Johnny Wilson: First Hawaiian Democrat 9780824844578

Citation preview

Johnny Wilson

Johnny Wilson FIRST HAWAIIAN

DEMOCRAT

Bob Krauss

A Kolowalu Book

@

University of Hawaii Press Honolulu

© 1 9 9 4 University of H a w a i i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 94 95 96 9 7 98 99

5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Krauss, Bob. J o h n n y Wilson : first H a w a i i a n Democrat / B o b Krauss. p.

cm.

" A Kolowalu book." Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0 - 8 2 4 8 - 1 5 7 7 - 7 1 . Wilson, Johnny, 1 8 7 1 - . 2. Politicians—Hawaii—Biography. 3. Hawaii—Politics and g o v e r n m e n t — 1 9 0 0 - 1 9 5 9 . I. Title. DU627.7.W55K73

1994

996.9'o3'o92—dc20 [B]

94-11511 CIP

Designed by Paula

Newcomb

University of H a w a i i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines f o r permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources

Contents

PROLOGUE: The Legend of Johnny Wilson / I PART ONE T H E QUEEN'S BABY DUMPLING / 5

1 The Girls of Old Hawai'i and Tahiti / 7 2 A Child of Conflicting Cultures / 1 2 3 Kini and Mekia, Playmates in Paradise / 1 7 4 Johnny's Political Baptism / 23 5 Stowaway / 30 6 Kanaka Jack at Stanford / 34 7 The Boys in the Band / 44 PART TWO R O A D B U I L D E R IN T H E J U N G L E / 5 3

8 The Pali Road / 55 9 Mysterious Olyve Griffin / 62 1 0 Show Business, Politics, and Misfortune / 7 1 1 1 Pelekunu Valley / 83 PART T H R E E T H E B U M P Y R O A D TO P O L I T I C S / 9 5

1 2 Lessons in Patronage / 97 1 3 Johnny and Link: A Marriage Made in Heaven? / 108 1 4 Washington Merry-Go-Round / 1 1 9 1 5 The Reluctant Politician / 1 3 3 1 6 Backing into Office / 1 5 3 PART FOUR H i s H O N O R , THE M A Y O R /

165

1 7 Under New Management / 1 6 7 18 The Mayor's Wife / 180

v

VI /

CONTENTS

19 Prohibition Era Politics / 1 8 2 20 The Fist Fight / 189 21 Way Out in Wai'alae / 197 22 The Crash / 204 PART FIVE J O H N N Y AND THE R O O S E V E L T A D M I N I S T R A T I O N /

213

23 An Instructed Delegation for FDR / 2 1 5 24 Johnny Runs for Governor / 224 25 The Squabbling Democrats / 2 3 s 26 From the Ashes of Defeat / 250 PART s i x L E A D E R OF H A W A I ' I ' S D E M O C R A T S / 2 5 9

27 Captain of a Mutinous Crew / 261 28 A Tide of Change / 268 29 Clorinda Lucas and the Welfare Revolt / 277 30 Swan Song for Johnny? / 286 PART SEVEN T H E UNBEATABLE O L D POLITICIAN / 2 9 5

31 Out from Retirement / 297 32 The Police Graft Trials / 302 33 The Communist Issue / 308 34 Birth of the New Democratic Party / 3 1 3 35 An Ailing Mayor / 3 1 9 3 6 The Kitchen Cabinet / 3 24 37 End of the Line for Johnny / 3 3 1 38 Johnny's Place in Hawaiian History / 340 EPILOGUE:

The Legend of Jennie Wilson / 343 Acknowledgments

/ 347

Notes / 349 Index / 375 Photographs / 1 4 3 - 1 5 2

— PROLOGUE — THE

LEGEND

OF J O H N N Y

WILSON

Good cases can be made that Johnny Wilson and Jack Burns were the two most important politicians of this century in Hawai'i, Wilson in the first half, Burns in the second. Yet historians have neglected Johnny. Why? First, his achievements came during the long reign of the Republicans, who had little interest in applauding him. The establishment preferred to dismiss him as a radical. Second, the end of his long career coincided with the upsurge in Democratic power, and, in the excitement, aged Johnny Wilson was forgotten. Johnny gave his first campaign speech at age forty-seven in the bandstand of the 'A'ala Park immigrant section of Honolulu on Saturday, September z i , 1 9 1 8 , a time when someone less dedicated and stubborn would have conceded the futility of launching a political career at his age as a Democrat in Hawai'i. Irish newspaperman J.Walter Doyle, a Democrat at heart when he arrived in Honolulu to take a job at the Pacific Commercial Advertiser, became a Republican like most people after dipping his toe in the political waters. He explained that joining Hawai'i's Democratic party meant signing one's mental, moral, and social death warrant. A Democrat, he said, had as much chance of success in business as a paralytic mosquito. Republican parents "pointed out Democrats to their children as they would Charlie Chaplin's relatives or Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Man." 1 The Hawai'i Democrats' dismaying tendency to shoot themselves in the feet by fighting with each other as vigorously as they did with Republicans was another reason not to be a Democrat. You could be a Republican by just drifting along with the crowd. To be a Democrat required courage, strong convictions, and a fighting spirit. People who exhibit these character traits often

i

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PROLOGUE

disagree by force of habit with anyone handy, including fellow Democrats. At the time of Johnny's speech, his audience didn't know much about him. He was a considerably more complicated person than they suspected, not only because of his racial makeup: part-Tahitian, part-Hawaiian, part-Scot, and part-Irish. He was driven by forces that he probably had not analyzed and had spent a good part of his life trying to ignore. It had taken him a long time to fully accept responsibility for the Hawaiian part of himself and even longer to work up to the bandstand in 'A'ala Park. He considered himself a successful engineer, having built Hawai'i's most spectacular mountain highways. But he had also gone bust a couple of times. His biggest political asset for this campaign was an ability to switch from the English language to Hawaiian, because Hawaiian voters still outnumbered those of all other races in the United States Territory of Hawaii. It did not hurt, either, that his mother had been lady-in-waiting to Queen Liliuokalani before the Hawaiian monarchy was overthrown by people who later became Republicans or that his father had been the queen's marshal, or police chief. But Johnny Wilson's political liabilities appeared to outweigh his assets. For one thing, he was stubborn. Bullheaded might be a better description. And he was plagued with honesty, which he defined by his own standards, a naive rectitude that he applied most severely to himself. To make matters worse, he associated with disreputable people. Johnny had been in show business early in his colorful career, managing troupes of native singers and dancers who pioneered Hawaiian music in the states, at which time he had fallen in love with Kini Kapahu, Hawai'i's most beautiful and accomplished dancer of the hula, a profession firmly frowned upon in polite society. Most damaging of all, they had lived together eight years before he married her. Their tempestuous love story is one of the most important elements of his legend. Nevertheless, no other candidate on the bandstand could match Johnny Wilson's credentials as a Democrat. The principles of Thomas Jefferson had fired his imagination in 189Z, when he was a student at Stanford University. In 1896 William Jennings Bryan

PROLOGUE

/ 3

inflamed him with the Cross of Gold speech. Johnny was a founder of the Democratic party in the Islands. He had helped other Democrats get elected for eighteen years before he ran for office himself, and no small businessman in Hawai'i had suffered more for his political convictions. Unfortunately, he lost the election. N o one could have predicted that in two years the new candidate would emerge as the leader of a phenomenon on the American political scene, the part-Hawaiian politician. He would play the major role in holding the ragtag Hawai'i Democrats together until their spectacular surge to power in 1 9 5 4 at the close of his long career. As Democratic national committeeman from Hawai'i for more than three decades, Johnny Wilson would help Franklin D. Roosevelt become president of the United States as he had Woodrow Wilson. He wrote exotic footnotes to both administrations, and he sometimes secured federal funds for the territory before Hawai'i's appointed governor and elected delegate to Congress knew they existed. Quite a few voters in Hawai'i felt that the president should have appointed John Wilson governor. Johnny won elections for mayor of Honolulu, second only to delegate to Congress as the most visible elective office in the territory, seven times between 19ZO and 1954. He presided over two of the administrations most stressful in the history of the City and County of Honolulu and served longer as mayor than anyone until his record was surpassed in 1989 by Frank Fasi, the Democrat who beat him in the primary that ended Johnny's political career in 1954. John H. Wilson didn't become a legend because of his political stature, however, but because he in so many ways dramatized a colorful transition period in Hawaiian history. He was both heroic and human, provincial and cosmopolitan, a Hawaiian Island boy whose battles against the establishment brought history alive. He was a many-faceted person who illuminated his time. Because Johnny was the son of Queen Liliuokalani's marshal, the last royalist to surrender, his story sheds new light on the revolt that overthrew the monarchy and on the events that led up to and followed it. Because he was one of the first entrepreneurs in Hawaiian show business, his diaries and reminiscences provide

4/PROLOGUE

important historical information about the origin of Hawaiian music, about the musicians who composed it, and about the hula. Because he was a pioneer road builder, Johnny's detailed, eyewitness accounts of contracting jobs describe the evolution that changed horse trails into modern freeways; and his long association with transportation and shipping has left a record in human terms of the impact on Hawai'i of the ship, the horse, the railroad, the automobile, and the airplane. As the organizer of an early labor union in the Islands, he documents in his correspondence the problems of the working man before such problems were fashionable. His dreams and practical accomplishments, especially as expressed through his founding of the Democratic party of Hawai'i, constitute a unique political history of the territory almost through its entirety. John H. Wilson is a rare public figure whose career links the Hawaiian monarchy with the decade in which Hawai'i became a state. It is time to record the legend of Johnny Wilson.

