The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1900-03-16
ENEMIES OF HAWAII.

The most eager and yeuOmOus Of the
enemies Of Hawaii IN the upper House
Of Congress is K. r. Pe-tigrew. the
serior Senator from south Dakota. Not
only Is be opposed 10 the Territorial
bin as "a whole but he desires % burden
the sugar Industry Of these Islands
with "a prOhibitiye duty. BY popular
repute and suspicion he is something
more than a disinterested friend and
familiar spirit OF the Sugar Trust,
whose measures he supports. whose in
iquities he commends, and whose enc
mics he SEEKS TO punish. Judged by his
conduct and utterances. his chief bust
ness i'm the Senate Is 20 do the dirtier
work Of the Trust. especially 50 far as
F. fl concerns the plot TO ruin Hawaii po-
Iucauy. and. above all. commercially.
That such a man, with such an OBJ
ject. can find encouragement from any
citizen whose investments are here and
who expects 70 live here, is-save on
pathological grounds-an inexplicable
mystery. We should as soon suppose
| that a stranger, who wanted TO poison
our reservoirs and spread infection on
our streets, would find an eager help
ing hand among heads Of families. Such
aid and comfort to a public enemy who
wants to strike down everyone's pros
perity cannot be accounted for by IA
tional processes. II calls for the low
est impulses of revenge and the long
est reaches OF folly-folly so fatuous
as to seem impossible to men who
think and feel or even TO those who
have the faintest glimmerings in their
consciences OF minds of what they owe
to themselves and to society.
Yet the unhappy fact remains!
When Pettigrew attacks the measure
upon which the hopes of the Hawaiian
business community rest, he uses am
muaition which a citizen of Honolulu
has sent to him for that purpose-a
citizen whose social standing he
rightly designates as high. When
he insinuates that the Government
and Judiciary of Hawaii are cor
rUpt he calls upon this man to bear
him witness. When he denounces the
citizens OF this country who so to
church and do business and carry on
the Government and stand for all that
is best in Hawaii, as "a tough crowd"
and when he designates the planters
as slave-drivers and this community as
cruel and selfish, he announces that
his informant is a Hawaiian-American
whose character is above reproach,
who is one of the few exceedingly able
men of high character who descended
from missionary stock" That man,
Mr.. Pettigrew Identifies in the Senate
as Joseph o. Carter.
1t is not a pleasure, nor is it duty
which we shall indulge, to characterize
Mr.. Carriers course as It might seem
to deserve Were he a man who could
proceed nationally with any subject
connected with the overthrow of the
Queen and the conduct of the present
Government, IL would be dlnerent.
Then the way would be clear to say
things that might make it impossible
in future to refer to Mr.. Carriers stand
ing in respectful terms. But the grow
ing eccentricity of the man since the
political shock of 1898, the extraordi-
nary things he believes about the
present Government, the final act by
which he helps the Sugar Trust and its
rascally representatives at Washington
to aim a blow at the prosperity of ev-
cry man, including himself, whose lot
/ is cast in the Hawaiian Islands-these
things call for charity and the sympa-
thetic interest Of pathological students,
rather than denunciation or blame.