Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2

by George Frisbie Hoar

By the Constitution of Hawaii, the Government had been authorized to make a treaty of annexation with this country. It was said that that Constitution was the result of usurpation which would not have come to pass but for American aid, and the presence of one of our men-of-war. But that Government had been maintained for six or seven years. Four of them were while Mr. Cleveland was President, who it was well known would be in full sympathy with an attempt to restore the old Government. So if the people had been against it, the Government under that Constitution could not have lasted an hour.

President Harrison had negotiated a treaty of annexation, against which no considerable remonstrance or opposition was uttered. My approval of it was then, I suppose, well known. Certainly no friend of mine, and nobody in Massachusetts, so far as I know, in the least objected or remonstrated against it. The treaty was withdrawn from the consideration of the Senate by President Cleveland.

Another was negotiated soon after President McKinley came in. Meantime, however, the controversy with Spain had assumed formidable proportions, and the craze for an extension of our Empire had begun its course. Many Republican leaders were advocating the acquisition of the Hawaiian Islands, not for the reasons I have just stated, but on the avowed ground that it was necessary we should own them as a point of vantage for acquiring dominion in the East. It was said that China was about to be divided among the great Western powers, and that we must have our share. I saw when the time approached for action of the McKinley Treaty that the question could not be separated, at least in debate, from the question of entering upon a career of conquest of Empire in the Far East.

Under these circumstances the question of duty came to me: Will you adhere to the purpose long formed, and vote for the acquisition of Hawaii solely on its own merit? Or, will you vote against it, for fear that the bad and mischievous reasons that are given for it is so many quarters, will have a pernicious tendency only to be counteracted by the defeat of the treaty itself?

I hesitated long. President McKinley sent for me to come to the White House, as was his not infrequent habit. He said he wanted to consult me upon the question whether it would be wise for him to have a personal interview with Senator Morrill of Vermont. He had been told that Mr. Morrill was opposed to the Treaty. The President said: "I do not quite like to try to influence the action of an old gentleman like Mr. Morrill, so excellent, and of such great experience. It seems to me that it might be thought presumptuous, if I were to do so. But it is very important to us to have his vote, if we can." The President added something implying that he understood that I was in favor of the Treaty.

I said, "I ought to say, Mr. President, in all candor, that I feel very doubtful whether I can support it myself." President McKinley said: "Well, I don't know what I shall do. We cannot let those Islands go to Japan. Japan has her eye on them. Her people are crowding in there. I am satisfied they do not go there voluntarily, as ordinary immigrants, but that Japan is pressing them in there, in order to get possession before anybody can interfere. If something be not done, there will be before long another Revolution, and Japan will get control. Some little time ago the Hawaiian Government observed that when the immigrants from a large steamer went ashore they marched with a military step, indicating that they were a body of trained soldiers. Thereupon Hawaii prohibited the further coming in of Japanese. Japan claimed that was in violation of their treaty, and sent a ship of war to Hawaii. I was obliged to notify Japan that no compulsory measures upon Hawaii, in behalf of the Japan Government, would be tolerated by this country. So she desisted. But the matters are still in a very dangerous position, and Japan is doubtless awaiting her opportunity."

I told President McKinley that I favored then, as I always had, the acquisition of Hawaii. But I did not like the spirit with which it was being advocated both in the Senate and out of it. I instanced several very distinguished gentlemen indeed, one a man of very high authority in the Senate in matters relating to foreign affairs, who were urging publicly and privately the Hawaiian Treaty on the ground that we must have Hawaii in order to help us get our share of China. President McKinley disclaimed any such purpose. He expressed his earnest and emphatic dissent from the opinions imputed to several leading Republicans, whom he named.

I never, at any time during the discussion of the Philippine question, expressed a more emphatic disapproval of the acquisition of dependencies or Oriental Empire by military strength, than he expressed on that occasion. I am justified in putting this on record, not only because I am confirmed by several gentlemen in public life, who had interviews with him, but because he made in substance the same declaration in public.

He declared, speaking of this very matter of acquiring sovereignty over Spanish territory by conquest:

"Forcible annexation, according to our American code of morals, would be criminal aggression."