The city is lighted with electric light, there is a complete telephone system, and tramcars run at short intervals along the principal streets and continue out to a sea-bathing resort and public park, four miles from the city. There are numerous stores where all kinds of goods can be obtained. The public buildings are attractive and commodious. There are numerous churches, schools, a public library of over 10,000 volumes, Y. M. C. A. Hall, Masonic Temple, Odd Fellows’ Hall, and theater. There is frequent steam communication with San Francisco, once a month with Victoria (British Columbia), and twice a month with New Zealand and the Australian colonies. Steamers also connect Honolulu with Japan. There are three evening daily papers published in English, one daily morning paper and two weeklies. Besides these, there are papers published in the Hawaiian, Portuguese, Japanese and Chinese languages, and also monthly magazines in various tongues.
United States Consul-General Mills, of Honolulu, under date of February 8, 1897, transmitted to the Department of State the official figures showing the result of the census of the Hawaiian Islands, which had just been completed. The Hawaiians head the list with a total of 31,019. The Japanese colonization comes next, with the Chinese a close third. The official table, as prepared at the census office, in 1890, is:
| Nationality. | Males. | Females. | Total. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hawaiian | 16,399 | 14,620 | 31,019 |
| Part Hawaiian | 4,249 | 4,236 | 8,485 |
| American | 1,975 | 1,111 | 3,086 |
| British | 1,406 | 844 | 2,250 |
| German | 866 | 566 | 1,432 |
| French | 56 | 45 | 101 |
| Norwegian | 216 | 162 | 378 |
| Portuguese | 8,202 | 6,989 | 15,191 |
| Japanese | 19,212 | 5,195 | 24,407 |
| Chinese | 19,167 | 2,449 | 21,616 |
| South Sea Islanders | 321 | 134 | 455 |
| Other nationalities | 448 | 152 | 600 |
| Total | 72,517 | 36,503 | 109,020 |
The acquiring of Porto Rico, with its 3,600 square miles and nearly a million inhabitants, did not require the firing of a gun so far as the natives were concerned. The slight resistance offered by the Spaniards who had for so many years held the island, was not serious enough to earn the name of warfare, though so good a judge and careful an observer as Richard Harding Davis declares this was due more to the masterly management of General Miles, who commanded there in person, than to any other cause—a conclusion which he reaches by comparing the Porto Rican campaign with General Shafter’s invasion of Cuba. The conditions, however, do not present a parallel case. The Cubans wanted the Spaniards expelled, to be sure; but they wanted to govern that island themselves. And they had grown so strong, had fought so long and stubbornly, and had consequently compelled the Spaniards to maintain so great a strength that the Americans found “the Gem of the Antilles” held with a force that could offer quite a stubborn dispute. The Porto Ricans, on the contrary, while wanting the Spaniards expelled, had never made much effort at self government, and the Spaniards there were by no means equipped to defend their possessions. Indeed, their defense was the merest formality. And once they ceased opposition to the forces of General Miles, the native and resident people rushed to welcome the Americans.
So that these richest and most valuable objects of McKinley expansion came to the possession of the great republic at practically no cost at all—of either “blood or treasure.”
Of course the military occupation of Porto Rico did not formally invest title to the island in the United States. The case with Hawaii was different, because no power but the resident people made any claim to that rich prize.
Porto Rico, the most beautiful island of the Antilles, which was ceded to the United States by the Spanish-American treaty at Paris, 1898, is situated at the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico, east of Haiti, from which it is separated by the Mona Passage. Haiti lies between it and Cuba. Porto Rico is 95 miles long and 35 broad, with an area of about 3,600 square miles, or nearly three-fourths the size of the State of Connecticut (4,990 square miles), and considerably larger than that of the States of Delaware and Rhode Island, which aggregate 3,300 square miles. The island has always been noted for its mineral and agricultural wealth; hence the Spanish name, which, in English, means “rich harbor.”
Porto Rico, or Puerto Rico (the Spanish name), was discovered by Columbus on his second voyage, November 16, 1493. The discoverer first sighted land near Cape San Juan and for three days sailed along the northern coast, landing at Aguadilla. The richness and fertility of the island caused him to name it Puerto Rico or “rich port.” He saw little or nothing of the natives, who fled at his approach, believing that they were about to be attacked.
The actual conquest of the island was made in 1510, two years after his first visit, by Juan Ponce De Leon, Governor of the Island of Haiti, then known as Hispaniola. He won the confidence of the natives and landed an expedition to subjugate them. The Spanish conquest of Porto Rico was marked by the bloodshed and cruelty that has characterized Spanish conquest in all parts of the Western world. Natives were slaughtered, or condemned to slavery. The colonization of Porto Rico by Spaniards then followed, and to-day there is scarcely a trace of aboriginal blood in the islands.
The aboriginal population numbered about 600,000; they were copper-colored, though somewhat darker than the Indians of the North American continent. The aborigines called the island Boringuen and themselves Boringuenans.