The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-01-12

range. g. amount of precipitation in last
twenty-four hours, trace.
NOte-Barometer corrected for temperature
and elevation. p. F. Lyons, Observer.
BECAUSE THEIR DEEDS ARE EVIL.
The majority in the senate that Is
favorable to the Hawaiian treaty has
most fittingly determined to consider 1t
behind closed doors. 1t is very old
story that men love darkness and hate
the light because their deeds are evil.
There is every reason why this Ha-
waiian treaty should receive considera-
ton in open session; there is none why
the restrictions of the executive ses-
sion should be thrown about it. All the
diplomatic processes which have led up
to its proposing have been given to the
people We have the terms Of the
treaty itself. the circumstances of its
consideration by the Hawaiian govern
ment and the correspondence relating
to 1t. The whole subject has been
given to the press and to the public,
and discussion of it has been free and
intelligent. 1t is, as the opponents of
the treaty we'll say, a question entire
ly separated from complications and
from those relations which are used
in other cases as a rreteXt for secrecy.
AS matter of fact, the rule of the
executive session is always evil and
obsolete, and ought to be abolished. In
this particular instance, however, the
arguments by which it has been sup
ported in the past fall completely to the
ground. 1t is not possible that any
secret should be disclosed or any
offense given to any other nation in
the world, because none other has the
slightest claim upon Hawaii or the
slightest interest in our taking or leav-
irg it. The whole matter can be con-
sidered openly and exhaustively with
out diplomatic embarrassment in any
quarter
That the friends of the treaty are
opposed to this is simply another proof
of the weakness and the wickedness
of their cause. They have had too
much public discussion already for the
good of their nefarious plot. The long
er this treaty project has been before
the public, the more general and en-
phatic has been the condemnation that
it elected. The people of this country
have been rarely stirred by proposal
to take in these distant islands, with
their lOw-caste population their lit
tie clique of unprincipled rulers and
their exposed position, that would make
them a constant menace to the safety
of the nation and would cost, before
they were through with it, a billion
dollars in cash for the support of a
navy equal to that of any of the great
powers in the North Pacific. On the
other hand, the considerations that
are advanced are such as appeal wholly
to the lingo. The man who simply takes
tn" position that we want to extend
cur territory" that we must keep in
line with the land grabbers of the
world, and that a future of colonial
extension ard military ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
is our happy destiny, is beyond the
reach of other arguments Aside from
him, the advocates of Hawaiian annex
alton cherish motives that will not bear
the light of day.
Neither of these positions will stand
public scrutiny or can afford to have
the searchlight of publicity thrown
upon it. 1t is to be expected, there
fore, that the advocates of this treaty
Should scuttle off with it into the in
most recesses of the senate chamber
should lock the doors and draw down
the blinds and, in that whispering
darkness, make ready to consummate
the infamy against which true and
patriotic Americanism revolts. Let us
hope that their plan may carry with it
its own discontinue. The privacy
which they have decreed fortunately
ccnceals nothing from the American
people. Such is the contempt felt by
free-spirited senators, themselves, for
the executive session that the pro-
ceedings are published as quickly as
they are taken. We will know what
happens there, and the people will
know who are the men that stand for
and by the best traditions Of Amerf-
can independence, and who are they
who seek to pattern this nations fate
upon the hated model of Europe's buc-
cancers. 1t is absolutely an issue for
or against the country, as far as this