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Hawaii’s Story

from her own private collection, which is said to be the largest and finest in the world.

The third one was given by ex-Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii, who dressed it and decorated it herself in the mother-hubbard-like gown characteristic of Hawaiian women, and the head wreath and neck garland of flowers to which they are so partial on gala occasions. The ex-queen named the doll Kaiulani, for her niece and heir.

Mrs. Lee talked about her friend Liliuokalani, whose name, she said, signifies the preservation of the heavens, and gave an interesting description of Hawaii’s history and the peculiar customs of the people.

She asserted that the native Hawaiians are more intelligent and better educated than they are generally credited with being; most of them being able to read and write their own language, and many of them being equally accomplished in English.

Their constancy and their trustful nature, she claimed, have been their misfortune. At one period, she said, Hawaii was governed by no laws save the Ten Commandments.

Mrs. Lee expressed the opinion that in view of the power wielded by the whites, and the little influence possessed by the natives at the time of the late revolution, it was no wonder the queen wished to promulgate a new constitution to restore to her people some of the rights of which they had been deprived.

She said further: ‘I tell you from the bottom of my heart, I have never found a more devout and perfect Christian under all circumstances than Liliuokalani. I have never yet heard her utter an unkind word against those who persecute her.

I am American by ancestry from the earliest days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and I love the American flag, and would be the last to see it hauled down if rightly raised; but (here Mrs. Lee spoke with visible emotion) if a Captain Kidd or any other pirate should raise the American flag simply as a decoy in order to destroy, we should be the first to resent it.

I do not oppose annexation as such, but it grieves me to see the way our countrymen have gone to work to bring it about.