Talk:Blount Report

Recent edits

1) If we're going to quote someone who sees the Blount report as being a complete indictment and conviction of the U.S. in the lead, we should also mention the Morgan Report which followed it, simply for balance.

2) There is absolutely no citation at all regarding secrecy as a method of protecting those who feared the new government, and there is a citation for his refusal to take testimony from people who wished to submit statements. If you want to put that back in, we'll need a specific cite.

3) "Current relevance" is an opinion, and doesn't seem appropriate.

--JereKrischel 07:34, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

POV tag

Please explain specifically what sentences the POV tag was added for. Mahalo! --JereKrischel 01:01, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Recent Vandalism?

I made a significant NPOV copy edit of this article last night, including meticulous citations and references. It is most unfortunate that a particular editor, who seems to feel that he owns this and all the other Hawaii history-related articles, reverted my constructive additions outright. Apparently the facts therein are inconvenient to his POV. I trust it will not be repeated. Arjuna 22:33, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Mahalo, I've explained on other pages what I felt was inappropriate about your POV push - editorializing multiple volumes without citing specific pages or passages to make some sort of rhetorical point is not well cited, nor meticulous. Your help in adding more appropriate citations (page level, with quotes, and without POV editorializing), is appreciated. Mahalo! --JereKrischel 04:12, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

For the record: As I mentioned on another page, I first made a mistake in thinking that the field required the total page numbers of the books, not the specific cited pages. I quickly recognized the mistake and was in the midst of correcting them when I was rudely interrupted by your POV reversions of my careful edits. Now that the dispute has reached the white-hot stage, I agreed to a unilateral unconditional pledge to not revert, as a show of good faith (which was, let it be said, not reciprocated). So I have refrained from changing those citations back to the correct format until the 24 hours are up. Arjuna 19:23, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

If you could please address my concerns that your citations do not match nor support the editorializing text you added, I would greatly appreciate it. I believe together we can look at the sources, bring forth the information you feel is important, without mis-characterizing it. It may be helpful if we work in tandem, for example, I can present you a quote and citation from a given work, and you can help me characterize it appropriately. And vice versa. This way, we're both happy that the evidence and information we feel is important is presented, and we're both happy that the characterization of such evidence is not done in a POV manner. Does that sound workable to you? --JereKrischel 21:14, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Did you read what I wrote, or did you read it but have problems understanding it? Or is this another stonewalling tactic? I regret to say that I do not think that working "in tandem" will be productive strategy as I question your good faith, among other things. Rather, following the matrix and then having third parties assess the evidence based on citations is likely to be the only way forward. Arjuna 21:39, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I definitely read what you wrote, and definitely understood it. I still have hope that you will eventually decide to abide by WP:AGF, but accept that you are not quite emotionally ready for that. If we require a third party between us to assuage your current feelings, I'm more than happy to work that way for now, although I'm hopeful for the future. I do assume you are approaching this process with good faith, even if your recent edits have not shown that. --JereKrischel 23:27, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Make sure you get the last word in. Arjuna 00:30, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

??? --JereKrischel 05:20, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Blount v. Morgan

My assertion stands that Daws is critical of the political motivations of Morgan etc. etc., but I also acknowledge your previous point that the citation I provided from Daws can be read equally as a criticism of Blount. A passage from the article on Morgan Report probably sums it up best:

"Kuykendall described Blount's report as a “lawyer’s brief, making the best possible case for the queen and against Stevens.” The historian said the Morgan Report “presented an equally effective case for the Provisional Government and Stevens, and against the Queen.”"

Therefore, I think it is both legitimate and necessary, when referencing either report, to point out that neither is particularly balanced, and to mention their flaws. The objection I had was language (yours?) that asserts that the MR "refuted" the BR, or that "Stevens was exonerated" (might not have the words exact, but that is pretty close to the gist). Clearly this is inaccurate, just as it would be inaccurate to say that BR trumps the MR. Both are primary sources, and shouldn't be the source of defining judgement of the events of 1893. The other sources I will re-post make the case against MR even more clearly than Daws, but in reposting them I do not intend to assert that BR is definitive either. I hope you will understand that when I do. No single source -- primary or secondary -- is definitive. I think the defining measure of what is majority v. minority will still lie in the extent to which the positions in the matrix are supported. So when it comes to Daws, perhaps, it's a draw on this point at least. Arjuna 05:53, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Mahalo for your comments. I think you're correct that we must point out that both reports had flaws, but I do think it also important to note that MR did, in fact, represent the "last word" on the subject which generated the Turpie Resolution on 5/31/1894, preventing further interference (if one asserts we ever interfered materially at all). The flaws to point out in the MR are that Morgan tried to please everyone with his conclusions, and built pseudo-majorities instead of a clear-cut decisive opinion. A claimed flaw, but one I have a hard time believing, is that they didn't pay attention to the royalist POV - Blount was the royalist star witness, and all the research I've ever read indicates that Cleveland was in a perfect position to either insist or invite royalists to present their case, and the implication I find there is that they chose not to make any presentation. The royalists had strong allies in the United States, and to think that they could have been prevented from testifying if they had wished to is a stretch of the imagination for me. But perhaps you have concrete references to the royalists being snubbed by the committee...

