Hawaii

Hawaii is a part of the United States so distant from the bulk of the Nation and so seldom visited by an appreciable number of its citizens that it is but natural that the facts with relation to what is going on within its tropical, oceanwashed borders should not be very well understood.

In the autumn of 1931 an incident occurred in Honolulu such as to claim much newspaper space throughout the Nation. A situation was developed which led newspapers, reacting as a result of known strife elsewhere, to conclude that a delicate race situation existed in Hawaii. The deduction was not illogical, but we who are responsible for the government of the islands suspected that the race situation there was so peculiar that it could not be measured by previous experience.

Hawaii Calls Art Print
Koniakowsky, Wade
18 in. x 24 in.
Buy at AllPosters.com
Framed   Mounted

A first-hand investigation of conditions in these midPacific islands where East does meet West, giving special attention to the class of Americans that are there evolving, therefore seemed advisable. William Atherton Du Puy, executive assistant to the Secretary, an experienced investigator and a quite disinterested witness, therefore, in the summer of 1932, was sent to Hawaii with instructions to observe the facts and report his findings.

The governmental establishment of the islands previously had been investigated by Assistant Attorney General Seth W. Richardson, of the Department of Justice. Mr. Du Puy should tell us of the new Americans that are resulting from the unprecedented situation that exists in the islands; how they get along, one with the other, and how they are fitting into that scheme of self-government born to blueeyed peoples on the other side of the world and previously experienced by few of those who contributed to these strange intermixtures of blood.

Since it is a psychological fact that interest in any object decreases as the distance to it increases, the Hawaiian Islands are at a material disadvantage as compared to those other units that go to constitute the United States. Once the handicap of distance is overcome, however, this community, which occupies the position of a Territory and is as much a part of the United States as was Arizona before it was admitted to statehood, is likely to become an ambitious claimant for attention. These American citizens of the mid-Pacific, quite unlike any others under the flag, are likely, upon examination, to claim the place of first interest, but, to understand them, it is necessary to take a bit of a look at the setting in which the racial experiment which is producing them is placed.

A visitor to Hawaii, after a casual examination of his surroundings, is likely to break into superlatives. He is likely to assert what is quite obvious, that the islands have the most equable climate, neither hot nor cold at any season, in the United States. He soon discovers that they produce the most valuable per-acre crops of any comparable area in the world–an unbelievable 12 tons of sugar to the acre, or 20 tons of pineapples. He discovers that this is the land of the most active volcano in the world where the observer may see geology in the making. He may find that here is to be found the largest and most powerful of Uncle Sam’s Army posts and the most nearly impregnable of his naval bases. He may point to precipitous cliffs that bid for world honors in scenic beauty, that squeeze the heaviest rainfall in all the world out of the winds that blow against them, that produce such phenomena as waterfalls that start tumbling down the mountain sides, are caught by the winds and made to appear to fall up again.

He may say that this is the inhabited land of them all under the sun that is farthest from any neighbor. He may be surprised that it pays more income tax to the Federal Government than do any of a certain thirteen of the States on the mainland–ten times the amount of money that in return is expended in its government. He may be surprised to find that here is the cattle ranch with the biggest herd of purebred Hereford cattle in all the world, and that there is another mountainside herd that passes its entire life from birth to beefsteak without ever taking a drink. Finally he may become fascinated with that vast experiment in racial amalgamation, here where East meets West, which is turning this whole community into a laboratory in which is being worked out problems in the fusions of people such as have never been possible before.

In the Territory of Hawaii, in fact, may be arrayed a series of superlative facts that quite dazzle the mainlander who is accustomed to contact with those conventional communities where bookkeepers labor in alpaca coats and the factory worker adds a gadget to a growing machine as it passes his post. Hawaii is the farthest-away integral part of the United States, since the Philippines lack her status of Territory, which is a stepping stone to statehood.

Her sons and daughters are native-born citizens, just as though they first saw the light in Missouri or Maine.