Talk:Sanford B. Dole

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Contents 1 NPOV dispute in progress / Request for comment 2 Hawaiian Revolution 3 New Articles 4 (Argument in NPOV dispute)

[edit] NPOV dispute in progress / Request for comment

Involving anon user(s) 172.144.176.39 (who may or may not be the same as 4.225.239.254), and IslandGyrl regarding the following paragraph:

version preferred by anon user (current version):

The history of this event is disputed at this point. Many allege the group conspired with U.S. ambassador John L. Stevens to land the United States Marine Corps, forcibly remove Queen Liliʻuokalani from power, and declare a Provisional Government of Hawaiʻi consisting of members from the Committee of Safety. This version is supported by the Blount Report.Others allege that the insurgency was locally based and that American troops only served to protect American property and citizens and had no role in the end of the Hawaiian Monarchy. This version is supported by the Morgan Report. Regardless, the monarchy ended in January 1893.

version prior to edits by anon user, preferred by IslandGyrl:

In late 1892, Dole was approached by several American businessmen and former ministers of the Privy Council with a proposal for the end of the monarchy. Dole, who had been a trusted advisor and friend of the reigning queen, was reluctant to take part but did so anyway. The group conspired with U.S. ambassador John L. Stevens to land the United States Marine Corps, forcibly remove Queen Liliʻuokalani from power, and declare a Provisional Government of Hawaiʻi consisting of members from the Committee of Safety. The group succeeded in seizing power by these means in January 1893.

IslandGyrl argues that the above passage had been in a form acceptable to many editors of diverse opinions and that up till now the consensus of serious historical commentators has been dismissive of the Morgan report; hence a passage giving it credence equal to that of the Blount report is POV and a distortion. Furthermore, though some dissent, the conspiracy is widely regarded as established fact, much more so than the words "many allege" would suggest; after all, the U.S. government itself used the word "conspirators" and essentially pleaded guilty as charged in the 1993 Apology Resolution.

Arguments by user 172.144.176.39 may be found below.

Added note by Anon user, the Apology Resolution cited by IslandGyrl as admission by the US government to the overthrow of the Hawaiian Monarchy is being questioned.

Slade Gorton and Hank Brown, American Senators who voted against this resolution, have described it as being a piece of historical revisionism. They wrote, "The Apology Resolution distorted historical truths. It falsely claimed that the U.S. participated in the wrongful overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani in 1893. The U.S. remained strictly neutral. It provided neither arms, nor economic assistance, nor diplomatic support to a band of Hawaiian insurgents, who prevailed without firing a single shot, largely because neither the Native Hawaiian numerical majority nor the queen's own government resisted the end of the Hawaiian Kingdom." The full article can be found be found here:

xxxx://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007117

A rebuttal of the points claimed in this law can be found here:

xxxx://www.angelfire.com/hi5/bigfiles3/AkakaHawaiiDividedFeinJune2005.pdf

Three different IP addresses have been used to insert this identical Gorton/Brown item into three different pages. See Talk:Apology Resolution#Partisan edits and links. Please avoid "viral marketing" of political material through Wikipedia in this way. It verges on spamming. --IslandGyrl 08:00, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

As noted, this is still being very much disputed. As such, to maintain neutrality the changes made by the anon user should be left as is. 172.158.67.230 00:27, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Participants are strongly encouraged to register a user-name and sign in. Otherwise, with floating IP addresses such as those generated by AOL, one cannot be certain whether the poster is a different individual from parties already involved in the discussion.

IslandGyrl replies: Yes, the case made for the Apology Resolution is disputed, but the resolution did pass the Senate with a 65–34 majority and a two-thirds voice vote in the House. It was backed by the preponderance of historical commentators and, unless and until it is repudiated, it represents the official position and policy of the U.S. government. If Senators Gorton and Brown and their supporters are confident of their own position they are, of course, free to seek passage of another resolution repudiating it.