PART

ONE

T h e Queen's Baby D u m p l i n g

—

THE

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I

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TAHITI

The legend began before Johnny was born. Captain Henry Blanchard, master of the brig Thaddeus that brought the first missionaries to the Islands in 1820, married a Moloka'i chiefess named Koloa. 1 Although Captain Blanchard spent most of his time away at sea, they produced a daughter named Harriet, born in 1 8 3 1 . She was to become the grandmother of Johnny Wilson. But in 1 8 3 1 Harriet was simply one of many children of a new race, one created by the union of people of dissimilar cultures. The mixture of these dissimilar cultures in the same person created identity problems for them. If Harriet was not quite sure who she was, other residents of the tropical frontier settlement of Honolulu were equally confused. The accepted approach must have been to ignore the presence of part-Hawaiian children; there is very little early mention of them in spite of their numbers. It appears that polite society felt it best to sweep the whole subject under the rug. That is why Harriet stands out. She seems to be the first partHawaiian young woman acknowledged as such in the public press. On March 7, 1846, the weekly Polynesian in Honolulu published a cheerful notice explaining that Stephen Reynolds had shown to the editor a sample of fancy needlework done by Harriet Blanchard, age fifteen, a student at Mrs. Gummers School. Reynolds was a hard-bitten waterfront merchant who hated missionaries and dressed like a scarecrow. It is not clear why he took a fatherly interest in the girls at Mrs. Gummers, who were "offspring of natives and foreigners," but he vigorously broadcast the news that the young ladies were taught to sew, to dance the minuet, and to use a knife and fork as well as any haole, or

7

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foreigner. The most attractive of the girls were Mary Bush and Harriet Blanchard. Unfortunately, Harriet did not benefit from this valuable training, at least, not in the form of acquiring a wealthy and dependable husband, which was probably old Stephen Reynolds' kindly intention. Instead, she married an itinerant English actor, John Townsend, whose dramatic company performed in Honolulu. We assume that Harriet's choice of an actor instead of a respectable merchant was at least in part a result of her mother's love of the theater. Koloa had made Captain Blanchard take her to Honolulu so that she might attend operatic performances. 2 The subsequent history of John and Harriet Townsend is somewhat confused. Apparently he gave up acting for a time to invest in a sugar plantation that went bankrupt. Then he disappeared from view, leaving Harriet with two children, George, the younger, and Eveline, who was born in 1849. 3 Eveline would become Johnny Wilson's mother. George went to sea; Eveline joined Kawaiahao Church, where she sang in the choir led by Princess (later to be Queen) Liliuokalani, who also played the organ. Eveline's absent father had left his mark, however; the family theatrical talent expressed itself in the Kawaiahao choir loft during church services. Auntie Harriet Ne, Eveline's oldest living relative, said, "[Eveline] caught the queen's eye because, instead of just singing in the choir, she used make motions while she sang. And the queen used to do this to her, 'Shhhhh, shhhhhh.'" Liliuokalani, who never had children of her own, must have been charmed by her exuberant and fatherless choir member, for Eveline, or Kitty as she was called, became a protégé of the princess and later an intimate friend. Together with other young favorites, she sang in close harmony the original songs of the musically talented princess, went on riding excursions with her, gathered flowers, and planned parties to honor Liliuokalani's royal guests. Such social occasions set Kitty apart from the haole or foreign side of her heritage. One example was an elaborate luau given for the Duke of Edinburgh in 1869 at the Waikïkï Beach home of Liliuokalani. The two most beautiful women at the luau, Eveline Townsend (age twenty) and Mary Bush, draped flower leis around his neck and kissed his cheek. The king' s hula dancer performed.

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The leaders of haole society were not invited, since Liliuokalani intended that the duke enjoy a truly Hawaiian evening. This may have been a mistake because the hula performance, especially, outraged the propriety of some missionary descendants. Liliuokalani, in turn, felt insulted by such self-righteous criticism, and we can assume that Kitty shared her hurt.4 And so Kitty was caught between two inherited cultures, forced to choose one society or the other. It would not get easier, foi; like her mother, she also had to choose a husband. Certainly her beauty and social accomplishments qualified her to marry a prominent haole, as her grandmother had done. Kitty might have considered marrying a Hawaiian. Somehow, though, one gets the feeling that he would have had to be a prince of the blood, and those choices were almost nonexistent. While Kitty waited for her prince charming to appear, we will introduce the other family involved in this tale, the Wilson clan. Its story is equally romantic and improbable. Our starting place this time is the island of Tahiti, some two thousand miles to the south of Hawai'i, where the Reverend Charles Wilson, a Scot and Johnny Wilson's great-grandfather, arrived in 1 8 0 1 after an epic two-and-a-half-year journey to preach the gospel for the London Missionary Society.5 Reverend Wilson was known as an upright and determined man of considerable importance in those islands. Now and then he entertained interesting visitors. On November 15, 1 8 3 5 , the HMS Beagle with Charles Darwin on board anchored in Matavai Bay. The young naturalist wrote in his diary, "A crowd of men, women and children [received] us with merry laughing faces. They marshalled us towards the house of Mr. Wilson, the missionary of the district, who met us on the road, and gave us a very friendly reception."6 The missionary had in 1 8 1 4 sired a son, Charles Burnett Wilson, Johnny Wilson's grandfather, who grew up in Papeete and became a sea captain, one of Tahiti's first traders with the British colonies in Australia and New Zealand. An enterprising fellow, Captain Wilson also sailed his own vessels, laden with hogs, turtles, yams, dried salt fish, and Tahitian oranges, to California and Chile. Captain Wilson served for a term as British consul at the port of Papeete. He was on duty in 1842 when the whaleship Lucy Ann7

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BABY

DUMPLING

touched at Tahiti with a mutinous crew. One of the malingerers Wilson consigned to the calaboose was Herman Melville. In Omoo, Melville described his incarceration in critical terms highly uncomplimentary to Johnny Wilson's grandfather.8 In response, a compiler of the Wilson family history wrote of Melville's version of the incident, "His sketches are amusing and skilfully drawn, but bear as much relation to the truth as a farthing does to a sovereign."9 Like many sons of missionaries, Captain Wilson strayed somewhat from the example his father set for the natives. He married one, a chiefess named Tetaria. They embarked in 1850 with her grandfather, brother, and other assorted relatives to the north for Fanning Island, a desolate atoll in which Captain Wilson had some sort of financial interest. En route, Tetaria bore a son, whom they named Charles Burnett Wilson after his father. To avoid confusion, we will refer to the boy as C.B.Wilson. He would become Johnny Wilson's father. We can sympathize with Tetaria, who had another baby in the blinding glare of sun-baked Fanning while her relatives planted coconut trees, for the manufacture of coconut oil, and her husband sailed in search of more desolate flyspecks in the Pacific where coconut trees could be planted. Captain Wilson also salvaged the wreck of the whaler Wallaby on Fanning in 1853 and sailed to Australia, then set out for New Zealand. That was the last anybody ever saw of him or his vessel.10 Tetaria returned to her native land, leaving three-year-old C.B.Wilson and his little brother, Richard, in the care of Captain Harry English, overseer of the coconut plantation. He took the boys to Honolulu. So it was as a part-Tahitian orphan that Johnny Wilson's father arrived in Hawai'i. A man who knew him later, Fred Wundenberg, explained, "As was usually the case with half-whites of that class, they did not have the best opportunities for education. After they got the ordinary rudiments, they would be put to a trade. He learned the blacksmith's trade." 11 From this we must not assume that he was left destitute. Captain English placed the Wilson boys for schooling in the private establishment of Captain and Mrs. Smith; in this adobe hut, future sea captains learned celestial navigation and future captains of finance in the Islands learned accounting. It was during the few

THE

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II

years that C.B.Wilson studied under Captain Smith that he met a promising young royal Hawaiian named David Kalakaua, who later became king. 12 And C.B.'s choice of a trade such as blacksmithing did not consign him permanently to Honolulu's social and economic basement. Seamen, ships' carpenters, and mechanics were already on their way to making fortunes in Honolulu. It turned out, however, that C.B.Wilson was less interested in making money than in sports and politics. The two went well together in Hawai'i because male members of the royal family were great sportsmen, favoring especially horse racing, rowing, yachting, and shooting. C.B. excelled in them all. He also became heavyweight boxing champion of the Islands. His expert marksmanship led to a friendship with gun fancier John Dominis, who married the Princess Liliuokalani, sister of Kalakaua, a particular patron of rowing and yachting. 13 C.B. added his brawny arms to the royal crews and helped beat the boats sponsored by rival haoles. In 1866 he joined two of the most dashing organizations in town, the Volunteer Fire Department and the Honolulu Rifles, a military unit.14 Lorrin A. Thurston, who later became. Liliuokalani's bitter enemy, described C.B.Wilson as "a picturesque figure... regarded as one of the handsomest men in the late monarchy period." 1 5 It was probably inevitable that one of Hawai'i's handsomest men meet and fall in love with one of Hawai'i's most beautiful women, Kitty Townsend. Kitty's royal patron, Liliuokalani, encouraged this romance. So it was that Kitty did not marry a wealthy haole or a royal Hawaiian but an orphaned part-Tahitian sports star who worked iron with the skill of a sculptor molding clay. He was known as "the best man who ever welded iron at a forge." 1 6 The wedding took place in 1869. Kitty was pregnant two years later when she went to Maui to visit her husband's younger brother. She returned to Honolulu just in time to have her baby on Friday, December 1 5 , 1 8 7 1 . They named him John Henry Wilson.

— 2

A

—

CHILD

CONFLICTING

OF CULTURES

One of Johnny Wilson's earliest memories was playing hide-andseek with his mother and Liliuokalani, who tucked him under the folds of her floor-length skirts while Kitty Wilson searched for him.1 They probably played the game at Washington Place, the New England-style Dominis family home with its trappings of the Hawaiian monarchy: tall feather kahilis once used to shoo flies away from sacred chiefs, old poi calabashes polished to a golden glow, and elegant feather capes worn only by the Hawaiian royalty.2 But little Johnny, like his parents, was a child of conflicting cultures, and so another of his early memories must have been of his father's blacksmith shop on Fort Street,3 a place of mysterious shadows and oiled machinery, of a fiercely glowing forge and the ring of a hammer on the anvil, of graceful carriages with slender wheels, of brawny men wearing handlebar mustaches, of horses being shod and chewing tobacco being spit and sports and politics being discussed. Little Johnny Wilson was much too young, of course, to realize that there might be something incongruous about having one foot in the old Hawaiian culture and the other in the industrial revolution and that, as a result, the remote Pacific island on which he lived was a rather complicated place. The Hawaiian king ruled over old subsistence and new freeenterprise economies existing side by side. In the country, barefooted taro farmers competed for productive land and irrigation water with proliferating sugar plantations capitalized at tens of thousands of dollars. In Honolulu, population about fifteen thou-

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sand, some breadwinners still went fishing in outrigger canoes to feed their families. An increasing number worked in interisland steamships, on the docks in Honolulu Harbor, and in factories, like the Honolulu Iron Works, that fabricated mills for sugar plantations. C.B.Wilson had started as a machinist at the Honolulu Iron Works. But he could not stand the fish stink of whale oil used to lubricate the gears. 4 A grab bag of races, languages, and national backgrounds further complicated the society in which little Johnny Wilson was growing up, and an international cast of foreigners jockeyed for positions of influence. For little Johnny, this simply meant that he must learn to speak polyglot pidgin, as well as Hawaiian and English, if he expected to be understood by the children of servants. Meanwhile, a bewildering political complexity swirled around his unsuspecting head. Firms in Hawai'i with direct financial links to Germany, Britain, and the United States guarded the political interests of their home countries like nervous watchdogs, and the consular corps in Honolulu was highly competitive. In the royal Hawaiian establishment, members of the ali'i, w h o considered themselves above the pushing and shoving of foreigners, conducted their o w n endless rivalries. For the man on the street, political rumors constituted the spice of life, and C.B.Wilson's blacksmith shop served as a clearinghouse for such rumors. "Whenever anything was stirring in royalist or political circles, Charles was certain to be close on the edge of everything," wrote attorney Lorrin A . Thurston of C.B.Wilson. 5 Little Johnny absorbed it in his pores while he played. O n January i , 1873, Johnny turned two, his father stood in the front row of the Honolulu Rifles at the installation of the new king, Lunalilo. In September, when a mutiny broke out among the king's household troops, the Honolulu Rifles and the Hawaiian Cavalry were called out. Many of their members refused muster because they sympathized with the mutineers. C.B.Wilson, however, now a sergeant, volunteered. With fewer than two dozen others he took a position in the face of cannon about forty yards away. 6 The king finally resolved this embarrassment by disbanding the household troops. Clearly, C.B.Wilson inherited a fearless dedication to law and

