The Hawaiian gazette., 1900-12-11
DlsFRANCHISEaENT NOT PROPOSED


The Evening Post has not, since the
retirement of Editor Godkin, gained III
political sincerity and fairness In us
discussions of Hawaiian matters LOT
wears past the Post has had hisn
disdain for facts, and special roma
ness for unwarranted opinions; and 1t
would appear that, in the future, there
is TO be no improvement Its present
delusion is that the Dole party has
made ND it's mind to move in Congress
to have the suffrage privileges OF the
natives taken away, though, in point
of fact. there Is no such program or
intention, the white influence here be-
ing willing to give the natives every
chance to prove themselves worthy OF
citizenship and to help them on their
onward way All they ask is that the
natives shall not commit eXcesses to
the detriment of values and the dis
ruption of vested rights, or to enter
upon a carnival of spoils
1t has always seemed unfortunate
that the Evening Post, with its ability
and influence, should be stubbornly
blind to the kinship of spirit and
method which exists between its own
better aims in the politics of New
York and the nation and those which
inspire the good government party
here. The men whom the Post calls
"oIigarchs" are simply those who have
given their time and energies Tor
years, at much cost in self-sacritce,
to create a system of orderly and eco
nomical administration of public al
fairs. They are the men who have
opposed the plunderer, the taXeater,
the machine politician and the dema-
gogue with courage and success. They
have made the same fight for good
government here which the Post has
made in New York, and they are
making it yet. Were the conditions
in New York as they are here we i'm
agine the Post would propose as a
remedy all that it gratuitously and
on the basis of false information
charges against the sincere reformers
of Hawaii Let us put the question in
concrete form. If the Evening Post
could, by means of legislation, limit
the suffrage of the ignorant and vi
cious who make up the lower person
mel of TamInany, would 1t not do so?
If it could lawfully substitute its circle
of best citizens for such officials as
Croker and Van Wyck appoint, would
it not jump NJ the chance from high
sense of public duty? From its past
attitude against the rule of the black
the political .ascendancy of the better
class of whites we can get line upon
its principles which warrants us In
the hypothesis we have drawn. The
truth is that the white people here
have addressed themselves with a
more forbearing patience and morality
to the political attitude of our voting
majority than the Post ever did to the
attitude OF the same majority IN New |
York or South Carolina. And that
forbearance continues. Though the
Hawaiian native electorate has little
of the American character as yet, and
some of 1t has much of a heather char
acter, yet disfranchsement is not an
approved local remedy. The Senators
and Congressman who framed the Gull
lom bill thought otherwise; but the
great majority of the so-called "oli-
garchs" are firm in the belief that the
natives will yet, under proper guild
ance, illustrate the truth that liberty,
in its relation TO the affairs of men,
has an application as wide as human
ity itself.
A