Mr. Willis to Mr. Gresham.
Honolulu , December 20, 1893 .
Sir: On Monday, December 18, the interview with the Queen at her residence, Washington Place, was held, lasting until 1 p.m.
At 5:30 p.m. of the same day I received a communication from the Provisional Government, through the Hon. S. B. Dole, minister of foreign affairs, referring to my visit to the Queen. He asked to be informed whether I was “acting in any way hostile to this (his) Government,” and pressed for “an immediate answer.” I inclose a copy of the communication.
As I had two days before notified a member of the cabinet, Hon. W. O. Smith, attorney-general, that I would be ready in forty-eight hours to make known to the Provisional Government the President’s decision, and as the tone of the communication—doubtless without intention—was somewhat mandatory, I thought it best not to make any reply to it. Moreover, at that hour I had not received the written pledge and agreement of the Queen, without which I could take no step.
This morning at 9:30 o’clock I received the letter and agreement of the Queen, as set forth in my No. 16 of this date. I immediately addressed a note to the minister of foreign affairs, Mr. Dole, informing him that I had a communication from my Government, which I desired to submit in person to the president and ministers of his Government at any hour during the day that it might please him to designate. I inclose a copy of my letter. This note was delivered to the minister of foreign affairs by Mr. Mills, and the hour of 1:30 p.m. was verbally designated for the interview.
At the hour appointed I went to the executive building and met the President and his associate ministers, to whom I submitted the decision of the President of the United States.
A memorandum of what I said upon the occasion was left with them after delivery, a copy of which I inclose.
It may be proper at this time briefly to state my course of action since arriving here on Saturday the 4th day of November last. My baggage containing credentials did not come to hand until 4 o’clock, before which time the offices of the Provisional Government were closed.
On Monday morning following, Mr. Mills, our consul-general, bore a note to the minister of foreign affairs asking that he designate a time for the presentation of Mr. Blount’s letter of recall and my letter of credence. Mr. Mills was authorized to say, and did say to him, that I was ready on that day (Monday) to present my credentials. The Provisional Government, however, appointed the following day (Tuesday) at 11 o’clock, at which time I was formally presented.
As our Government had for fifty years held the friendliest relations with the people of these islands—native as well as foreign born—in [Page 1271] addressing the President, who was for the time being the formal representative of these people, I felt no hesitancy in employing the usual terms of friendship, drawing, however, in what I said, a distinction between the Provisional Government as a government and the people of the islands. These statements were not only, as I have said, consistent with the uniform policy and feelings of the United States for half a century, but expressed, as I knew, the personal feelings of the President and of yourself towards the officers of the Provisional Government as men, and the kindly regard and interest felt in the welfare and happiness of all the people who are now under its de facto rule.
From that day until last Tuesday at half-past one, there has been no expression, director, indirect, from the representative of the United States towards the Provisional Government, explaining or defining our relations, present or prospective, towards it. The delay in making any announcement of your policy was, as you well understand, because of the direct verbal and written instructions under which I have been acting. Under those instructions my first duty was to guard the life and safety of those who had by the act of our own minister been placed in a position where there was an apparent antagonism between them and our Government. As I understood from the President and from you, the sole connection which our Government had with the settlement of the Hawaiian question was the undoing of what, from an international standpoint, was considered by the President to have been a wrong to a feeble, defenseless, and friendly power. In undoing this wrong I was, however, instructed first of all to see that proper safeguards were thrown around those who had been probably misled as to the position of our Government and the wishes of our people.
My dispatch No. 3, of November 14, set forth my inability to secure satisfactory guarantees from the Queen upon the points indicated. Until that was done you had directed me to take no further steps, but to inform you of the result, which I did by a cipher telegram as well as by the dispatch referred to. Your cipher instruction in reply thereto, dated December 2 and received by me December 14, by the revenue cutter Corwin, reiterated the duty which had been already enjoined upon me to secure these guarantees.
I accordingly renewed my efforts in that direction, and finally, on last Tuesday morning at 9 o’clock, as hereinbefore stated, I secured from the Queen the written pledge and agreement which was the prerequisite of my further action.
Having received this pledge, I was then for the first time in a position to make known to the Provisional Government the decision of the President upon the questions that had been submitted to him by the protest of the Queen, which protest had been acknowledged and accepted by the Provisional Government through its President, Mr. Dole, the immediate effect of which was, according to the statement of Mr. Damon, another honored member of the Provisional Government, the Queen’s temporary surrender of her throne.
You will observe that in presenting the decision of the President I have used the language employed by yourself in your instructions to me upon the subject. In my opening statement I thought proper to explain what was known to you, and doubtless to the Provisional Government, that the secrecy which had been observed by our Government was in the interest of the peace and safety of this community.