Bottom line: If Anon user's version is kept, it should be expanded to make clear that the weight of opinion plus the U.S. government's official position lies with the Blount report version of events, and that the Morgan report version of events is the position of a minority. This is in line with Wikipedia fairness guidelines. Concealing the majority/minority status of the various positions in a dispute is a variety of POV bias. --22:04, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

"Yes, the case made for the Apology Resolution is disputed, but the resolution did pass the Senate with a 65-34 majority and a two-thirds voice vote in the House."

The US Senate is one of the worst places to get historically accurate facts. It is all politics. Do you believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction as the Senate claimed when authorizing the Iraq War in 2003? There is reason to be dubious of the validity of the Apology Resoultion as it was passed in a partisan manner for political reasons.

Simple fact is this, Wikipedia requires NPOV editing. This article now reflects this by presenting two sides to an ongoing and active historical dispute. Removal of the paragraph in question will result in a one-sided article which will not accurately reflect this topic. 141.209.34.54 12:03, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Upon reflection, I suspect the real problem is the way the existing article tries to gloss over the fact that there are two drastically different perceptions of Mr Dole. My objection to Anon user's edit can then be reformulated thusly: it is POV to zero in on a warts-and-all view of only one aspect unfavourable to Mr Dole (the Cleveland administration's report) without having the rest of the article take an equally warts-and-all view reflecting disputes about the figure of Mr Dole himself and the ideas he advocated (e.g. notions of racial inferiority of native Hawaiians and their unfitness to govern themselves). My proposal then would be to incorporate the Blount report / Morgan report paragraph into a general expansion of the article to show that different groups of people view Mr Dole in completely different ways. In addition, quotations from Mr Dole's own writings would be cited illustrating his views and motivations. --IslandGyrl 08:00, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

It is worth expanding this. I don't want to stay at tit-for-tat on this with you. I have four degrees and work at a university. Edit wars at Wikipedia are not my favorite activities. I much would rather being doing anonymous peer review on manuscripts to articles submitted to the history journal I am a peer reviewer for. The edits are accepted or the paper is rejected.  :]

I trust you are sincere (but a bit historically confused due to one-sided portrayls of Hawaiian history you have heard all of your life) and I am not trying to antagonize you.

I want to keep the part on how the events of the overthrow are portrayed. Only in Hawaii is a local revolt were no guns are fired, no battles are fought, no one is killed, and then the government that supposedly engineered the revolt issues a report rejecting the entire endeavor called an invasion! This unique "invasion" is a product of the local indegenious population seeing history through a certain frame that has been expanded by historians and politicians unwillgness to look "politically incorrect" when dealing with 1893. (This is also why some people who should know better still argue that Cleopatra was black even though history clearly records she was of Macedonian descent.)

How can we phrase this article to show that many educated reasonable people reject the view that the US was involved? Throw out some samples here we can play with.

Also, there is nothing wrong with noting that Dole had racial views that would not be accepted today. However, be careful not to overdue this. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves but he still was an advocate for freedom. Margaret Sanger believed in eugentics and believed abortion and birth control would be helpful in keeping the black population under control but she still was a great advocate for women's rights. It is easy to pick and choose words the dead have spoken to make them look bad by judging them by standards we have today. Go ahead and try some language but let's keep the general tone of the article positive.

I will be out and about for a few days. I am not sure if I will have easy internet access. If I do, you will soon be seeing another new anonymous IP address here.  :]

I'll check in when I can and see what you have proposed. 172.168.70.246 01:23, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hawaiian Revolution

I have trouble seeing how labelling the overthrow of the monarchy as a revolution is POV. At the start of 1893, the Kingdom of Hawaii was in place. At the end of 1893, the Republic of Hawaii was in place. Changes in governments like this are called revolutions when they don't occur due to votes...

How is this pro-annexation POV? It is simply stating the facts.

American marines landed in Hawaii but did not fire any shots. Local insurgents (almost all of who were Hawaiian citizens like Sanford Dole), were responsible for the change of government. Many of the Queen's cabinet urged her to abdicate and she did. This is not historical revisionism but a fact. Wikipedia is supposed to be non-POV. Before I post a note about the neutrality of this article being disputed, I would appreciate a response from IslandGyrl.

