Hawaii - James Michener [379]
"This is pretty much a sugar revolution, isn't it, Whipple?" Micah asked.
"From my point of view, yes, sir. From yours, no, sir."
"How can there be two interpretations of an evil act, Whipple?"
"If there weren't two interpretations of our necessary act, Uncle Micah, I wouldn't be here pleading with you. I want a revolution so that sugar will be forever made safe in these islands. You want it so that the islands can join the United States in accordance with a destiny that you foresaw fifty years ago. Uncle Micah, you've always been right, and you are tonight. Hawaii is doomed unless it contrives some trick to make America accept these islands. And I control that trick. Sir, the only way your dream will ever be realized is through me."
"Not so, Whipple. The day will come when Washington will see the inevitability of annexation."
"Never! Only actions make things inevitable."
"Justice and dawning conscience produce inevitability. Slowly, Washington will see what the right step is. And we must rely upon Washington to take it."
"No! If you live to be a hundred, you'll die talking about the slow inevitability of justice. There's going to be a revolution, my revolution, and you're going to lead it so that your dream of justice can come true."
Micah Hale rose slowly and stared down at his vigorous young nephew. "I am appalled, Whipple, that you so misjudge me as to think that I would be partner to such an evil action. I will not divulge your plans, although I should. But now you had better go." To his surprise, his scar-faced nephew did not rise. Insolently he kept his position, raised one foot to kick his uncle's chair into place, and said, "Now we understand each other. Sit down, Uncle Micah, and let's talk about revolution. Let's forget everything we've said so far. And you might as well forget about threatening to divulge our plans to the government. Charley Wilson knows about them and wanted to arrest us all but the cabinet didn't have the guts to back him up. So let's see what you and I can do for one another. You despise my position and I think yours is pathetic. Okay, let's not revert to that again. Uncle Micah, there's going to be a revolution in two days. You can't possibly stop it. We've got the American Minister waiting on the edge of his chair to recognize our de facto government. We've got American troops out there in the harbor just itching to swarm ashore and protect decent Americans against Hawaiian savages. We've got our targets pinpointed and our schedules laid. Even if you were to inform the queen herself, you'd only move up the timetable by the hours you stole from us." He leaned forward and looked hard into his uncle's eyes. "It's a revolution, Uncle Micah."
Micah Hale was not the kind of man to find his lips going dry at moments of crisis. He had weathered too many abortive revolutions when only his courage had saved the government from irresponsible outrage, and he did not sense any unusual quickening of his pulse now. With eyes as hard as his nephew's, but from a different cause, he said, "You've thought of everything."
"Let's accept the revolution as accomplished," the young sugar planter proposed. "I'm not the man who ought to stand before the bar of world opinion and explain why it was necessary. My record wouldn't read very well in London or Berlin. So let's say my part of the revolution has been successful, and that all it represents is my personal greediness . . . sugar . . . land. What happens then? America won't accept us. Maybe Japan would."
The idea that Wild Whip was developing had