Hawaii by James A. Michener
Then, in late 1892, Wild Whip became galvanized into even wilder action in a completely different arena, for the United States was beginning to show signs of once more discriminating against the importation of Hawaiian sugar. The great planters of cane in Louisiana were determined to end the reciprocity arrangements whereby Hawaii sent sugar to the mainland tax-free while the United States was allowed to send certain goods into Hawaii and also to use Pearl Harbor as a naval base. Cried the Louisiana sugar men: “We don’t need their sugar and we don’t need Pearl Harbor.”
For thirty years the New Orleans sugar tycoons had been waging war against Hawaii, and they had managed to hold the profits of Hawaiian planters like Wild Whip Hoxworth to reasonable limits, but they had failed to kill off the industry. Now a new factor had entered the battle against Hawaii: the huge western states of Colorado and Nebraska were beginning to grow beets and to grind them into sugar, and they, too, wanted to destroy Hawaiian competition. Within a few years it was likely that a coalition of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Colorado and Nebraska, plus such new states as Wyoming and Utah, would form to drive Hawaiian sugar forever out of the market, and when this happened sugar planters like Wild Whip would see their massive fortunes begin to vanish.
“In sugar, there’s only one rule,” Whip told the sugar planters he had assembled. “Either we sell to the United States, or we don’t sell. Our sole aim must be to protect that market.”
“We’re losing it,” John Janders pointed out. “Right now I represent eleven of your major sugar plantations, and with the way those bastards from Louisiana and Colorado are trying to strangle us, I can see nine of your eleven outfits going into bankruptcy. One more serious cut in our American market, and I don’t know what we’ll do.”
“Excuse me, John,” Whip interrupted. “You’re right in what you say, but I’m afraid you’re mincing words. I happen to have the figures, and by God, nobody can listen to these without panic. Since the McKinley Tariff every damned sugar man in Louisiana and Colorado has been getting a subsidy of two cents a pound, whereas sugar imported from Hawaii has been penalized. What’s it all mean? During the first twelve months of this McKinley abortion our profits have dropped five million dollars. I don’t mean the profits of Hawaii. I mean the profits of the nine men sitting in this room. Now as to the actual invested value of our plantations, they’ve lost twelve million dollars. And it’s going to get worse and worse.”
He paused to allow discussion of the peril in which the Hawaiian sugar men found themselves, for up to the moment of this meeting, the great planters had known they were in danger but no one had had the courage to accumulate the depressing figures; now under Whip’s lashing they had to face facts. Companies were going to go bankrupt and men were going to lose plantations their fathers had built.
“What do you think we should do?” John Janders asked. He was a year older than Whip and eight centuries more conservative.
Whip parried the question and observed, “Obviously, John, unless we do something we’re going to lose Hawaii. It’s going to subside into the barren, useless batch of islands it was in 1840.” There was a hush, and Whip continued: “Those aren’t just words, either. Two more bad years, John, and you’ll be bankrupt. Absolutely pau. Dave Hale may be able to hold out a little longer, but Harry Hewlett can’t.” Then he thumped himself in the chest and added, “I’m good for eighteen months, and then I’m bankrupt. Gentlemen, I don’t propose to go bankrupt.”
It was a sober group of Hales, Hewletts and Janderses who listened to these gloomy but accurate words. Finally Dave Hale asked, “How you going to escape, Whip?”
With carefully studied words Whip replied, “I’ve asked that the doors be closed, gentlemen, because what you and I are about to do is ugly work, so if any of you have weak kidneys I’ll give you time to go out and take a piss right now. And don’t bother to come back.” He waited in silence and could see that the sugar men were breathing hard. “I’ll give you two more minutes,” he said, “and after that, there’s no turning back.” He put his watch on the table, and when the seconds had passed he said simply, “Gentlemen, we are now duly constituted as the Committee of Nine and no one here must have any illusions. This afternoon I want you quietly to buy up all the available guns in Honolulu.” He put his left hand to his chin and with his thumb rubbed the scar that crossed his face like jagged lightning. When the shock of his first command had been absorbed he added, “Yes, we’re going to launch a revolution, win control of these islands, and turn them over to the United States. Once we’ve done that, Louisiana and Colorado can go to hell. They’ll be powerless to destroy us.”
“Do you think the United States will accept us?” Dave Hale asked timorously.
Wild Whip dropped both hands on the table and said harshly, “Gentlemen, the days ahead are going to be damned difficult. But there is one thing we must never doubt. The United States is going to accept Hawaii.” He thundered his fists on the table and repeated, “We are going to be part of America.”
