The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1901-06-04
The BANDtR-LOG WORK
A WASHINGTON VIEW OF THE
LEGISLATURE.
Incompetence Manifest at Every SEES
sion of the First Hawaiian Territorial
House and Senate.

The Washington Star publishes an in
teTesting lengthy review of the doings
of the Hawaiian Legislature. Regard
ing Governor Dole $ letter refusing to
extend the session it says:
IF no governor in the Union has
hitherto SO replied to a legislature,
probably no Legislature has gwen sucn
cause tor it, Inc most conspicuous eX-
ample of the members utter incapacity
to do business was in the fact that
1t took over One-half of the sixty work
ing days of the session to pass the first
bill, which was to appropriate the sum
of $4,000 for legislative expenses. They
all wanted the money. but they chatted
and gabDed and blundered over it day
after day, and week after week. before
they could get it i'm to the governor for
his willing signature. The amount was
larger than had ever before been CON
sumed for expenses by a Hawaiian le-
gislature, but 1t was all used up DeTOre
the sixty days had expired and some
thousands of dollars were left unpaid.
This Legislature is one that does not
represent the intelligence or the bust
ness force Of the people of Hawaii. The
great body of it's members represented
only the less intelligent and more
worthless majority of the aboriginal
Hawaiians. 1t is of such that most
of the rank and file of the home rule
majority are composed, the same that
elected as delegate to Congress the
frothy and incompetent II. w. Wilcox.
a large proportion of the more thrifty
and intelligent natives and part whites
Joined with the white republicans and
democrats but being overcome by the
large majority of the native rabble. The
men nominated and elected by these
home rulers were almost entirely ma
tives and part whites, scarcely any of
whom had previously had any legiSla-
of hlA
any standing as public or business men.
All the natives of any ability or eXpe-
rience belonged to the other regular
parties with the whites, and shared
with the latter in their nominations,
but were mostly defeated by the home
rule majority.
THE home rulers elected two white
men of some intelligence, one to the
senat and one to the house. Both of
| these failed of any leadership and both
had cranky fads to impair their eff
cheney. The few other white men We're
republicans, one of them the only white
lawyer of ability in the house and the
only man there competent to prepare
or scrutinize a bill All that he found
opportunity to do was to point out fatal
defects and plumbers in most of the
bills in process of being passed. There
were two able lawyers in the senate
and one leading business man, Baldwin
sonal influence gave him an exceptional
lead over home rule competitors in the
election. Mainly it was a thoroughly
native Hawaiian legislature, such as
! had never before existed here, either
| before or after the revolution of So
! there always having been "A strong and
| leading force of capable white mem
| bers.
This curious incapacity to accom-
| plish business was ludcrously exhibited
day after day. There was endless gar
rulity, native after native jumping up
and haranguing violently and intermin-
ably about the merest triffes. There
was constant squabbling about little
nothings-and then when a real OBJ
stacle was encountered, over the bin
would pass by reclamation, only to be
returned another day from the other
house as defective. Senate and House
were alike in the violence and lnconse-
quence of their debating varied by the
double numbers of the thirty represent
tatives, and the vigorous opposition of
| the republican senators, six out of fif-
teen, who pertinaCiously fought FOR
proper and regular procedure 1t was
almost an every day occurrence for SEN
ate or house to adjourn as the only es-
cape from noisy and senseless wrangle
1t may have been severe, but is not
strange, that Kippling's description of
his Banderlog' assembly should nave
been applied to our Hawaiian legisla-
ture of 1901"