Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-11-17
THE FALL OF WILCOX
Hawaii Has Killed His Home
Rule Party.
FOOLISH PROMISES
THE DELEGATE RAISED THE
LEPRosY ISSUE TO HIS UNDoING.
Republican Legislature VIII Stand for
Progressive Enactments
and Honesty.

Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.
HONOLULU, T. H, November 8, 1902.
The Hawaiian home rule party Is dead.
The voting of yesterday showed under the
party and Delegate to Congress r. w. VIII
cox to such extent that neither is likely
to be heard from again, and the days Of
race issues in politics and of royalist ma
jorities are past. The verdict yesterday
was decisive for the republican party and
its nominee for Congress, Prince Jonah Ku-
hio Kalanianaole. 1t was a protest of the
electorate against the home rulers among
the natives, and also against the anti-Dole
men among the whites. 1t was vindlca-
ton of the Dole administration.
The natives of Hawaii, in the opinion Of
many, have shown their fitness for free suf-
frage. They have INDICATED the judgment
of the Congress that made them all Ameri-
can citizens, with the right to free ballot.
THE natives have shown that they are
not fools after ALL said Hawaiian fed
eral official from the mainland, who saw
his first campaign in Hawaii this time.
The danger of an amendment to the Or
ganic act that will restrict their powers,
by limiting the suffrage or increasing the
powers of the executive, is passed.
Good Results at Once.
The result of the victory was a better
feeling in Honolulu at once. Business was
on firmer basis, and the feeling among
moneyed men and men of large enterprises
was one Of more confidence. There is no
longer any danger Of another incompetent,
royalist legislature like the last one Ha-
wall no longer be regarded as at the
mercy of an irresponsible, incompetent cleo
torate, controlled by the issues that should
have disappeared when the monarchy was
finally oyerthrown.
During the campaign just ended Wilcox
used every possible effort to play upon the
old feelings of race antagonism and to fan
into race hatred the feelings of those who
cannot forget the overthrow of so and still
long for the lost monarchy He spared no
libel on the missionaries, and had no limit
In his attacks upon Governor Dole and his
administration. Again and again he refer
red In his native speeches to the governor
as "long-legged, white-bearded goat"
Is a "bewhiskered ghost" and to all mis-
sionaries as haters of the natives, and he
told his audiences that the missionaries
were inoculating Hawaiians with leprosy
virus. in order to kill off the race 1t was
generally felt that If these tactics could
win a majority from the Hawaiian race, the
time had come for change in the laws of
the country to restrict their suffrage and
curb their power to ruin the prosperity of
the islands
Wilcox Lost Prestige.
The two influential factors in the cam
paign were the question of federal control
Of the leper settlement and dissatisfaction
with Wilcox. The fact that the latter did
nothing during his first term at Washing
ton undoubtedly had a good deal to do
with the vote against him. but the other
factor was probably more influential, and
singularly enough 1t was member Of the
United States Senate who gave to the re-
publicans their best campaign material on
this subject. Senator Burton of Kansas
may claim the credit of having made a
remark, during the hearings had by the
Senate commission on Hawaii, while in
Honolulu, that was the strongest single
factor against Wilcox in the Hawaiian cleo
ton That he did not mean to produce
such an effect may be inferred from the
fact that he is against the missionaries and
the Dole administration
Senator Burton's Campaign Contribu-
ton.
1t was during the discussion of Wilcox's
bill to place the leper settlement under
federal control that Senator Burton made
his all-powerful remark. He declared that
II the national government took the settle
nent over it would separate the sexes and
enforce more rigid quarantine. The sorest
spot in the Hawaiian heart is the subject
of leprosy. and well 1t may be-
The terrible ravages the disease has made
among the natives and the inconceivabIe
suffering occasioned by the rules the local
government has enforced. of sending the
afflicted to the settlement, are enough to
have impressed the whole race. No one
who has not seen the settlement seen new
ly discovered victims of the disease torn
from their homes and relatives and sent
there. and seen the hearth breaking grief of
lepers and visitors alike when those from
the outside are allowed a days visit to the
settlement, can appreciate how the Ha-
waians feel about leprosy. To threaten
that the leper settlement would be made
even more place Of isolation than it is
and that those confined within it's bounda-
rles would be subjected to rules that would
break up their homes-such as thew are
for there are homes and families at the set
tlement, was to arouse enemies on every
hand, throughout the islands. The lepers
sent petitions and wrote to relatives and
friends throughout the group, begging for
opposition to the measure they regarded as
SO cruel.
The Leprosy Issue.
Delegate Wilcox made frantic efforts to
counterfeit the effect of Senator Burton's
words. He made a visit to the settlement,
accompanied by ten of the leaders of his
party, and all of them addressed an audi
ence of the lepers. The visitors are not al
lowed beyond the confines of a corral erect
ed for them. They speak from a platform
within this corral and the lepers gather
outside to listen. Delegate Wilcox told the
that If he were sent to Con-
gress again half of them would be freed.
Half of you are not lepers at ALL" he said,
but were sent here by the Hawaiian board
of health. to get you out of the way
The visionary promise did not work it's
intended effect. Probably the miserable
victims of the disease know only too well
themselves that they are victims. 1t was
another Wilcox promise, another bit of
home rule taking, and in Wilcox the lepers
saw, and angrily reproved from the audi
ence, the man who was going to turn them
over to federal supervision, with it's conse-
quent separation of sexes and breaking up
of homes, its stern quarantine and possible
experimentation on patients by quarantine
doctors. Senator Burton's remark sank
deeper than any explanations or replies
that Wilcox could make. and in every dis
trict throughout the islands 1t helped to
roll up a majority for the republican ticket
Legislature Republican.
The legislature will be republican This
is more than many republicans dared to
hope for. 1t means everything to Hawaii,
and opens future of possible political
peace and of sensible, American govern
ment. The race issue can never again be
so prominent in a political campaign and
legislature containing many natives who
were put up by whites will take hold of