Strom Thurmond (1959): Against Hawaii Statehood https://delong.typepad.com/files/thurmond-hawaii.pdf: 'There are also those in this world who are the devisees of a totally different heritage and with whom we have no identity in either antiqulty or modern times.... Our society may well be said to be... the exemplification of the maximum development of the Western civilization.... At the opposite extreme exists the Eastern heritage, different in every essential, not necessarily in a way that it is inferior, but different.... The chasm of difference between the two... is in heritage, the force that shapes the man to form unchangeable, except, if at all, by the infinite passage of time.... Oriental and Hawaiian groups constitute in excess of 70% of Hawaii's population. This large segment of the population has a heritage... in a word, Eastern.... There is serious doubt in my mind as to whether the Hawaiian people would not be seriously handicapped, possibly even precluded, in defending themselves from such as the communist-dominated Longshoremans Union by the imposition upon them of Western institutions of government, since their heritage has not equipped them to comprehend the philosophy essential to the effective operation of these institutions.... There is even greater doubt in my mind that the Hawaiian people could contribute to the degree of harmony remaining in the conduct of affairs of our Federated Republic.... An abandonment of the United States of America in favor of a United States of America and Pacific—precedenting a United States of the World—would actually benefit no one but toll the death-knell of our Federated Republic...
#noted #2019-12-17
