Monday, Jul. 08, 1929
"Paradise"
(See front cover)
All days seem like holidays in Hawaii but one day this week was exceptionally festive. The bright streets of Honolulu were crowded. The warm air throbbed with music. Guns boomed salutes, soldiers tramped. The U. S. Territory of Hawaii was inaugurating a new Governor. After eight years' service, Wallace Rider Farrington was turning his office over to Lawrence McCully Judd.
In the Iolani Palace, where Hawaiian kings once sat enthroned, Hon. Antonio Perry, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Hawaii, stood by to administer the oath of office. Governor Judd delivered his Inaugural address to the mixed crowds waiting outside. That evening a dinner for 250 was served in the Governor's mansion, out of which the last and deposed Hawaiian queen, Liliuokalani, was removed in 1917. Governor Judd planned as his first work of office, a month's inspection tour of the Islands.
Judds. No political carpet-bagger or "malihini" (stranger), Lawrence McCully Judd is a native of the Islands as was his father before him. He is a "Kamaaina" (friendly old-timer), "oluolu" (sympathetic) to the native population. For a century his family's history has paralleled Hawaii's.
In 1828 the Parthian rounded the horn, sailed northwestward. Aboard with his wife was Dr. Gerrit P. Judd. a Yankee physician sent out by the American Board of Missions. For 14 years Dr. Judd ministered to the Hawaiians, body and soul, helping with many another missionary to persuade them from idolatry to Christianity. The work of the early missionaries in Hawaii was so well and wisely done that Hawaii's self-chosen nickname, "Paradise of the Pacific," has a special connotation for practicing Christians. They point to the Islands as a great practical demonstration of the faith. All sects except the Roman Catholics and Episcopalians are merged in Hawaii as the Central Union Church.
Missionary Judd was more than a spiritual adviser to the Hawaiians. He was one of the first foreigners to foreswear his U. S. allegiance and become a subject of King Kamahameha III (1832-1854). He aided in establishing the first constitutional monarchy on the Islands. He served his brown-skinned monarch as Minister of Finance, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of the Interior.
Dr. Judd had been in Hawaiian service one year when the British ship Carysfort, Captain George Paulet commanding, sailed into Honolulu Harbor, prepared to take possession of the Island of Oahu. King Kamahameha, frightened, ceded his kingdom, fled to Maui, left Dr. Judd as his agent to deal with Captain Paulet. The British officer became so oppressive that Dr. Judd, unable to negotiate further with him, withdrew to the royal mausoleum in the palace yard. There by the uncertain light of a ship's lantern, Dr. Judd carried on government business using the coffin of Queen Kaahumanu (1824-1832) for a desk. His messages of protest, smuggled out of the tomb and carried overseas, brought repudiation of Captain Paulet by the British Government and his withdrawal from the Islands.
With the kingdom saved for his sovereign, Dr. Judd negotiated treaties with France, Great Britain and the U. S., guaranteeing Hawaii's independence.
Albert Francis Judd was a son of Dr. Judd. Following his father's example, he served King Lunalilo (1873-1874) as Attorney-General, was placed on the Supreme Court bench in 1874, was its Chief Justice from 1886 through a revolutionary period when the court acted as a balance wheel to preserve the Hawaiian Government from complete destruction.
Governor Judd is the son of Chief Justice Judd. He was born in Honolulu 42 years ago, educated at Punahou School, at Hotchkiss School in Connecticut, and the University of Pennsylvania. He worked for the Carnegie Steel Co. at Pittsburgh. for the Whiting Paper Co. in New York In 1909 Hawaii called. He went home to work with a variety of concerns.
He entered Republican politics in the Territory, served four years in the Hawaiian Senate, was supervisor of the city and country of Honolulu. As Chairman of the Republican organization on the Islands, he was famed as one of the most liberal cigar-passers in Pacific politics. His face is longish and inclined to solemnity. Grave eyes look out from behind horn-rimmed glasses. A friendly man, he nevertheless practices a certain cautious reserve, a certain restraint of language. When informed of his appointment by President Hoover, he drew himself up seriously before his friends and announced: "I will endeavor to serve Hawaii in a manner befitting the responsibility which has been placed on me."