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order despite his personal sympathies and shared the distaste for mutiny that had led his father to arrest Herman Melville in Tahiti almost forty years earlier. This family trait appeared again after Lunalilo died on February 3, 1874, without naming a successor, and a newly elected legislature balloted to select a new monarch. Candidates in this election were Queen Emma, a high chiefess and popular widow of the late Kamehameha IV, and the talented Kalakaua. When the legislature on February 1 2 voted thirty-nine for Kalakaua and six for Emma, a riot broke out. Again C.B.Wilson pushed his way to the thick of the action, this time as member of a "secret service squad" employed to protect Kalakaua. While angry Emma supporters broke windows of the courthouse where the legislature sat, C.B. went to the rescue of three lawmakers in a carriage the mob was trying to overturn. He righted the vehicle, then went to catch a legislator from Kaua'i who was being thrown out a window.7 Troops landed from U.S. and British warships in the harbor and ended the riot. Johnny was three when it happened. The indications are that C.B.Wilson enjoyed these heroics, as well as his proximity to the throne, and boasted about them in Johnny's presence. But he was disappointed in his son. Johnny Wilson got good grades, especially in mathematics, and he enjoyed music. His principal described him as honest and hardworking. He was tough and durable and constantly in motion, but he was neither big and brawny nor a natural athlete. His mother doted on him and dressed him in bandbox fashion in short black pants, black coat, black tie, and an immaculate white shirt. His father, when Johnny disobeyed, whipped him with a guava stick.8 Auntie Harriet Ne, historian of the family, said C.B.Wilson was stern, a "rough" person. A family friend called him a tyrant. If Johnny could not please his domineering father, he enjoyed the company of his relaxed and footloose uncle, George Townsend. "My uncle was captain of a schooner that ran to Waianae [on the leeward coast of O'ahu], and on occasion ran to [the nearby islands of] Molokai and Maui," Johnny wrote years later. "During my school vacations, I lived aboard the schooner Emma with him When I wasn't at school, I was with my uncle

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15

between the ages of nine and fifteen." 9 Auntie Harriet said Johnny loved his uncle, who was as kind as his father was demanding. With a crew of barefooted Hawaiian sailors, and Johnny as cabin boy, the trim little Emma wended its unpredictable way to the leeward side of O'ahu, probably with lumber and trade goods, returning with cargoes of rice from the Chinese mills and taro that could not be got to market over horse trails. Schooners like the Emma survived by handling cargoes that were unprofitable for the faster, scheduled steamers. The Emma also hauled taro from primitive landings on Maui and Moloka'i to Honolulu and to the leper settlement at Kalaupapa on Moloka'i. As a result, Johnny Wilson absorbed an exotic education in coastal currents, weather conditions, water depths, and landmarks at obscure landings— sophisticated information that had never been written down and would soon be lost. George Townsend had a special reason for sailing to Moloka'i, an island about thirty miles southeast of O'ahu. His favorite destination there was a scenic backwater of old Hawai'i on the northern coast called Pelekunu Valley, where he called as often as he found convenient upon his Hawaiian wife, Luukia, who remained under the towering cliffs of Pelekunu while her husband voyaged among the islands. She managed the family taro lands and made sure the cargoes of taro were prepared for shipment when the schooner arrived. Whenever she was ready to give birth, her husband took her to Honolulu because there was no doctor in the remote valley. Auntie Harriet said Captain Townsend acted as agent for the family, hauling taro to market in Honolulu. Because there was no store in isolated Pelekunu, he returned with cargoes of canned goods, new clothing, kitchen utensils, tobacco, and candy for the children instead of money. The best place to anchor, Johnny learned, was the spot where a line between two old lolou trees bisected a line between two boulders called the "sentinels." 10 The village was scattered along the rocky beach. Inland, the taro patches began, fed by tireless trickles of water led by ingenious ditches from streams flowing from above. It was a world entirely removed from the blacksmith shop and the royal splendor in which Kitty Wilson moved. Here a different

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family each week waded into the mud and pulled the taro that would feed everyone, a population of about seventy. Men cultivated the taro patches and pounded the taro to make poi. Women did the cooking and weaving. Luukia herself wove the makaloa mats in which the taro was shipped. Men fished in the sea and hunted. Women collected shellfish in the streams and fruit up the valley.11 During his brief visits, Johnny must have been moved by the warmth of his welcome and by the tropical beauty of the valley nestled between the cliffs and the sea. His curiosity and lively intelligence absorbed the secrets of taro farming with the same concentration that he applied to coastal pilotage. There is no doubt that he lost his heart here as a youth. Pelekunu Valley became his Hawaiian place. In Honolulu his father expected him to be strong and fearless and his mother worried over his social status, attitudes that made life much more complicated. Auntie Harriet said that he frequently rebelled, playing outrageous pranks for which his father beat him. Once, she said, he went joyriding on a neighbor's horse without permission,12 a prank as serious as "borrowing" a car a hundred years later. It was a time when boys in school played rough games, and Johnny tried to be one of the boys. To be accepted as a daredevil, he sneaked a mynah bird with a broken wing to the top of the teacher's desk. When she came into the room, the helpless flopping of the bird frightened her, and Johnny should have felt like a proper rascal. Instead, he felt sorry for the bird.13 When he misbehaved in public, a severe glance from his mother brought him to instant obedience, and he tried very hard to live up to the image of his father. His childhood behavior seemed to alternate between rebellion and a strong desire to please.

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MEKIA,

PLAYMATES

PARADISE

Johnny's playmates further contributed to the complicated forces that were molding his personality. Queen Kapiolani, the wife of King Kalakaua, often brought along her nephews, the Princes Kuhio Kalanianaole and David and Edward Kawananakoa, when she came to call upon Liliuokalani at Washington Place. "In this way, we came to know each other quite well," Johnny said later. "[Kuhio] and I were born in the same year except that he was born nine months earlier. We were much together and closer than we were after we grew up and became men." 1 Kitty undoubtedly approved of these princely playmates. She had high aspirations for her only child and worked hard to keep him presentable at all times. Auntie Harriet Ne said Kitty sacrificed the family sheets and tablecloths when she could not buy enough white fabric for Johnny's shirts. But dressing Johnny like a little dandy did not have the effect Kitty desired. It made the bigger boys pick on him. Once, when confronted by a gang, he took to his heels until the ringleader caught up with him. Johnny fought the boy to a standstill, then kept running until the next boy caught him. Johnny knocked him down also and kept running until he had punched the fight out of the entire gang one at a time.2 The white shirts taught him how to win against formidable odds. Kitty also failed to pass on her acting ability. Johnny grew up a self-conscious and private person. The closest he came to the theater was the school band, in which he tootled the clarinet and piccolo. 3 Auntie Harriet said he also took violin lessons. But there is little evidence, discounting Auntie Harriet's loyal praise of his talent, that he was very good or that anybody encouraged him

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much in this line except his mother, to keep him out of trouble. Perhaps a better reason for his dogged perseverance on the piccolo was that he lived among musically talented people who were then creating what has come to be known as Hawaiian music, which could be sung in harmony to the accompaniment of instruments, the guitar being a favorite. 4 A major stimulus for this creative explosion was Henri Berger, the German leader of the Royal Hawaiian Band, who had arrived in Honolulu the year after Johnny was born. Berger taught Hawaiians to read and write music. 5 His band also provided work for the most skilled musicians in the Hawaiian kingdom. One of his most talented students was Johnny's playmate, Mekia Kealakai, who had been sent to reform school at age twelve for truancy. Then Berger got hold of Mekia and pounded music into his skull. By age fifteen, the boy was playing trombone in the band and flute in native ensembles. In his spare time he composed songs.6 Another reason for the dawning of a new musical age in the Islands was the encouragement Hawaiian musicians received from the royal family, all talented musicians themselves. It was Liliuokalani who wrote the best known of all Hawaiian songs, "Aloha Oe," in 1878. 7 And royal functions provided opportunities for Hawaiian musicians to perform and for new songs to be heard.8 Most haoles were probably unaware that a musical revolution was in progress. Johnny knew it all along because some of his best friends wrote the songs. "[David] Nape and Mekia [Kealakai] and myself were boys together," he wrote later. "They were [my] pals We sowed our wild oats...and sure there was plenty of oats. You ask Mekia." 9 Nape and Kelakai became two of the best known composers of Hawaiian songs in the classic, pioneering period. "Mekia wrote songs for Kalakaua and Liliuokalani," Johnny said later. "He composed music as naturally as a brook flows." 1 0 Kitty must have disapproved of Mekia's reform school background as she most certainly did the doubtful parentage of another of Johnny's playmates, a girl of his own age named Kini, or Jennie, Kapahu. Kini was the illegitimate daughter of John H. McColgan, an Irish tailor, and the eleventh child of a Hawaiian woman named Kalaiolele. 11

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The child Kini was far below Johnny in social standing, and the story of her girlhood illustrates the growing difficulties Hawaiian women faced in a haole world. Since Kini later played a pivotal role in Johnny's life, we must pause to describe the colorful circumstances of her birth, for they helped create the important woman she was to become. On March 3, 1872, a childless Hawaiian couple rode on horseback over the Nu'uanu Pali, a mountain pass, from the windward side of the island to deliver fish to Piikoi, a high chief who lived in a compound on what is now Pi'ikoi Street in Honolulu. The husband of this couple, Kuula, was the keeper of Piikoi's fish pond at the foot of the Pali on the windward side. His wife, Kapahu, was thirty-six years old and had not given birth after nine years of marriage. Kapahu ached for a baby. Before dawn the next day, when Kapahu was on her way to go fishing at Kaka'ako, a lively Hawaiian settlement on the shore in Honolulu, she saw a haole man emerge hastily from a grass house, mount his horse, and gallop toward town. Kapahu approached the grass house and heard the wail of a newborn child. She went inside to offer assistance to the mother. Kapahu found Kalaiolele with her newest offspring only a few minutes old. By the time the father returned with a doctor, the Hawaiian women had everything under control.12 They had also become friends, and Kalaiolele had discovered that Kapahu was childless. Since Kapahu was lonely for a baby, Kalaiolele said to the father, "We have so many. Why don't we give Kapahu this little girl?" And so, in the time-honored Hawaiian custom called hanai, the infant was given away to someone who needed it more.13 Kapahu, a strong-willed and conscientious woman, had the child baptized in the Fort Street Catholic Church on Christmas Day in 1872 because the father was Catholic. By that time Kapahu had grown tired of country living and talked her husband into building a house on Queen Street. Kini grew up there. Kuula died when Kini was seven years old; Kapahu supported her daughter by sewing dresses for haole women and by taking in washing. Kini worked at her mother's side as soon as she could walk. At age eight she sewed her first holoku (Hawaiian gown) from a pattern without help while her mother was away. She

