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none in sight. As the proclamation finished I passed through the crowd, recognized my friends as in the movement, saw Col. Soper stripping a towel from a rifle, and at the foot of the staircase saw a man armed with a ritle. I passed upstairs and told my clerk to close up all the rooms and went down again to find arranged in a line from the staircase to the front door a body of armed men in ordinary clothes, and recruits were constantly coming in. I then walked back to the center of the town, which was full of people, all business being suspended and many of the shops shut.
Our fear was that the marshal would attempt to arrest Good, who had shot the policeman, and that this would precipitate a riot. I stood with the crowd and heard all the talk. Soon I learned that the ministers were in the station house with the marshal and a body of armed men with a gatling gun. It was said that when the Americans in the station house heard that the movement was for annexation to the United States they said they would not fight for the Queen on such an issue. We saw the Queen's cabinet go in pairs in carriages from the station house to the Government building and return. Things looked very critical. Some said that Minister Stevens had refused to recognize the Provisional Government, some said that he had or would; no one seemed to know.
I was then quite fatigued with the excitement and lack of food and went home to learn soon after that the force at the station house had surrendered and that Mr. Stevens had recognized the Provisional Government, and that martial law was declared, etc. No one in the crowd, whether sympathizers with the Queen or not, suggested that the United States troops would help obtaining possession by the Provisional Government of the station house. My two eldest sons had gone off to the headquarters with their rifles in the afternoon, one with my knowledge and the other without it. I was informed by President Dole within a day or two that if the station house had not surrendered the building would have been surrounded, and as the men showed themselves, sharpshooters posted on the high building commanding it would pick them off, and, without food or water, it would only be a matter of time that they surrendered.
The committee when they went to the Government building from W. O. Smith's office believed themselves to be in extreme peril. They were not armed. They were exposed to attack by the Queen's troops coming from the barracks through the palace premises, and every man of the committee could either have been arrested as they came up to the Government building or shot down after they arrived, so far as a spectator could see, for there was no force supporting the movement in sight. An exhibition of force on the part of the revolutionists before the proclamation was read might have caused their arrest to be attempted and this would have precipitated a conflict.
It was evident to me that no one of the Queen's party dared to strike a blow, for at that time the indignation against the Queen was intense and nearly universal among the white people. The natives stood in astonishment, not knowing what was going on and saying nothing. If Marshal Wilson and the cabinet ever intended to resist the movement, they had ample time to do so, as they had from Saturday afternoon to Monday evening before the troops from the Boston had landed to attempt to place guards at all the Government buildings, and even to attempt the arrest of the leaders of the intended movement whom, Wilson well knew. I am informed that Chas. J. McCarthy, a man of military experience, and lately the clerk of the Legislature, spent Monday
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night in the Government building expecting a force of 50 or 100 armed men sent to him from the station-house, chafing because they did not come. By Tuesday night the Provisional Government had such accessions of men and arms that they were amply able to cope with any internal force.
I say, further, that my statement to Col. Blount was in response to explicit questions already apparently formulated in his mind and asked by him, and that I did not feel at liberty to volunteer information upon topics not covered by any of his questions and especially upon the matter of the alleged use by Mr. Stevens of United States troops to overthrow the Queen. My interview was on the 10th of May, 1893, and Col. Blount had evidently already settled that matter in his own mind. When I asked him to see some other gentlemen, naming them, he politely told me it was not necessary, but said he would ask Mr. P. C. Jones—but did not.
A. F. Judd.
Honolulu, December 4, 1893.
Honolulu, Oahu, ss.
Subscribed and sworn to before me this 4th day of December, A. D. 1893.
[SEAL.]
Charles F. Peterson,
Notary Public.
AFFIDAVIT OF WILLIAM C. WILDER.
Honolulu, Oahu, ss:
William C. Wilder, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I have been a member of the Legislature of the Hawaiian Islands twice; I was elected in 1888 to fill the vacancy caused by my brother's, Samuel G. Wilder, death; and was elected representative for the first Honolulu district in 1892.
The conduct of the Queen became such toward the end of the session as to lead me to believe that she was determined to regain the powers taken away by the constitution of 1887; things went on from bad to worse until the 14th of January, 1893, when the Legislature was prorouged. When it was reported on that morning that the opium and lottery bills were signed and the Cornwell-Parker-Peterson cabinet came in, the tension of public feeling became most intense; every one felt that there was trouble in the air, but it was not on account of the ousting of the Wilcox reform cabinet. If matters had ended there, there would have been no uprising.
The reform members of the Legislature did not attend the prorogation, more as a protest against the unlawful acts of the Queen than anything else. When, however, after the prorogation, the Queen attempted to abrogate the constitution and proclaim a new one, which would have restored the ancient despotic rights of the throne, and would have trampled under foot all further semblance of liberty in Hawaii, the respectable, conservative, and property interests of the country, without any prior meeting or plans, simply arose in protest and to defend their rights. From what I saw, I have no hesitation in saying that the Queen's act in attempting to abrogate the constitution and promulgate a new one brought about the revolution.
The condition of the country was then very critical, politically and
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