The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1903-01-17
THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY.

THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY.
The four cardinal points in the his
tory of Hawaii nei are Kamehameha' S
conquest of the group; the arrival of
the missionaries; the revolution of 1893
and the act of annexation. Ten years
ago today the revolution of 1898 was
consummated in the overthrow of the
monarchy and the creation of a Provi-
sional Government.
What happened one decade ago had
long been foreseen. AS far back as
1853, forty years before the throne was
abolished, Kamehameha III declared
that the royal government could not
last and he tried to sell the islands to
a foreign power. The reasons given
by the King for his disbelief in the con-
tinuity of the monarchical form of gov
eminent were % the decrease in native
population; (2) the increase in numbers
and authority of the white men; 90 the
inability of the sovereign to protect
his government from the aggression of
foreign powers; (D the probable extinc
ton of the royal line. While the King
was right in the major part of his fore
cast, the danger of change was not so
imminent as he feared. The flood gath
cred slowly. Kalakaua, thirty years
later, got nearer glimpses of it and
more than once was heard to say, in
native paraphrase of the plant of
Louis XIV, "Apres moi lie deluge."
How and why the deluge came need
not be discussed here. 1t is enough to
know that it had to come and that if it
had not been precipitated by one set of
circumstances it would have been by.
another. The era had been Seached ten
years ago when there could be no small
native independent states at strategic
sea points anywhere except those di-
rectly supervised and protected by the
Monroe Doctrine. Expansion was in
the air, a thing working out logically
from civilizing influences, the increase
of trade and the instinct, among great
powers of self-defence. In its currents
it was as pitiless as fate itself. No one
felt it's force more than did the white
men who, after being baffled in their
efforts to secure annexation to the
United States on their own terms of
treaty, settled down into the belief that
the islands could continue as an indie
pendent republic. Hardly had the re-
public been founded when it was sub |
jected to a threatening pressure by
Japan, whose subjects were in ma
jority or at least a plurality here.
+ha CnapiSb broke ont and
in it's earlier stages, held the threat
of danger to the United States from
great powers of central Europe, it was
plain that, in the midst of such
cataclysm, neither the neutrality nor
independence of Hawaii would be re-
spected. In any event the United
States would have to take possession
unless forestalled by some reader
power, The only way out was to seek
annexation. 1t was the fiat of destiny,
the decision of fate.
In the decade which closes today are
to be found the strongest of evidences
that the change of political conditions
is one of feeling as well as form. In
the last political campaign we had the
remarkable spectacle OF the native peO-
pie declaring for more Americanized
form of government and even accusing
those who made annexation possible of
not being American enough. The
friends of Mr.. Dole were. found sup
porting. as the head of the Republican
ticket. a former royal prince on plat
form which, among other things, called
for public provision for the former
Queen. Striking hands against the
party of Grover Cleveland and that of
the old native reactionaries were men
whose guns We're pointed against one
another ten years ago today and who.
when Cleveland proposed the restora-
ton of the Queen, were again ready to
shed each others blood. Here were the
beginnings of a union of hearts and of ,
interests which, in process of years. will ,
so weld all Hawaiians that the events !
of January, 1898. will be looked back =
upon without bitterness and their re- :
suits accepted as a part of the common I
good.