The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-11-08
PANAMA AND HAWAII: I'll .T CLEVELAND POLICY.
THE

rFe CLEVELAND POLICY.
 The practical conquest of Panama by the United States. in the recognition of It's provisional government. which is to tbe defended by our military forces. Is a most interesting repetition of ,hs case of the Hawaiian Islands.
 Tho incidents involving Mir. Cleveland. and Senator Morgan and the Republican administration with the Hawaiian con- quest were extremely interesting at the time and are profitable to recall now.
 The United States at peace with Colom- bia, has recognized the revolutionary Mendes government got up in a night at Colon. This is a. Republican adminis- ration measure. and we must see what position the Democracy is to take on it.
 The United States was in relations of comfy with the government of the Ha- waiian Islands. having the customary treaties with that government and main- taining at Honolulu a diplomatic office. No strain upon the peace between the two governments in daily contact had been threatened.
 This was the situation at Honolulu on Sunday afternoon. January IS. 1893. when the Commander of the United States ship of war Boston, then in that port land ed an armed force in the town, marched itiupon the government building and took possession in the interest of thirteen white men. largely engaged in the sugar planting business on the islands with coo iy labor.
 The thirteen white sugar planters. led by the New England United states Minis ter. Stevens. hurried off treaty of an- hexation to the United States, the true inwardness of which was. free sugar in United States ports. This treaty came to Washington along with letter from the New England minister to the State De- pertinent declaring:
 '.Tha Hawaiian pear is now ripe, and this is the golden hour for the United states to pluck it."
 The treaty of annexation was hurried from the President to the Senate and was only little behind time in that body, when President Harrison. who had sent 1t up, lost his office to President cleve- land, March f. 1893.
 The Senate was in the usual executive session considering the acts of a newly installed President. when on March 9. the following special message came upon the body like a thunderbelt from a clear sky:
 AlA withdraw the treaty of annexation be- tween the United States and the provis- ional government of the Hawaiian Is- lands, now pending in the Senate, which was signed February i4. 1893, and trans same month. and therefore request that said treaty be returned to me"
 Grover Cleveland"
 The thirteen white sugar planters em- ploying Chinese and Japanese slave labor, found their provisional government called to a dead halt under the change at the White House. The treaty of annexation sent up by them was pigeon-holed and never saw light until Mckinley came fin four years later.
 President Cleveland sent ex-Congress- man Blount of Georgia, a man of singular capacity for so delicate a mission, to Honolulu to investigate and report to him. The President told Mir. Blount that the provisional government set up by the few sugar planters was Il fraud upon the face of it. Tt is neither government de facto nor de ture," he said. Blount hauled the stars and stripes down.
 President Cleveland told Congress as soon as it came together the following winter:
 ''The law of nations is founded upon reason and justice and the rules of con- tween citizens or subjects of a civilized State are equally applicable as between enlightened nations. The consideration that international law Is without court for its enforcement and that obedience to It's commands practically depends upon good faith instead upon the mandate of a superior tribunal only gives additional sanction to the law itself and brands any deliberate infraction of 1t not merely as wrong, but as a disgrace. A man of true honor protects the unwritten word which binds his conscience more scrupulously, If possible, than he does the bond a breach of. which subjects him to legal lia- bilities, and the United States. in aiming to maintain itself as one of the most en- lghtened nations, would do its citizens gross injustice fl 1t applied to its inter- national relations any other than a high standard of honor and morality"
 It Is at least among the curiosities of history to note that, in the issue of 1S9S MT. Cleveland appeared a determining factor as against the policy of conquest set up by a retiring Republican admins tration. And that ten years later a re- stored Republican administration has re- opened the same issue at the very moment of preliminary success Of MT. Cleveland, the New York election working to his re- election to the Presidency.
 Senator Morgan was an ardent sup porter of the treaty of annexation of Ha- waii sent to the Senate by President Har- rison and with his accustomed energy as- sisted in the recovery of 1t from the pig con hole where President Cleveland had deposited 1t. as soon as President Me- Kinley came in to office. At this writing, no word from MT. Cleveland has come upon the practical conquest of Panama by the United States. Most probably he adheres to the doctrine laid down by him in the case of Hawaii. tes
 The people will pass judgment upon a very wide area of public questions pre- scented in the replacement of public men precipitated by the Panama affair. There is nothing new in the situation. Texas was conquered by the former Governor of Tennessee, Sam Houston, and then an-