The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1910-02-08

1t is too early to make any specific pre-
diction about federal prohibition in Ha-
wall, but our fight for it has opened
most favorably in Congress, and by the
time this letter appears in The Friend
for February it may be supplemented
with important cable news. AT any rate
it may be said conservatively and conf
IDENTIFY that the temperance cause i'll the
Islands is receiving great reinforcement
from the mainland.
The presentation of the need for or
ganized total abstinence work. combining
strong social and musical features, among
the native Hawaiians was received by the
Grand Lodge of Good Templars with
instant and most cordial sympathy, and
the National Grand Lodge is preparing
to put a trained organizer at work estab-
fishing line of lodges throughout the
Territory. This effort in the interest
of total abstinence promises very rich re-
turns, even if the licensed saloon is to
continue, but if the beverage liquor trade
becomes an outlaw it will still be very
useful, for in my opinion both on the
islands and the mainland, no matter how
successful we may be in securing prohib-
tory legislation we must return to the
fundamental personal equation, in the in
terest of individual betterment and the
enforcement of public law.
From Santa Cruz, California, where
met the Good Templars, on October ~
ID, l travelled eastward slowly address,
ing large audiences on the way. wish
somebody could have reported those
meetings to my critics in Honolulu who
call me an outside meddler engaged in
giving the islands bad name On that
trip made ten thousand people directly,
and l don't know how many more indi-
rectly understand clearly that Hawaii is
America at its most beautiful, and from
the standpoint of'world power, its best.
1t is astonishing how vague and foreign
the mainland idea of us is, and | enjoy
a very comfortable consciousness that
am doing good work in that direction
on this trip
But, of course, I did not fail to say
that the old serpent of the earlier Eden,
cold-blooded, red-eyed, split-tongued,
bellys its poison way beneath our palms,
whispering lies to the ignorant and the
WGdh-ll dllOl W lldllOl W VI
der, traitor to health, traitor to law, trait
or to school, traitor to soldier, sailor, mis-
sionary-and has license.
At Chicago, December 9TH, the opening
gun of the National Convention of the
American Anti-Saloon League was fired
in the Chicago Opera House, where l
told the story of the liquor plague in Ha-
wall from the escaped cOnVicts who
brought it there hundred years ago, to
the frightened poison blenders of the pre-
sent day. Then and there two members
of Congress pledged themselves to help
the Johnson bill through Congress and
prophesied that it would pass.
At Washington, December II, the
Senate Committee on Pacific Islands
and Porto Rico met to hear my argu-
ment, and from the questions asked by
the Senators and their close attention it
was abundantly evident that they were
interested, and those of us who took part
in the hearing felt strongly justified in
believing that majority was favorably
inclined
A neatly printed pamphlet containing
the protest of the Territorial legislature,
was already in the hands of every Sen
ator and was dealt with first of all. l
reckon that it was completely disposed
of by our mere suggestion that as a mat
ter of law the territorial relation was bas-