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ARRAIGNS THE MISSIONARIES

Thomas G. Sherman Blames Them for the Trouble in Hawaii.

Five years in prision! Five thousand dollars fine! That is the price one woman is sentenced to pay-for what? For being suspected of trying to regain what it by right her own.

Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii had been sentenced to this imprisonment and to the payment of this fune by the "provisional government"

The government inspires respect. It is associated in the minds of men with legitimate authority. But it is not, therefore, necessarly proper and right that men should pay respect to government. We, the lineal descendants of magnificent rebels, have a right to consider without rejudice or fear the claims which this provisional governement of Hawaii makes

Personally, I must confess I would not feel much interst in the matter if it were not that a woman, who seems to have been a dignified, modest and law-abiding person has been sentenced to impriosonment, the payment of not small part of her perosnal property, and degradtion from the estate to which she was born. When a thing of that sort is done to an inncovent woman, other owmen are inclined to ask why.

If Robert Louis Stevenson were not dead there would be some one else to ask why. Only there would be this difference. Stevenson know how to ask his questions so that men would endeavor to find arrawers to them. He was a "Questioner," as Walt Whitman would say, to whom one had no choice but to listen

Mr Thomas G Sherman, standing in Mr. Beecher's church, said the other day: "I wish to express in the edifice the opimions that I belived he would have empahatically voiced from this pulpit had he been alive Saventy years ago the American board of foreign missions sent a few Congregational missionaries to the Sandwhich islands who were received by the people with enthusiasm They did not really have to conver the people, for they were all ready for conversation

"The chiefs and the people threw away their idols and embraced Christianity with all their heats So conplete was their trust in the missionaries that, practically, all government was placed under missionary control, and the missionaries and their sons or their nephews have ever since had the practical government of the islands What has been the result?

'They round 130,000 people, there, and now they report taht there are only 34,000 But of these 34 000 they recently reported that 18,000 were memers of the Congreational churches-a larger proportion of church members that can be found in any other Protestant country in the world The missionaries boasted that those natives were better educated, better behaved, and more peaceable, orderly and religious, in proportion to their numbers, than the people of many parts of the United States

"The trimpuh of religion, and especially of Congregationalism, in Hawaii, was made the subject of endless boasts by missionaries and managers of missions, and was made the gound of appeals to American Christians for fresh subscriptions and aide for mussionary work

"Suddenly their whole tone changed The missionaries' Sons and some returned missionaries cehemently asserted that the nataive Hawaiians were fifthy and ignorant, and a debased, licentious, and idolatroud race, uttery unfit to be trusted with liberty, but must be kept under the control of a firm and unscrupulous, but plous, Congregational despotism

"Assuming this to be true, then the result of between fifty and sixty years' unbroken missionary government in these islands has been that the population has been reduced in number by three-quarters, and that these three-three-quarters are as debased, licentious, and brutal as they wre when the missionaries began their labors, and that the whole missionary enterprise has been a discraceful failure

"Meanwhile there are some other facts, which the missionaries do not mention, but which cannot be disputed During the fifty years the government of these islands was under missionary influence, most of the natives were deprived of their rights in the land excepting about 27,000 acres, and all the rest was divided among the king, the cheifs, and the familes, and friedns of the missionaries.

'The missionaries sons and their associates boast that they own four-fifths of all the propery of the islands Nearly all th rest is owned by the descendants of the former chiefs The great mass of the people own nothing The missionary government, finding that the natives would not work for less than 25 cents a day, complained of the want of labor, and insisted on the importation of scores of thousands of the scum of the human race, including Chinese and what are called Portuguese, and mongrel race, who never saw portugal, but who speak something reembing the language of that country

' In this manner the missionaries' sons cut down the wages of the native Hawaiians, and compelled them to work on their sugar plantations at such rates as seemed good to their masters

