Ka Leo o ka Lahui, Volume II, Number 159, 27 March 1891 — Page 4

KA LEO O KA LAHUI.

"E Mau ke Ea o ka Aina i ka Pono."

 

ABOUT REACTIONARIES.

 

            "Reactionary" is, as it was during the last election campaign, a favorite nickname with the Advertiser party for all who were opposed to that party. We do not accuse the pro chattel-slavery scribes of having coined the word, quite the contrary. It no doubt comes down to us with quite a standing among the pale, miserable calumnies with which all men are assailed to whom the mission of condoning for what is true and right is a living inspiration and a force. We can imagine with which Lord North and his royal master denounced the "reactionary" Washington, and put a price on his head," Lincoln was reactionary to certain members of even his own party, as with grave foreboding they listened o him urge the immediate emancipation of millions of slaves. The English Chartist of 1848 was 'reactionary' when he was chased by mounted dragoons and transported to Australia, where his reactionary principles have been transplanted and have spread and are to day the undisputed ruling principles of a mighty continent, which is destined to be another "free heart's hope and home" for millions yet unborn.

 

            There will probably be always some on left in the world who will object to the gilded loafer, unless that ornamental piece of mechanism will extinguish himself by turning worker. The gilded loafer whether in the guise of a land-boomer or a syndicate tries to tyrannize over the rest of mankind as they in turn try to oppress the loafer; this accounts for the actionary and the reactionary which the hired scribes of the loafer hurl at his enemies. Mankind is always on the lookout for a chance to oppress somebody and so long as there is any human nature left in humanity this aggressive habit will not die out.

 

            Therefore man has to decide between two alternatives--either the worker upon whom the world depends for its prosperity is to be  at liberty to oppress the idler, who is useless as well as offensive, or else the idler must continue to oppress the worker as here to fore. In other words, it s a question whether, out of every thousand human beings, there is to be one monopolist and 999 slaves, or whether 999 men are to share the monopoly and leave the odd survivor the alternative of either becoming a worker like the rest, or an outcast. It has to be decided whether man was made for the landlord and the capitalist, or not, and if he was then it seems almost a pity that anyone ever took the trouble to make him at all.

 

            If we are to characterize all that is vile and humanly retrogressive by the word 'reactionary,' we propose to the Advertiser to swap it with us for the word "infernal" as more proper for their use in writing of the hours-cum-harness institution of "contract labor." The reactionary salt has lost its savor.

 

V@E VICTIS.

           

            It is pretty well known that the late Minister of Finance has officiously endeavored to prevail upon the present Cabinet to support the spiteful action, which he in collusion with the Postemaster General, undertook against a number of young Hawaiians recently employed in the Post Office.

            In the first place, common justice demands that the ministerial head of the department should have caused such an inquiry to be made into the merits of any charges made by the Postmaster General against the discharged officers; and common justice equally demands that such an inquiry should be of a judicial character with the evidence on the record. This we are informed is totally wanting.

             A discharged official goes forth to the world with a brand on him, which people are very apt to paint according to their fancy; generally the touches are of a dark shade, and the head of the department should be compelled to state in writing why an official should be discharged, Not todo so and to be permitted by the Legislature to refuse, is to establish the head of departments--under legislative sanction--as the powerful tyrants of a most noxious bureaucracy which no nation of freemen will ever permit. They are public servants as much as the petty officials, and the public want to know, and have a right to know, the rationale of their deeds. To say that they are responsible to the legislature, which meets once in two years, does not meet the case. We trust the present Cabinet will exercise the arbitrary power, which the long recess between the meetings of the Legislature confers on them, in an impartial and strictly non-partisan spirit. We plead simply for justice to subordinate clerks, irrespective of why their politico party colorings may be been. In the spirit of Tom Cringle's motto we ask for them, "A clear stage and no favor."

 

Obiter Dicta.

            Never put money in your mouth. A well-dressed girl sat in a crowded Waikiki tramcar, next to a malodorous Chinaman. The conductor came for fares. The Chinee placidly pulled a nickel out of his ear. The maiden drew a dime from between her teeth. The conductor mechanically hand her back as change the Chinkeys, nickel. The sweet and innocent girl, from sheer force of habit, placed it between her pearly teeth until she could adjust her glove and dive for her purse.

            The revival of the governorship reminds us of a joke concerning a certain governor, who, on arriving at his official post, saw that one loyal citizen had hung up for a decoration a card bearing the word "aloha" and a wreath, which was constructed by tying roses on a rope. But unluckily the roses blew away, and when the governor appeared the first thing that met his eye was a hangman's noose and a gladsome inscription that seemed to invite him to put his head inside and get choked.

            A lady at the opera the other night was overheard, by a crusty old bachelor, to remark on the difficulty of how to "obviate spoiling a nice skirt by crushing past other folk to reach one's seat." The whisper of the old bachelor to his friend was "merely to crowd past in a corset and petticoat and put the outer garment on when the seat is reached." But remarked the old churl, "there is a dreadful lack of inventive power about the average female."

