The Path of Empire. A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power
by Carl Russell Fish
adjusting Anglo-American relations.
While the Samoan affair seemed an accidental happening, there was taking shape in the Pacific another
episode which had a longer history and was more significant of the expansion of American interests in
that ocean. Indeed, with the Pacific coast line of the United States, with the superb harbors of San
Francisco, Portland, and Puget Sound, and with Alaska stretching its finger tips almost to Asia, even
Blaine could not resist the lure of the East, though he endeavored to reconcile American traditions of
isolation with oceanic expansion. Of all the Pacific archipelagoes, the Hawaiian Islands lie nearest to the
shores of the United States. Although they had been discovered to the European world by the great
English explorer, Captain Cook, their intercourse had, for geographic reasons, always been chiefly with
the United States. Whalers continually resorted to them for supplies. Their natives shipped on American
vessels and came in numbers to California in early gold-mining days. American missionaries attained
their most striking success in the Hawaiian Islands and not only converted the majority of the natives but
assisted the successive kings in their government. The descendants of these missionaries continued to
live on the islands and became the nucleus of a white population which waxed rich and powerful by the
abundant production of sugar cane on that volcanic soil.
In view of this tangible evidence of intimacy on the part of the United States with the Hawaiian Islands,
Webster in 1842 brought them within the scope of the Monroe Doctrine by declaring that European
powers must not interfere with their government. Marcy, Secretary of State, framed a treaty of
annexation in 1853, but the Hawaiian Government withdrew its assent. Twenty years later Secretary Fish
wrote: "There seems to be a strong desire on the part of many persons in the islands, representing large
interests and great wealth, to become annexed to the United States and while there are, as I have already
said, many and influential persons in the country who question the policy of any insular acquisition,
perhaps even any extension of territorial limits, there are also those of influence and wise foresight who
see a future that must extend the jurisdiction and the limits of this nation, and that will require a resting
spot in the mid-ocean, between the Pacific coast and the vast domains of Asia, which are now opening to
commerce, and Christian civilization."
All immediate action, however, was confined to a specially intimate treaty of reciprocity which was
signed in 1875, and which secured a substantial American domination in commerce. When Blaine
became Secretary of State in 1881, he was, or at least he affected to be, seriously alarmed at the
possibility of foreign influence in Hawaiian affairs, particularly on the part of Great Britain. The native
population was declining, and should it continue to diminish, he believed that the United States must
annex the islands. "Throughout the continent, north and south," he wrote, "wherever a foothold is found
for American enterprise, it is quickly occupied, and the spirit of adventure, which seeks its outlet, in the
mines of South America and the railroads of Mexico, would not be slow to avail itself of openings of
assured and profitable enterprise even in mid-ocean." As the feeling grew in the United States that these
islands really belonged to the American continent, Blaine even invited Hawaii to send representatives to
the Pan-American Congress of 1889. When he again became Secretary of State, he was prepared to give
indirect support at least to American interests, for the new queen, Liliuokalani, was supposed to be under
British influence. On the arrival of a British gunboat in Honolulu, J. L. Stevens, the American Minister,
went so far as to write on February 8, 1892: "At this time there seems to be no immediate prospect of its
being safe to have the harbor of Honolulu left without an American vessel of war."
Revolution was, indeed, impending in Hawaii. On January 14, 1893, the Queen abolished the later
constitution under which the Americans had exercised great power, and in its place she proclaimed the
|
