Category Archives: Editorial

Not just this month, 1907.

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Do Not Abandon Your Mother Tongue

The native language of a people like the Hawaiian language to the Hawaiian people is called a mother tongue of the Hawaiians. In our understanding, how many Hawaiian youths could there be who are educated in our colleges or apart from us, and who are rich in their knowledge and preparedness in the mother tongue of their homeland.

We see in these days going by, the youth are acquiring English, and they have no intention of pursuing the native language of their land of birth. It is clear that because the Hawaiian language government schools were discontinued, the large sources of water [poowai] that fed the canals [auwai] of knowledge of that language to the youth of Hawaii were cut off.

While we support the desire to progress in speakers of English, being that it is beneficial for Hawaii’s people to become accustomed to the British language, that being English, so that the youth have a running start with the swift current of progress sweeping over the majority of the surface of the earth because of the push of English, and yet it would not be a bad thing for the young ones born here or even more so for Hawaiians to understand the language of their kupuna.

There are educated haole from other lands appearing in our neighborhoods and when they ask some native Hawaiian children about some old word they see in old Hawaiian books or old Hawaiian newspapers, they respond, “I donʻt know,” that being ”Aole au i ike.” They do not know for they are deficient in their knowledge and proficiency in their very own language.

There will come a a time when a majority of the Hawaiian words we are familiar with today will become words that are unclear to the Hawaiian youth of the future. We believe that among ten Hawaiian children attending a haole school today, there are probably not five of them that can write Hawaiian correctly.

The only places where these young ones can obtain Hawaiian language is at Hawaiian Sunday Schools, churches where Hawaiian is spoken, assemblies where Hawaiians gather, and Hawaiian books and newspapers. Associating with and talking with Hawaiians in Hawaiian in order to learn Hawaiian is the way to gain knowledge and proficiency.

(Kuokoa Home Rula, 3/22/1907, p. 1)

Kuokoa Home Rula, Buke 5, Helu 12, Aoao 1. Maraki 22, 1907.

Commentary on Hawaiian newspapers, 1889.

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[Found under: “NU HOU HAWAII”]

With the issuing of the newspaper Makaainana this past Wednesday, we saw that it was its last issue as a newspaper, retiring for all times. Many and vast have been the newspapers which have been started in this age by Hawaiians. However, as for their end, they end in devastation. It would seem that people will become hesitant and not support new newspapers that will be started because of the many closures of Hawaiian established newspapers.

[While the daily Makaainana newspaper under F. J. Testa came to a close on May 8, 1889, a new weekly Makaainana was started five years later on January 1, 1894, under W. H. Kapu.]

(Ko Hawaii Pae Aina, 5/11/1889, p. 2)

Ka Makaainana, Buke XII, Helu 19, Aoao 2. Mei 11, 1889.

Hauoli Karisimaka a me ka Olioli Hape Nuia, 1894.

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PATRIOTS OF KOLOA.

The makaainana of the District of Koloa express their aloha and their deep appreciation for the two of you, O Fearless leaders of the Lahui; for your killing off the honor mischievously bestowed upon you by the enemies of the monarch, those who have aloha for their lahui, and those who are patriotic.

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Logic? 1903.

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English is the official language of the Territory and the Hawaiians wrong themselves and their children by seeking to revert to the official use of the Hawaiian language. We can but honor Hawaiians for the love they cherish for their old queen, their old flag and their old language, because if their hearts are true to those things, they will only the more surely be true and loyal to our present form of government. Continue reading →

More on the landing of the Boston, 1893.

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Of What Are They Afraid?

Editor Bulletin:—

The Advertiser this morning says: “The landing of the troops from the Boston furnishes a guarantee that the persons and property of American citizens will be safe from violence, etc.” What are those who claim to be American citizens afraid of? From what quarter is violence expected? None whatever, except like Banquo’s ghost,¹ from the “deep shadows of cowardly and guilty consciences.” It would be well under present circumstances, for the Advertiser to come forward and state to the public who were the ones that forced the late King at the point of the bayonet to break his oath and forswear the late constitution that he had sworn to uphold?

