Speech #550133265

There is no reasonable hope that by time or circumstance the conditions in Hawaii will so radically and materially change and improve as to render the inhabitants thereof qualified to become citizens of a sovereign State. A hot sun. the tropical climate. the rough. barren. mountainous lands of a large portion of the islands. not to enlarge upon the fatal plague which unhappily afflicts them. all forbid their general occupation and tillage by our people. It seems to me they must inevitably remain the heritage of the Sandwich Islander. the Asiatic races. and halfbreeds who can never approach to our American civilization nor partake of nor participate in our American institutions. The only form of government then left for them would be a board or commission of some kind. appointed by the President of the United States to manage and control the affairs of the islands. These boards would vary and change as Administrations come and go with us. They would not be permanent. and. if they were. would be utterly and entirely in contravention of our laws and institutions. which are rooted and grounded on the principles of equality and selfgovernment. I oppose annexation again in the interest of labor and the laboring classes of our people. We have been enacting immigration laws for the protection of our homes. Congress has exhausted its resources in the efforts to pass wise measures prohibiting certain classes by reason of their poverty. their ignorance. or diseased conditions from entering our ports and coming in competition with our laborers and demoralizing our people. By the proposed measure we annex the very classes we have sought to exclude by legislation from our shores. It is the supremest folly in Congress to formulate legislative anathemas against undesirable immigration from Europe and close the Pacific coast. and. indeed. all ways of ingress to our country. to the Chinese. and then in one act admit nearly 80.000 Chinese. Japanese. and Hawaiians to become a part of our population. We will probably by this act admit more Chinese than San Francisco now contains. besides many other obnoxious and objectionable foreigners.