Perhaps the best way to handle "refuted" and "exonerated" would be to quote Morgan directly, instead of characterizing him indirectly. The introduction to the Morgan Report (written by Morgan), probably has enough direct quotes to make it clear the assertions being made, without attributing them as NPOV statements of fact (although I believe it is important to note that Cleveland did in fact accept the MR, and stopped supporting the royalists - and Cleveland was not the kind of person who laid down for anything, if you've ever researched his record).

Of course the challenge I believe I have, is that the Blount Report has been quoted, quoted, and quoted again in support of the "it was an Act of War" crowd, and the Morgan Report, which as you seem to say, at least made the situation ambiguous, if not outright contentious, has and is given short shrift from 1970 on. It would be very easy to build an article very pro-Blount and very anti-Morgan if we were to pick publication dates carefully. But you are correct, the limitations and ramifications of both must be discussed and referenced.

Perhaps the fairest thing to say is what Kuykendall said - but can we keep it to just that? I look forward to your edits that could illustrate a way out. Mahalo! --JereKrischel 06:12, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Dubious

Hey Arjuna, I'm just having a hard time with the unsupported assertion that the Apology Resolution was based on Russ or Tate. I think we're venturing into WP:OR here, at the very least. Thoughts? --JereKrischel 22:00, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

The citations were there to reference the fact that historical analyses do support such conclusions, and I put them there because you challenged that notion. That there are such books, and that they can be "plainly" read in such a way that supports the conclusions of the AR is beyond obvious. Can they be read other ways? With a little deconstructive spin, sure! The point is, they didn't just pull the conclusions of the AR out of their you-know-what. But all the better if we just take those references out, so I did. Arjuna 03:02, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the text is unsupportable without references. AFAIK, they pulled the AR out of the pro-sovereignty literature, ignoring the vast majority of mainstream historical work - if you could quote Tate or Russ in support of any of the whereas clauses of the AR, great, but we need to get to quotes. What you find obvious and what I find obvious is a matter of opinion. When we have the actual citations, we can take our own biases out of the equation. --JereKrischel 09:06, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Morgan Report, Apology Law

A couple of comments -- I hope they don't offend anyone. First, I think the Morgan Report being the "last word" is really kind of post hoc. There's no proof of causation, and lots of (already pretty thoroughly documented) substantiation that other factors (including force, which the Turpie Res indicates) were major factors in the support dieback. On the other hand, I think a little wording shift may be needed on the last addition to the Apology Law section, because to be fair, it's used extensively by both sides of the Akaka Bill debate. Mahalo you guys. Aloha, --Laualoha 04:34, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Mahalo, L, and my apologies to JK if my earlier tone was a bit snarlish -- I've had a bad day! Cheers, Arjuna 05:14, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Np, Arjuna, thanks for the head's up. Laualoha - Insofar as the Morgan Report being the "last word", it was. Causation is not my assertion, but the assertions of Kuykendall, Russ, Andrade, et. al. If you want to cite someone saying it wasn't the cause of Cleveland's lack of support, I encourage you to find a reliable source and cite it. We simply cannot build the article on our own interpretations - that is the very definition of WP:OR. --JereKrischel 09:08, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

"Last Word"?

Looks like this has cooled down for a few years. But working on related articles I ran across some Senate congressional hearings on Google books: "Hawaiian Islands". Compilation of reports of Committees: 1789-1901. Vol. 6. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. February 26, 1894. I think this is this the Morgan report? Senate report 227 of Fifty-third Congress, Second Session. W Nowicki (talk) 23:07, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Blount Report/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Needs NPOV-check, cleanup, and images for context. —Viriditas | Talk 00:17, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Last edited at 00:17, 4 December 2006 (UTC). Substituted at 09:50, 29 April 2016 (UTC)