The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-10-20

hawai- COi pbl dA4plA5 Ndu tOutA1UubO ~
the election of Link McCandless as lib
orally as they want to, according to
Judge Dole 5 decision, delivered yester-
day; or to the election of Kuhio, or Not
ley, or any other candidate. There is
no legal hold on corporate purse strings
in this Territory
Likewise, by Judge Dole decision,
the officers and directors of the Hale
akala Ranch Company are in no dan
ger of fine or Imprisonment for having
contributed funds for the coming cleo
tion.
Judge Dole upholds the constitution
ality of the act of Congress prohibiting
corporations from contributing to cleo
tiOns where Representatives in Congress
or United States Senators are to be
elected, but he holds that it does not
apply to Hawaiian corporations nor to
the election of a Delegate from the
Territory to Congress. Judge Dole s
decision is a long one, but is an inter
-esting one. Some of the leading points
in it are as follows:
The defendant a corporation organ
lied under and by virtue of the laws
of the Kingdom of Hawaii on Septem-
her l. 1883, is charged in the first count
of the information with making a
<'monev contribution in connection with
an election to a political office, to wit,
to an election for the Office of Delegate
from the Territory of Hawaii to the
Sixty first Congress of the United
States of America, contrary to the form
of the statute of the United States in
such ease made and provided, to wit,
an act of the Congress of the United
States of America approved January
26, A. d. 1907 ga Stat l.. part l, p.
S64).'' The statute forbids "any ma
tional bank or any corporation organ
lied by authority of any laws of Con-
gress' from making a .'money contri-
button in connection with any election
to anv political office.
It is contended by the United States
that upon annexation all corporations
owing their existence to either the Ha-
waiian Kingdom or the Republic OF
Hawaii "no longer had any standing
save as the same might have been pre-
served bv that provision of the Reso-
luton of Annexation which reads as.
follows: "The municipal legislation of
the Hawaiian Islands, not enacted for
the fulfllment of the treaties so extin-
guished. and not inconsistent with this
Joint Resolution nor contrary to the
Constitution of the United States nor
to any existing treaty of the United
States, shall remain in force until the
Congress of the United States shall
otherwise determine. - And it further
contends that the defendant twas in
fact continued in existence or, if the
term NAV be used, recreated, by virtue
of the Resolution of Annexation.
The laws of the Republic of Hawaii
were more definitely dealt with by the
Organic Act creating the government
of the Territory of Hawaii (Act of
April 80. 1900: 81 Stat L. 1922. This
provides in section "that the laws
of Hawaii not inconsistent with the
Constitution or the laws of the United
States or the provisions of this act,
shall continue in force subject to re-
peal or amendment by the legislature of
Hawaii or the Congress of the United.
States,' and then proceeds specifically
to repeal a number of the Hawaiian
laws but does not repeal the Hawaiian
law relating to corporations.
The Hawaiian Islands became a part
of the United States, not by consent or
by any use of force by the greater pow
er, but as a result of negotiations be-
tween the two countries, the initiation
of such negotiations having come from
the Republic of Hawaii. In the light
of these facts. the expression of the
Resolution of Annexation that the mu-
nicipal legislation of the Hawaiian ISL
ands should "remain in force until
the Congress of the United States
should otherwise determine, and that
of the Organic Act, that the laws of
Hawaii not inconsistent with the Con-
stitution or laws of the United States
or the provisions of the Organic Act
should "eOntinue in force subject to
repeal or amendment by the legislature
of Hawaii or the Congress of the United
States was significant of the complete
recognition by the United States of the
validity of such laws under the new
status and of the agreement for their
continuance until subject to further leg
islation relating to them either by Con
gress or by the Hawaiian legislature.
Annexation was a transfer of sover-
eighty by friendly compact and for due
Vested rights not in
vOlved in the transfer cannot be affect
ed by such a transaction, nor can it be !
so as to impair the obligation
Of eontraets.-the contracts related to '
this ease being the charter of the de-
PENDANT granted by the government of S
the Hawaiian Kingdom and continued '
in force by the proclamation of 1898 s
creating the Provisional Government of |
the Hawaiian Islands, and by the Con- g
stitution of the Republic of Hawaii, t
which charter represents the contract a
between government and the incorpora- e
tors. and the contract between the e
The extinction of corporations, as sug- t
yested by counsel for the prosecution, v
-aises the difficult question Of the re- t