the poor vindication of efficiency and success, confessing at the end that it was a wretched failure. And it finally abandoned that policy not because it was wrong but because it was too costly and troublesome to continue. It is difficult to discern a single redeeming feature in the whole dark story.

TH

XXVIII

THE ANNEXATION OF HAWAII

HE project of annexing Hawaii to the United States seemed in 1871-73 to be indefinitely if not perpetually postponed. In 1874, however, American relations with the is lands entered upon a new phase through the intervention of American military forces for the preservation of peace and order. The death of King Lunalilo in February of that year left the succession to the throne in dispute. The claimants were the Dowager Queen Emma, widow of Kamehameha IV, who was supported by the English residents of the islands and their friends, and David Kalakaua, a descendant of one of the minor chiefs of the islands, and a particularly shrewd and influential politician. As Lunalilo had designated no heir, it was incumbent upon the legislature to elect a sovereign, and that body was known to be in favor of Kalakaua. As soon as it met, therefore, the adherents of Queen Emma formed a mob and attempted to storm the legislative chamber, to coerce the legislature or to prevent an election. At that time the American warships Tuscarora, Commander Belknap, and Portsmouth, Commander Skerrett, were at Honolulu, and the Hawaiian authorities appealed to them for aid in preserving order. The response was the landing of a hundred and fifty armed men, to act as a police force for the preservation of order and the protection of life and property. This force dispersed the mob and guarded the courthouse. No sooner had this been done than a similar but smaller force, from the British warship Tenedos, landed, without either request or permission, and placed itself as a guard at the residence of Queen Emma, where it remained for eight days.

Under the benevolent and neutral protection of the American marines the legislature proceeded with the election in an orderly and lawful manner, and David Kalakaua was chosen king, and was at once recognized as such by the American, British, and French representatives. Mr. Pierce, the American

minister, paid a visit to Queen Emma, informed her of the election of Kalakaua, and advised her to acquiesce in it, which she unhesitatingly did. The American forces were then withdrawn, and the islands were left in peace and with the most cordial sentiments toward the United States on the part of all factions. American relations with the new king naturally became very close, and in the following year, 1875, the long-desired and long-considered treaty of commercial reciprocity was taken up, negotiated, and ratified. This achievement was facilitated and expedited by a visit which King Kalakaua made to the United States in the fall of 1874, during which he made a tour of the country which lasted for several weeks.

Under this treaty American trade with the islands increased greatly, and the envy of Great Britain was aroused, with the result that in 1881 the latter country sought to make a similar treaty. The Hawaiian government was inclined to accede to the British request, but the United States objected to its doing so. The secretary of state, James G. Blaine, enunciated for the first time the principle that American interests and rights in the islands were superior to those of any other land. "The Hawaiian Islands," he wrote, "cannot be joined to the Asiatic system. If they drift from their independent station, it must be toward assimilation and identification with the American system, to which they belong by the operation of natural laws and must belong by the operation of political necessity." In this Blaine was applying to Hawaii almost precisely the same terms that John Quincy Adams had applied to Cuba many years before. He added, with convincing logic, that Great Britain had no claim to share our reciprocity agreements with Hawaii, for the reason that the privileges of such a treaty were essentially and in the very nature of things to be enjoyed exclusively by the countries making it and were not to be extended to others under the "most favored nation" clause, to which they formed an exception. The controversy was animated and determined, but ended in a diplomatic victory for the United States.

The annexation project was also revived at this time. Late in 1881 Blaine advised the American minister to Hawaii to study closely the agricultural resources and commercial advan

tages of the islands, with a view to determining their value as a future territorial acquisition of the United States. He suggested also that if the Hawaiian government could be persuaded to pass a homestead act for the benefit of American settlers, there might in return be organized in this country important colonization schemes which would result to the great advantage of the islands. This suggestion was not acted upon, and nothing more was done at that time in the direction of annexation. Two years later, however, another occasion arose for asserting the paramount interest of the United States in the islands. At that time Great Britain and France were extending their possessions among the Pacific Islands and were annexing some to which Kalakaua imagined that he had a title. That dissolute monarch, indeed, among his other vagaries, conceived the idea of declaring himself "Emperor of Polynesia," laying claim to numerous groups of islands in the Pacific, and in 1883 he appealed to the United States to support him in his schemes, and to protect him from the aggressions of the two powers. Frederick T. Frelinghuysen was at this time secretary of state, and he replied in a judicious but resolute manner, declining to interfere with the disposition of remote South Sea islands, with which this country had no concern, but reëmphasizing the peculiar interest of this country in "the intimately connected commonwealths of the North Pacific."

Another step of importance was taken in 1887, when in consideration of the renewal of the reciprocity treaty the Hawaiian government ceded to the United States Pearl Harbor, seven miles from Honolulu. This magnificent harbor is not only by far the best in the islands but is also one of the finest in the world, and is of immense value as a mid-sea stopping place and naval station. The Hawaiian government understood that the cession was temporary, to endure only as long as the reciprocity treaty was maintained. The United States, however, interpreted it as a permanent and absolute cession, though for many years thereafter it neglected to improve and to utilize the harbor. The British government promptly protested against this cession, as calculated to impair that independent sovereignty of the Hawaiian Islands which Great Britain and France had recognized in 1843, and to which the United States

had also committed itself. To this the secretary of state, Thomas F. Bayard, replied that there was nothing in the Pearl Harbor cession that would impair the sovereignty of Hawaii, but this was not convincing to the British government, which rightly forecast the purpose of the United States to bring about the complete annexation of the islands. The incident ended in another diplomatic victory for the United States, and in a confirmation of the political and commercial supremacy of this country in Hawaii. At about this time the Hawaiian queen, Kapiolani, and the heir-presumptive, Princess Liliuokalani, made a tour in the United States and were everywhere cordially received.

Meantime an important change had occurred in the domestic affairs of the islands, which had a direct bearing upon their future relations with the United States. Kalakaua went from bad to worse in his public and private excesses, until at last, on June 30, 1887, a committee of public safety was formed and a great mass meeting was held, at which were adopted resolutions declaring that through corruption and incompetence the Government had ceased to perform its legitimate functions, and demanding of the king that within twenty-four hours he should give satisfactory pledges of future good government and a revised constitution. The king yielded, appointed a reform ministry, and subsequently signed and promulgated a new constitution in accordance with the expressed wishes of the people. Under this constitution all male residents of Hawaii who had been there a year and had taken an oath of allegiance were invested with the electoral franchise, the king was deprived of the absolute veto power, and the cabinet was made responsible to the Legislature elected by the people. Other important reforms were prescribed, all in the direction of popular rule.

The king's sister and heir-presumptive, Princess Liliuokalani, was strongly opposed to the granting of this constitution, and when she found herself unable to dissuade Kalakaua from signing it she organized, with Robert W. Wilcox and Robert Boyd, two half-breed politicians, a conspiracy to depose the king and to put herself upon the throne in his place. A few hundred followers were gathered and an attack was made upon the government buildings. This was repulsed by the government