able oc-
casionally to construct it themselves,
SO as to furnish a Kaleidoscope success
sion Of worthless reasons why Hawaii
must be added to our dominions. When
England was projecting cable under
the Pacific ocean, then it was clear
that Hawaii was necessary as an in
termediate station, and England would
take Hawaii unless we anticipated her,
When Japan came to the front as a
military nation, then it was Japan
whose covetous eyes were fixed upon
the Sandwich islands and which was
about to absorb them unless we pre-
vented it. Both Of these pretenses
have been exploded by explicit ut
terances Of leading men, or by the
equally unanswerable logic Of facts;
put in evidence why this country
should depart from precedent and in
corporate in it's domain a people so
utterly unfit for it's institutions and I'M
able to bear them, a new line of argu-
ment and attack must be worked out.
AS a godsend to the jingoes comes at
this moment the advance of European
powers upon China. All the other tri-
umphal arguments are now thrown
aside, and this supersedes them. There
is willing chorus from one end of
the country to the other to tell us that
now we have an unanswerable reason
for the annexation of Hawaii. Within
short time Russia and Germany and
France, and possibly England, will sit
in fortified state upon the western
ing barriers will face across that vast
eXpanse Of water the western shore
line of the United States. Between the
two lies the post of Hawaii; and we,
see 1t pass into the hands of one or
the other of the rapacious freebooters
who are about to partition Asia be-
tween them. The occasion is an excel
lent one. The maxim Of the robber is
at the front, and the spirit of greed
and ACKNOWLEDGMENT that animates the
European nations is not without con-
tagion. Just as England appears to. be
"shamed through all her being" be-
cause others have stolen more than she
a hn Of I14
are tempted to be thieves when theft
is the order of 1.-The day
AS a matter of course, the argument
for the annexation of Hawaii, if argu-
ment we can condescend to call it, is
weakened, rather than strengthened, by
these developments. We never had any
need Of these islands, and we have less
possibility Of need than ever if China
is to cease to be governed by the Mon
golian race and to become a mere ag-
gregation Of European colonies. With
the nations Of Europe we have no re-
lations except those of commerce. With
them we can never come in conflict,
save by some unwise and overt action
of our own. Against them we no more
need the possession Of Hawaii than we
do the Bahamas at the southeast,
or the Azores across the Atlantic
On the contrary, nothing could weaken
our situation so fatally as to put the
national dignity and honor upon a lit
tie ocean spot 1000 miles away, and
leave it there a mark for insult and
aggression whenever temptation might
come.
If any foreign nation should wish to
coasts and attempt an impossible in
vasion. Place the stars and stripes
over the Hawaiian islands, and all that
any hostile nation needs is to send a
few men-of-war to take possession.
Sitting down there, occupying terri
tory that is part of ours, we are dis
graced and Inundated in the eyes of
the world until we recover it. The OBJ
legation of the initiative is transferred
to US? We must become the agrees
sors, and, instead of the proud posi-
ton of an impregnable defense, we
must make actual conquest OF distant
and powerful nation or submit to I'M
endurabie disgrace. 1t is as if a mil
lonaire, proud of his possessions and
power, were to hang up a purse of
gold unguarded in the public highway
as an invitation to the passer-by, and
obligate himself to punish any man
who should fitch it. That is the sort
of imbecile policy, from the strategic
point of view, that is contained in the
proposed Hawaiian annexation 1t is
not lessened, but emphasized, by the
advances of European powers in China