“How …” Dave Hale began.
“I don’t know how!” Whip interrupted. “But we’re going to join America and we’re going to make all the goddamned money growing sugar that we want to.”
John Janders spoke quickly: “Whip, you know I’m even stronger for sugar than you are, because I’ve got more to lose. But take my advice on one thing. Don’t organize this revolution around sugar. Among ourselves, here in the committee, all right. But don’t let the outside world know. For them you’ve got to have an idea bigger than sugar.”
Young Hale added, “John’s right. The big American newspapers will never support us if our revolution is built on sugar.”
One of the Hewlett boys, who owned the biggest sugar plantation of all, suggested: “Somehow we’ve got to work in the word democracy. Red-blooded Americans on these islands are sick of living under a corrupt monarchy.”
“That’s it!” John Janders cried. “Something the American Congress can get hold of. American citizens yearning to be free.”
Wild Whip smiled at his associates. “You fellows have a lot of sense. I agree with you that if we stand forth as a sugar revolution, the bastards in Louisiana and Colorado would crucify us. I can hear them now, bleeding for the monarchy. But I have a better idea, gentlemen. You and I are going to start this revolution, and we’re going to direct it, and when everyone else gets scared, we’re going to fire the guns. But,” and he paused for effect, “not one of us is going to appear before the public.”
“Who will?” Dave Hale asked.
“We’ll get the lawyers who handle our plantation affairs, and the newspaper people and some schoolteachers and a couple of ministers,” Whip snapped. “This is going to be the most respectable revolution in history. You’re going to hear more high-flown sentiments than you thought existed, because I’ve decided on the ideal man to stand before the public.”
“Who you thinking of?” Hale probed.
Whip looked directly at the young man and said, “Your Uncle Micah.”
David Hale gasped and said, “He’ll never revolt against the monarchy. He’s a citizen of Hawaii and takes it very seriously.”
“We’re all citizens of Hawaii,” Whip replied, “and we all take it seriously. That’s why we’re going to save these islands.”
“But Uncle Micah’s been an adviser to the crown, a personal friend of all the kings. He’s an ordained minister …”
“For those very reasons we’ve got to have him,” Whip interrupted. “He won’t support us willingly. He’ll preach against us, and he’ll despise our revolution, but the force of circumstance will make him our leader. Believe me, it’ll be Uncle Micah Hale with his long white beard who will send the final letter to President Harrison: ‘Hawaii is yours.’ ”
At this point John Janders threw some very cold water upon the revolution: “I got a letter from Washington which said that everyone there thinks Grover Cleveland will be elected again this year.”
“Can we do it in the time available?” one of the Hewlett boys asked.
“If we work,” Whip replied. The Committee of Nine broke up their first meeting and each man took upon himself three jobs: buy all available guns; find respectable citizens to stand before the public as front men of the revolution; and test every friend to see who could be depended upon to help overthrow the Hawaiian monarchy. When the frightened, but determined, sugar planters were gone, Whip Hoxworth was left with the most difficult job of all. He had to find some way of making white-bearded, righteous old Micah Hale assume leadership of the revolt.
It was not a strong monarchy to begin with. In 1872 the great Kamehameha line had ended in sickness and frustration, to be followed by a succession of amiable but incompetent alii. One had sought to revive paganism as the consolidating force of Hawaiian life; another had tried to abrogate the constitution and take Hawaii back to an absolute monarchy unrestrained by any middle-class legislature; there had been palace revolutions, the election of kings according to their personal popularity, and a shocking scandal in which one king was caught trying to peddle an opium concession twice over to two different Chinese gamblers. This sad decline of the Hawaiian state had caused deep concern among the missionary families, and although some men of rectitude like Micah Hale loyally supported the royal line, they were grieved when attempts were made to legalize opium and lotteries.
Even so, had the customary succession of amiable and handsome kings continued and had they allowed their iron-willed New England advisers to run the kingdom, Micah Hale and his responsible associates would probably have been able to keep the tottering monarchy viable; but on January 29, 1891, royalty of a far different sort ascended the throne and trouble was inescapable. Queen Liliuokalani was a short, moderately stout woman of regal bearing. She had large, determined lips, a high pile of graying hair, and wrists laden with jewels. In black satin fringed with ostrich feathers and bearing a feathered ivory fan, she was an imposing woman with a stubborn will. It was her custom to deliver important messages seated in front of a golden-yellow cape of feathers, both because this was an antique royal custom which set off her dignity and because she was slightly crippled and did not move with grace. For many years she had been plain Lydia Dominis, strong-minded wife of a slim haole of Italian descent, with whom she lived in a large white mansion called Washington Place. Upon the death of her brother, the king, she ascended the throne, bringing with her a desire to reverse the trend toward haole domination and a determination to cast aside New England influences like Micah Hale.
