Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 March 1894 — DOLE STRIKES BACK. [ARTICLE]

DOLE STRIKES BACK.

ANOTHER CHAPTER IN THE HAWAIIAN CASE. Specifications Demanded by Minister Willie Are Furnished Without Hesitation—Onr Representative Charged with Withholding Information and Playing a Boaster’s Part. Talks Very Plainly. Advices received frem Honolulu by steamer Alameda give the full text of President Dole’s letter to Ministar Willis in reply to the latter’s request for specifications and statements made in a previous letter from Dole in regard to the attitude of the United States Government. Dole’s letter is very lengthy. He says: “In compliance with your request for certain specifications concerning my letter of Dec. 27. I reply thereto as follows: You inquire as to the meaning cf the word ‘attitude’as used in my letter. I reply that word was used by me in its ordinarily accepted sense, meaning bearing, posture, as indicating purpose of those referred to. You further say, ‘Will you point cut whe e and when and how a represent ;tive of the United States assumed any attitude toward supporters of the Provisional Government other than one essentially and designedly expressive of peace?’ In reply I would say that the attitude of a person is to be ascertained only by inferences drawn from l-.nawn words and acts of such person and conditions and circumstances under which they take place.”

President Dole then cites the withdrawal of the treaty of annexation from the Senate by Ptesident Cleveland without any notice to the Hawaiian representative: the appointment of Blount at d his visit as a secret emissary of the United States and the lefusal of Secretary Gresham to explain to the Hawaiian representative the object of Blount’s mi-sion or even that he had been commissioned. He also criticised Blount's actions while in the country and the report which he subsequently made to Piesident Cleveland. Piesident Dole next refers to Greshams letter to Piesident Cleveland last October, and says: “You have intimated that the foregeing letter, being a domestic transaction, is not a subject of diplomatic c rrespondence. I must submit, however, that a communication from the chief of the Department of State to the President, in which he charges this Government and its officers with conspiracy, weakness, timidity and fraud, and recommends iti subversion, which letter is officially furnished to and published by the public press, without any information concerning the same being afforded to this Government, is not a domestic transaction, and is pre-emi-nently a proper subject for inquiry on the part of this Government as to the intention! of your Government concerning the subject matter. “Ou Nov. 14 Mr. Thurston, the Hawaiian Minister at Washington, called upon the Secretary of State and inquired if the above letter was authentic, and was assured by Mr. Gresham that it was. Mr. Thurston then said: ‘1 wish, then, to further ask whether it is the intention of the United States Government to carry out the policy therein indicated bv force, or, in other words, whether, if the Provisional Government decline to accede to the request of the United States Government to vacate in favor of the Queen, United States troops will be used to enforce the request.’ Do we need to state that Mr. Thurston received no satisfactory reply to this question?” President Dole then recalls the arrival of the United States dispatch boat Corwin at Honolulu last December with private copies of the President's Hawaiian message to Congress for Mr. Willis, and says: “Up to the time of the arrival of the Corwin the United States naval officers in port were in the habit of coming ashore in citizen's dress, the crews received their usual liberty on shore, and no unusual warlike preparations were visible on board. Immediately on the arrival of the Corwin the liberty of the crews was stopped and so was that of most of the officers. Those who came on shore were in service uniform. Rifles were stacked. Cartridge belts were filled with ball cartridges and knapsacks packed for immediate use were conspicuous on the decks of the ships and were seen there by visiting citizens, who in reply to an inquiry as to the meaning of such preparations were informed by the officers that they were ready to land at a moment's notice. When asked if the landing would be to protect or fight us the reply of the officers of the Philadelphia was that no one on boai;d knew what orders would be received.”