Sen. Morgan's record reflected his desire to make Hawai'i a U.S. territory. Calling for an expanded U.S. presence in Hawai'i, it was Morgan who authored the amendment giving the U.S. rights to Pearl Harbor. He was also a well-known supporter of those who overthrew the kingdom, defending them in the press and calling for annexation immediately after the overthrow.

All of this occurred before he wrote the bill giving himself and his committee the power to investigate the overthrow.

The allegation that Japan was engaged in a "peaceful invasion" appears to have developed in conversations between Francis Hatch and U.S. Senator John Tyler Morgan in Washington in 1896. It took on size as a result of a premeditated provocation of Japan in Honolulu. It then was recirculated in Washington and, finally, accepted as conventional wisdom at the highest levels of the United States government. In its simplest outline, it was an allegation that Japan was trying to take over the Hawaiian Islands.

It is perhaps the major reason Francis Hatch deserves to be remembered in history. While overshadowed by Dole, Thurston, and Smith, he was a man of impeccable annexationist credentials. [...] Francis Hatch at one time was president of the Annexation Club. In the Provisional Government, he originally was vice-president in the line of succession behind Dole, as well as minister of foreign affairs.

For Hatch, the international politics of Japanese labor took on a new level of urgency when he gained access to the intoxicating environment of Washington. He naturally made his way to the door of U.S. Senator John Morgan, Democrat of Alabama, who Thurston would describe as the senator from Hawai'i. Morgan had authored the report attacking Cleveland's plan to restore Queen Liliu'okalani to power.
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In his meeting with Francis Hatch, Morgan—as reported by Hatch to the Dole government in Honolulu—said there was "good reason to suppose that Japan has designs upon the country." Morgan quoted a newspaper reporter, Kate Field, as saying there were too many Japanese in the Islands. He wanted to know why Japanese were still being brought in. Further, Morgan told Hatch that a continued immigration of Asians would damage Hawai'i's chances for annexation. He proposed that the Republic enact laws "looking to the removal" of the entire Asian population. ... He urged that the labor agreement with Japan be terminated and that the Friendship Treaty of 1871—both inherited from the monarchy—be modified.

"I went over the whole ground with him [Morgan]," Hatch wrote. "I pointed out to him that that would be a dangerous course in the absence of better support in Washington."

Why was there "good reason to suppose that Japan has designs" on Hawai'i? There was no explanation, but Hatch had developed a new and grander view of the world. "No person," Hatch wrote, "can say such a danger does not exist."

He ran on, contending along with Morgan that "the Japs are seeking some excuse to make a quarrel."

While a few historians have written about the tensions with Japan, they appear to have overlooked Hatch's account of his meeting with Senator Morgan, which clearly describes the impetus behind the Republic of Hawaii provoking Japan. The Japanese often have been described in wary terms for putting pressure on little Hawai'i, but the inner truth appears to be that little Hawai'i intentionally provoked Japan as a tactic to advance the cause of annexation.

Unmistakenly, Dole had signed onto the plan that Senator John Morgan had instigated, and Francis Hatch had refined, ten months earlier in Washington. Challenge Japan on immigration, then run with the results to the United States. Get the United States to shield the little Republic from serious fallout, and then get America to untangle the ensuing diplomatic problems at a later date.

Following Francis Hatch's meeting with Senator Morgan in early 1896, the creation of a Japanese scare played an increasingly central role in the strategy of the oligarchy. The oligarchy created incidents of provocation, and then labored over its stories of those incidents. It honed certain phrases and themes down to shorthand codes. With a nudge or a nod, the "Japan question" become something everyone thought they should know about, and their hard work was picked up readily and put to use by the American expansionists in Washington. The more single-mindedly jingoistic an American was, the more likely that person was to uncritically believe the anti-Japanese line and attempt to sell it to others.

In the regular session of the U.S. Congress of 1897, the anticipated vote on annexation had given way to yet another debate over the status of Hawaiian sugar. The American sugar growers had given the oligarchy a fright, but reciprocity had survived and, along with it, the base from which annexationists in both America and Hawai'i could resume their pursuit. During the break between the first congressional session and the second, which was held in late 1897, Senator John Morgan of Alabama arrived in Honolulu with his wife and four U.S. House members to promote annexation. It is tempting to ask whether this was not the first congressional junket to Hawai'i, particularly since Morgan stayed more than a month. But to say this was merely a junket would not do justice to the seriousness of Morgan's purpose and the unique light it shed on American attitudes, and also the attitude of the Hawaiians.

