Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/229

Rh condition the process of true Americanization can never reach? It was a happy intuition which suggested to Mr. Seward that the policy of annexation would transfer the capital of the United States to the city of Mexico, for after the annexation of the American tropics there would certainly be an abundance of Mexican politics in that capital.

The annexation of the Hawaiian Islands would be liable to objections of a similar nature. Their population, according to the census of 1890, consists of 34,436 natives, 6186 half-castes, 7495 born in Hawaii of foreign parents, 15,301 Chinese, 12,360 Japanese, 8602 Portuguese, 1928 Americans, 1344 British, 1034 Germans, 227 Norwegians, 70 French, 588 Polynesians and 419 other foreigners. If there ever was a population unfit to constitute a State of the American Union, it is this. But it is the characteristic population of the islands in that region—a number of semi-civilized natives crowded upon by a lot of adventurers flocked together from all parts of the globe to seek their fortunes, some to stay, many to leave again after having accomplished their purpose, among them Chinese and Japanese making up nearly one-fourth of the aggregate. The climate and the products of the soil are those of the tropics, the system of labor corresponding. If attached to the United States, Hawaii would always retain a colonial character. It would be bound to this Republic not by a community of interest or national sentiment, but simply by the protection against foreign aggression given to it and by certain commercial advantages. No candid American would ever think of making a State of this Union out of such a group of islands with such a population as it has and is likely to have. It would always be to this Republic a mere dependency, an outlying domain, to be governed as such. The Constitutional question involved in an acquisition of this nature