The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1910-08-08
HAWAII'S KNOCK
At CLOSED DOOR

at the Door the Rome IN. " Sentin-
ell of July 10, says:
That the Sandwich Islands should
ever become a state of the American
union would have been deemed utter
ly preposterous had II been suggested
thirty years ago To many persons
the thought may not seem much more
reasonable at the present hour New
ertheless Hawaii is knocking at the
door and requesting admission to the
sisterhood of states, and newspapers
as conservative as the New York
Times are ready to go as far as to
assert that the islands viii probably
constitute the forty-ninth state, enter
ing next in line after New Mexico and
Arizona, though perhaps not for a
considerable number of years TO
come.
When the Sandwich Islands were
discovered by Captain Cook in 1913
they are supposed to have nau Il ma
tive population of some 100000 and
some unlind things were said of the
inhabitants. The census of 1900, how
ever, showed a striking change in
the complexion of the population, then
numbering but $4,000 for all the isl
ands. OF this total only BLOB were
pure natives and S4S5 half-breeds as
/ against 24,407 Japanese, 21,616 Chi
nese, 1900 Portuguese, 9,OS6 Ameri-
cans and $3.50 British. That the
Americans formed only 2,73 per cent
Of the whole should be borne in mind
in considering the possibilities of the
islands as an American state Their
total area in GAO square miles as
against 1,24S in Rhode island. 1870 in
Delaware, 1895 in Connecticut, 1924 in
New Jersey, and 1925 in Massachue-
sets. The total population exceeds
that of either Arizona, Nevada or wy
oming but is considerably less than
that of the city of Rochester
The islands began knocking at the
door of the United States many years
ago when the proportion of races in
the population was greatly different
from the present day. During Mr..
! Cleveland's administration the Amer
lean sugar planters residing on the
/ islands, mostly sons of missionaries,
gave an extra hard knock the door
was partly opened and they got
foot in just far enough so that the
door was never fully closed, much as
the president sought to undo what
he viewed as the unlegal act of the
American naval commander on the
spot. Queen Lii never got back her
throne, and finally, July Z, 1898, part
ly as an outcome of the Spanish-Amer-
lean war, formal annexation of the
islands was declared by Congress. In
April of 1900 a law was enacted giving
Hawaii a full territorial government
with 4 Legislature, governor and Su-
preme court and delegate in the
Congress and the United States. Now
! comes the demand for full statehood
with two United States senators and
a congressman.
That the present knock will be less
speedily needed than those that have
gone before it would seem certain. If
the circumstance that Americans
form so small a minority of the pop
ulation were not enough to make
/ Congress pause, the present well es-
tablished, though by no means thor
oughly defensible, policy OF. this gov
eminent toward the exclusion of ASH
atics from the confines of continental
United States should be recognized
as final bar to any immediate ac-
ton. Under the constitution there
can ne no restriction of commerce be-
tween states. The instant Hawaii is
admitted as state to this union her
citizens will have free access to Cali
fornia and other states more or less
r fanatically opposed to Oriental immi-
, grafton 1t matters not that the
whole 10000 Japanese and Chinese
5 in the islands, supposing all should
wish to come, would make but a drop
in the bucket toward the true needs
of the Pacific Coast for laborers; the
, Pacific states can be counted as a
: unit against the admission of the Ha
waiian Islands to statehood.
f There is yet another obstacle tc
Hawaii's making the forty-ninth staI
-,
claims in that direction, Porto Rico's
are stronger. When the United
States acquired that island from SPAR
the whole population wished annexa
D tion and their present discomfort liei
in the fact that they have been refus
. ed American citizenship A yer.
a goodly proportion of H9waii's popu
d lation had no such ambitions at tn,