Historical Collections of The Hawaiian Islands -  Kalakaua -- Part 13

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Historical Collections of The Hawaiian Islands
" Keepers of the Culture "
A Study in Time of the Hawaiian Islands
and stories told by the ancients
Kalakaua -- The King -- Part 13
After the ratified Treaty.
Events-- Claus Spreckles -- Celso Ceasar Moreno -- Walter Murray Gibson

by Darlene E. Kelley
August 16, 2001

http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00026.html#0006374

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Kalakaua -- The King -- Part 13.

While there was a long delay in ratifying the Treaty, it took effect on
September 9. 1876. The treaty's enactment gave Kalakaua's government a
new since of security. After nearly twenty five years of persistence,
American planters and merchants in Hawaii had a reciprocity treaty which
gave Hawaiian sugar preferential treatment over all other foreign sugar.

This sugar treaty opened Pandora's box, as well as bringing great
financial prosperity to Hawaii. The prosperity among the haole sugar
planters and businessmen  brought a resolve among them to govern Hawaii.
It also brought Claus Spreckles, the most ruthless and selfish
businessman Kalakaua and Hawaii were to know during this period.

Claus Spreckles was born in Lamstedt, Hanover, Germany, in 1828. He grew
up in a poverty stricken household under harsh conditions. He was
expected to do the work of an adult from the time he was five. At
eighteen he came to the United States, where he went into the grocery
business. Sucessful, he came west to go into sugar refining as a
laborer. He learned quickly and soon took over the business becoming a
millionaire by the time he was forty. He opposed the reciprocity treaty
with Hawai and the United States. But when it was passed, he was quick
to take advantage of it by going to Hawaii, arriving on the same ship
that brought the news to Honolulu.

He founded Spreckelsville in 1878 and marketed through N.G.Irwin Company
Monopoly. With his money he was soon to ensnare Kalakaua in his net.

Before Kalakaua was to become entwined with Spreckels, he resolved to do
something for his people, the native Hawaiians, something that would
bring them back, to them a reason to live.  He would cut through the
surface veneer of the haole culture and bring on the greatness of the
past. His first steps was to call forth the banished kahuna who held
history, tradition, culture, and geneology of the past. It was to be the
beginning of the much maligned Hale Naua. But Kalakaua would also bring
his country into the nineteenth century of commerce and rural and city
improvements.

He would complete the long planned palace. Ever since Kalakaua had
ascended the throne, he let it be known that he wanted a new palace to
match his lofty position as King. He considered the present palace "
filthy and in poor condition," and he felt humiliated living in it. He
would reintroduce the hula, the mele, and oli. He would educate young
men to be statesmen the world over, but they would not be ignorant of
the games and arts of the Hawaiian youth. They would be Hawaiian. But it
all took money. And only the haole had money. Even the alii were short
of money, and the former retainers ( commoners ) were often destitute.
His sister, Liliuokalani, came to him asking that her husband, John
Dominis, be given a better paying position, for money was short, and
every day she was beseeched by former retainers asking for help. These
came from their mother's and grandfather's lands, which had been sold.
She never sent anyone away without something, even if it was only an "
all purpose coconut."

Kalakaua continued to dream and plan. He would travel. His trip to the
United States lived vividly in his memory. He had made a good impression
on the foreigners who had no personal interest in Hawaii. He had been
highly praised and acknowledged as head of his country. He would travel
the world and bring to his ravished land men and women of cognate races;
thus he would increase his people. But he would do more. He would let
the world know that Hawaii was an independent nation, self governed,
open to commerce and social interchange with all people. 

These ideas were heady wine, and he needed to show them that someone who
dreams such as his. Such a man came to Hawaii-- Celso Caeser Moreno --
and such a man was already there -- Walter Murray Gibson. Thus, there
were for him two men of dreams and ideas and one man of money. All three
were to bring him both his dreams and his downfall.

Celso Caeser Moreno had first spoken to Kalakaua in San Francisco, where
the newspapers reported the King had listened patiently. Some interest
must of been provoked, because Moreno arrived a welcome visitor in
Hawaii, with proposals that dazzled the King.  

Celso Caesar Moreno was a flambouyant, handsome Italian, arriving in
Hawaii from China. Glowing reports of this gentleman from Genoa appeared
in newspaper accounts.

Both Kalakaua and Moreno were dynamic men, and it is not without reason
that Kalakaua was said he was surprised how exactly they agreed. The
big, burly six foot adventurer was probably what Kalakaua would have
like to have been had he not been cast in the role of a king. Later,
W.L. Green spoke gently of Kalakaua's having been taken in, saying that
" shrewd men in Washington and elsewhere had been deceived to a great
extent by his [Moreno's] arts."

Green was correct in his surmise of Moreno's "arts" in the United States
and elsewhere. Celso Moreno, educated by a Catholic bishop and a
graduate of the University of Genoa was knowledgeable and persuasive, He
had persuaded the United States Congress on August 15, 1876, to give him
and the others the right to lay and maintain a submarine cable on the
Pacific coast to connect America and Asiatic countries. His limitations
were raising the capital in three years. For this purpose he went to
China, and although again failing to raise the moneys, he convinced
influential Chinese of a plan to set up a steamship line between China
and the United States. and on the way, to bring laborers to Hawaii.
Moreno had arrived with the first shipload of coolies in Honolulu in
September, 1879.

Moreno began presenting his ideas to King Kalakaua. Using his United
States 
" rights " for laying a cable, he proposed instead a cable between
Hawaii and San Francisco. The concept was not bad; it was the million
dollars he wanted that was promptly defeated by Minister of the Interior
Wilder.

Importation of opium was a second idea of Moreno's. After much
discussion in the legislature, the bill was passed. At this time
Kalakaua vetoed the bill, but later allowed a modified bill to pass.

A loan bill of $10 million was a third Moreno project. Here he was
supported by Walter Murray Gibson, who was soon to come into political
limelight. but the bill was opposed by the cabinet.

Two king makers now active in Hawaii. The King's dreams of a better
Hawaii were to continue in a fomenting society of problems.

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to be continued in part 14