Speech #550191486

There is no necessity for the cable in any event. If I were going into the telegraph business outside of the present boundaries of the United States. I would build a cable to Alaska. where there are 30.000 or 40.000 Americans. and connect those possessions. a country where Americans can live and where the climate is such that it will produce people capable of selfgovernment. rather than be so crazy to secure telegraphic communication with the Asiatic hordes of Hawaii. Since our flag went up in that country 10.000 contract laborers from Asia have been brought to Hawaii to work upon those sugar plantationsslave laborers. who are punished and imprisoned if they refuse to work under the laws of Hawaii. laws put in force by this Congress when we annexed that country. We have there a miniature despotism. a perpetuation of the old government. with all of its arbitrary and despotic powers. and yet when an amendment was offered to the resolution which annexed Hawaii to repeal the contract slavelabor laws of that country. this Senate voted it down. Eight months have rolled away and no effort has been made to provide a system of laws there or to establish a Territorial government. except the report of the commission and a speech on the part of the Senator from Illinois . An effort during the last days of this session has been made to repeal the contractlabor laws and to abolish. for the second time in the United States. the system of human slavery. But the effort was not made with any very great amount of persistence. it was delayed until the last moments of the session. and today 25.000 men are enslaved under the flag of the United States. Some Europeans. who were imported to Hawaii last October as contract laborers from one of the provinces of Germany. refused to work. because when they reached that country they found they had been deceived. and so they refused to go upon the plantations and carry out the contract. They were arrested and ordered back to work. and. when they refused. were placed in the common jail. and they are working on the streets. with striped clothes. as convicts. under the whip and lash of a master. and this under the flag of the United States. Last September. at Hilo. a man was arrestea for refusing to carry out his labor contract.