In the spirit of cooperation, I have altered the disputed subheading to "Overthrow of the Monarchy and Establishment of the Hawaiian Republic" from Overthrow even though "Hawaiian Revolution" is more accurate. I realize due to potilitical biases, no mutually satisfactory resolution can happen but hopefully the compromise heading can be accepted. 172.141.69.142 03:04, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Mahalo! Thanks for the courtesy of dropping me a note about this change, inviting discussion. First the typographical nitpicks. I think the new heading suffers from a couple of style problems:

• length (too long)
• capitalization (I would always capitalize headings as sparingly as possible, unless the heading is the title of a book, movie etc. Treat it as a phrase lifted out of the normal run of text, the only change being the first letter is capitalized. After all, it's "See also", External links", "Further references"—not "See Also", "External Links", "Further References". Of course, many people have already done it differently all over the place, so I'm not starting a heading-editing "revolution" over this :-)

Now to the main issue. From a pure Wikipedia standpoint, what makes "Hawaiian revolution" POV is simply the existence of a significant group of people with a different POV who reject the term—based on their reading of what is fact and what is revisionism. In earlier times and/or among academics, the overthrow may have met the criteria for being labelled a "revolution" in a narrow technical sense. However, people against the term nowadays might object that:

• goals typical of revolutions such as wider distribution of power and wealth among broader segments of society were not the goal here—annexation was;
• a "Republic" was only proclaimed as a kind of stopgap or fig-leaf after the Provisional Government's initial annexation drive fizzled;
• indeed, since the Queen was about to break with the more oligarchical Bayonet Constitution and restore wider suffrage such as had prevailed under the 1864 constitution, it was actually she who sought wider distribution of power and wealth.

Equating the overthrow with a "revolution" is thus taken by some as the deliberate use of a meme or gestalt favouring the anti-Hawaiian side of the argument, selectively directing attention toward certain aspects and obscuring others. It carries connotations that may encourage (and, its critics would maintain, are intended to encourage) casual readers with limited knowledge of Hawaiian history to infer things that are untrue, or at least highly debatable. E.g.: "revolutions" overthrow "despots"; the Hawaiian "revolution" overthrew Queen Liliʻuokalani; therefore Queen Liliʻuokalani must have been a "despot".

Since, say, 1974—when it seems Gavan Daws could still use the phrase "Hawaiian revolution" casually and relatively "innocuously" in his book Shoal of Time—there has of course been a sea change in awareness and approach to all things Hawaiian (the "Hawaiian Renaissance"). One consequence: a flowering, after a long period of dormancy, of Hawaiian nationalist sentiment—matched by the rise of a counter-movement having the full resources of the U.S. political establishment at its disposal. This asymmetrical conflict has now reached Wikipedia, and means that editing of certain Hawaiʻi-related topics increasingly takes place in an emotionally charged context of political polarization. To maintain NPOV, greater-than-usual care and empathy will be called for.

--IslandGyrl 18:45, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

P.S. Just to clarify one specific fact for everyone: the Republic was not "in place" at the end of 1893—the Provisional Government lasted until July 4, 1894. --IslandGyrl 11:23, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough in your response. I disagree with your interpretation of Hawaiian history but I understand your POV on how Hawaiian Revolution can be seen as NPOV.

However, overthrow is a NPOV term to many of us who disagree (with good reasons) with this view of history. Overthrow is an accuate term (the monarchy was thrown out) but it is emotionally charged now as Hawaiian Independence people throw it around in a way that distorts history. There was no American invasion (no fighting, no deaths, the insurgency was locally based, etc.) and to see the facts continually mistated on the web, by Hawaiian soveriegnty activists, the Blount Report, and by Congress in 1993 is annoying in the extreme.

As such, I am changing ovethrow to end. It is less politically charged. If you have disputes with this, post here. I don't check every day but I will monitor this page (and others).

