ission. The people seemed to have the impression that American
occupancy of the islands was only temporary, and that as soon as
the Spanish-American War was over they would return to old conditions.
We told them that annexation was permanent, and they would remain
a part of the United States for all time to come. I did not favor
giving them statehood. There was not a sufficient number of whites
and educated natives to justify giving them the franchise as an
independent State in the American Union. Senator Morgan and I
differed on this a great deal, and on several occasions in the
hearings of the commission, he stated that they were to become a
State. I always interposed to the effect that, so far as my
influence was concerned, they would remain a Territory.

There was one island of the group called Molokai devoted entirely
to the care of lepers, leprosy being quite common in the Hawaiian
Islands. We deemed it our duty to visit this island as well as
the others. It was one of the most interesting and pathetic places
of which the human mind can conceive--a place of grim tragedies.
There were about twelve hundred lepers on the island, divided into
two colonies, one at each end of the island. The island itself
forms a natural fortress from which escape is almost impossible,
the sea on one side and mountains on the other. We spent the day
there and ate luncheon on the island. We saw the disease in all
its stages. We entered a schoolhouse in which there were a crowd
of young girls ranging from ten to sixteen years of age. They were
all lepers. They sang for us. It was very pathetic. We visited
the cemetery and saw the monument erected to the memory of a Catholic
priest, Father Damien, who went there from Chicago, to devote his
life to the spiritual care of the unfortunates, but who, like all
others residing on the island, finally succumbed to the disease.
We met an old lady at the cemetery and I asked her if there was
any danger of contracting the disease. She said there was not
unless we had some abrasions on the skin, and advised us as a matter
of caution to wear gloves. I promptly put mine on and kept them
on until I left the island.

I was told that they expected me to speak to them, and I did make
them a speech. A large number of them assembled. I have addressed
many audiences in my life, but this was the queerest I was ever
obliged to face. There were men and women in all stages of the
disease. L