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helped her mother with the washing, done on a washboard at a water tap outside the house and on the beach at Kaka'ako. Kini had two years of formal education beginning when she was six, when her natural father enrolled her in the Catholic school behind the cathedral. Here she learned some English. But she developed a troublesome cough, and a doctor recommended that she remain home in Kapahu's care.14 Through all this, the strong-willed Kapahu carefully paid the taxes on her home so she would not lose it. She taught her hanai daughter to be proud of her Hawaiian-haole heritage yet, in fits of anger, called her a useless bastard. The girl grew up to be uncommonly attractive, quick, and intelligent and fiercely defensive about her illegitimacy. She developed physically at an early age, becoming tall and graceful; she had long-lashed eyes and a great cascade of wavy, black hair that hung to her waist, and she walked with a lithe, swinging gait.15 Kapahu watched her with unceasing vigilance to preserve her virginity. Kini was never allowed alone in the company of a male. In her innocence, she picked up haole swear words and used them, proud of her accomplishment in English.16 "She was an arrogant individual," said Napua Stevens Poire, one of Kini's closest friends in her old age. "When she walked into a room she was a very imposing person to the point where Hawaiians described her as stuck up.... Because her mother had told her, no matter how poor you are, you stand up straight. You look people in the eye. Because if you look all around, they think you like [to] steal."17 It was probably the teenage girl's proud, graceful carriage as much as her beauty that led to Kini's being accepted by King Kalakaua into the royal hula troupe, then and later the victim of much misinterpretation. Kalakaua had endeared himself to the haole business establishment when he negotiated a treaty of reciprocity with the United States that turned sugar plantations into gold mines. He had incurred the undying enmity of missionary descendants when he sponsored a hula troupe to preserve the ancient culture of his people. The hula had so unfailingly been painted with the brush of indecency that, at first, Kapahu adamantly refused to allow Kini to dance. It was Queen Kapiolani who persuaded Kapahu to change her mind.18

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21

Kini was somewhere between fourteen and sixteen when she took up the hula at the royal boathouse. She said later there were seven girls in the lead troupe, which performed in public. The girls were rigidly chaperoned, said Napua, her friend. She added that this did not prevent Kini from flirting with her eyes. Napua said for informal dancing the girls covered themselves on top with thick flower leis mostly of fern that concealed as well as a blouse and were entirely decent. However, if a girl wished to capture the attention of a certain fellow, she might ''ami, or whirl, rapidly, Napua said. Then the leis would fly and he would get a peek. Kini seldom wore only leis, Napua said, because her mother objected strongly.19 After Kini began dancing, neighbors chased her away from their children and forbade them to go to her home. So it is understandable that Kitty Wilson did not want her son to associate with this playmate. Johnny knew Kini then as a disturbingly attractive girl hopelessly out of reach. Napua said that he was annoyed by her arrogance the first time they met and that his lack of interest in her spurred her own in him.20 Years later, Kini said Johnny hung around the boathouse during hula rehearsals. "Johnny wouldn't take the singing and dancing seriously," she said. "Just for the fun of it, he'd clown and mimic the girls, sassy like. We treated him like a court jester."21 So it appears that they were simply friends separated by a wide gulf in social status. Meanwhile, Johnny's boyhood rebellion took a more constructive turn when he learned that a ticket to having his own way could often be purchased. "The first $ 1 0 I made selling newspapers [the Daily Hawaiian, printed in English] I spent on a saddle for my horse," he said later. "I think I was about twelve years old at the time."22 Johnny cleaned and oiled the gun collection of John Dominis in Iolani Barracks for a price.23 He made a windfall when King Kalakaua granted him a monopoly of the kerosene cans at Iolani Palace, kerosene being the fuel that lighted the lamps.24 He said later that he got 25 cents for each kerosene can and there was a great demand for them because of a thriving export trade in goldfish. The cans were ideal for shipping the fish. Johnny hawked soda water and peanuts at the horse races in Kapi'olani Park and

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dove for coins in Honolulu Harbor when ocean liners came to call and when they departed. He said years later that he also fished and went mountain climbing after mountain apples, oranges, limes, and rose apples. According to Auntie Harriet Ne, Johnny spent a lot of time alone, and he spent it reading. It was probably during this time that he became a confirmed reader of newspapers, an addiction he never outgrew. Kitty did her best to screen her son from undesirable friends and to promote his interest among more useful ones. On August 29, 1884, she took Johnny with her while she attended Liliuokalani on a royal excursion aboard the steamer James Makee to Waialua for a ten-day stay.25 In 1885, after Johnny graduated from the Fort Street School, Kitty enrolled him in private St. Alban's College in Pauoa Valley, where he might associate with boys of good families. One of his classmates was Prince David Kawananakoa. 26 In this and other ways, Johnny stood closer to the Princes Kuhio and Kawananakoa than he did to Mekia Kealakai and Kini Kapahu. Yet the bond between himself and Mekia and Kini would become stronger and more important to Johnny's future than his connections with the royal line.

JOHNNY'S

POLITICAL

BAPTISM

As a high school student, Johnny stood unusually close to important political figures in the late monarchy period, yet there is no evidence that he wanted to grow up and be a politician. Politics to him must have been like swimming at Waiklkl: it comes naturally when you're in the water and everybody else is doing it. After all, his father had worked his way out of the blacksmith shop and into the government bureaucracy and now hobnobbed with politicians of numerous political persuasions. In 1 8 8 2 the senior Wilson was elected second assistant engineer; or second assistant chief, of the Honolulu Volunteer Fire Department. In the same year, Kalakaua appointed him superintendent of the waterworks, a major position in the Department of Interior that paid $4,000 a year.1 In 1883 he became first assistant fire chief and escorted Kitty to the king's coronation ball, the social event of the decade.2 C.B. kept pulling political strings. In 1884, with a young attorney named Sanford B. Dole as his lobbyist, he talked the legislature into granting him a franchise to build a Honolulu street railroad. 3 Nothing came of that, but C.B. kept playing the game. In 1 8 8 5 the new Hawaiian Rifle Association elected him vicepresident, and the Honolulu Yacht and Boat Club, sponsored by Kalakaua, named him captain. 4 C.B. also made friends in high places. In July of 1886 he was praised by California capitalist Claus Spreckels, Kalakaua's poker partner and chief creditor, for his economical plan to double the water supply of Honolulu. 5 On June 8 of the same year, C.B. became fire chief, one of the most respected positions in the city.6 So we have to assume that, even in high school, Johnny was aware of the political events of his day when Walter Murray Gib-

23

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son, Kalakaua's controversial and ambitious haole prime minister, infuriated the financial community by encouraging the king's expensive dreams of establishing Hawaiian influence throughout the entire Pacific. Johnny was certainly aware that it was Gibson who directed the king's campaign, immensely popular among his Hawaiian subjects, for bringing back the days of Hawaiian dominance in their own land. And Johnny, like his father, must have believed in this goal. At the same time, the indications are that C. B. took care not to antagonize his haole friends. In the legislative election of 1886, frustrated business interests rallied around a new Independent opposition party. The king's supporters formed their own National party in response. The most vocal were missionary descendants Lorrin A. Thurston and W. R. Castle, young attorneys, who went on the campaign trail to win seats in the territory's house of representatives. J. W. Kaula of Lahaina, Maui, stumped at the fish market in favor of the Independents. He warned sternly against National candidates who were lickspittles of the king's ministers (like Gibson). Kaula predicted dire consequences as a result of the national debt incurred by Kalakaua with money borrowed from San Francisco sugar baron Claus Spreckels. 7 John L. Kaulukou of Honolulu, a staunch Kalakauaite, blasted the Independent opposition from the yard of the Catholic Church. He stoutly maintained that opposition candidates kissed the hoofs of enemies of the Hawaiian race and wanted to run the country themselves. "The life and safety of the people lies in sustaining the government against disloyalty," he thundered.8 Even a youngster like Johnny had to be familiar with the wellestablished practice of vote buying. Before voting, a citizen was required to present a receipt showing that he had paid his poll taxes. Candidates sometimes paid the modest taxes of needy citizens in return for their votes. During this campaign each side accused the other of wholesale vote buying. The tongue-in-cheek slogan of the campaign became "Vote early and often." 9 By the time the dust cleared on election day, the National party with Kalakaua's political and financial backing had won a victory. The business-plantation establishment smarted in defeat. There can be no doubt that Johnny's political sympathies, like

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25

those of his father, lay with Kalakaua and the cause of the Hawaiians. But, like his grandmother before him and many other partHawaiians as well, Johnny sometimes found it difficult in specific instances to give his undivided loyalty to the Hawaiian part of himself. A primary reason for young Johnny Wilson's lack of knee-jerk reaction to the threat of haole political domination over Hawaiians is that he had not experienced it. Unlike his playmates Jennie Kapahu and Mekia Kealakai, he had the best of both worlds. He could enjoy Hawaiian music and the hula and at the same time dress in white shirts and study mathematics. His father commanded the respect of both haoles and Hawaiians, and his mother considered herself superior to their barefooted relatives in Pelekunu Valley. More important, Johnny's real political baptism did not take place amid the racially charged and often corrupt elections for offices in the monarchy; in those he was merely a spectator. His orientation to politics came from a more sophisticated and democratic political institution unique in Hawai'i at the time, the Honolulu Volunteer Fire Department. On January 1 7 , 1887, the Pacific Commercial Advertiser informed its readers that the newly organized junior volunteers of Engine Company No. 1 had elected officers. The newspaper reported, "There are already twenty names on the roll. The foreman, Johnny Wilson, is a son of the chief engineer and a regular 'chip off the old block.'" It was Johnny's first elective office. He had turned fifteen in December. Johnny's volunteers put out a fire in a soda water stand,10 and the boys of Engine Company No. 4 were the first to get water in buckets on a small fire on board the schooner Waioli.n To be the first to get water on the fire merited high praise; adult fire companies competed for this honor every time a fire broke out. Nor was it unusual for fire companies to be publicly acclaimed in the newspaper for such heroism. In a city as flammable as Honolulu, the volunteer firemen provided a valuable service. People who lived in tinder-dry shacks were just as grateful for it as the wealthy owners of warehouses, whose insurance rates went up or down depending on the efficiency of the fire department volunteers.

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C.B.Wilson had risen through the ranks of this elite organization to lead it, and Johnny was familiar with the elective process that got his father there. The process was considerably more sophisticated and democratic than elections for the legislature. For one thing, there was no machinery for nominating candidates for the legislature, no conventions or primary elections or caucuses, because there were not even permanent political parties. Political parties in Hawai'i sprang up in response to issues and then faded away when the issues disappeared. Each election was a free-for-all in which most Hawaiian candidates sought endorsements from the king, and haole candidates buttonholed leading businessmen for support. The only institution for mobilizing public opinion was the mass rally, unwieldy and open to demagoguery. Mass rallies usually happened under pressure of strong public protest. Called together by word of mouth or placards or an announcement in the press, the people were manipulated to choose by acclaim a chairman the leaders had already decided upon. Then picked speakers got up and harangued the crowd with oratory. At the end, a proclamation was read and approved by acclaim, after which everybody went home. If enough people disagreed with the proclamation, they called their own mass rally and issued another proclamation. Mass rallies were judged by the number of people who attended, the reputation of the people who spoke, and the content of the proclamation. The choosing of leaders in the volunteer fire department, in contrast, had long been carried out in an orderly, democratic way. The department itself constituted a permanent political party and each of the fire companies a precinct of that party, each fireman having a vote. The fire companies elected their own foremen, as Johnny had been elected, and these foremen were put forward as candidates for chief engineer and assistant engineers. After much political maneuvering, two slates of candidates formed up before the annual departmental elections in June. Volunteer firemen campaigned hotly for their favorite candidates. Liliuokalani was known to support Pacific Engine Company No. i and its leader, C.B.Wilson. The slates for chief engineer and his assistants were reported as important news in the press, and the elections received full coverage. In return, firemen invited editors to the feasts held by the fire companies on election night.

