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Reports of Committee on Foreign Relations 1789-1901 Volume 6 pp566-567 300dpi scan (VERY LARGE!)

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Early in December we presented to the Queen the nominations of W. A. Whiting and W. F. Frear as circuit judges under the new law that was to go into operation January 1, 1893. In this law the Queen appointed, by and with the advice and consent of the cabinet. We decided upon those gentlemen after conferring with the supreme court and a large number of the members of the bar. We heard nothing from the Queen for several days and finally waited upon her to sign the commissions. She informed us that it was her desire to appoint Antone Rosa, as she had received a petition from several natives in his favor. We told her we could not approve of a man of his habits, and after discussing the matter at length she said, "As there are four of you against one I will yield and will appoint Mr. Frear." We waited several days without hearing from her, when we wrote her a letter calling her attention to the fact that we had not received the commissions and reminded her of her promise to send them. Mr. Paul Neumann told several persons she showed him our letter and was angry about it. She told him she did not want to sign Frear's commission. He said that he replied to her, "Your Majesty, as a woman you have the right to change your mind, but as a Queen never." We learned that she frequently consulted with Messrs. Neumann, Ashford, and others outside of her cabinet.

On December 31, the very last day, she sent to us the commission of Mr. Whiting duly signed, but sent no word about Mr. Frear. We discussed the matter, and it was decided that I should go and see the Queen and tell her that unless she could see her way clear to sign Frear's commission we would decline to accept Whiting. I met her and delivered the message, telling her also that the cabinet was responsible to the country while she was not and while we held our portfolios we should endeavor to give her good advice. She was not pleased, but yielded very gracefully and signed Frear's commission, delivering the same to me at that time. It was very evident from the first that she was not in sympathy with us, although she was always pleasant and ladylike in all her interviews, and yet she annoyed us by delaying matters, keeping back bills that had passed the house, conferring more with others than with her cabinet. We felt satisfied that she was using her influence against us with the native members of the Legislature and this became more apparent from day to day. We had hardly been in office a week before we heard that a vote of want of confidence was to be brought up against us, and this was threatened every day.

Native members were constantly coming to us informing us of the state of things with the hope of obtaining money from us. Kanealii, representative from Maui, came to my house on two occasions and informed me that 22 votes had been secured against us and intimated that if I would buy the other three, of which he was one, the vote could be defeated. I refused to contribute one dollar for any such purpose and told him if he or his friends wanted money they had better vote against us. On January 4 Mr. Bush, representative from Oahu, brought in the long-expected resolution of want of confidence, but only 19 votes were secured and it failed to carry. After this it was hardly expected that they could secure a sufficient number of votes to remove us, although they kept constantly at it night and day. The Queen interested herself and labored earnestly among the native members to secure their votes, going down on her knees to Hoapili, noble from Hawaii, so, he said, to get him to vote us out. On the afternoon of January 11 the final passage of the infamous lottery bill came up and was carried by a vote of 23 to 20. It is a singular fact that the 23 who

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voted for this bill all voted against us the next day, which together with the votes of C. O. Berger and Cornwall put us out of office. It is a fact that the Queen signed the lottery bill, although she pledged herself to support us in opposing it.

At noon on January 12 the Queen gave a luau, native feast, and after recess in the afternoon another want of confidence resolution was brought in by Kapahu, representative from Hawaii, who was decked out in a yellow wreath of flowers. It was seconded by Kanoa, Noble from Kauai, who also wore the same kind of a wreath, and they were the only members who had such wreaths which were said to have been placed on them by the Queen. Representatives Kapahu, Pua, and Kanealii all voted for us on the 4th of January, but on this last vote they all went against us. On the morning of the 12th instant the Queen sent for C. O. Berger, who had not been in the Legislature for several days, and had declared that he would not go there again, and urged him to vote against us, promising him that Mr. Widemann, his father-in-law, should make up the new cabinet. He agreed to this and his vote gave her the necessary number, 25. Only three foreign members of the House voted against us, Messrs. Cornwell, Petersen, and Berger. Representative Kanealii afterwards admitted to Mr. Robinson, one of the cabinet, that he got $500 for his vote against us. We could have prevented this vote by the use of money, but we declined to resort to any such measure to retain our seats. We felt all the time we were in office we were between the devil and the deep sea, the Queen and the Legislature, and it was a great relief to us all when the result of the vote was announced.

My experience in office was a revelation. I saw that good bills could be defeated and bad bills passed by the use of money, and I have been led to the conclusion by my experience in the Legislature that the native Hawaiians are not capable of self-government. I feel quite satisfied that the Queen and her party did not expect on the 11th of January to secure sufficient votes to remove us from office, for on the evening of that day Mr. Henry Waterhouse called at my house and revealed a plot that had been planned and would have been executed if they had failed to carry the vote of want of confidence. I was informed that an anonymous letter, written by John F. Colburn, had been sent to me asking the cabinet to resign because the Queen hated us all. If we did not resign on receipt of his letter the plan was for the Queen to invite the cabinet to the palace as soon as the Legislature was prorogued and demand our resignations. If we declined to resign, as we certainly should have done, she was to place us under arrest in the palace and then proclaim a new constitution. This I reported to my colleagues the next morning, but at that time they could not credit the report. The anonymous letter came through the post-office, but did not reach me until the following Monday, January 16. The following is a copy of the letter:

January 11,1893.

Mr. P. C. Jones:

"It seems inconsistent with your principle to stay in office when you were kept there by open bribery on the part of certain Germans on Queen street. Money kept you in office, otherwise you would have been voted out; your colleague, Robinson, paid Akani and Aki $25 a piece before the voting, some days; he calls it a New Year's present; can you stomach that? We got the proof Bolte packed money in envelopes just before the vote came off and took it with him to the Government

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