The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1900-12-04
MUNICIPALITIES AND MAJORlTIES

It is not possible to get those who
are in favor of setting up county and
municipal governments in Hawaii to
argue the plan on its merits. Instead,
they resort to pettifogging. Let the
property owners show that the new de-
parture would make taxes greater
without assuring any special gains in
return. and the answer is vacuous
smirk or fash of evasion. Let them
prove that the chief results of county
and city government, apart from ad-
ding to the tax burdens, would be
multiplication of offices and an era OF
patronage broking, and the reply Is a
Ispecious Misrepresentation of the plea.
Again, when the property owners de-
clare the self-evident truth that the
voting majority here, which is racially
and additionally unAmerican, cannot
be trusted to create and govern
typical American municipality-to say
nothing of an ideal one-the response
is an easy jibe about "monarchies' or
l"oligarchies. In the course Of the
present controversy the special plead
ers for higher taxes and more offices
accept but one challenge of debate,
and that is the one which formulates
the truth that voting majorities are
not necessarily right IN their views OF
public policy. but are so often wrong
that it is sometimes the highest duty
Of citizenship to oppose them. The
Purchasers are sure that a majority
cannot go amiss, and they urge the
point with a zeal, If not an ability,
worthy of a better cause.
The modern American idea, so often
misrepresented by the thoughtieSs or
the false is the rule of the qualified
electorate; not the rule of the unquali-
| fed majority. AS a general thing in
America there has been no need of
widely qualifying clause in the suf-
| frage law, though In Massachusetts,,
for a great while, and perhaps yet, an
educational qualification was imposed
upon the voter From the beginning
though locally, in many places, clear
majority of the Inhabitants, should not
vote. Even where they are civilized
the American suffrage is denied them.
Furthermore, it has always happened
when any majority electorate turned
out to be vicious or irresponsible that
the suffrage was modified Or with
drawn from them without respect to
the majority vote they might cast in
given districts. Thus the negro ma
jorities in many Southern Congress
ional districts have been relentlessly
turned down-and though this has
been done by Democrats the Republic
can party has tacitiy acquiesced. 1t
has come to be recognized in the Unit
ed States that if majority is hope
le-sly inefficient or corrupt, its power
to do mischief must be curtailed. Nor
is the working Of this theory confined
to the South. When Eli H. Murray,
Territorial Governor of Utah, refused
certificate of election to George Q
cannon, because he was polygamous
Mormon, he slapped the majority of
/ the voters of Cannon's Congressional
District in the face-and a Republican
President and party sustained him in
the act. Already plans are taking
shape at the capital of New York
State to deprive the corrupt majority
in Greater New York of MANY of the
privileges OF home rule. A Republican
Dill to take from it the control of the
police is already pending. These things
are typical of the American idea of
suffrage rights as it came to be mo6i-
ned by alien immigration and a mixed
electorate. The question is no longer
so much what a majority wants as
what is right and what ia found to
work out for the greatest common
good.
lhose who contend that mere num-
pers establish just and binding prin-
ciples of public policy must find much
70 perplex them in the history of Ha-
wall once the native majority were
ldolaters. Were they right. therefore ?
MOI long ago the native majority CD
; posed annexation. while the minority
packed by the public sentiment and
finally by the official procedure of the
United States, stood in its favor. Do
the white Americans who contend that
smajorities are necessarily right. wish
to be understood as having opposed
annexation then, or as being averse to
1t now? If poll were taken of the
natives today. majority would vote
to restore the Queen to her former