An American.

¹Reference to Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

(Daily Bulletin, 1/17/1893, p. 3)

DailyBulletin_1_17_1893_3

The Daily Bulletin, Volume V, Number 626, Page 3. January 17, 1893.

 

 

Mongoose, “a general destroyer,” 1883.

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[Found under: “EDITORIALS.”]

The Planters’ Monthly has lately been proposing the introduction of a little animals from India called the mongoose, as a destroyer of rats. He is a famous ratter, surpassing the cat or the ferret. He is described as a lively little urchin, about the size of a weasel, as having a snaky body, vicious looking claws, a sharp nose, a villanous eye and looks like “murder incarnate.” In speaking of his action in capturing rats, it is said that he crawls sinuously up to his victim until within easy distance for a rush, and then strikes with unerring aim, snapping the rat just at the base of the brain. The rat has not time even to squeak, so sudden and deadly is the onslaught. Wherever the rat can enter the mongoose can follow. Thus as a ratter this lively little Indian is incomparable, but the trouble is he will not confine his operations to what is deemed his legitimate business. Some writers have endeavored to save his credit as a poultry destroyer, but a naturalist, who has carefully observed his characteristics, says that he is a general destroyer, not only of everything under, but of many creatures over his size. When in a cage that sight of a small living creature made him frantic and whenever he escaped, as he sometimes did, he made a sensation in the poultry house. The mongoose is not content with maurauding forays in the yard, but he seems to pervade the house when domesticated. His manner for getting into objectionable nooks and holes is most perplexing, as for instance the leg of a pair of trousers or a skirt with the owner in them, quite come up to his views, as a desirable place for a roost or forage. The rat is unquestionably a great pest of the cane and rice planter and grain cultivator in all parts of the world. The rat pest was deemed so serious here some fifty years ago that an enlightened and enterprising Commisioner of the Hawaiian Government, sent in quest of Chinese coolies, deemed it a judicious venture in behalf of the agricultural interests of the Islands to procure a species of sanke famed as a destroyer of rats; but the Hawaiian people, whose sacred soil has been kept free from snakes and toads by some patron saint in influence to St. Patrick, conceived a holy terror of the snake, notwithstanding his possible utilities, and passed a decree that Hawaii would have no snake in her plantations. The destruction of rats in the cane-fields was hardly deemed a sufficient compensation to the Hawaiian mind for the probable presence every now and then of his snakeship in the thatch of the Hawaiian hale-pili. And we think that if the mongoose be as well understood as the snake, he will be as objectionable as the tempter of our first parents to the popular mind. This terrible Indian ferret is said to take a fancy to fasten on to lambs and suck away their very life-blood; and who knows if he may not ake a fancy once in a while to a baby in its cradle. Continue reading →

More on Clarence E. Edwords, 1896.

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SETTLES THE HAWAIIAN QUESTION.

A person who subscribes himself “Clarence E. Edwords” and bounds into fame from the columns of the Kansas City Journal has settled the perplexing Hawaiian question to the satisfaction of everybody who is willing to accept his settlement. Mr. Edwords has the advantage over all dabblers in Hawaiian affairs in that he speaks “advisedly” and admits it, and, although he spent only one month on the island, it was sufficient for a man of Mr. Edwords’ masterful spirit. It might as well be said at once that Queen Liliuokalani is to be restored to the throne. There is no use beating about the bush or following false leads as to republics or annexation because they are pleasant. Mr. Edwords has been there and returned with the facts clinched, advisedly, and Mr. Edwords knows a thing or two, and both are to the same restorative effect.

