From the Los Angeles Times, dated Nov 30, 1905, pg. II9”
Molokane May Leave - Local Colony of Russian “Quakers” Consider Proposition to Go to Hawaiian Islands.
Los Angeles soon may lose a portion of its foreign population – the Russian Molokane colony, which has given bright color to street scenes, and which has shown many quaint phases of foreign life.
The Molokane may go as a colony to the islands of Hawaii, to become sugar-cane raisers. The Hawaiian planters are said to want them to settle there, and the colonists feel that this is the long-waited opportunity for them to secure lands for themselves.
Representatives of the local colony sailed from San Francisco on the steamer Mongolia, for Honolulu, on its last trip. They have held conferences with Gov. Carter and Land Commissioner J. E. Castle, representing the sugar planters of the islands.
Reports from the commissioners are that if the details offered were satisfactory to the Los Angeles colony, they would take to the islands fully 200 families, and that there would be 600 persons in the colony who would become cane field laborers if given their homesteads.
The scheme is a part of a vigorous movement in the Hawaiian Islands to secure white laborers, who will be eligible to citizenship, instead of Asiatics.
The representatives of the Los Angeles colony visited Kauai, and expressed satisfaction with all the conditions except the method of acquiring lands. The law names a definite price, and requires three years’ residence before title to the lands can be given.
Commissioner Castle has offered to pay the fares of the entire Los Angeles colony to the islands, if they will go and settle on the sugar-cane lands, and the Makeen plantation, on Kauai Island, will contract for all the sugar cane the Russians raise.
The Molokane who have been “spying out the land” for their local brethren, started on the homeward journey yesterday, and will bring to this city a favorable report on the project of the removal of the whole colony to Hawaii. They say there are fully 25,000 of their countrymen still in Russia who would gladly go the islands to become permanent residents.