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/ Z7

There were also lessons in how to fine tune the political process. Johnny was on the scene when C.B. failed in his bid for reelection as fire chief in June 1887. 1 2 A blazing controversy sprang up when it turned out that Pacific Hose Company No. 1 , normally a small company, had suddenly blossomed into one hundred members just before the election. Thirty-three more votes were cast in the election than ever before, and they all went to C.B.Wilson's opponent. The evidence of hanky-panky was so obvious that the winner of the election declined to accept his office. 13 In time the election was declared void, and new rules were drawn up to make sure that volunteer firemen performed a reasonable length of service before voting for officers. In the reelection that followed, C.B.Wilson won back his old office 1 4 and promptly fired a subordinate for dereliction of duty. Later on, Johnny behaved this way himself. His politics was that of the fire department, not of legislative elections during the monarchy. Also in the summer of 1 8 8 7 there was an uprising against the cost and corruption in Kalakaua's administration under Premier Walter Murray Gibson. It began on June 30 with the usual mass meeting; prominent haoles were in control, backed by the fire power of the Honolulu Rifles of which C.B.Wilson was no longer a member. The proclamation that passed by a rousing and unanimous voice vote called for the resignation of the Gibson cabinet and for a new constitution that stripped the king of much of his power. 15 By the time Hawaiians held their own mass meeting in support of the king on July 2,6, it was too little and too late. Kalakaua meekly signed the constitution and accepted a reform cabinet. Outraged Hawaiians referred to the new document as the "Bayonet Constitution" because of the threat of the Honolulu Rifles. Liliuokalani later wrote that Kalakaua signed the new constitution because the conspirators were ripe for revolution, and had taken measures to have him assassinated if he refused....Then they had planned for the immediate abrogation of the monarchy, the declaration of a republic and a proposal of annexation to be made to the United States. . . . T h e y had illegally come out against him, bearing arms, and it is openly stated that they had prepared measures to be a law unto themselves. 16

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Given Liliuokalani's close friendship with the Wilsons, Johnny must have have heard such emotionally charged statements and been aware of her frustration over haole control by strongarm tactics. Liliuokalani's resentment was shared by Hawaiians in general but not always in the particular. C.B.Wilson was quoted later as saying that he thought "Kalakaua had made many blunders as king," especially in appointing foreign adventurers to high office and in allowing appallingly large government expenditures. 17 And there is no indication that C.B., as superintendent of the waterworks, had difficulty getting along with the new cabinet, including his immediate boss, Secretary of Interior Lorrin A. Thurston, the haole firebrand—perhaps because they both prided themselves on their no-nonsense efficiency. And they shared an interest in yachting. Two years after the "Bayonet Constitution" went into effect, they worked together on a committee to draw up rules for the Hawaiian Challenge Cup. 18 Johnny was busy studying for final exams during this political excitement in the summer of 1887. The exams were, in his day, worse than taking castor oil, because students had to get up and perform not only before their parents but also before distinguished guests invited as judges. There were history recitations, demonstrations of facility in French, competitions in algebra, and map reading in geography. It was enough to make a student want to jump ship, which is exactly what Johnny had in mind, as we shall see. But he w o n a prize in arithmetic and got his name in the paper.19 In the following year, Johnny's father further demonstrated his versatility by constructing Honolulu's first hydroelectric power plant, in Nu'uanu Valley, and by organizing the office of building inspector.20 And C.B. also made the acquaintance of Robert W. Wilcox, the mercurial revolutionist, under less than auspicious circumstances. Thus, Johnny heard at first hand about another important politician. Wilcox, a talented and intelligent part-Hawaiian, was one of the promising young men Kalakaua had sent away to study in foreign lands as a means of improving the performance of Hawaiians at home. It happened that Wilcox was sent to Turin, Italy, to study at the military academy there. Turin, in the state of Piedmont, was at the time a hotbed of the resorgimento or Italian "resurgence," which overthrew foreign domination of Italy.21

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Wilcox returned to Hawai'i with his head full of noble ideals and an education in revolutionary tactics. He also brought with him as his wife an Italian baroness. But he lacked experience in practical matters, and he needed a job. It seems that Liliuokalani referred him to C.B.Wilson, superintendent of the waterworks, who offered Wilcox work adding up and collecting unpaid water bills at $ 1 0 0 a month. We have to assume that Wilcox felt such work undignified and far beneath his station. Some said he wanted to be adjutant general.22 Anyway, he turned the job down. C.B.Wilson's boss, Lorrin Thurston, liked to tell listeners that Wilcox was unable to handle the assignment because the work required him to measure the distance from a water meter to the sidewalk, and Wilcox couldn't do it because he had been taught in meters and the measurements were in feet and inches.23 It must be remembered, before crediting this tale, that Thurston and Wilcox got along like the proverbial cat and dog. In any event, it appears that Johnny's father didn't fully trust Wilcox, either. At this time, C.B. represented law and order and the royal establishment, Wilcox the radical element during events that led up to Robert Wilcox's first attempt at armed revolt in a somewhat confused protest against the "Bayonet Constitution.'.'24 Wilcox's goals seem to have been to get a new constitution and to throw out the new cabinet. There are indications that he wanted also to put Liliuokalani on the throne with himself as queenmaker in a Garibaldi tradition. On July 30, 1889, he and his supporters took the palace grounds for a while and fired off some shots before surrendering. Wilcox went on trial for conspiracy; he was acquitted by a Hawaiian jury to the disgust of people like Lorrin Thurston, who might have faced the same charge from royalists if the "Bayonet Constitution" uprising had failed. Meanwhile, Johnny graduated from St. Albans. We don't know how he felt at this time about Robert Wilcox, but in later years he mentions Wilcox with respect. We do know that Johnny was very restless. Auntie Harriet Ne said he had saved his money to take a trip to the United States. He sailed on August 2 , 1 8 8 9 , on the Australia for San Francisco, leaving behind the bickering over Wilcox in search of something he couldn't seem to find.

STOWAWAY

Johnny Wilson had no goal in life when he set out alone for the United States at age seventeen. We have to assume that he was searching. He visited relatives on his mother's side in the state of Washington. Auntie Harriet Ne said he worked as a feather plucker on a turkey farm, as a dishwasher, and as a waiter. He also admired bridges in San Francisco.1 After six months, he came home and went to work on the docks as a stevedore.2 Stevedoring at that time was very much a Hawaiian monopoly, placing Johnny in the midst of hard-core Hawaiian pride, loyalty, and prejudice that demanded equal loyalty in return. Immigrants need not apply. The docks were a stronghold of steadfast, uncritical support for the king. Johnny was working as a stevedore when Robert Wilcox and the National Reform party won a landslide victory for Hawaiians in the 1890 legislative election.3 Young Johnny must have shared in the jubilation of the dockworkers. He also established friendships on the waterfront that would result in solid support when he ran for office many years later. After the election, he and a friend tried to stow away on the S. C. Allen, a smart bark that plied between San Francisco and Honolulu. It was his bad luck that at about the same time, two sailors deserted from a warship in the harbor. A search for the deserters turned up Johnny and his friend in a corner of the hold. They were marched to the police station, where Johnny was rescued by his irate father.4 The failure to stow away on the S. C.Allen merely widened his horizons. He would join the crew of a whaleship, a considerably less desirable means of transportation to freedom.

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Johnny later said that he went on board the Triton bound for Alaska and applied for a job. The skipper told Johnny he was too small but offered him $ 1 0 for each seaman he could find to replace the deserters. He and a friend scoured the town for derelicts and talked three into joining the Triton, smuggling them on board past the harbor police. After delivering the men and collecting his money, Johnny remained on board, hidden away, and had the pleasure while leaving port of thumbing his nose at the policeman on shore who had arrested him the week before. The officer notified C.B., but by then it was too late. Johnny was on his way to Alaska. According to the story Johnny told later, C.B. was furious.5 Napua Stevens Poire, however, said C.B.Wilson was secretly proud of his son's spunk. The whaleships spent the summer in the Arctic, then returned to San Francisco to sell their whale oil, arriving about the first of December. Johnny found a job collecting bills for a doctor and driving him around town behind a couple of sturdy bays. One evening he returned to his room on Bush Street to find his possessions gone. The landlady said a handsome man had taken everything, leaving instructions to tell Johnny someone would come for him that night. A policeman showed up and escorted Johnny to the home of financier John D. Spreckels, who had received a letter from C.B.Wilson asking Spreckels to watch for his son and send him home. Spreckels told Johnny his clothes were on board the steamer Australia, sailing for Honolulu the next morning. Johnny went on board with a twenty-dollar gold piece Spreckels gave him for spending money. Johnny must have returned to Honolulu about the end of December 1890, and it appears that he had gotten some of the restlessness temporarily out of his system. He found a job on the railroad better suited than stevedoring to both his talent and his interests. The railroad, a spectacular promotional effort of its time in Hawai'i, was a result of the vision and salesmanship of Benjamin F. Dillingham. It opened up the interior of O'ahu and the leeward coast for development. Johnny wrote later: "Oahu Railroad started in 1887 by Dillingham and had built about nine miles as far as Waiau...when I got a job as brush cutter and

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chainman for Mr. Kuegel, the engineer.... While in the employ of the railroad, I saw the road built from Waiau to Ewa Mill." 6 As engineer for the railroad, Kuegel laid out and surveyed the route for the tracks. As brush cutter and chainman, Johnny cleared a path through the kiawe bushes for the engineer; held a pole while the engineer sighted on it, and marked the route with stakes. The new brush cutter enjoyed his job because surveying requires a grasp of mathematics, Johnny's favorite subject, and the laying out of a railroad bed is an adventure in finding the easiest path, like blazing the Oregon Trail. But a railroad train cannot be hauled and lifted over steep places like a covered wagon. The bed has to be laid where the grades are not too steep or where they can be cut down by earthmoving equipment and where the soil is firm and well drained. So the engineer had to know about soil composition. Working on the railroad, therefore, became for Johnny a daily challenge to his curiosity and his sense of adventure, just as coastal pilotage and taro growing had been. He must have learned how to survey without much difficulty. Dillingham himself apparently took an interest in his eager young brush cutter. He had good reason to be interested. One of the primary problems for a pioneer industrialist like Dillingham in Hawai'i was hiring men on the local labor market who had the education and quickness to cope with new technologies. The king's health failed while Johnny was learning to survey, so Kalakaua traveled to San Francisco, a sea voyage and a change of climate being considered conducive to good health in those days. On January 29, 1 8 9 1 , the USS Charleston arrived in Honolulu Harbor with the somber news that the king was dead on board. Banners of welcome were exchanged for black crepe. Liliuokalani took the throne, and the fortunes of the Wilson family took an abrupt upward turn. On March 9, 1 8 9 1 , the new queen appointed C.B.Wilson a member of her privy council, the body that advised her on matters of state, and marshal of the kingdom, a position that combined the duties of police chief and commander of military forces. Robert Wilcox was furious because he wanted to be marshal.7 Kitty became one of Liliuokalani's official ladies-in-waiting. The first months of Liliuokalani's reign were hopeful with

