I too would vote to banish Coulter to some place out of sight,
preferably without access to any of the media that de facto promotes
her.  Without the media's attention, she would shrivel up to the
small-time thinker she is.

But I am really writing to provide info about Harris, mentioned in one
of the posts, from research I am working on....


The Harris referred to in the 1873 newspaper reprint of a Mark Twain
diatribe is Charles Harris, who was the Minister of Finance for the
Kingdom of Hawaii when Clemens visited the islands in 1866.

The 13th letter written on the islands for the Sacramento Union in 1866
has a big chunk of it devoted to the original Mark Twain raillery
against Harris.

The reprint may have been from a New York City newspaper.

In January of 1873 Clemens wrote two letters to the NY Tribune about
Hawaii and the possibility of the U.S. annexing it, topics being
discussed because Congress was debating a renewal of the reciprocity
trade treaty with Hawaii that favored its sugar industry.  I do not have
the texts of those letters with me, so I can't be sure that the attack
on Harris in the reprint is not from one of the Tribune letters.

The antipathy for Harris that Clemens conveys both in 1866 and 1873
reflects the view of the American missionary party in Hawaii and has its
roots in the political struggle over the revision of the Hawaiian
constitution in 1864.

When Harris was named to the cabinet of Kamehameha V, the Americans
thought they had an ally.  When Harris supported the king's proposal to
change the constitution in a way that strengthened monarchical power,
the Americans felt betrayed.  The essential charge against Harris, then,
was that he had sold out his Americanness to Hawaiian loyalty.  That
charge is why Mark Twain in 1866 accuses Harris of being
"hoopilimea'ai," which he translates as "obsequious."

Jim Caron
Univ of Hawaii at Manoa

P.S. An 1866 notebook entry on Harris tops either diatribe with an
unprintable adjective....