The Independent. [volume] (Honolulu, H.I.) 1895-1905, 1898-02-28
Continued from 1st pages

| Keep your nanus on lTou tuoSe 1871
ands; they are under our protec-
ton" II forty-seven years ago they
we're so important, how about to-
dayp Well, il forty-seven years
ago when our population was only
% millions, and our wealth and
power not to be compared with
what they are now, a mere note OF
warning on the part Of the United
States sufficed to induce all the great
powers Of the world to "keep their
hands off from those islands," will
it require more than warning to-
day, when we have population Of
rs millions, and are in many respects
the richest and strongest nation in
the world2 1t is "cold fact" made
evident ever so many times, from
the settlement of the Alabama
claims to that Of the Venezuela
trouble, that since the close of our
civil war it is one of the very first
precepts Of Brisish craftsmanship to
remain on good terms with the
United States, and that no British
government would be tempted by
any advantage to derived from
protectorate over Hawaii to get into
a serious quarrel with this republic.
This stale talk about what Great
Britain is going to do against the
United States has so long been the
resort Of the cheapest kind of dema-
gogy that self-respecting public
men should at last be ashamed of it.
1t is equally silly to say that If we
do not annex Hawaii Japan will do
so. No clear-headed statesman will
believe for moment that japan,
struggling to maintain its new
place among the powers OF the
world, and straining its scanty fin
ancial resources for that purpose to
the utmost, could be so foolish as to
provoke the ill-will Of so great and
hitherto so friendly power as the
United States by scattering in dis
tant adventures its military and
naval forces which are so sadly
needed for the protection of its in
terests near by.
But it is said that if we decline
accepting the Hawaiian Islands
when they are offered to us, we are
estopped from Directing if someone
else takes them. The same himsy
argument was urged in the San Do
mingo case. Nothing could be more
preposterous. The acceptance OF
this proposition on our part would
knock the bottom out OF our whole
Monroe doctrine. 1t would mean
that, having refused to annex San
Domingo once, we could not object
to any European power taking it;
or that if some American republic,
Nicaragua for instance, offered it.
self to us without being taken, this
refusal would preclude US from in
ssting upon Nicaragua's remaining
an independent state in case some
accidental dictator there should at
tempt to sell it to some European
power, as Paez tried to sell San Do
mingo. The "cold fact" is that if
we now decline to accept Hawaii
from the hands of the accidental
dictators there, our moral authority
in forbidding any other power to
take it, and in insisting that it shall
remain an Independent state, will
not be less than it was before, but it
will be far greater and more COM
handing, for nobody will then be
able to say that we assert it with
the selfish intent OF finally Selling
the prize ourselves. No power will
dare to defy it.
Senator Frye says further: "If
you have commerce in the Pacific
Ocean, where are you going to rest
your ships, and to get your coal, and
to have your naval stations? There
is but one spot left in the entire
Pacific Ocean, and that is the Ha-
waiian Islands" Well, where do we
crest our ships" and "get our coap
now2 1t is "cold fact" that we do