"Just to clarify one specific fact for everyone: the Republic was not "in place" at the end of 1893—the Provisional Government lasted until July 4, 1894."

Thanks for the correction. You are right. 172.170.10.65 04:20, 28 August 2005 (UTC==)

"End" is fine with me. In fact I considered that wording myself. Another reason to avoid the term "the Hawaiian Revolution" that has nothing to do with sympathies either way: writers have variously applied the word "revolution" to the events of 1887, 1893, 1895 (Wilcox) and other incidents, so it's confusing and/or POV (as saying the XYZ implies either there are no other instances of XYZ or that they somehow don't count).

Vehement disagreements about "the facts" are to be expected where competing nationalisms are involved (Irish and English tend not to agree on the facts of the Potato Famine). The Wikipedia guideline to bear in mind is (directly quoting Wikipedia policy):

The vast majority of neutrality disputes are due to a simple confusion: one party believes "X" to be a fact, and…that if a claim is factual, it is therefore neutral. The other party either denies that "X" is a fact, or that everyone would agree that it is a fact. In such a dispute, the first party needs to re-read the Neutral Point of View policy. Even if something is a fact, or allegedly a fact, that does not mean that the bold statement of that fact is neutral.

    Neutrality here at Wikipedia is all about presenting competing versions of what the facts are. It doesn't matter at all how convinced we are that our facts are the facts. If a significant number of other interested parties really do disagree with us, no matter how wrong we think they are, the neutrality policy dictates that the discussion be recast as a fair presentation of the dispute between the parties.

--IslandGyrl 12:24, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

IslandGyrl, didn't you use this same argument on the sovereignty page to make the criticisms of the sovereignty movement less blunt and tactless because we wanted to be more sympathetic to the sovereignty movement? Wouldn't we also want to be more sympathetic to Dole when on Dole's page? I agreed with your reasoning then that we should treat the subject matter of a given article with some due deference (i.e., if we bring up a "fact" that is damaging to the subject, we should also make clear any counterargument concerning that "fact")...can we apply the same principle here? --JereKrischel 05:41, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New Articles

As I edited this article, I realize that Wikipedia needs new articles on the Blount Report and the Morgan Report. I'll add these soon if no one else does. (And edit them extensively if they are biased if someone else does.) I am hindered by the fact that the pro-Hawaiian Sovereignty Blount report is reproduced on dozens of sites on the Web while no one has bothered to put the very different Morgan Report online. I know how to scan and can get that latter report up online soon... 4.225.239.254 03:05, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

4.225.239.254 reverted without comment some copyedits I made in discussion with another editor. I reverted them back, as the anon editor gave no reason for reverting them; in any case, the link from "Kingdom of Hawai‘i Supreme Court" to the article about the present-day (State of) Hawai‘i Supreme Court is clearly wrong and should not have been reinstated.

There is nothing wrong with mentioning the Morgan report, but it is obscure and harder to find on the Web for a reason: perhaps few people take it seriously as being anything other than a smokescreen or whitewash? Implying that it has the same credibility and historical significance as the Blount report is therefore a distortion. Certainly for many folks in Hawai‘i, contending there was no U.S. involvement in the end of the monarchy and Hawaiian independence has about as much plausibility as giving equal time in Wikipedia to Holocaust denial.

--IslandGyrl 00:55, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

The Morgan Report is now not obscure, and easy to find on the web: http://morganreport.org. And the reason is that people do take it seriously, and it's not a whitewash :). I assert it has the same credibility, and even more historical significance than the Blount Report, as it was able to cause President Cleveland to completely reverse his 12/18/1893 opinion, rebuff entreaties by the queen to interfere with the Provisional government, and acknowledge the PG and Republic of Hawaii as legitimate successors of the Kingdom. It is not in the same category as holocaust denial.

--JereKrischel 22:17, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Apparently the Morgan Report is being put on the web with the help of JereKrischel. This appears to be in violation of the Wikipedia stance against original research, as well as the journalistic rule against making your own news. Huangdi 10:06, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

The Morgan Report is source material being referenced - the fact that I've helped digitize it doesn't make it original research. --JereKrischel 17:20, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] (Argument in NPOV dispute)

"There is nothing wrong with mentioning the Morgan report, but it is obscure and harder to find on the Web for a reason: perhaps few people take it seriously as being anything other than a smokescreen or whitewash?"

