Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
Early in January last an uprising against the Government of Hawaii was
promptly suppressed. Martial law was forthwith proclaimed and numerous
arrests were made of persons suspected of being in sympathy with the
Royalist party. Among these were several citizens of the United States,
who were either convicted by a military court and sentenced to death,
imprisonment, or fine or were deported without trial. The United
States, while denying protection to such as had taken the Hawaiian oath
of allegiance, insisted that martial law, though altering the forms of
justice, could not supersede justice itself, and demanded stay of
execution until the proceedings had been submitted to this Government
and knowledge obtained therefrom that our citizens had received fair
trial. The death sentences were subsequently commuted or were remitted
on condition of leaving the islands. The cases of certain Americans
arrested and expelled by arbitrary order without formal charge or trial
have had attention, and in some instances have been found to justify
remonstrance and a claim for indemnity, which Hawaii has not thus far
conceded.
Mr. Thurston, the Hawaiian minister, having furnished this Government
abundant reason for asking that he be recalled, that course was
pursued, and his successor has lately been received.
The deplorable lynching of several Italian laborers in Colorado was
naturally followed by international representations, and I am happy to
say that the best efforts of the State in which the outrages occurred
have been put forth to discover and punish the authors of this
atrocious crime. The dependent families of some of the unfortunate
victims invite by their deplorable condition gracious provision for
their needs.
These manifestations against helpless aliens may be traced through
successive stages to the vicious padroni system, which, unchecked by
our immigration and contract-labor statutes, controls these workers
from the moment of landing on our shores and farms them out in distant
and often rude regions, where their cheapening competition in the
fields of bread-winning toil brings them into collision with other
labor interests. While welcoming, as we should, those who seek our
shores to merge themselves in our body politic and win personal
competence by honest effort, we can not regard such assemblages of
distinctively alien laborers, hired out in the mass to the profit of
alien speculators and shipped hither and thither as the prospect of
gain may dictate, as otherwise than repugnant to the spirit of our
civilization, deterrent to individual advancement, and hindrances to
the building up of stable communities resting upon the wholesome
ambitions of the citizen and constituting the prime factor in the
prosperity and progress of our nation. If legislation can reach this
growing evil, it certainly should be attempted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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