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promise, like a honeymoon, for she traveled to the other islands on grand tours of state to meet her subjects and hear about their wants. While Johnny worked on the railroad, his mother accompanied the queen to Hawai'i. The reports he read in the Pacific Commercial Advertiser about his mother's adventure fascinated the whole town. Meanwhile, Johnny began to find himself. His restlessness no longer made him want to stow away on a whaleship. His new idea was to travel first class to college. "After [working] on the railroad, I decided I wanted to be an engineer," he wrote later.8 There are two indications that Liliuokalani now decided to take a hand in Johnny's future. First, she included him in her next official entourage to Maui along with her nephews, the Princes Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole and David Kawananakoa. 9 Second, she underwrote a major part of Johnny's college education.10 The choice of Johnny's college was probably dictated partly by cost, partly by coincidence. At about this time, news reached Hawai'i that a new university was to be established by a prominent California financier and politician, Leland Stanford, on his ranch thirty miles southeast of San Francisco. Tuition would be free. In addition, recruiters for the new Leland Stanford Junior University made it clear that those who wanted to obtain a college education at a nominal fee didn't need the best grades to attend Stanford. Here a student from even the cannibal islands of Hawai'i would be welcome. 11 So Johnny, or the queen and his parents, decided on Stanford. After a summer of parties and preparation, he set out on his new adventure aboard the Zealandia on September 8, 1891. 1 2

KANAKA

JACK

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This was an immensely exciting time for Johnny Wilson; new experiences stimulated his curiosity and bombarded his imagination. There was an optimism in the United States, a growing confidence in its mechanical marvels, a hankering after the fortunes to be made by pluck and ingenuity, a belief in wonder cures. As he rode the train down from San Francisco along the bay to Stanford, he saw new machines in the fields. There was nothing in Hawai'i like Sutro's Tropic Baths in the city, an enormous covered colosseum with steel girders that housed a vast saltwater swimming pool, play courts, and even balconies for watching the bathers. At Woodward's Gardens, an amusement park, you could see a Chineseman eight feet tall. Everything here was newer and bigger than in Honolulu. 1 Two other students from Hawai'i, Frank Andrade and J. C. White, joined Johnny at Stanford. These exotic foreigners created something of a stir among rawboned farmers' sons. Archie Rice, a classmate from the United States with a nimble pen and a sense of humor, who became an editorial writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, later wrote to Johnny in a letter of reminiscence, "You will recall that all you aliens were restricted in Encina [Hall] to some back room space in the basement or in the bat-infested attic, at least until you learned to speak a little English and could read signs." 2 Johnny soon became known on campus as Kanaka Jack. Frank Andrade was called Hula. Johnny's engineering courses satisfied a hunger to be useful. The future road builder read what Albert Gallatin, the father of America's road system, wrote about the importance of highways: G o o d r o a d s . . . w i l l shorten distances, facilitate commercial and personal intercourse, and unite...the most remote quarters of the United

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States. N o other single operation within the power of the government, can more effectually tend to strengthen and perpetuate the Union which secures external independence...and internal liberty.3

Johnny would never stop believing that. His classmate, Herbert Hoover; who would later become president of the United States, was a quiet, stooped young man who wanted to get into geology. And Johnny's fellow engineering student from Hawai'i, Frank Andrade, who later became a judge, decided to switch to law school. But civil engineering, especially road building, was to Johnny the most important, exciting, and useful work he could think of. He studied it with the same concentration he had applied to coastal pilotage, taro farming, and surveying. There is no way of knowing how much news Johnny got from home. But San Francisco papers printed stories about Hawai'i now and then, and visitors arrived from Honolulu, so he must have been aware that his father had come under increasing criticism. The Pacific Commercial Advertiser on November 30, 1 8 9 1 , hinted openly at corruption in the marshal's office. "Why is it that the price of opium has fallen to such a low figure?" the editor asked. "Why is it that there is often so much delay in the serving of warrants for the arrest of Chinese gamblers, that the gamblers, having been warned, have time to escape?" In the same editorial, the newspaper aired a charge made five years before that C.B., as waterworks superintendent, had been short in his accounts, a shortage made up by "powerful friends." C.B.Wilson's detractors pointed to the queen's insistence that he be her marshal and her support for him in the face of the harshest kind of criticism as proof that they were conducting a secret romance. U.S. Minister John L. Stevens, who supported annexation, referred to C.B. as the queen's paramour.4 Robert Wilcox added to the clamor against C.B. on December 5, 1 8 9 1 , at a meeting of the Hui Kalaiaina. "A 'blacksmith' is very influential with the Queen and, of course, no one has the faintest regard for his advice on state matters," Wilcox thundered.5 Fred Wundenberg, former postmaster and a staunch royalist, later testified to James H. Blount, special commissioner of the United

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States, that the press deliberately held C.B.Wilson up for ridicule to humiliate the queen. "For every drunk, robbery, etc., Wilson was blamed," said Wundenberg.6 He added that C.B. was an excellent marshal but tended to be careless in his accounts and that Wilson got behind "something like nine or ten thousand dollars" as superintendent of the water works, but that this problem may have been inherited from a long series of inept superintendents. Wundenberg said he and Liliuokalani advanced the money to put the matter to rest. He put down C.B.Wilson% alleged affair with the queen as malicious gossip.7 Blount in his report took the view that C.B.Wilson "is universally recognized as a brave man and loyal to the Queen Because of his marriage with a native woman, and her connection with the Queen, and her confidence in his courage and fidelity, she trusted him rather than any of the whites in this position." 8 Predictably, Johnny's father reacted to criticism in ways that added fuel to the fire. In January 189Z he kicked newspaper reporters out of an inquest on the death of a sailor. Their editors were furious. They began to call him King Charley.9 In March, the Pacific Commercial Advertiser charged that gambling was being conducted openly under the noses of the police, "a public scandal and disgrace." 10 Then came the sandbag incident in March. On learning that a plot was afoot to overthrow the government, Marshal Wilson threw up sandbags around Iolani Palace to defend it and became the butt of ridicule when no revolt materialized. The Pacific Commercial Advertiser self-righteously deplored such instability in government as "a constant hindrance to the nation." 11 Nobody seemed to consider that Wilson's prompt action might have discouraged the revolt. By this time, C.B. had become the whipping boy for certain enemies of the queen who had formed a coalition; Robert Wilcox, now a republican instead of a monarchist, and Lorrin Thurston were among them. Wilcox's new National Liberal party attached another derogatory label to C.B.Wilson, "King Bola Bola," and denounced him as an "ignorant Tahitian... offensively conspicuous as a court favorite." 12 On Friday, May 2.0, 1892, the marshal broke up a new revolt

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by arresting Robert Wilcox and more than a dozen others on charges of treason. The Pacific Commercial Advertiser admitted that rumors of revolt had been rife for weeks but insisted that such a revolt was unlikely. Then the editor blamed the whole affair on C.B.Wilson. 13 This was the politically charged climate that Johnny returned to when he landed from the Australia on June 14, 1892, for summer vacation. The treason trials were under way, filling many columns in the daily newspapers. The trials of lesser offenders dragged on through June. After thirty-six days in prison, Wilcox was released on the order of Chief Justice Albert F. Judd as the result of some sort of agreement that the revolutionary leader not be tried. The Pacific Commercial Advertiser ridiculed the alleged revolt as a "burlesque conspiracy."14 Johnny suffered through the summer while the legislature blasted his father in July, and the Pacific Commercial Advertiser strongly hinted that the police, under King Bola Bola, were peddling opium in defiance of all law and order. The queen doggedly stood by her marshal. On August 1 7 , 1892, Johnny again boarded the Australia and sailed back to San Francisco. He found the San Francisco newspapers as lively as those of Honolulu. It was an election year, and a Democratic boss had just reorganized the party to make it more manageable. This horrified the San Francisco Chronicle, a respectable Republican newspaper, which printed a five-column cartoon depicting the upcoming Democratic municipal convention as a circus.15 At Stanford there was much speculation about the respective campaigns of the Republican candidate, President Benjamin Harrison, and his challenger, the Democrats' Grover Cleveland. So Johnny found himself knee deep in politics again as he had so often been in Honolulu. It seemed that political labels in the United States were somewhat different from the Hawaiian variety, although there was a definite similarity in performance. By reading the San Francisco newspapers, Johnny could see that the local Republicans were well heeled and organized just as the plantation-business establishment was at home, while the Democrats, like Robert Wilcox and other Hawaiians on O'ahu, were constantly squabbling and forming splinter groups. The Republicans favored a protective tariff the way plantation

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owners in Hawai'i always maneuvered for legislation favorable to sugar prices. Like Johnny's Hawaiian friends, the Democrats were for laborers and the little man. We do not know when Johnny discovered Thomas Jefferson, a patron saint of the Democrats, but the discovery must have been a real eye-opener because he became an enthusiastic fan of this American politician. Jefferson's strong defense of First Amendment rights struck a sympathetic chord in Johnny because rich haoles in Hawai'i paid so little attention to the criticisms, just or unjust, of Hawaiians against the "Bayonet Constitution." There is little doubt that Johnny leaned toward the Democrats right away. In later years, however, he explained that he did not make up his mind until he joined the Stanford band, performing either on the clarinet or piccolo (we are not sure which it was). The band played for political rallies off campus. It appears that Johnny was more interested in the speeches than he was in the music. "I got to hear both sides," he said later.16 As a result, during the 1892 presidential election he became the first Hawaiian Democrat, although not a voting one. On Thursday, November 10, 1892, two days after Cleveland defeated Harrison by a landslide, the San Francisco Chronicle ran a story noting that in Honolulu Liliuokalani and her opponents in the legislature had deadlocked over appointment of a new cabinet after the previous one was voted out the same day it took office. For Johnny, it was the first of a series of increasingly grim reports from Hawai'i. But it was not until Saturday, January 28, 1893, eleven days after the fact, that news broke in California about the overthrow of the monarchy in Hawai'i. The news came by way of a commission headed by Lorrin A. Thurston, bound for Washington, D.C., and seeking annexation of Hawai'i by the United States. From the Chronicle story Johnny learned that the coup d'etat had followed an attempt by the queen to promulgate a new constitution presented to her by a large delegation of the Hui Kalaiaina, although her cabinet advised against it. That night a Committee of Safety (organized by the queen's haole opponents) had been formed; the next day, a mass meeting was held in opposition to the queen. At 5 P.M. that day, January 16, three hundred fully armed U.S. Marines were landed from the USS Boston (on

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the request of U.S. Minister Stevens). On January 1 7 , the Committee of Safety took possession of Iolani Palace and announced the formation of a provisional government. The only information about Johnny's father in the story read as follows: T h e late Q u e e n and C a b i n e t finally yielded unconditionally and the police station w a s turned over to C o m m a n d e r Soper a n d C a p t a i n Ziegler w i t h f o r t y men f r o m C o m p a n y A [of the H o n o l u l u Rifles]. M r . W i l s o n m a d e a short address to the police force assembled in the station, telling them that resistance w a s no longer feasible.

