The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1903-02-17
THE BEHEsTs OF PROGRESS.

ton to the square Illie aS any
in the American Union will average
There are men and women all over tn
Islands who have seen and know th'
world. who are broad-nlinded and toll
Grant, and who have distinct compre
bension of the bright future that lie:
straight ahead. The native population
is exceptional in it's qualifications and
is in no sense to be classed with tbs
inferior races, that represent stolid inn
mobility and fatalism and yield to
progress only through the cruel process
of extirpation.
But many causes, among which CEN
turies of isola ton are perhaps most in
tense, have produced some local condi-
lions, not injecting the mass of the peo-
pie, which must necessarily be changed
through the recognition of the fact that
flies cannot stop the wheels of loco
motive. Discordant foreign influences,
each seeking to impress it's Dredomi-
nance upon the community, were natu-
raj enough in their day, but the period
for. their clashfng aspirations is over.
The historical prelude to annexation
and annexation itself have ceased to be
Just grounds for local resentment, and,
even from policy, the perpetuation of
strifes, which originated in the transit
ton epoch, is unreasonable, foolish and
suicidal. The Hawaiian Islands are
now indissolubly within the American
Union, under the permanent control of
the Federal and Territorial govern
ments, protected by constitutional and
traditional guarantees, and invested
with that individualized and localized
sovereignty which raises American cit
izenship to the highest plane of human
advancement
1t is now in order for us to realize
and to assimiliate the truth, as it actu-
ally exists, not as any one of separated
and contending factions would have it,
IL it's dominance had been achieved.
Annexation and the electrified wire
have brought US into hourly touch with
eighty-five millions.in our own country,
and with the teeming nations beyond, |
east and west, north and south. Our
minds are filed, day by day, with the |
expanding record of civilized humanity. |
The era of small things, of petty meth !
DDS, of childish intrusions into the pri-
vacies of life is fast sinking into CHM
merian darkness. There is no time for
such bagatelles. Commerce, with it's
powerful wings, is in our harbors. Cap
ital, with its searching eyes, is apprais-
ing our qualities and extending our pos
IT. n
brain and its protective combinations, /
is studying its chances. The pressure
of industrial progress. in all its multi
form phases, of science, art, of philos
ophy. is upon u.s.. How will we re-
spond to the increasing invitations to
How will we use the opportunities
which the American nation, backed by
all other civilized nationalities, has
brought to our very doors? Shall we
reject or accept and practicable mod
ern inspiration. working through in
Vulnerable channels, with clear pur-
poses and ends. solving, one by one,
the most intricate problems that have
perplexed and disturbed mankind and
fertilizing alike the arid deserts of
America, Europe and Asia, and the in
sular clusters, in which the Hawaiian
Islands ought to be paramount?
These are questions that have to be
rapidly answered, and rather in con-
duet than in words. We need public
opinion instead of impulsive inconsis-
tency. We need the cooperation and
the ascendancy of the mind, the knowl-
edge, the experience, the sagacity, the
vitality, in our people, at once so album
dant and so inert. We need the sup
preston, if necessary the extinction
of Paul Pry and his umbrella, of the
social, the political, the professional
traducer and sneak, filed with green
malice, with yellow jealousy, and with
black avarice in whose nostrils the odor
of dollar is sweeter than the scent
of a rose. We need the repeal of the
Hawaiian Exclusion Act, which was not
enacted by any legislature, but repre-
sents the arrogant, selfishness of few
small cliques, insignificant individ- /.
uals. who claim monopoly in scandal,
rascality and incompetency. We need
to welcome tourists and to bring them
into contact with the best and not the
worst there is in the Territory. but also
to welcome capital, intelligence, and
labor, skilled or capable of adaptation.
In short we need cosmopolitanism in
stead of heterogeneousness.
In ancient times. personalities were
the chief attributes of barbarism. Now
they are a badge of provincialism. Peo-
pie who are herded together in a limited
part of the earth's surface, who have
no important business of their own, who
have no relations with thought and la
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