Mr. Stevens to Mr. Blaine.
Honolulu, May 21, 1892.
Sir: That the Department of State may have a clear understanding of affairs here at the present time, I must state what is transpiring of some significance.
May 19, at 5 p.m., the minister of foreign affairs and the attorney general called at this legation and informed me that the Government had decided to arrest that night or the next day a considerable number of persons charged with treasonable designs, and that the papers had already been issued by the judge. My opinion had not been asked, and it was then too late for me to oppose effectively and too short a time for me to investigate the proofs they claimed to have against the accused parties. In this confidential interview I was careful to have it understood that I would assume no responsibility in regard to the proposed proceedings; yet the line of-my inquiries and the reasonable implications of my language indicated that I strongly doubted the expediency of these proposed arrests, especially as the Legislature would assemble within eight days. Subsequently I learned that the minister of foreign affairs, a native Hawaiian, had held back for some time against the proposed arrests, but finally yielded to the palace influences.
On the following day, the 20th, seventeen arrests were made, and warrants were issued to arrest forty to fifty other persons. The arrested men include V. V. Ashford, R. W. Wilcox, and other leaders of, [Page 358] the party, composed mainly of native Hawaiians and half-whites one of them being member-elect of the Legislature about to assemble Wilcox was the leader of the revolutionary outbreak of 1889. Ashford, the ablest man of those arrested, a lawyer by profession, is a Canadian by birth, who served in the Union army during the American war of the rebellion, but is still a British subject. The persent belief among intelligent men is that there can be no conviction of the accused persons by jury trial, with the possible exception of Ashford, who will be tried before a foreign jury; and so strong is the prejudice against him that he may be convicted by a foreign jury, though the evidence against him were inadequate. Wilcox and the other half-whites and native Hawaiians must be tried by a native jury, and nobody believes they will be convicted. If these presumptions should be verified, Wilcox and other arrested natives will come out of prison only more influential than they were before. Why did the Government postpone these arrests so long and show this vigor just as the Legislature is about to assemble, there having been committed no act of violence, no hostile gathering in the streets?
Obviously for the following reasons: The Attorney-General unwittingly allowed me to understand what facts and circumstances otherwise informed me. The cabinetis very weak in itsmakeup. It had entirely lost prestige with the public. It knew that it was likely to be voted out by the Legislature because of its inefficiency. It hopes to gain strength by these arrests of persons against whom there is a strong prejudice with the legislative members elect. Who was and is the controlling factor back of the cabinet that forces this issue at so late an hour? The Tahitian half-caste marshal, the former reputed, if not the present paramour of the Queen, who terrifies her with the fear of an insurrection. This cabinet was mainly the choice of the marshal and the Queen, has never been passed upon by the legislature, that body never having been in session since its appointment, and does not dare resist what the Tahitian and the Queen see fit to do. This largely gives the marshal the key of the situation. In a mistaken hour, immediately after the death of the late King, a majority of the judges in an era of good feeling, knowing that the Queen was importunate to select a cabinet of her own, gave a decision of policy, that she had the right to remove the cabinet then existing and select her own, in the exceptional case of the death of the sovereign, though the most level-headed judge—an American, McCulley, recently deceased—gave a counter opinion in accordance with the plain terms of the constitution, for the exclusive right of the Legislature to remove the ministers is the vital and essential provision of the constitution, made in 1887, so intended by the men now living here, who placed it in the constitution, and so regarded by the principal lawyers here. That decision of good-natured policy to conciliate the Queen had the immediate result of making her Tahitian favorite the most potent man at the palace. She wanted to make him minister of interior, the most responsible member of the cabinet, but he found it impossible to find associates. But a cabinet was formed, who immediately made him marshal of the Kingdom, with the entire police force, such as it is, in his hands, with an attorney-general largely under his influence.
These are the circumstances which have given Wilcox, Ashford, and their associates their opportunity to increase their political influence. While the best and most responsible men of the islands are disgusted with the relations of the Queen and the Tahitian favorite, they will not follow such agitators as have just been arrested. They wish to secure [Page 359] a change by peaceful measures, and look to the Legislature, which was fairly and quietly elected, and is believed to have a safe majority of prudent men, several of them being of the chief men of the islands, of good American blood.
Of course an American ship of war is still needed here; one is ample. And when the San Francisco leaves I presume another ship will have arrived. One whose captain or other commander is cautious, reticent, and firm is specially needed where circumstances are so exceptional as they are here.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,