Speech #560058584

Heretofore the landowner has grown wealthy while labor has been degraded. The aim of our legislation should be. whilst avoiding industrial disturbances. to provide gradually for a better system of labor. to promote small land holdings and to discourage the concentration of land ownership and the system of servile and. degraded labor which it promotes. There are 120.000 people in thoseislands today. of whom UO.000 are Asiatics and about 40.000 Kanakas. 17.000 Portuguese. and 8.000 Americans and other whites. The population of those islands will increase. Shall we So shape the land system as to promote the immigration of people who can become selfrespecting citizens or shall we maintain a system which promotes peonage without rights in the soil? We should so legislate that some of the increased profit of production. to which I have alluded. should go to selfrespecting labor and not all go to land syndicates. We should encourage the immigration of the people from Porto Rico. which is the densest agricultural population in the civilized world. to the Hawaiian Islands. Seventenths of the population of Porto Rico are whites. The island is overcrowded. The people ai~e accustomed to the very pursuits which are common in Hawaiithe raising of sugar. tobacco. and coffee. We should see to it that gradually the standard of citizenship in the Hawaiian Islands is raised by discouraging the employment of Asiatics. by encouraging the employment of American citizens. either white or black. by the employment of the citizens of Porto Rico. the employment of Italians and Portuguese. encouraged by higher rates of labor than prevail. and who would gladly go to these islands. With such a system the maintenance of republican institutions in Hawaii is possible. but without reform in the system of land tenure you will have permanently a small. wealthy planter class and a large population of servile laborers. incapable of citizenship and a constant menace to free institutions. I hope that this important matter will go back to the conferees. and that they will be instructed to adhere to the spirit of the Houses action as exhibited in the original bill.