"And now the very same men who by hundreds and thousands have protested with pious indignation against the southern states for their practical disfranchisement of the southern negroes, who are by the confession of their own best men castly below the moral standard which the Hawaiian missionaries have until lately boasted as the pecular attribute of thier converts, are full of enthusiasm over what, eith bitter irony, is called the Hawaiian republic

"A republic forsooth, in which no man can vote unless he has property which would be equlvalent ot the posession of $5,000 in Brooklyn, and in which no one can vote for senator who is not worth $3,000 which is equivalent to $20,000 in Brooklyn

"But even with this restriction of the suffrage our republican missionaries are afraid to trust their republican voters. Accordingly they did not dare to allow the people under any limitation whatever to elect the president but, having got possesion of the constitutional convention, they appointed Mr. Dole president to hold office for six years, and just so much longer as the senate and assembly should fall to agree on a successor, restricting the choice, even then, to such persons as should be agreeable to a majority of the senate, which will be elected by about 200 of the richest men on the island.

"Nor do they stop here. They passes laws severly punishing any one who dares to speak disrespectfully of any of their high mightinesses Any one, whether a native of an American, who dares to say that this republic government is not republican or the any of the missionaries' sons who deign to govern the barbarous Christians of Hawaii is not well fitted for the post is hable to a long term of imprisonment and a heavy fine."

This has been a long quotation, but there has been no qoint at ahuch one was willing to interrupt the flow of Mr Shermans indignant eloquence

The words came form a life-long Congregationalist, and are aimed in their reproaches, not at Congregationalism. but at the betrayal of its spirit, and the renegation of its principles

The Commercial Advertisers of Honolulu of January 17 contains all account of the 'insurrection," for the participation in which Liliusokalani has been sentenced. Her home was searched for ammunition and arms, and a small amount of both was found in her cellar There were also some bombs made of cocoanuts and other things and which :wore a very wiched look,' so the local paper states. The Advertisers says, concerning the eaid made on the queens residence:

"The mission was a dangerous one on account of the large number of natives that usually pass their time at the ex-queesns place. Ample precautions were taken by the authorities to protect the policemen who were sent to make the seach Rifflemen were stationed about the grounds surrounding the place, and a company of regulars were held in readiness to leave the excutive building at a moments notice Nothing happened however, owing no doubt, to Parker's diplomatic treatment of the forty odd natives who were on the grounds when the wagon with the police aboard arrived

"He have them to understand that he would restore Liluokaiani to them today This little fable seemed to please them At any rate they did not interfere with the search

"Parker and his men then went underneath the house and with the aid of a Lantern unearthed the arsenal Gun after gun was handed out and placed in the wagon. Then the pistol, swords and cartidges were taken from their hiding place The last and Biggest Surprised was the discovery of the bombs They wre placed in a bag and taken in charges by Parker

"After the cellar was cleared out the men jumped in the wagon and rode trumphantly to the police sation"

This paper is owned and editied by the men of whom Mr Shearman speas The sort of conduct which they recommend and admire is certainly not the sort that would have been advocated by their missionalry father before the greed for power and fold got the better of them

And what are these natives who are so dangerous, and against whom Congregational Hawaii is railing? One prefers to see them through the eyes of Robert Louis Stevenson, rather than by the way of observation of prejudiced refromers, or money-making missionaries They are a gentile, lith, languidpeople, fond of song, fond of stories, very affectionate not particularly clean, of trained imaginations with almost inordinate love for their palm-clad island, a passion for the sea, and a religious love for the mountains They are children of nature, with a limpid tonue a primitive simplicity, and also primitive revenges Their government, before the interpolation of Christian greed, was the simple monarchy-the good, old, primitive monarchy

Clever, assertive, determined, selfish and acquisitive, the Americans have froved down the queen from her throne, taken the land from the people, instincuted the accursed law of supply and demand, harnessed the people to relentless labor in the coffee and sugar plantations, and conspired fro annexation, in order that the republincan millionaires may find a pathway to the easy making of further millions Concerning annexation, Mr. Sherman says.

