The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1898-12-02
"BIG INJUN ME-"

A dreadful conflict is now raging in
the columns OF the press over the seri-
Gus question whether or not the heap
big Injun me-. way of looking at the
duties and obligations OF Americans
is the best method of promoting true
national character. The Advertiser
says no. Those who generally hate the
Advertiser of course say yes.
1t is by mo means a new question. In
the ffties This style OF promoting gen
uine patriotism eliminated just before
the war The Fourth of July orators
OF THAT period were eminently success
full in striking fearless attitudes on the
stump, and in proelaiming the everlast-
ing destinies OF the everlasting great
country, always keeping before their
audiences, the modest sentiment heap
big Injun me, heap big!''
And when James Russell Lowell,
poet, scholar and statesman, and with
him Phillips and Garrison and Beecher
said: You will have no great country
till you abolish slavery" these intense
patriots, the great merchants OF, Bos-
ton and New England, gathered in
Fanuel hall, and cried out traitors;
men without a country; mob them!
And the orators raised their eyes to
Heaven and uplifted their arms, and
ssfou,ed from the platform: This is an
-everiastinglX great country. Heap big
Injun me! very heap big Injun!' And
the organs with the clarion voices OF
cfaipmunkss. reiterated the words.
When sober-minded men appealed to
the people and said really are we so
everiastingly great? is there not trou-
bic ahead?'' the orators shouted away
with them, they are traitors without a
country" And the voices of the chip
munk organs echoed it mo, they have
no country"
Then .came Civil war. Scores OF
those who had "heaped' it, put for the
WOODS and stayed there, while thou
sands OF the silent men without a
country" went to the front, took their
full measure of disease and bayonet
and died for country not theirs. And
all agreed, excepting the men without
a country, before the war, that Jonn
Brown was a miserable traitor, and
had no country, because he said that
the Federal constitution was only a
league with HE'LL and positively re-
rused to call his country great, and
carve a pious snort when the fervid pa
triots opened the valves of the "heaI
big Injun me-" gas tanks
The awful Civil war, and larger
knowledge of the world, greatly mod1-
fed. In the Eastern States, the conceit
OF the "big Injun" style. Still, there
are those who by temperament yet lind
meat and drink in taking great doses
of the 'everlastingly great nation;
and God, who tempers the wind to the
shorn lamb, finds men and organs who
will supply the exhilerating stuff.
The Advertiser entertainS great re-
spect for Mr. McStocker, and really
regrets that it must differ from him as
to the best manifestations OF true pa
- III
ariotisn. He would do himself more
credit, II he would use his own brains
in discussing the matter, instead o
Summing it" for newspaper assist
ance
In describing himself, as he does, a
an American, he forgets that at this
hour. he is no more an American citi
zen than Cninaman, or Japanese o.
Portuguese is. When he foresWore III
allegiance to the United States, an'
took the oath of allegiance to the Re
public OF Hawaii, he ceased to be al
American citizen. So the government
in Washington decided. The act OF an
nexation fails to make him an Amer
lean citizen, and he and all OF US ar
with suspended political rights, unit
Congress acts. Of course, one NIGH
attempt some satire upon an America
who, for any reason whatever, lore
swore his allegiance to the great he
public, and exchanged his noble birth
right for what some fervent American
would call a "mess of Hawaiian pot
tage.' 1t would not be fair TO do sc
Mr.. McStocker for good reasons aban
doned his citizenship, but hopes to re
sumo it. In fact, just now, as he Ia
no political rights, he also may Justl.
he called a imam without country,
until Congress kindly gives him one
Annexation has stripped us of on
political clothes. 1t has given our Ha
waiian clothes to the rag-man, and ha
not given us a complete American out
fit We are. in a measure, left make,
and exposed And when man is LEI
naked and exposed. he hardly feels Xix
paradfng before the people, and shout
ing very "big Injun" sentiments.