Speech #560043751

Most remarkable language for an American commission. Again they say in this report. on page 2: The comission visited several of the most important islands of the Hawaiian group in company with persons representing important agricultural and commercial interests and others representing the government. Under this influence they found. in the absence of any representatives of labor. that white labor "is yet a problem." not yet solved. but that some think that white labor will prove superior to "Chinese and Japanese labor." Disagreeable as it is. the proof is clear to me that those in power here and interested in profit and dollars in Hawaii seek to have this Government sanction the contractlabor system. and will claim. as the proof shows they do claim now. that only by contract labor can Hawaii be worked. It is probably more profitable to work the islands thus. but it remains to be seen whether this Congress will put money above manhood. contract slave labor above free labor. If so. better for labor that those islands had never rose from the bottom of the sea. or that some volcanic convulsion had sunk them. than that they should have been a part of our territory and be a constant menace to our labor. The bills introduced in Congress by the representatives of that commission and set out and recommended in this report are outlandish and unAmerican. and amount to a rape and destruction of American labor. Those who a..e ready to pass a bill to exclude the best class of immigrants from this country had better scan well the policy that has invited undesirable oriental contract labor to our islands and the system of slave contracts by which they are held. We were told in both Houses as a. xeason for annexation that the climate was temperate and salubrious. the soil fertile. and that by annexing Hawaii we opened up a vast field for the profitable and remunerative employment of American labor. How changed the picture! Now the commission says. "Some think that white labor may be superior to Chinese and Japanese labor. " Analyze the contractlabor system. see the contract laborers stored in steerage like sardines in a box. huddled together. men. women. and children. see them on the plantations. the whole family working under contract. the men for from $15 to $18 a month to pay their passage and board and clothe themselves: see them huddled together in prison for failure to keep their contract. and then tell me whether American white labor can compete in a country prompted by such sentiments and under such conditions. When it does. it will be when the sun shines at midnight and the moon at midday. when nature stops to take a rest. and when men forget to be selfish. The population of the islands in December. 1898. as affirmed by the report. was: "Hawaiians and mixed blood. 89.000.