The Judd appointment was one of the first President Hoover made. Largelv instrumental in the selection was Senator Hiram Bingham of Connecticut, Chairman of the Senate Committee on territories and insular possessions. When the Governor's grandfather arrived in Hawaii 101 years ago, he found there a Rev. Hiram Bingham who had come out from Boston to the Islands as a missionary in 1819 aboard the brig Thaddens. Their friendship has been continued through three generations. The now Senator Bingham was born in Honolulu, was an older boyhood playmate of the Governor's, is known among the Islands as "The Senator from Hawaii.''
History. (See map, p. 12.) When Governor Judd starts his inspection tour, he will pass, on Kanai's shore, the spot where Captain James Cook, British navigator, first landed in 1778. If not their discoverer, Captain Cook put the Islands on the world map. At the easternmost island, Hawaii proper, Governor Judd will come upon Kealakekua Bay, where in 1779 Captain Cook, for his overbearing treatment of the natives, was stabbed to death and thrown into the water. There stands a British monument to his memory. On the northern end of the same island. Governor Judd will pass the birthplace of King Kamehameha I. known as the Napoleon of Hawaii because with the whiteman's firearms he first united the Islands into one kingdom.
A census of 1832 showed 130,000 aboriginal Hawaiians. Full-bloods now number only some 20,000. But many a landmark of the old civilization remains--the temples of refuge into which those pursued for their lives might flee to safety; ancient battlegrounds; the open field on Oahu to which the mothers of chiefs and kings went to deliver their offspring publicly. In 1893 the monarchy came to an end when Queen Liliuokalani was deposed for her autocracy and, with the threatened aid of U. S. troops, a committee of safety was formed to take over the Government. Hawaii was ready for annexation to the U. S. then, had not President Cleveland's agent, James H. Blount, bunglingly attempted to put the old queen back on her throne. For five years the Islands existed as an independent Republic under the presidency of Sanford B. Dole. In 1898 they were formally annexed to the U. S. and Dole became the first Governor.
Geography. Governor Judd's jurisdiction stretched across a 380-mile chain of eight islands, containing 6,651 sq. mi., of which Hawaii at the south is the largest (4,210 sq. mi.). Kahoolawe is the smallest (69 sq. mi.). On the north lies Niihau, reserved entirely for full-blooded Hawaiians, to which others may go only by special permission.
Under the Governor's eye will come the beach of coarse sand on Kauai which makes a "barking" sound when walked on. Also on Kauai are: wild boars, pheasants. goats, and Waialeale, the mountain on which descends the world's heaviest rainfall. To Kauai was towed the drifting plane of Commander John Rodgers, U. S. N.. when that flyer, with his crew, just missed Hawaii in the first attempted trans-Pacific flight (1925).
Oahu, with its metropolis of Honolulu, is the economic, political, financial centre of the Territory. There are the Army (Schofield Barracks--12.000 men) and the Navy (Pearl Harbor base, the nation's largest). There is Wheeler Field, on which trans-Pacific flyers aim to land. There are the heavy defense fortifications around Diamond Head, the headquarters of the sugar and pineapple industries ($100,000,000 per year); the bathing and surfboarding at Waikiki, the steamships to the mainland, the tourists, the hub of social life.
On Molokai is the leper colony (450), carefully isolated. Maui, like all the islands, is rich with pineapples and sugar.
Hilo (pop. 18,000) is the chief city of Hawaii proper. Ranching in the old-west ern style thrives on the grassy Hawaiian uplands. Near Hilo is the biggest Hawaiian ranch, "Sam" Parker's (cattle, sheep; $600,000 per annum income). Southward rises Kilauea, home of Goddess Pele. whose volcanic antics are kept under careful observation by Dr. Thomas Augustus Jaggar of the U. S. Geological Survey.
