The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1902-11-05
HAsTY IMPRESSIONS.

4
| Senator Burton, if sincere in his views
on Hawaii, simply shows how impossi-
/ BILE it is for any one to come here and
| get truthful impressions off hand. Not
less than year is needed, and year
very full of experiences at that to
! acquire anything like a just view of
! things Hawaiian. Over on the Coast
! twelve months are hardly time enough
| to give a 'ttenderfoot' to get over his
ger thinks he can come here to what,
! in its chronological and historical as
poets, is a foreign country. stay
couple of months, and inform himself
fully as to what Hawaii is and what
, changes of laws or customs would be
| beneficial to it.
To know Hawaii so as to be fit to
| legislate for it in Congress. a man
should have studied its inner history
and all the phases of the long struggle,
which is not ended yet, between civili-
cation and heathenisn here. He should
| understand into what schools of
thought the community is divided and
what divided it. Especially should he
know the Poiynesian character, not
| merely as it shows itself in hospitality
to the influential stranger, but as it
exhibits itself in business, in morals
and in legislation. The same study
should be applied to the white charac-
| ter as it has developed in the school of
! beachcomber and the latter day adven-
| turer. Naturally the inquirer must not
Identify himself with any one class or
absorb any one influence; but must get
about with all classes and become as
| intimate with them as he can.
| He would do this if he wished to
make himself an authority upon the
| characteristics of any European people;
and why not here, where the life of
the body polite is derived from at least
/ three European races, two Asiatic ra-
SCSb q L OiS iCSidA liidJOlIly S1llQ 1lOu1
Americans who were either born here
or have immigrated from every State
and Territory, bringing with them their
peculiar and by no means Identical
ideas. Moreover both monarchist and
democratic views intermingle. In the
course of years a society like nothing
mn %hn ;,,la
ciety which has it's own distinctive
place in the world and if treated wise
ly by the governing power. will be dealt
with on that basis
On these accounts the writer who
lands, looks about and departs and the
inquiring Senator who makes even a
months visit, have become jointly re-
sponsible for great variety of mis-
leading impressions of Hawaii which
prevail on the mainland Doubtless
they are sincere enough, but like the
ear-window Europeans who run over
to America to write book of impress
sions, they are more diverting than
: accurate. We do not doubt that Sena-
| tor Burton believed all he was told
i about Boston missionaries coming here
to trade tickets to heaven for valuable
real estate; but if he had taken the
assessment lists and spent few months
in looking up the character and ante
cedents of white ownership here he
would have found his sensational thee
ries fatty contradicted by the facts
Such an investigation might be irksome
but nothing less will qualify a man to
: instruct Congress as to the actual
landed relation between the missionary
: and his native convert.