John L. Stevens
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John L. Stevens, formally John Leavitt Stevens (August 1, 1820–February 8, 1895), was the United States Department of State Minister to the Kingdom of Hawai'i when he was accused of conspiring to overthrow Queen Lili'uokalani in association with the Committee of Safety, led by Lorrin A. Thurston and Sanford B. Dole. Although the initial Blount Report of July 17, 1893 found him culpable, further investigation by the bi-partisan Morgan Committee, commissioned at the request of President Cleveland, exonerated both Stevens and the U.S. peacekeepers who had landed during the Hawaiian Revolution. The Senate, on February 26, 1894 presented the results of the investigation in the Morgan Report, which led to Cleveland's complete reversal on the matter.
Stevens was born in the town of Mount Vernon in Kennebec County, Maine. He lived in Augusta in the same county. He began as a newspaper editor before becoming Maine's delegate to the Republican National Convention of 1860. He joined the United States Department of State and was appointed foreign Minister to Paraguay, Uruguay and Sweden. His most infamous assignment was as Minister to the Hawaiian Islands where, as a devout imperialist, he was accused of conspiring to overthrow the monarchy in favor of American annexation. He ordered U.S. peacekeepers to land to protect American lives and property. President of the United States Grover Cleveland forced Stevens into retirement in 1893 as a result of the Blount Report on July 7, 1893 which found him culpable in the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy. Further investigation by the Senate commissioned by President Cleveland exonerated both Stevens and the U.S. peacekeepers from any role in the Hawaiian Revolution on February 26, 1894 with the Morgan Report. He died two years later.
Stevens is known for the sentence he penned in a letter to the State Department dated February 1, 1893, triumphantly declaring, "The Hawaiian pear is now fully ripe and this is the golden hour for the United States to pluck it."
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