The Gallant Young: Heroism, Audacity, And Controversy Of A Kentucky Naval Officer (Part Four)
By: Joe D. Friday Jr.
Note: This is the fourth part of an ongoing multi-part series that will be presented once a month until completion. For further context of this story, please read the previous part in this series.
Young and Boston sailed for Hawaii in August 1892. Their mission was to show the flag and to protect American interests and American citizens who had properties and businesses there. Hawaii was at that time experiencing an upheaval wherein businessmen who were Hawaiian born but were descended from American missionaries challenged the Hawaiian monarchy and were in the process of overthrowing it to create their own government. They had already forced a new constitution on King Kalakaua, which severely restricted his authority and broadly enhanced the powers of the businessmen. King Kalakaua sought to reestablish the primacy of the Hawaiian monarchy and the Hawaiian natives and native culture through diplomacy, but he died in January 1891, and his sister Liliuokalani ascended the throne. Queen Liliuokalani resisted the businessmen, but she was soon checked by force and circumstance to eventually relinquish power.62
Boston dropped anchor in Hawaii on August 24, 1892. Over the course of the next four months, Lieutenant Young took a front row seat for the intrigue and machinations involving the overthrow of Liliuokalani’s reign. Young spent a good deal of time ashore in company of the businessmen.63 The records will show, as evidenced by his later speeches and actions, that he was decidedly in their corner.64
John L. Stevens, the American minister to Hawaii, colluded with a group of businessmen calling themselves the “committee of safety,” led by Sanford B. Dole, grandson of Christian missionaries and the owner of a large sugar plantation. Stevens and Dole led the scheme that ended the Hawaiian monarchy. When Liliuokalani dissolved the legislature in January 1893, the members of the committee of safety declared the establishment of a provisional government and immediately asked for protection by the U.S. troops.65
At the request of Stevens, approximately 180 marines and sailors from Boston went ashore in force on January 16, 1893. This action was taken ostensibly to protect Americans, but its real purpose was to force the queen to surrender her throne and power to the businessmen opposed to her. The troops who landed were not deployed around American properties, as would be done if the object were to protect lives and properties. They were instead deployed to surround government buildings and other key locations.66 Young led a contingent of thirty-five sailors, armed with rifles and two gatling guns, on parade in front of the palace square and to the government armory where they were positioned to “flank any movement from the government barracks.”67 It seems clear that these movements would have intimidated the Queen.
Seeking to avoid violence, and using diplomacy as a means of protest, Liliuokalani surrendered to the U.S. government, but not to the businessmen’s “committee of safety,” who were actually behind the overthrow. Minister Stevens, acting on his own authority, officially recognized the provisional government on behalf of the United States.68 Within a few days, representatives from the provisional government were on their way to Washington, DC to present President Harrison with a formal request and treaty of annexation.69 When Liliuokalani was deposed from the throne, Dole became the head of the provisional government. At Steven’s direction, the U.S. Navy seized the executive building and raised the American flag there, even though the provisional government was not a part of the U.S., and had not yet been recognized by the United States government.70
President Harrison accepted the request for annexation from the provisional government of Hawaii and submitted the treaty to the senate on February 15, 1893.71 But, before the senate could act, Harrison’s term expired and Grover Cleveland assumed the presidency. Cleveland withdrew the treaty.72
Queen Liliuokalani wrote a letter of appeal to President Grover Cleveland asking for justice.73 Cleveland appointed James Blount, a former Georgia congressman, as a special commissioner to go to Hawaii, investigate the situation, and report back to him. When Blount arrived at Honolulu, one of the first things he did was to have the U.S. flag taken down from the executive building. The flag was returned to Boston, and Young, demonstrating again where his sympathies lay, bought it as a keepsake.74 Blount’s report to President Cleveland said that the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy was illegal and in violation of international law. Young disagreed completely, writing that, “Mr. Blount did not attempt to make either a fair investigation or a truthful report.”75
