The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1907-05-15

> misrule were given wide currency, and
the first few years under the Organic
Act seemed to justify them. The first
Legislature was shamefully bad, and
the second hardly an improvement
while number of Hawaiian. officials
proved corrupt. Yet nothing better
: could have been expected as the out
, come of lost sovereignty, President
, Clevelands doleful policy and the flock
, ing together of cheap native demagogs
and carpetbaggers from the mainland
; The wonder is that the recoil from the
strict control of the Provisional Gov
eminent and the Republic to the lax
1ty of Uncle Sans gentle oversight
was not more upsetting. The expert
ence was salutary in convincing good
men, both whites and Hawaians, that
the racial friction aroused by the
Cleveland Blount-Willis episode had no
ground for existence, and that union
for good government must prevail
The one commanding Island statesman
who made this possible was Judge San
| ford 3. Dole. whose consistent policy,
| first as head of the Provisional Gov
eminent and Republic and next as first
Territorial Governor, ideally embodied
1
who seized the happy moment in 1904
TO speak the word that brought Ha-
waiian and white into happy coopera-
ton was our present Governor, George
r. Carter The election of that year
gave Legislature that would suffer
| by comparison with none on the main
land. Finally, last November, in Oahu
County, the opportunity was granted
the Hawaiians to decide between a
graft-corrupted machine identified
with the Republican party to which
they had begun Loyalty to turn, and
independence of political action Thus
the browning test of ability to WELD
the ballot in obedience to twentieth
century principles was clearly applied
to the native race. They came forth |
from the ordeal triumphant The ma |
chine was buried past resurrection and
that by Hawaiian votes. The history I
OF the past six years reveals a power
of self-government in this race of a
quality scarce believable. The histor-
zeal student, however, sees in it no
miracle. Not only did his previous po-
iltical history affect his capacity for
self-mastery, but his church polity also
even more fundamentally trained this
power. In 1863 the Hawaiian churches
and set forth on a career of self-goy-
eminent. Modelled after the Puritan
pattern they taught this people how to
think, debate and vote from conviction. d
Enough the church did not gain so
much from this experiment, the State
did, and is now reaping it's results.
In fine, it is not too much to say that
the hope of honest government for this
TERRITORY 70 /
the Hawaiian, and that there is me {
best of reasons for believing that he t
Will Justify expectations Congress t
made no mistake in granting manhood |
suffrage to it's midpacific Territory. t
superficial critics are wont to speak 9
5hghtngly of the religious life of the /
hawaiian, and the assertion is not I'M Y
common that the Christian native is
put a whftewashed pagan. Not a little i
may De urged in support of this con- t
Ientlon by those who have not wide t
IND deep acquaintance with the Island O
ers or who are devoid of historic sense. a
A pretty volume could be made out c
u the topic American Pagan Super
Yet we have had more than f
me thousand years start of Hawaii a
n christian heredity and environment. I
hlrnate connection with the natives t
'<NSAtos oiify wonder tnat less than one q
lundred years should have taken So C
out of their lives the debas- t,
hg conceptions which ruled their t.
When one recalls n
ne success in America of innumera HE f
Iuacks, Indian" doctors and nostrums b
'aiore, to say nothing of the extremes II
I 1alth cure, Christian Science. divine O.
leallng and the like, the exceptional n
hawaiian, in his resort to a kahuna e.
Wltch doctor). seems not so unreason- ri
'ole. Occultism will take generations re
XIII, and in this regard the Amer 81
ian mas n" right to cast g stone. c.
The test of Christian character. how tc
yer, resides more in the upbuitdinr of is
osltlFe virtues-honesty, chastity. If
lndness, peaceableness and the like zs
men go to make up brotherhood
nan IN total elimination of the hack
round of fears inherited through nm
DID ages of ancestors. It is here thar A
he hawaiian is giving surest evidence ~
the radical change wrought in him
our common religion So far az og l.
emplles, preaching, singing and Other z.
not1onal manifestations of a beIiaf !, cr
Cd go, the Islander is of course tba ~
Ger OF any people, but this is not tho -
1estion. TIC CT
Is he truthful? To answer this IN N