No, it is not online because it is "politically incorrect" and does not represent the "correct" version of history being portrayed the sovereignty movement. But Wikipedia is not a soap box (although it is sometimes...)

"Certainly for many folks in Hawai‘i, contending there was no U.S. involvement in the end of the monarchy and Hawaiian independence has about as much plausibility as giving equal time in Wikipedia to Holocaust denial."

There is a similarity here. False claims that there was a US invasion (no one died, there were no battles, locals planned and then took charge, etc.) is historical revisionism akin to holocaust deniers. And like holocause deniers, it is impossible to reason with the Hawaiian Soveriegnty people sometimes. And there probably was American involvement. It does not change the legality of the revolt. The French aided the Americans in the American Revolution. The Soviets aided the Cubans in the Cuban Revolution. Foriegn involvement in revolutions is normal and does not alter the validity of the revolutions.

Readding and please don't revert without discussion.

"Dole was successful as a diplomat as every nation that recognized the Kingdom of Hawaii also recognized the Republic of Hawaii."

This is factually true. Why try to delete it?

"The history of this event is disputed at this point. Many claim the group conspired with U.S. ambassador John L. Stevens to land the United States Marine Corps, forcibly remove Queen Liliʻuokalani from power, and declare a Provisional Government of Hawaiʻi consisting of members from the Committee of Safety. This version is supported by the Blount Report.Others claim that the insurgency was locally based and that American troops only served to protect American property and citizens and had no role in the end of the Hawaiian Monarchy. This version is supported by the Morgan Report. Regardless, the monarchy ended in January 1893."

This is factually true as well. Why delete one reference source from the federal government yet keep another. Do we only add references to the ones we agree with? I favor adding links to both to allow the reader to investigate the issue.

"The group conspired with U.S. ambassador John L. Stevens to land the United States Marine Corps, forcibly remove Queen Liliʻuokalani from power, and declare a Provisional Government of Hawaiʻi consisting of members from the Committee of Safety. The group succeeded in seizing power by these means in January 1893."

I am keeping this but adding alleged. This is not proven as fact. And the marines fired no shots, killed no one, etc so to claim they "forcibly" removeed the Queen is factually incorrect. But in the spirit of compromise...

Best regards. I have the feeling my response here is pointless and you only want to add your one-sided view. But I am willing to try some dialogue. 172.144.176.39 03:44, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

The difficulty here is that you seem to allow no room for difference of opinion, and hence no room for genuine dialogue. According to you, your version is the only one based on fact. Sovereignty activists are all "misstating" things. Somehow they have managed to "rig" the Web in their favour so that only "politically correct" versions get through. That seems highly unlikely, considering that the pro-U.S. side (which would certainly include the military, the secret services, etc.) possesses staggering advantages in numbers, money, and access to media professionals. My position is simply that in an encyclopedia, the phenomenon of Hawaiian nationalism is every bit as worthy of fair treatment as the nationalism of any other people. If English Wikipedia editors can come up with articles of exemplary fairness regarding the political status of Taiwan, Tibet, Kashmir, etc. then it would be extremely disappointing and disturbing to see Hawaiian nationalism not be able to get a fair presentation due to a "blind spot" afflicting the sensitivities of U.S.-based editors. --IslandGyrl 22:27, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

IslandGyrl, as mentioned above, wouldn't we want an article on Dole to be more sympathetic to his POV? Wouldn't points of hawaiian nationalism (kanaka only or otherwise) be better treated on their own pages, such as the queen's or wilcox's? It seems a bit unfair to color Dole in the most unflattering light on his own bio page...don't you agree? --JereKrischel 05:44, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

i dont get it?? --70.95.54.81

What don't you get? --JereKrischel 09:49, 15 December 2005 (UTC)