Blount’s report referred to the businessmen as insurgents and said that if they had not been backed by the U.S. Navy, they could not have accomplished their objectives. Blount correctly pointed out that many of the businessmen were not technically American citizens, since they had been born in the sovereign nation of Hawaii, and any assistance provided to them by the US Navy was in violation of international law. The implication by Commissioner Blount was that naval officers on the scene were complicit in the coup d’état of a sovereign nation.76
Young compounded that image by talking too much about Hawaiian annexation and American expansionism. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Young had been meeting and speaking with the annexationists only a few hours before they declared the provisional government.77 It only seems reasonable that he must have known what was about to happen. Later, at a dinner honoring Boston’s commander, Captain Wiltse, Young gave a proannexation speech that praised Wiltse’s action supporting the annexationists.78
Young spoke again at a July 4 ceremony in Honolulu, and in front of James Blount, saying, “we may expect in the near future to see the United States ornamenting her skirts with Cuba and the Danish Islands of the West Indies, and with the Hawaiian bouquet in her left hand.”79 Young’s remarks were not well received by Blount or by many others.80 The Scranton Tribune reported rumors of a court-martial for Young and said he may be patriotic but is “lacking in discretion.”81 “Young carries with him a jaw that never wearies and a gall of most prodigious dimensions,” said The Interior Journal of Sanford, Kentucky, a few days later.82 Young must have been told privately that as a naval officer, he had best keep his opinions on foreign policy to himself, because soon afterwards, he stopped talking about Hawaii.83 But even his silence made news: The Hawaii Holomua-Progress noted just a few weeks later, “That Lucien Young was silent and speechless last night. [Has] anybody been cruel enough to put a padlock on his overflowing mouth?”84 After he returned to Washington, Young spoke more obliquely: “I cannot say anything about Hawaiian affairs. I am an officer of the government and am expected to be in readiness to execute its policies and not to discuss them.”85
Note: Please stay tuned for next month when part five will continue this multi-part series.
Notes
62 Thomas A. Bailey, A Diplomatic History of the American People, Tenth Edition, Pearson College, 1980, p. 430.
63 Lucien Young, The Real Hawaii Its History And Present Condition Including The True Story Of The Revolution, 1898, p. 176.
64 Young, The Real Hawaii, 174, 175.
65 “The Hawaiian Revolution,” The San Francisco Chronicle, January 29, 1893, p. 1.
66 Eugene Tyler Chamberlain, John L. Stevens, William M. Springer, “The Hawaiian Situation,” The North American Review, 1893, Vol 157, No. 445, December 1893, p. 734.
67 “Statement Concerning The Number of Troops Landed and Returning to The Boston,” House Executive Document 47, Fifty-third Congress, second session, Foreign Relations of The United States, 1894 Appendix II, Affairs in Hawaii, U.S. State Department.
68 Report of U.S. Special Commissioner James H. Blount To U.S. Secretary of State W.Q. Gresham Concerning The Hawaiian Kingdom Investigation, U.S. State Department, July 17, 1893; Young, The Real Hawaii, 190.
69 Young, The Real Hawaii, 211.
70 “Mr. Stevens to Captain Wiltse,” Report of U.S. Commissioner James H. Blount, 404.
71 Lieutenant Colonel John E. Seward, A Kingdom Lost: The U.S. Annexation of Hawaii, US Army War College Strategic Research Project, 2001, US Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Penn., 5.
72 “Hawaii Stolen Property,” New York Times, February 13, 1894, p. 3.
73 “Memorial of Queen Lili'uokalani in relation to the Crown lands of Hawaii; 12/19/1898”, Petitions and Memorials Referred to the Committee on the Territories of the 55th Congress Regarding Hawaii; Petitions and Memorials, 1825 – 1946, Records of the U.S. House of Representatives, Record Group 233. National Archives And Records Administration.
74 The San Francisco Call and Post, August 13, 1893, p. 10.
75 Young, The Real Hawaii, 249.
76 “Memorandum,” Report of U.S. Special Commissioner James H. Blount, 1275.
77 “The Hawaiian Revolution,” The San Francisco Chronicle, January 29, 1893, p. 1.
78 “Reception to Capt. Wiltse,” The Los Angeles Times, March 9, 1893, p. 2.
79 “July 4th,” Honolulu Star Advertiser, July 5, 1893, p. 1.
80 “Blount Did Not Like It,” The San Francisco Examiner, July 16, 1893, p. 6.
81 The Tribune, July 22, 1893, p. 4.
82 The Interior Journal, July 27, 1893, (Stanford, Ky.), p. 1.
83 The Army and Navy Journal, (New York), December 2, 1863, p. 241.
84 Hawaii Holomua-Progress, September 26, 1893, p. 3.
85 “Refuses To Talk Of Hawaii,” The Chicago Tribune, November 16, 1893, p. 5.