What went through Johnny's mind at the time we do not know. But his later correspondence gives a clue: T h o s e w h o actually profited in sugar were the ones [ w h o ] benefited the most in the o v e r t h r o w of the Q u e e n . . . . T h e real object of annexation w a s not so m u c h due to their love and devotion to their country, as it w a s for the t w o - c e n t b o u n t y placed on a p o u n d of sugar under the terms of the M c K i n l e y Tariff Bill. H a w a i i could only enjoy this privilege as part of the United States and not o t h e r w i s e . 1 7

It probably wasn't until Johnny returned for summer vacation on May 17, 1893, o n the Australia that he learned the real story of what happened at the police station on the day his father surrendered. C.B.Wilson, it turned out, was the last monarchist to give up, and, if he had had his way, things might have turned out differently. After the trouble started, C.B. had been informed that firebrands on the Committee of Safety like Lorrin Thurston and W. O. Smith were fomenting revolution. So he asked permission of the cabinet to arrest them for treason and put them in jail. After all, he had locked up Robert Wilcox on the same charge. However, C.B.Wilson was no loose cannon; he wanted legal authority in matters of this importance. Attorney General Arthur P. Peterson, in C.B.Wilson's opinion the most chicken-livered member of the cabinet, said he was afraid this might precipitate a conflict with the United States because Lorrin Thurston had warned that U.S. troops were ready to be landed. C.B. answered that he was prepared to resist such a

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landing if it was for the purpose of overthrowing the queen. Then the United States would have to declare war on Hawai'i, a friendly nation, and he doubted if they would fire the first shot. C.B. pointed out: W e can o p p o s e them n o w w i t h over 5 0 0 men, t w o G a t l i n g guns, and a battery of artillery of a b o u t twelve pieces (rifled A u s t r i a n breech-loaders), with six or seven hundred rounds of ammunition, shot, shell and shrapnel, and a b o u t fifty or sixty thousand rounds for Springfield and Winchester rifles, to say nothing of the volunteers w e h a v e . 1 8

But the cabinet declined to give C.B. authority to arrest Thurston and Smith or to oppose the landing—and under the constitutional monarchy, the cabinet and not the queen had the authority to make this decision. So he had no alternative but to surrender his arms and men to better poker players. His diary entry of January 1 7 , 1 8 9 3 , indicates that he believed the revolt had succeeded by bluff: "McStocker, Larsen and Hopkins 19 [probably members of the police force] stated to me that a lot of the [?] who are American were told if they took up arms to support the Queen they would have to fight the U.S. troops. 1 0 A.M."20 While Johnny was home from Stanford, his father's name appeared on a provisional government list of those royalists to be thrown in jail in the event of an uprising. C.B. was fired as marshal, and it appears that he threw up his hands in disgust at the inept handling of the whole affair. All government employees were required to take an oath of allegiance to their new bosses. This the members of the Royal Hawaiian Band refused to do. Almost the entire band quit, forcing band master Henri Berger to scramble around for replacements. 21 So Johnny's friends Mekia Kealakai and David Nape were out of work. The band boys organized under a Filipino saxophone player and former circus musician named José Libornio to play concerts where they passed the hat. They were first called the Manuwahi (Free) Band. Later they took the name Hawaiian National Band. Whether because of or in spite of their troubles, Johnny's young Hawaiian friends were restless. Kealakai and Nape wanted to tour the United States with the National Band. Kini had her eye

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on the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, opened the previous November on the 400th anniversary of Columbus' voyage. Much news of this gigantic world's fair had appeared in Honolulu and San Francisco newspapers in the uneasy days following the overthrow before Johnny returned from Stanford, and he was very much aware of it. The fair featured displays of technological achievements, of new machines and inventions. The exposition symbolized American leadership in science and culture. Ethnic dancers from around the world performed at the fair.22 The new provisional government was disposed to look on the exposition as a means of luring tourists to Hawai'i, especially since annexationist Lorrin Thurston was the chief promoter of this idea. He had talked his friends into investing in an attraction for the fair called a cyclorama, an enormous painting of Kllauea Crater in volcanic eruption. This huge work of art, three hundred feet long, was displayed in the round so that a viewer, by slowly turning in a complete circle, got an unobstructed view of the entire panorama because he was in the middle of it. Thurston had gone to Chicago from Washington, D.C., after presenting Hawai'i's credentials for annexation. Now he was in charge of the cyclorama which, he wrote enthusiastically, was capturing two percent of an attendance of one million in the first three weeks, a bonanza better than sugar for his investors.23 It may have been his idea to send a hula troupe from Hawai'i to the exposition. So the government approved a hula tour, and Kini was asked to go. Since quite a few missionary descendants took a dim view of the hula, the plan was kept under cover. A reporter from the Pacific Commercial Advertiser, however, let the cat out of the bag the day before the girls sailed.24 Auntie Harriet Ne said Kini asked Liliuokalani whether or not she should go, and the deposed queen gave her approval. But Kini's mother did not. She was so opposed to the idea that she hid Kini's dresses, forcing her daughter to board the ship with only the clothes on her back. Napua Stevens Poire explained why Kini's mother was so opposed. She said hula troupes from the neighbor islands sometimes performed in Honolulu, and some of the girls returned home pregnant, to the shame of their families. Both Auntie Harriet and Napua said Johnny also advised Kini

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not to go. "But she wanted to go, and she was a very strongminded person," said Napua. The girls in the troupe were Jennie Kapahu, Nakai, Pauahi Pinao, and Annie Kalupa. They would receive $5 a week in salary, and all their expenses would be paid. The Pacific Commercial Advertiser reported that a large crowd saw them off at the dock on Wednesday, May 24, 1893. 25 In San Francisco, the girls were asked to perform acrobatics as well as the hula. The Pacific Commercial Advertiser reported: "Nearly eight hundred people went over to see the hula girls from Honolulu do some high diving from the Alameda mole recently. The water was rough and the cold wind that swept across the bay...caused some of the Kanakas to wish they were back in their island home." The story said the girls, clad in men's bathing suits, were asked to climb up into the rigging of the ship Tacoma, crawl out on one of the yards, and dive off. Only two of the girls had the courage to perform this uncomfortable feat. 26 Asked if Kini would do that, Napua Stevens Poire said, "She was game for anything." 27 Reports from Chicago indicate that the Hawaiian hula dancers and musicians were a great success. The musicians first performed outside to attract a crowd, then went inside where the troupe put on a show. Napua said Kini told her she had a good time at the fair: "She told me that [it] was one most exciting trip. ...They did the sitting hula, mostly, not too much of the standing hula They were very protected and they were inside." But everywhere the hula girls went, they were stared at, Napua said. Once a man pinched Kini. She swung at him but missed. Kini told Napua, "I said, 'Don't touch me.'" Napua explained that the dances the girls performed required physical and mental preparation because "they are genealogical. And so, when you're dancing about your ancestors or the ancestors of the alii, you can't be playful or promiscuous." 28 On August 24, 1893, Johnny returned to San Francisco on the Alameda. At Stanford he resumed his studies and joined the football team as one of the managers, a job that permitted him to travel up and down California with the team. Meanwhile, he learned box office procedure. Also at this time, Johnny formed a lasting friendship with Lou Whitehouse, one of the football players, also an engineering stu-

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dent, from the state of Washington, who started at Stanford in 1892. Whitehouse was probably the better scholar, but he respected Johnny for his ability to always land on his feet. When the World's Columbian Exposition closed on October 3 1 , 1 8 9 3 . Lorrin Thurston moved his cyclorama to the Mid-Winter Fair in San Francisco where Johnny, hungry for his own kind, spent a lot of time on weekends during the winter and spring of 1894. He became friendly with showman Emmet W. McConnell, manager of the fair's Hawaiian Village, and learned a lot about the business end of a fair attraction.29 We don't know many other details about Johnny's social life during this period. He said later that he sometimes attended parties in San Francisco given by Prince David Kawananakoa. 30 And Johnny may have carried on a romance with the sister of a Stanford classmate who lived in San Francisco. Johnny's interest in engineering never flagged, but the money that was putting him through school ran out. Since his father and his patron, Liliuokalani, were no longer gainfully employed, he was largely on his own. He paid his bills that year from the money he had earned by investing his summer vacation savings in Hawaiian monarchy stamps just before the provisional government issued new ones. His stamps soared in price, and he was able to sell them for enough to stay in school during his junior year.31 Then he had to say goodbye to Stanford.

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Johnny Wilson was no homesick Island boy when he quit college in the spring of 1894 at age twenty-three. He was without a degree and in a foreign country two thousand miles from home, but he was an ambitious young man eager to master the world. However, he had not yet found a way to do this. The details of how he survived the first year are hazy. Apparently the engineering faculty at Stanford helped him find a job as surveyor for the construction of a railroad in the Tehachapi Mountains. 1 Another scrap of information says he led a mule on a prospecting trek that took him into Death Valley and stayed away so long he was given up for lost.2 Auntie Harriet Ne said he worked as a logger.3 Meanwhile, Kini Kapahu's hula troupe had gone from Chicago to play in the leading vaudeville houses of New York. 4 The Hawaiian dance and the exotic music that went with it proved such a sensation that promoters of the troupe staged a grand tour of Europe. And so it was that, while Johnny led a mule into Death Valley, Kini danced before Kaiser Wilhelm, King Oscar of Saxony, and the czar and czarina of Russia. The only artifact that survives from this improbable tour, during which Europeans heard Hawaiian music and saw the hula for the first time, is Kini's charm bracelet. On it, she recorded her conquests. 5 There were quite a few of them because Kini had become a stunningly beautiful woman, tall and regal, with flashing dark eyes and a magnificent mane of long black hair. Counts and barons must have been entranced. Johnny returned from the desert and headed for San Francisco. How he kept body and soul together there we do not know. By this time 1894 was almost over, and in Hawai'i, the frustration of