Races. The territory's total population is now some 350,000. Caucasians, though constituting only one-tenth of the populace, dominate. There is no "race problem," largely because there has been much intermarriage and "the colors have run." Besides 20,000 Hawaiian full-bloods there are some 25,000 half-castes. Largest pure racial group are 135,000 Japanese, of whom 83,000 are U. S. citizens. Japan once planned to annex Hawaii by intensive colonization, but U. S. immigration laws checked that. In Hawaii, the Japanese are called "the Jews of the Pacific" because of their ability, eagerness, tenacity at acquiring the characteristics and culture of another people. Most of the work on the sugar and pineapple plantations is performed by Filipinos (60,000 on the island) and Chinese (25,000).
Contrary to popular belief, "Hawaiian music" is not a pure racial product. Natives invented the rhythm, foreigners the melodies. The ukulele is of Portuguese origin, taken to the islands by early settlers and now manufactured, chiefly in California, for export to Hawaii.
Families. Judd is but one of several dominant names in Hawaii. Other U. S. missionaries had descendants who have maintained the Islands' spirit and tradition in an extraordinary way while growing rich in sugar and other trade. The most widely advertised name today, that of James D. ("Jim") Dole, belongs to a second cousin of First Governor Dole. "Jim" Dole did not reach the Islands until 1899 to make his fortune in pineapples and become a headliner by giving prizes for trans-Pacific aviation. Other famed Hawaiian names are Alexander, Baldwin, Castle, Cooke (not descendants of Captain Cook), Dillingham, Thurston. Waterhouse.
Lorrain A. Thurston, publisher of the Honolulu Advertiser, was one of the commissioners who brought about the final annexation of the Islands to the U.S.
William R. Castle Jr. is Assistant Secretary of State at Washington.
Walter F. Dillingham's father built the narrow-gauge railroad that loops around Oahu, connecting its sugar plantations. As the head of the Oahu Railway & Land Co.. and multifarious other interests, son Dillingham is No. 1 Tycoon of the Islands.
Aged 54 years, 6 ft. 3 in. tall, a man of strong and striking demeanor, Tycoon Dillingham has five homes on Oahu: 1) a copy of a Medici palace with open court; and pool on Diamond Head; 2) A copy of a Japanese home which was brought overseas piece by piece, including rocks and moss for decoration, at Waikiki; 3) A mountain home high up on the Punchbowl; 4) A cottage at Pearl Harbor, for sailing; 5) A million-dollar ranch for fine; horses and huge houseparties. So open-handed is Dillingham hospitality (long a bachelor, he married Miss Louise Gaylord of Chicago) that he is known as the "host of Hawaii." Few able visitors arrive in the Islands without a letter to him.
The prime Dillingham enthusiasm is polo. He organized the Hawaii Polo & Racing Association, developed inter-island games, captained many a Hawaiian , team journeying to the mainland.
Not long ago the U. S. Polo Association: called upon Hawaii for ponies for an international match. Sportsman Dillingham contributed two prize mounts, with the proviso: "If anything happens to them, we are to stand the damage." Harry Payne Whitney did his best to return this patriotic courtesy by helping Mr. Dillingham pick out some fine Virginia mares and serving them free at the Whitney stud, to give the Islands a good new strain.
The conduct of its chief tycoon typifies the Islands' democracy. When he goes into a Honolulu shop to buy a new hat, the clerk calls him "Walter." Old native-women selling Lei at the steamers josh with him in Hawaiian. When an enterprising young Jew sought to marry the daughter of a potent Gentile ship-operator, the girl's father, distressed, went to 'Walter' for help, advice. Said Mr. Dillingham: "Go on and let her marry him. She could do a whole lot worse."
Where roses and strawberries can be had in any month, where trade winds keep the temperature between 70 degrees and 80 degrees day in and out, where life is so easy that the per capita wealth is higher than anywhere in the world, Hawaii is not boasting much when it calls itself "Paradise." Many are the other U. S. executives who may well envy Governor Judd his job.