Template:1068-1069

-p1068-

or other person, have you heard claim, or where have you seen in print, as you claim, that Hawaii ought not to be annexed without a majority vote of the native population?

Mr. MACARTHUR: The New York Times, The World, and the different administration papers that express their views, held that a vote should be taken on it.

Senator GRAY: But there should not be a majority vote of the natives separated from all others?

Mr. MACARTHUR: I mean native whites as well as others. There is a large proportion of the population natives who are whites.

Senator GRAY: Then you mean that those people contend that there should not be annexation without a vote of all the real population of those islands?

Mr. MACARTHUR: Yes.

Senator FRYE: Of all who are to vote?

Mr. MACARTHUR: Yes.

Senator GRAY: That is not what I mean. The majority vote of all the inhabitants of those islands who belong there either as natives or as naturalized citizens? That is what you mean?

Mr. MACARTHUR: Yes.

Senator GRAY: Then you say, But that is against all American precedent in annexation and generally in all practice throughout the world?"

Mr. MACARTHUR: Yes.

Senator GRAY: Are you aware that Mr. Seward, when he was Secretary of State, declared in an official paper that? "A revolutionary government is not to be recognized until it is established by the great body of the population of the State it claims to govern?"

Mr. MACARTHUR: No, I do not know that. What I meant there was that there had never been a case of annexation in this country where the people had voted on it.

Senator FRYE: That is, the annexed population?

Mr. MACARTHUR: The annexed population. If it had been, the annexation would have been repudiated in every case.

The CHAIRMAN: In the case of a plebiscite in Hawaii, where the population is homogeneous, there is not as much reason for having a plebiscite of our own people for the admission of those strangers as there would be of submitting to them in case they desired to come in?

Mr. MACARTHUR: Yes, in the case of Louisiana and the case of Texas, annexation would have been defeated if submitted to a vote of all the inhabitants there.

The CHAIRMAN: But in those cases the people were homogeneous with our race here.

Mr. MACARTHUR: As to whites that may be.

Senator GRAY: There was no doubt in the case of Louisiana of the full authority of the French Government to make the cession?

Mr. MACARTHUR: Exactly. That is the ground I take on Hawaii. There were two riots in New Orleans against annexation to the United States, and they had to send troops to put them down. The government that is in power and possession has the right to make its treaty of annexation, and there never has been in the history of the country any precedent of its kind of a plebiscitum.

The CHAIRMAN: In the annexation of a country, merging its sovereignty into another, the question is a governmental question and not of the people concerned?

-p1069-

Mr. MACARTHUR: Exactly; because the Government represents the people, as in the case of Texas.

The CHAIRMAN: I do not know that you remember, but it appears to me that at the time the treaty with Mexico was sent in by Mr. Triste, and submitted to the Senate of the United States, there was a motion made to submit the question of annexation to a plebiscite. I do not know that you remember that.

Mr. MACARTHUR: I do not.

Senator GRAY: I will ask you whether you approved the pulling down of that flag by Admiral Skerrett?

Mr. MACARTHUR: Yes, because there was no protectorate over it. I prefer annexation to a protectorate. The latter gives no sovereignty; it simply protects, and nothing else.

The CHAIRMAN: I will ask you whether there exists in Honolulu a club in which men of different politics and different races and different nativity assemble?

Mr. MACARTHUR: Yes. Mr. Cleghorn is the president of it. He is the father of Kaiulani.

The CHAIRMAN: Do gentlemen belonging to different political parties and elements meet there on terms of friendship and cordiality??

Mr. MACARTHUR: Entirely so. It is the most good-natured club you ever saw.

The CHAIRMAN: And there they discuss questions of annexation?

Mr. MACARTHUR: It is all good-natured.

The CHAIRMAN: They entertain discussions on that question?

Mr. MACARTHUR: Yes.

The CHAIRMAN: Having reference to prosperity, etc.

Mr. MACARTHUR. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN: In those club meetings does good feeling prevail?

Mr. MACARTHUR: Certainly.

The CHAIRMAN: Will you say, as compared with like assemblages of gentlemen in the United States, there is any more feeling of friction or opinion there?

Mr. MACARTHUR: Not as much. There is less friction through all those islands than there is in any other country in the world that I ever saw.

The CHAIRMAN: You have traveled a good deal?

Mr. MACARTHUR: Yes; all over the world.

The CHAIRMAN: And your attention has been drawn, of course, to the observation of such questions?

Mr. MACARTHUR: Yes. They do not have any angry political discussions in the streets in Hawaii. They meet together, and they are the best-natured people in the world.

The CHAIRMAN: Political divisions do not enter into the social relations of the people?

Mr. MAC ARTHUR: No. In Hawaii the line of rank and descent was through the mother.

The CHAIRMAN: It is like it is among the Indian tribes of this country?

Mr. MACARTHUR: Yes. That is the reason they prefer to have a Queen to a King.

To STENOGRAPHER: Senator MORGAN directs that the following be added to my testimony.

C. L. MACARTHUR.