            An English paper to hand in giving an outline of a lecture delivered by a returned colonial, before the Royal Colonial Institute, brings in an old chestnut about the semi-converted Australian blacks who jibbed on the missionaries with, "you give it no more rum! No more rum, no more bally hallelujah!" Whereat the pongeys of the institute guffawed loudly, as if the superior races never showed the same sort of gratitude and @unkey-ism for favors to come. There are a few in this life who are governed by the higher ethics of religion, and it would be a hard world to live in if it were not so. But the Uriah Heep and other varieties of artful young men are numbers, and when they want to acquire and keep a situation are not slow to perceive that it is no harm to join some mutual admiratione religions association, that acts on the mutual scratch-me-back principle.

            The P. C. Advertiser is evidently brushing up its rusty and badly damaged weapons for the coming "reactionary" rehash. It hangs its wreath in mock approval--very much as a professional mourner would do, on that article of Col. C. Spreckles on the future of Hawaii, which production by the way, although slightly illogical in the concluding paragraph--to which we will allude on another occasion--is not that of a croaker. The leading purpose of the sugar-king's article is evidently to draw closer the bonds that unite us to the great Republic, especially on "perpetual reciprocal advantages," with which we cordially concur. In briefly referring to the past, Col. Spreckels has no lamentation for the fat that the Advertiser's political "game rooster" got badly knocked out. That was too bad of the Colonel, he might have just shed one tear word of sympathy. However, we hear it is duly announced already, that "National Reform is dead," and we shall have Professor Kinney again to the fore with the Game Rooster in his new spurs like,--

 

Two ghosts crawled from their graveyard nook

And on the living world did look,

When lo! they heard a tread,

Beneath whose might the Island shook--

One specter said to his brother spook,

"The N.R. crowd aint dead."

 

            The Advertiser can't forget its old vain trick of "gently reminding" people that it comes in a direct line from away back, as an apostle and prophet. It is of no use to remind that organ, that its former predictors, equally with its maledictions; got badly walked on, and are to-day badly in want of salt. We also would follow suit, and "gently remind" the grinder of the platitudinal tommyrot in the Advertiser; that the people at large, and not the snobocracy will insist on election their first President should they ever have a Republican form of government.

            The word "reactionary" so glibly trotted out on occasions by the Advertiser, we hurl back to its originator and proper owner, with contempt. It is a proper thing to advocate that the mere user, or chance posessor of wealth, shall not swamp out of political existence, the man who is, it may be living on his own land and raising a family. It is proper to agitate and demand, that the man who came here but yesterday and has no higher qualification for the right to be admitted to the exercise of the highest franchise than receiving a wage of $50 a month shall not swamp a man born in the country and earning $49 a month, and now it will be gravely proposed to enfranchise every contract laborer entering from Japan and if from Japan, why not China?

            If the Advertiser will devote some of its space to an honest discussion of the inequality of the franchise, it will be more honest and more decent, than throwing "reactionary" mud. It is not so much the form as the substance of government we advocate, and naturally we are yearly brought into a closer observation of the United States, where we find no such inequality as we complain of. THe anomaly of some professed Americans in upholding the gilded specter of wages and money qualifications for the purpose of excluding the honest son of toil from the ballot box, is a sample of true "reactionary" policy which the reactionary crowd who are howling through the Advertiser cannot justify by any known practice in the United States.

            The Charlatans who attempt to create a privileged nobility here were born quite a century late and the object of the little coterie of kid-gloved humbugs many of whom are elevated above the pick and shovel, and the beef-basket and the other means by which they once got an honest industrious living--can be readily seen through in the facility with which they can get ahead of the mob in grabbing the natural sources of wealth; the Land and the Water! We want a little more of that "all men are free and equal," that we hear so much about, to go round. That's what?

 

HOOLAHA I KA POE MAKE MAKE I "KA LEO."

            Ma keia hope auk ke hoolaha ia aku nei, e kii aku ka poe makemake i ka nupepa Ka Leo i na Luna e lawe nei i ka nupepa, oia hoi o

J. Kahaleluhi

J. Kaneaiakala

Geo. Kanikau

Parao T. Kapualei

John Samoa

Jno. E. Bush

Luna Hooponopono

 

KUAI HOOPAU NUI.

 

Mai keia manawa aku a hiki i ko makou hoonee ana aku iloko o ko makou

 

HALEKUAI HOU

            Me ke Alanui Papu,--NA HALE BURUA.

E hoolilo aku ana Makou i ko Makou waiwai a pau no na ano Lole

 

NA LOLE NANI,

NA LOLE I HUMUIA,

KAPU A ME PAPALE

PAHU LOLE, a pela aku.

 

No na Uku Hooemi Loa Nae

Egan & Gunn.

ALANUI MOI kokoke i ke ALANUI PAPU.

tf--d.

 

Hoolaha Hou!

 

B.F. EHLERS &CO.,--Painapa

 

Ua loaa mai nei ia makou he mau waiwai hou loa, oia hoi

KAKIMIA,

KINAMU

KEOKEO HALU'A

CHALLI,

VIKOLIA KEOKEO

 

--A ME NA--

 

Mikilima o na ano a pau, a me na@ paku puka a@iani @ kela a me keia ano, ne na kumukuai haahaa loa.

B.F.EHLERS &CO.

 

Alanui Papu, Honolulu.--25--d3@.