The President’s attention had been called by you to the evidence contained in Mr. Blount’s report showing the extraordinary complications and dangers surrounding this community, among which were the racial [Page 1272] prejudices, the intense feeling consequent upon the dethronement of the constitutional sovereign, the presence of so many different nationalities—Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Americans, and English—in such large numbers and with such diverse traits and interests, the possibility that the Japanese, now numbering more than one-fifth of the male population of the islands, might take advantage of the condition of affairs to demand suffrage and through it to obtain control of the Government, together with the discontent of the native Hawaiians at the loss of their Government and of the rights secured under it.
In addition to these facts, I was fully apprised by you in your personal conversations of the presence here of many lawless and disorderly characters, owing allegiance to neither party, who would gladly take advantage of the excitement and general derangement of affairs to indulge in rapine and mob violence; and also of the conflict between the active responsible representatives of the Provisional Government and certain men who were not officially connected with it, but who had undertaken to dictate its policy. The danger from this last source I found upon arriving here was much greater than you had supposed. As I stated to you in my dispatch, No. 2, of November 10, the President and ministers of the Provisional Government and a large per cent of those who support them are men of high character and of large material interests in the islands. These men have been inclined to a conservative course toward the Hawaiians.
They had placed in the police and fire departments, and also in many other more important offices, native Hawaiians, thus endeavoring to conciliate the friendship and support of the 40,000 natives of the country. The irresponsible element referred to were pressing for a change of this wise and patriotic policy and insisting that they should be invested with all power, thus intensifying and aggravating the racial feeling already too extreme. Many of these men were open in their threats against the life of the Queen. They have even gone as far in the public prints and elsewhere as to threaten the representatives of the Provisional Government in the event they should listen to the President’s supposed policy of peaceful settlement, if it involved the restoration of the Queen.
Besides this danger, which would have been precipitated by any premature announcement of the policy of our Government, there was another danger deserving serious attention.
The native Hawaiians, under the wise advice of their best native leaders supplemented by that of many sympathizing foreigners, have maintained the policy of peace during the settlement of this question. While, however, they have been always known as a peaceful and law-abiding people, the evidence of the most thoughtful men in these islands including Mr. Damon, the present minister of finance, called attention to the fact that under proper leadership they might collect quite an effective and aggressive following; hence his opinion given to Mr. Blount while here and to me since that a strong force should be retained by the Provisional Government or else trouble might result from a sudden attack on their part.
The history of the Hawaiian people, their well-known devotion to the cause of royalty or chieftainship, their willingness to sacrifice themselves in defense of their supposed rights or in redress of the wrongs imposed upon those whom they revered confirmed the opinion expressed by Mr. Damon as to their manly spirit and courage.
Repeatedly since I reached these islands I have been advised by those in the confidence of the native Hawaiians that it was very difficult [Page 1273] to further restrain them. They were looking with confidence to the United States for an amicable settlement of their grievances, and this had exercised a wholesome influence upon their conduct. Any sudden announcement of an adverse result, or any attempt upon the dignity or life of the Queen, might, in their judgment, precipitate the most serious consequences.
Under this state of affairs, which was known in part, although not fully, to the Provisional Government, the policy of silence, to which you advised, until the time had arrived for definite action, was unquestionably wise and humane. My deliberate judgment is that a different course would have proved disastrous.
No one can estimate to what extent the presence of the different war vessels has prevented demonstrations of marked or other violence.
I need not assure you that I have endeavored faithfully to comply with the views and instructions of the President in regard to the military or naval forces of the United States. The two war ships now here were here when I came. During the month of last August a general license had been granted Admiral Skerrett by the Provisional Government to land and drill his forces whenever he so desired. On the 29th day of November, as has been stated in my dispatch No. 8 of December 5, the Provisional Government addressed me a note revoking this license, which action on behalf of our Government was promptly acquiesced in. No such privilege has been since exercised. So punctilious has been the doctrine of non-intervention that when the band of the Philadelphia came ashore one afternoon during a reception of some of the ladies of the navy Admiral Irwin’s attention having been called to the fact that it had excited some comment he promptly issued an order that there should be no repetition of this incident.
The Japanese and English legations have been guarded by marines from their respective vessels, but no American soldier has been stationed here, and none will be. No official communication has been conveyed from me to the Provisional Government by any representative of the naval forces of the United States; nor did I, under my instructions, feel at liberty, as I otherwise gladly would have done, to consult with the admiral and high officers in command of our fleet, whose clear and intelligent judgment would have been of great advantage to me in the frequent and delicate questions that have arisen.
In a word, neither directly nor indirectly have I conveyed or countenanced the idea that our Government proposed to interfere by force in the domestic affairs of these islands. My visits to the United States men-of-war have for this reason been limited to two or three social occasions.
There has been, therefore, as little foundation for criticism in this direction as there was for the temporary secresy observed, as we have seen, as a safeguard against sudden outbreak and mob violence.
Under these circumstances, and guided by your imperative instructions, I submitted the decision of the President as one which was of the greatest gravity and importance. What the answer will be I do not know, but hope to be able to report in a very short time, as President Dole stated that the Provisional Government would take the matter under its immediate advisement.
I have, etc.,