WHO IS HE?

Mr. W. N. Armstrong

Again.

Mr. W. N. Armstrong has adopted the position of lecture and political teacher in the country and we have no doubt that he feels very proud of the audience that gathers around him in the Club and in the League. We have received a number of communications asking us who this Mr. Armstrong is an although his importance—as viewed by himself—has never dazzled our optics we are able  to furnish a little information about this would be professer in national and political science as far as his connections with the Hawaiian Government is concerned. Mr. Armstrong was made Attorney-General by Kalakaua. He states now that Kalakaua’s Government was extremely corrupt and he criticizes it in the most emphatical manner. He never resigned from his post though but he made it his duty to be an ardent member and promoter of the gay times which were fostered and perhaps inaugurated by the advisers of the late King. Mr. Armstrong is introduced as being one of the “oldest” annexationists here—in fact it is claimed that he was a thoroughbred annexationist—that is: a man resolved to deprive Hawaii of its independence, the sovereigns of their throne, since 1853. We do not doubt the truth of this statement, but we ask every fair-minded man what the proper term would be for a man who pretended and swore allegiance to a King, who acted the part of a faithful servant, who dissimulated loyalty and who received unlimited favors and benefits from a sovereign whom he at the same time was betraying and whom he, according to his own words, desired to dethrone for the purpose of depriving his country of its independence and subvert the sovereingty to another land. If such a man can be trusted, if such a man is to be allowed to come forward, foremost among our citizens, verily the day has come when the Hawaiians and with them every loyal and decent citizen are justified in condemning the men and the principles sustained by such individuals as W. N. Armstrong proves himself to be. Why did he travel with King Kalakaua all over the world? In what capacity? Was it as a spy and as a traitor trying to carry out his contemptible and nefarious scheme as an annexationist? Or was it as a loyal servant (we had nearly said “barber”) to the sovereign who paid his salary and gave to him opportunities which he otherwise would never have gained? What did he ever do here in his official capacity as Attorney-General, except drawing salary? We have searched the records and we find only one case ever tried by him while we never fine one month in which he omitted to call for his pay. It is time for Mr. Armstrong to explain himself and his official position under Kalakaua, and it is also time for the annexationists, of whom the majority don’t know him, to look into his record. The man who acknowledges himself a traitor to his former master, will hardly be found faithful to his present affiliations. Beward of the missionaries!

(Hawaii Holomua, 1/31/1894, p. 3)

Hawaii Holomua, Volume II, Number 26, Page 3. January 31, 1894.