She was a highly intelligent woman and had traveled to the courts of Europe, where the role played by Queen Victoria impressed her, and she had a love of political power. Had she acquired the throne immediately after the passing of the Kamehameha, she might have made Hawaii a strong and secure monarchy, for she had a lively imagination and much skill in manipulating people; but she attained ultimate power too late; republicanism had infected her people; sugar had captured her islands. And although she did not know it, her enemy was no longer the stately political leader Micah Hale; it was the gun-running, determined plantation owner Wild Whip Hoxworth. Against the former she might have had a chance; against the latter she was powerless.
Without ever identifying her enemies, this headstrong, imaginative woman tried to combat republicanism, Congregationalism and sugar, but she succeeded only in driving those disparate forces together in a coalition. Hawaiians who were tired of the monarchy and its silly pretensions conspired against the queen, although most who joined the coalition did so in hope of currying favor with the Americans. Missionary families came out boldly against the corruption, absolutism and paganism of the monarchy, but many who cried loudest in public against these evils also owned businesses that would prosper under American rule. And lawyers were forceful in their arguments against the excesses of the monarchy and in defense of human rights, but mostly they fought to protect sugar. As the queen’s obstinate reign continued, the coalition against her became more powerful.
In early 1893 the headstrong woman determined to eliminate the influence of men like the statesman Micah Hale and his insolent nephew Whip Hoxworth. Accordingly, she let it be known that she intended to abrogate the present constitution, which hampered her absolute power, to put the legislature under royal control, and to revoke the voting rights of many citizens and generally restore the ancient prerogatives of the monarchy. She was a notable figure when she made this disclosure: queenly, posed against yellow feathers dating back two hundred years, a lei of plumeria about her shoulders and a train of satin four feet long piled about her crippled foot. As she spoke she did not make it clear, but it was her intention to take Hawaii back to the good old days that France had enjoyed in 1620.
That afternoon Wild Whip Hoxworth summoned the Committee of Nine, and his conspirators convened in an upper room of Janders & Whipple on Merchant Street, an earlier proposal that the members meet at Hoxworth & Hale having been vetoed because of the fear that Micah Hale, still stoutly attached to the monarchy, might hear of the plot. Wild Whip was concise in his opening statement: “Our headstrong queen is to be congratulated. Her silly acts have made revolution obligatory.”
The Hewlett boys were fearful of overt action and counseled caution, but straightforward John Janders said gruffly, “We’ve got to overthrow the monarchy in the next two days or lose our last opportunity to capture the government.”
“Do you mean to incite a bloody revolution?” David Hale asked.
“If necessary,” Janders replied, and no further vote was taken.
“Then it’s revolution!” Whip Hoxworth announced, issuing a statement rather than a question. The committee cheered, and Whip said, “Our plan must be to strike quickly and to gain control of all the main points in the city.”
“What about the other islands?” one of the Hales asked.
“To hell with the other islands,” Hoxworth snapped. “The post office, the banks, the palace, the armory. We win them and we control Honolulu. Win Honolulu and we have Hawaii. Janders, tell the committee what you learned today.”
John Janders rose, coughed, and spoke formally: “This morning I had a two-hour talk with the American Minister, and we studied the law with great care. It is quite clear, he advised me, that if the revolution quickly acquires control of the major points in Honolulu, so that an observer could logically say, ‘the committee controls the city,’ the United States will have sufficient cause to contend that we are the de facto government. The Minister will promptly recognize us. The monarchy will be at an end. And we will be on our way to incorporation within the United States.”
“But what about the American troops in the harbor?” one of the Hewlett boys asked. “Will the ship captains send their troops ashore to fight against us?”
A broad smile came over the scarred face of Wild Whip as he lounged at the head of the table. The committee looked at him, satisfied that he had uncovered some trick for neutralizing the American forces, but he did not divulge the plan. “Tell them what we arranged, John,” he said.
Burly John Janders explained: “We have entered into a solemn agreement with the American Minister and with the ship captains that as soon as
“But we’re Hawaiian citizens,” David Hale protested.
“We’re also Americans,” Janders replied blandly, “and we’re the Americans who are going to be protected.”