Gilded Footnotes: November 8, 1897: MERCANTILE MEN OPPOSE ANNEXATION

This is the inaugural post of a new series which will look at news articles published in San Francisco from the 1890s.

From the San Francisco Call, November 8, 1897: [1]

MERCANTILE MEN OPPOSE ANNEXATION, reads the headline.

See No Benefits That Would Accrue to This Country — Protest Against the Opening of Our Gates to Hawaiian Competition — Sugar Industry would Be Imperiled — Nothing to Be Gained by Acquiring Islands So Far From This Continent.

According to “The Call’s correspondent,” few merchants “had given any deep thought to the matter, but those who had, with few exceptions, declared emphatically that they saw few if any advantages….” The Call proclaims that those favorable to annexation were “invariably based on a false pride of country, mistaken for patriotism.” If the present issues were to be solved, the article purports, let the powers of the Monroe Doctrine be employed.