"And now it is proposed to annex this island with its barbarous, idolatrous, dirty, debased. Congregational heathens Chrisitan idolators and the 100 000 Mongolians and half-breed Portugese to boot, and to bling it into a republic as one of the states of our union to help govern us Already one branch of congress has voted to expend $700 000 in beginning to lay a cable for this purpose, which, of course, will involve us in about $3 000 000 more, in addition to that already incuned, to enable Hawaiians to plant sugar at a cost to this country of $50 000 000 taken out of the public trasuret, and put ino the pockets of the planters to enable them to emply Mongolians and half vreed Portuguese

"But we are to spend many millions more in annexing them We shall have to build warships to defend ou possession when we get it

"I consider this the most dangerous and disastroud proposition that has ever been made in this country If successful it will launch us upon an ear of colonization and of petty, lisgraceful foreign wars It will bring into our union sham republics, which will still further corrput our already corrupt government, and speedily destroy all reality in repiblican institutions

"We are on the brink of a precupice, and a very little effort is needed to push us over If I were standing alone on the continetn I would oppose and denounce this whole schee of foreign wars, annexationa nd colonial projects to the very last"

The queen maintained with dignity and with sadness that she was not responsible for, nor a prty to this rising among her people, which the Commercial Adveriser, with rancourous language compares to the work of the Chicago anarchist It says at the conclusion of a rambling and angry editorial "The only difference between the Chicago riots and the insuurection of Hawaii is that the anarchists of America accomplished their deadly purpose while the Hawaiin anarchists were balked at the outset They murdered only one man but it was not their fault taht they did not commit more heinous crimes. There is no evidence that one manly, honorbale action was proposed by those connected witht he issurection. The prisoners themselves have not offered a word of testimony that savors of anything but cruel, inhuman slaughter. These are hard uncomforable facts which the lenient minded supporters of the government should take home and ponder well"

Other editorials repraoch Mr Cleveland for his indifference to the republic of Hawaii," and demand the banishment of the persons sympathizing with the resoration of the qyeen, and speak of them as the fores of honest fovernment, and the people who are sucking the life-blood of the nation This hypocritical and arrogant attutude of men who are in relaity intruders is only equaled by the manner in which we have treated the American Indians, defrauding them, lying to them, refusing them citizenship, confining them within bounds as if they were cattle, forbidding them to sell their own possessions excepts to us, making it impossible for them tobuy at any market save that which we provide, disregarding their tribal government, and educating them for a mode of life impossible for them to follow

Having come into possession of the land and the government of Hawaii, it is now the sole desire of the Americans to make money out of these gentle creatures who can so easily be enslaved To employ them at the minimum wahe on their plantations, to work them in gangs, under section bosses, and to coin thousands-millions of money, out of human creatures is their desire It is easily done In one way or another we are doing the same thing here every day It is a trick we AngloSacons have We have done it more successfully than any other nations in the world We have built up fortunes such as kings might envy-fortunes sucks as princes and counts sink their pride to obtain And we have made these fortunes out of other men It is only by the sweat of other men's brows that a millionaire is possibility

And the queen? We;;, five years for her Why? Because, poor woman, she was a queen And because, when she was berefit of her rights, her friends tried to restore them to her It is the fater of queens It is the fate of safagery" It is the fate of gentleness

And the lands, the place, the power, the responsibility, the shrewdness and the intelligence is in the the hands of the Americans And presently out partiotic orators will be talking platitudes in the school houses of Hawaii, and glorifying the flag, while the eagle-which cannot blush poor bird-will sit outside and hold the beauriful idland in his talons

ELIA W Peattie

ARRAIGNS THE MISSIONARIES

Thomas G. Sherman Blames Them for the Trouble in Hawaii.

Five years in prision! Five thousand dollars fine! T