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Reports of Committee on Foreign Relations 1789-1901 Volume 6 pp856-857 300dpi scan (VERY LARGE!)

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Senator Frye. It touches it only so far as to indicate that this thing was of gradual growth. As we have been taking testimony this is undoubtedly admissible. It is nothing that you would object to.

Senator Gray. I withdraw my objection.

The Chairman. Do you confirm the statements made in that paper?

Mr. Oleson. Yes; I would say that I have incorporated facts here that I was not cognizant of. That is not the case with my statement just read. But such facts have gone on record in the papers and records of the Legislature.

The Chairman. So far as the statements in that paper are within your knowledge they are true?

Mr. Oleson. Exactly.

The statement is as follows:

"SOME ELEMENTS IN THE POLITICAL EVOLUTION OF HAWAII.

"At a recent meeting of the Congregational Club, in Horticultural Hall, Mr. William Brewster Oleson read a very interesting paper on Elements in the Political Evolution of Hawaii, as follows:

"I shall confine myself on this occasion to the period of twenty years ago, from January, 1873, to January, 1893. I shall also limit myself to a mere allusion to the more salient events in that brief period of constitutional development.

"An important factor in the political evolution of Hawaii was furnished by the career of Kalakaua, the immediate predecessor and brother of Liliuokalaui.

"In 1873 he advocated his election to the vacant throne by promising to abolish the poll tax, to fill all Government offices with natives, and to remove the prohibitions on the sale of liquor to the aborigines. He was unpopular with his own people, and his rival, Lunalilo, was enthusiastically elected King.

"Soon after Lunalilo died, and on February 12, 1874, Kalakaua was elected King by the Legislature. It was charged, and generally believed, that he was elected by the use of bribes. It is sufficient here to say that he was protected from a mob of his own people, for a period of five days after his election, by United States troops.

"During his reign he dismissed capable and upright officials and filled the civil service with political adventurers, who brought scandal to every department of the Government. He caused grogshops to be licensed in the country districts against the protests of his own people.

"He raised the cry, 'Hawaii for Hawaiians,' hoping thus to curry popularity by exciting race jealousies against foreigners. He sought to create a state church of which he should be the head. His visits to the other islands were utilized for the recrudescence of lascivious orgies of the old heathen religion. He rehabilitated the trade of sorcery, and turned the influence of the Kahunas to his own political advantage.

"He stationed soldiers with side arms in double rows at polling places, thus intimidating voters and pushing men out of line who were suspected of opposition to his schemes, thus forcibly preventing their voting. He appointed legislators to lucrative Government positions while they continued to retain seats in the Legislature.

"He had the Legislature in 1886 adjourn for three weeks so that members who were tax assessors might go home and perform their duties. These men he employed to carry through the Legislature pernicious and extravagant legislation in opposition to the sentiment of the people. He used the royal franking privilege to pass through the custom-

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house, free of duty, liquors belonging to certain firms, thus, In one instance, defrauding the Government of revenue to the amount of $4,749.35.

"For this service he received hundreds of cases of cheap gin, which he sent to every voting precinct to secure the election of his candidates to the Legislature. He went personally to one country district, with a company of soldiers, and by their votes defeated Pilipo, the lion of North Kona, Kalakaua's staunchest opponent in the Legislature.

"He laid claim to the 'primacy of the Pacific,' and sent royal commissioners to the New Hebrides and Gilbert Islands and Samoa to prepare for a Hawaiian protectorate over those islands. He warned the great powers of Europe, in a grandiloquent protest, against any further annexation of islands in the Pacific Ocean, claiming for Hawaii exclusive right 'to assist those islands in improving their social and political condition.'

"Finally, he accepted a bribe of $71,000 from a Chinaman, named Aki, for an opium license, which he had already sold and delivered to another Chinaman, who had paid $80,000 for it.

"This career of Kalakaua's had a twofold effect, viz, of arranging in increasing antagonism and bitterness the progressive and retrogressive elements in the population, and of bestowing leadership, on one hand, on the servile partisans of the King, and, on the other, on intelligent Anglo-Saxons, who have, from that time to this, counted as their adherents the more stalwart and independent Hawaiians.

"Another element in the political evolution of Hawaii has been the decay of the native race.

"The census of 1823 showed the population to be 130,313. According to the census of 1890 the native Hawaiians numbered 34,430, a decrease since 1823 of 95,877. The annual decrease since 1866 has averaged 1,085. Thus, since 1860, when the native Hawaiians numbered 66,984, the decrease has been 50 per cent.

"The native Hawaiians now number about one-third of the population. Thus the total population in 1890 was 89,990, of which the Hawaiian numbered 34,430, the Chinese, Japanese, and Polynesians 28,249, and the white foreigners, many of whom were born in the land, 27,305. This decrease of Hawaiians and the corresponding increase of foreigners have depressed the native race, but with an opposite effect on the two radically diverse wings. Thus, on those more susceptible to the corrupting influences of the throne who have fallen into dissipation, and who are seeking their own personal advancement at the expense of all political morality, this alarming decrease has had the effect of exciting intense race hatred.

"Of those, however, who are allied to the churches, who have been stalwart in their resistance to Kalakaua's demoralizing influences, who are to-day the personification of the character and conscience of this remnant of a race, this decrease has had the effect of drawing them into closer and trustful fellowship with the better class of Anglo-Saxons.

"Another element in the political evolution of Hawaii has been the growth of the Anglo Saxon population, which has naturally resulted in the bestowment of political privileges, not otherwise enjoyed even by the Hawaiian people themselves.

"This foreign population pays four-fifths of the taxes. It has furnished the capital and skill in the development of every business and industrial enterprise in Hawaii. It is a resident population, with permanent homes and schools and churches and libraries, and social,

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