The Maui news. [volume] (Wailuku, Maui, H.I.) 1900-current, 1920-01-09
UNSoUND ARGUMENT o LANGUAGE SCHOOLS

Senator John Wise in a letter to the Advertiser, and r. G. Mathe-
son, former editor of that paper, and now located in Japan, have both
come to the fore recently in defense OF the Japanese language schools
of Hawaii Both, consciously or mconsclousy, base Their argument mt on
accept as a matter of course that self government in Islands does not
or cannot long exist.
Starting from such a base, it is of course easy to argue that to
forbid the teaching of a foreign language to school children is an in
Wises position. He adds o it the selfish suggestion that Hawaii might
suffer materially on account o. labor shortage should She attempt to
prevent the foreign language schools continuing with nothing more than
sufficient surveillance to make certain that they are not hot-beds of
MIR Maheson, apparently takes it for granted that Hawaii is al
ways to be simply an American possession" and that the question Of
the inteligences and loyalty of its people is altogether a secondary mat
ter. He says in effect that the Japanese should be considered simply
as temporary guests of the American people, and permitted tooeducaee
Their c1ldTen along g2Pa 9 Ines q alnaeter OF eo9Tse?.cIhe people
of Hawaii are subject 70 hyst6f1a, he asserts, and scolds us roundy on
the fooIstness of unstable nerves, We are infected by the antiJap-
qpse PfoPaeanda of the Pacific coast, in his compacent conclusion
"a passing touch of fever which will shortly run its course.
But neither Senator Wise nor Mr.. Matheson starts right. Their
own conception of Hawaii is not American. The whole idea of Ameri-
cansm is government of and by the people themselves. Not simply
er of the domain over which the Stars and Stripes shall fly.
If Hawaii is to be American it means that the people of Hawaii
child born upon this soil shall have the supreme privilege of an Ameri
can citizen, and that it shall be the duty, not merely the privilege, Of
of this territory as an intelligent and loyal American.
in name but aliens in habit of mind, Of speech, and sentiment, is un-
thinkable. Yet how are we to avoid such a result unless we insist
Senator Wise is on his way to Washington as a member of the
legislative commission, which among other things is to ask for state
hood for Hawaii How Mr.. Wise can support such a request and at
the same oppose the only hope we have Of making real Americans out
It is more than probable that Mr.. Matheson is one of those who
wish for, and expect sooner or later to see Hawaii governed by a COM
perhaps, as to the status OF the population. But a commission govern
ment could not take away the citizenship rights of those born beneath
the Flag and Hawaii would be doing an injustice to the rest of the coun-
try in turning loose a steadily increasing number of these nominal ci-
Unless the United States frankly decides to go into the colony
business and to simply rule Hawaii by the right of might for her own
ends, Hawaii has got to do her part and develop real citizens from the
Since the war many of the states have seen the error of permitting
children to be reared within their borders a aliens, and have passed
laws abolshing the teaching of children in any except the English Ian
guage. Hawaii can take no other position. She must either become
merely an appendage or she must make herself 100 percent American,
which cannot be done with a dual school system.