It is too late to question the quality of mercy that inhabits the breast of Mr. Edwords for waiting until he returned to Missouri to announce to the world that the Dole administration was “sitting on a smoldering volcano.” It was hardly treating Dole fairly to leave him sitting in that unpleasant position and sail away. A word of warning might have caused Mr. Dole to rise and look about him and possibly evade the volcano. But one cannot question the methods of such a man as Edwords nor expect he can bother with such trifles as warning indiscreet administrations to beware of volcanoes when he has the more weighty matter on hand to settle the fate of a nation or two. But the announcement by Mr. Edwords is hardly more remarkable than the tribute he pays to the estimable lady who by the grace of Edwords is thus to reassert her divine right. Says Edwords:

Probably no woman has been more maligned than the Queen. Before the overthrow her virtues and good qualities were extolled to the skies by those who now lose no opportunity to slandering her in the hope of bolstering their own cause. The people of the United States have been told all sorts of malicious stories regarding the private life of the Queen, and she has been pictured as an untutored, uncultured, coarse woman, whose sole object in life was her personal pleasure. This is anything but the truth. She is a woman of education and refinement, every inch a Queen in talk, appearance, and manner. Her face, which the published pictures of her much belie, shows deep thought and delicate refinement. There is strength in every line of it, and her every-day life is a counterpart of what it depicts. A member of the Episcopal Church, she is a devout and sincere Christian, doing no lip service, but making her life conform to the tenets of the belief. Heer desire is that her people may advance and profit by the wonderful resources of the islands and reap the benefits of improvement. In their present condition of subjection to foreign domination this is impossible.

President Cleveland, in his happiest mood, when Liliuokalani was his particular charge and not the particular inspiration of the muse of Edwords, never painted the dusky and somewhat bulky beauty in such glowing colors. Edwords, in a month, has advisedly solved more Hawaiian problems than all the rest of the United States and part of Europe has been able to propound for years, including the ex-Queen, and strangest of all the source of Mr. Edwords’ information comes from the Hawaiians themselves. While others have seen a people presumably glorying in their independence with perhaps a longing for annexation to the United States Edwords of Missouri in a month has found all this was but a mask to hide a burning desire to boost the retired Queen back to the throne. Says Edwords again:

Queen Liliuokalani will be on the throne, not through any effort or design of her own, but by the expressed will of a vast majority of the people of the islands.

And this is what he says “advisedly.” Who could doubt it now?

[Unfortunately, the 1896 Kansas City Journal issues are not available online. Edwords seems to have been the managing editor and owner of that newspaper.]

(Chicago Tribune, 7/7/1896, p. 6)

SETTLES THE HAWAIIAN QUESTION.

The Chicago Tribune, Volume LV, Number 189, Page 6. July 7, 1896.

22 (122) years from the overthrow, 1915 (2015).

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Amazing! Hawaii Has Not Been Americanized?

By our understanding, it has been nearly 22 whole years from when Hawaii was transferred under the administration of various governments until today, through the Kingdom of Queen Liliuokalani being stolen. It is a fact that the American flag did not wave from the flagpoles of Iolani during all of those years, being that during the first two years or perhaps three, the mountains, the ridges, the rivers, and the shores of Hawaii (but not the people of the land) were under the administration of the P. G. (P. I. G. in actuality), and for two or three years after that, under the name of the Republic of Hawaii, and for 16 years until today under the Territory of Hawaii. After the Kingdom of Hawaii was turned into the P. (I.) G. of Hawaii and thereafter, the Republic of Hawaii, and finally to the Territory of Hawaii, there is but only one good thing that we see during these many changes, that is the name HAWAII, and we believe that should the government in Hawaii nei change every year, for a 100 years, Hawaii will live on in its name.

During these years of changing of the political administration of this beloved land of Hawaii nei, America was the only foreign nation that posited itself greatly into Hawaii nei, and because of its support did these changes occur, being that it was Americans who instigated these actions; and during all of these changes, there was but one motivation, that being the annexation of this land to the United States of America. We do not forget the big-talking deceitful words of those people, “Should Hawaii be annexed to America, it will be with shovels that the people of this land will be scooping up silver and gold, and work will be had by all who ask.” These were the benefits that were projected upon the walls of Hawaii nei, but that is not the truth of what is being seen today.  It is not silver and gold that the people of the land are scooping with shovels. It is only in the pockets of the few that silver and gold flows. There are no jobs that “Uncle Sam” is just giving away, unless you have a starched collar, some gloves, and skin like that of an angel, and speak the words of the Cherubim; that is what the people of this land need to get ready so that they can acquire food and other necessities of life. Continue reading →