After Cleveland had declared America's role to be an act of war on a small and defenseless nation, and after the U.S. House had censured Minister John L. Stevens, John Morgan had gotten the pro-expansionist forces back on their feet by chairing a series of hearings designed to justify America's actions in Hawai'i. They resulted in a report named for Morgan. On the dark plain of unexamined propaganda, the Morgan Report tended to neutralize the Blount Report. Thereafter John Morgan had fed Francis Hatch the plan to create an anti-Japanese record for the Republic. Hatch in turn had egged Cooper into his role of point man for such a plan, which led to the Republic turning back the four ships of Japanese immigrants.

Two weeks after his arrival in Honolulu, on September 30, 1897, Morgan met in Honolulu with Henry Cooper, now foreign minister, and Ambassador Francis M. Hatch, who had returned to Honolulu for the congressional break. The meeting was about Hawai'i's relationship with Japan. [...]

Cooper gave a long recitation on refusing entry to the Japanese immigrants with either himself, Hatch, or Morgan acknowledging—at least in fifteen pages of notes—that the impetus for such an act had come from Morgan himself by way of Francis Hatch.

It was a calm, mostly factual conversation that was most notable for what was not discussed. There was no mention of a plot by Japan, no mention of a peaceful invasion by the Japanese, and no mention of a threat to the future of Western civilization. In other words, the original perpetrators of the Yellow Peril idea gave no indication in the fifteen pages of notes on the meeting that they actually believed such a peril existed. Such thoughts were also for the consumption of others, such as the president of the United States. Morgan also was to try them out on the Hawaiians the next day.

In the course of his trip, John Morgan demonstrated a curious preoccupation with selling Hawaiians on America. His main public appearance was at Kawaiaha'o Church, the missionary church that sits within sight of 'Iolani Palace. One of the annexationist newspapers said the original idea was for Morgan to speak only to Hawaiians, but so many white people wanted to come that the doors were opened to Americans, Portuguese, and "a solitary Chinaman," about whose people various abusive things would be said. The church filled, and people spilled over into the gallery and onto the front steps. The newspaper estimated the crowd at seven hundred. Two hundred seventy-five were said to be Hawaiian, among them James Kaulia, who had come to listen and plan what might be said in response. Morgan spoke for an hour and a half, counting the time it took for a translator to repeat his speech in Hawaiian.

The theme of Morgan's speech was that America had come to help the Hawaiians and open its arms to Hawai'i. He cited Kamehameha's attempt to cede Hawai'i to the British, through explorer George Vancouver. Now Britain, France, and Germany had taken over almost all of the islands of the South Pacific and "the only salvation for the Hawaiian Islands is in annexation to the United States."

Kaulia responded with an open letter making the essential point that he had made at a previous rally—that the United States was obligated to hold a referendum on annexation. He challenged Morgan to use his influence to let Hawaiians vote.

Morgan replied that he was not disposed to interfere in Hawaiian affairs. However, he said he did not think it necessary "or fair" to submit annexation to a popular vote. "Your constitution provides for annexation without such a vote," he said, ignoring the fact that Hawaiians had been shut out of writing the constitution.

In addition to support for annexation, and support for a war in Cuba, Morgan was widely known for promoting construction of the canal that was to connect the Atlantic with the Pacific. It is this third item on his agenda that resolves any seeming contradiction between the first two. The common denominator of Morgan's causes was [...] global power and a big, two-ocean navy."

Shortly after Morgan's visit, a senator from South Dakota, R.F. Pettigrew, appeared in Hawai'i and held his own meetings. He said he had been told that many Hawaiians favored annexation, but "I have failed to find a Native Hawaiian who was not opposed to the annexation."

Far from absolving the Committee of Safety and the agents of the U.S. who helped it, the Morgan Report is better understood as yet another chapter in the story of how a few conspired to underhandedly misuse the might of the United States to execute and justify the overthrow of the Hawaiian nation.