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Hawaiians, and the damage to their pride over the loss of nationhood, had become intolerable. Robert Wilcox was again on hand to provide leadership, for he now sided with the deposed monarchy. He led a plot to take back Hawai'i for the Hawaiians by force of arms. The role of Johnny Wilson in what became the revolt of 1895 in Honolulu is part of his legend but cannot be confirmed. Auntie Harriet Ne said he did not take part in the revolt.6 Johnny himself never mentioned his participation in any of his writings that have survived. But he told at least two people, many years after the fact, that he did participate. This is how labor leader Bob McElrath described his conversation with Johnny about the revolt: He said, "I was commissioned [in San Francisco] by some people here [in Hawai'i] to get the arms and ammunition for a counterrevolution." He told me, he advised them to land the arms and ammunition on Maui, take over the [steamship] Kinau, and sail into Honolulu Harbor on early Sunday morning. He said, "I told them, we'll take the police station and the armory before they even wake up." 7 The purchase of arms by Johnny would have taken place about November of 1894. We do know that Johnny's uncle, George Townsend, participated in the revolt because he was arrested when it failed and his testimony in court at his trial provides the following details of the affair.8 Townsend said he was recruited by Sam Nowlein, a leader of the revolt with Wilcox, to watch from Makapu'u Point for a schooner carrying the arms. On arrival of the schooner, Townsend went on board the small steamer Waimanalo to rendezvous with the schooner and unload the cargo. After the ships made contact, Robert Wilcox came alongside in a canoe to report a change of plans because news of the revolt had leaked out. The arms were landed at Diamond Head instead of Kaka'ako, as a result. On the night of Sunday, January 7, 1895, police went to Waiklkl to investigate suspicious activity and were fired upon. A member of the annexation commission of 1893 fell fatally wounded. The provisional government immediately sent troops out to give battle. By January 14 it was all over. George Townsend

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surrendered in a cave at Diamond Head. Robert Wilcox scurried in retreat in the Ko'olau Mountains before giving up. It may be that one reason Johnny did not broadcast his part in the revolt is that the provisional government sentenced the rebels to hard labor. George Townsend escaped without punishment in return for his evidence. Officials of the provisional government held reunions for at least thirty years thereafter to celebrate their victory. Since they were then firmly entrenched in power; Johnny might have thought it best to keep quiet about his part in the affair. As his father had after the 1893 overthrow, he expressed disgust at the inept handing of the revolt. Years later he told a friend, Walter Trask,9 as he did Bob McElrath, that the arms should never have been landed at Diamond Head under the noses of the provisional government. He told McElrath, in regard to his plan to land the arms on Maui, "They turned me down...and they got wiped out before they got to St. Louis Heights." 10 Meanwhile, C.B.Wilson came out for annexation of Hawai'i to the United States. He told a mass meeting of the American League in Union Square on March 28, 1895, "The wheels of progress will move along whether Hawaiians want it to or not," he said. " N o power can interfere with it. If annexation is to be our destiny, the sooner it comes the better for all concerned." 11 It was about this time that Liliuokalani's attitude toward her former marshal cooled. But Kitty remained a loyal friend. When the former queen was put under house arrest in Iolani Palace for alleged complicity in the revolt, Kitty stayed by her side in the face of adversity, and everyone respected her for it. During her imprisonment, the queen wrote a song, "Kuu Pua I I^aokalani," for Johnny and dedicated it to him. This has been interpreted as an indication that he took part in the revolt. Meanwhile, Johnny's friends Mekia Kealakai and David Nape and the other boys in the National Band were still searching for a way to fulfill their dream of touring the United States. Several attempts by promoters to take advantage of their restlessness failed. But things finally jelled, and the largest crowd ever reported on the pier saw the Australia off when the band sailed for San Francisco on May 8, 1895. 1 2 Johnny met the band when it arrived in San Francisco. The boys performed at the Metropolitan Temple for four nights, then

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played concerts at the Sutro Baths.13 After that, it was all downhill. Claus Spreckels, who had provided free transportation for the band on his steamer line to San Francisco, found himself saddled with a group of forty Hawaiian musicians he didn't know what to do with. Johnny later wrote an account of the band tour and how he became involved.14 The story on the following pages is taken from his reminiscence. He explained that he had become a familiar face at the Spreckels San Francisco headquarters because Spreckels had acted as his guardian during college days and had doled out tuition money sent by C.B.Wilson. Johnny recalled that he visited Spreckels' office while the band was in town to ask for a job on a railroad the sugar magnate was promoting in San Joaquin Valley. When Johnny arrived in the office, he found Billy Aylett, a band member, hitting up Spreckels for another two hundred dollars and heard Spreckels say, "That makes an even fifteen hundred." As Johnny walked in, Spreckels said, "Bill, it seems to me that you boys need a manager. You'd better take Johnny along with you." Johnny protested that he didn't know anything about show business. But Spreckels shot back, "Neither do they....With your ability to speak Hawaiian, I think you'll be able to take care of the boys all right." The industrialist provided Johnny with a fistful of railroad passes; and so, instead of working as an engineer^ Johnny began his professional career as manager of the National Band. Of course, he immediately took charge: The first thing I did was to send for Lou Whitehouse [the former Stanford football player, who had graduated with an engineering degree and was looking for a job] who was then living in Oakland with his parents Then I picked up a fellow I knew. I had met him at the park. He was a balloon man, used to jump [by parachute?]. His name was Charlie Woodford.

Honolulu native George Cooper, who was ringing a bell in front of a hock shop to attract customers, also enlisted. So the management team of the band took shape. Johnny sent Cooper to Stockton and Whitehouse to San Jose to get bookings. "We got back to San Francisco with $1,500 to the clear. I turned it over to Spreckels and he didn't seem crushed," Johnny wrote later. Once more he asked for an engineering job. Instead of giving

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him one, Spreckels, who had an interest in the Santa Fe Railroad, handed Johnny forty-four tickets to New York with stopover privileges anywhere on the line good for one year. Thus began the National Band tour that introduced Hawaiian music to audiences from California to Pennsylvania. The audiences had never heard anything like it. According to Johnny, Libornio was the first to play a saxophone in the United States, and Mekia Kealakai's flute playing so impressed John Philip Sousa that the march king tried to hire Mekia away from the National Band. "They were good musicians—entirely different from any other band I've seen," Johnny boasted. "They'd open a regular concert using their band instruments. Then during intermission they would entertain by singing—they were outstanding singers. In the next half of the program, they would be a symphony of strings. Everyone in the band played two or more instruments." For two weeks, the band dazzled audiences throughout Southern California—in Riverside, Redondo Beach, San Diego, Pasadena, and San Bernardino. Johnny sent his advance agents far ahead to get bookings, then set out across Arizona Territory. " I expected to hear from them but there was not a word," Johnny wrote. " I had a hunch it might be Denver, Albuquerque, or Colorado Springs." The train with its special coach of musically talented Hawaiians clickety-clacked through the Arizona desert and entered the New Mexico Territory. Still there was no word. A lot of sand and cactus and Albuquerque went by. Still no word. The boys were eating ravenously, and Johnny was running out of money. Finally, at a fifteen-minute stop at the Santa Fe junction at La Junta, Colorado, Lou Whitehouse showed up. "Have you got twenty dollars?" he demanded of Johnny. Whitehouse explained that the other advance agents were locked in a hotel room because they couldn't pay their hotel bill. The required $20 further depleted Johnny's dwindling bankroll. His advance team raced on board to catch the train, but with no bookings, and the band rolled on to Kansas City. By the time they arrived at a siding, Johnny had only some loose change in his pocket, and the boys were famished. He said he cautioned them to speak only Hawaiian from then

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on because they were close to the Mason-Dixon line and there was a lot of negative feeling about people with dark skin. Then he went to a grocery store and talked the owner into delivering $ 2 0 worth of bread and bologna and assorted eatables on credit to the band in the special coach on the siding. Johnny proceeded on to a theater, but it was closed, a janitor explaining that it was too hot for summer shows in Kansas City. "But, say, the street railway is just finishing a new track to a park. Maybe you could get to play there," he suggested. Johnny got on the streetcar with 2.5 cents remaining between the band and starvation, went to the manager's office, and poured out his heart. The manager was Walton H. Holmes, who later became president of the Pioneer Trust Company. "What's a Hawaiian band doing in Kansas City?" demanded Holmes. "We're on our way to a booking in Chicago," Johnny lied bravely. "But the weather is so hot for the boys that I decided to give them some fresh air and stretch their legs for a day or two." When they got down to terms, Johnny asked for a fee of $ 1 , 5 0 0 . Holmes' jaw dropped. "For two concerts you want as much as Sousa?" "We've got a better band than Sousa." "Young man, you're a stranger to me. I don't even know if you've got a band here or not." Johnny pulled out a wad of tickets and some contracts with which he had been liberally supplied by Spreckels. Convinced, Holmes put up $ 1 0 0 in advance on condition that the streetcar company board of directors approve of the band before paying the rest of the money. Johnny rushed back to reimburse the grocer. A special parade of streetcars took everybody to the outlying park at 1 P.M., the directors riding in the lead streetcar and the band in a trailer behind. "The boys broke into their favorite tune, 'Sweet Lei Lehua'," Johnny wrote. "That called for brasses and then they sang during the chorus. That made a hit. The directors climbed out of their front car and came back to our trailer so they could hear better. "In the new park, they had already engaged a trapeze troupe called The Flying Jordans. They were good and famous, too. While they acted, we played. It was a hit. The officials phoned back to the city. By the time we got back into town the streetcars

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were already carrying linen banners on the sides announcing the 'Royal Hawaiian Band on Tour of the United States.'" The weekend performance by the band proved a great success. They got a booking at Thielman Gardens in Chicago. At Thielman Gardens, on the north side of Chicago next to Lincoln Park, the band played for eleven weeks, then headed south to Dallas, Texas, for the state fair. The tour continued with successful concerts in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, and Ohio, but the band members were becoming homesick and irritable. Johnny spent his afternoons hiking around strange cities to study methods of paving and to view public works. Trouble began in Ohio over publicity. The boys felt they were famous enough to draw crowds without advertising. They went into a huddle and voted to dispense with their management team. According to the Pacific Commercial Advertiser, bad feeling had already arisen among Johnny, Billy Aylett, and Libornio. One reason may have been Johnny's practice of doling out money sparingly. His account book of the trip show that Libornio didn't receive more than $4 at a time. "We played in the drill pavilion in the city of Cleveland and were to have received therefor the sum of $300," one of the band members reported in the Pacific Commercial Advertiser. "When we finished playing, J. Libornio went up to Aylett and Wilson and demanded his share of the money. He was refused—That same night Wilson was thrown out of the bus that was carrying us for accusing Libornio of theft." 15 So the successful team split up with mutual recriminations; Johnny headed back to Chicago with Aylett while Whitehouse returned to San Francisco. Meanwhile, Kini Kapahu's hula troupe had ended its European tour and was playing in the Midwest. On August 1 3 , 1895, the Pacific Commercial Advertiser reported that the girls were stuck in Logansport, Indiana, where one of them had broken her leg during a diving exhibition. Johnny found Chicago an exciting place. For a while, he acted as press agent for the Boston Bloomers, a women's professional baseball team. They traveled through Nebraska and the Dakotas taking on local male teams. Johnny went ahead to drum up business.16 He traveled around the Midwest for a while selling Kelley Springfield rubber tires, the latest thing for carriages.17 His

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sketchy band account book indicates that he peddled postcard photographs of deposed Queen Liliuokalani. 18 He said later that his cache of Hawaiian stamps tided him over when he was beset by bad luck and lack of a job. Johnny wound up again in Chicago, where there was plenty to stimulate him. The Democratic National Convention had been scheduled for early July, and the papers were already full of the campaign. In addition, Kini Kapahu's hula troupe landed back in Chicago. Kini, in flowing skirts and enormous hats, was a different person from the barefooted Hawaiian girl who had practiced the hula in King Kalakaua's boathouse, and Johnny, in dapper suits, was no longer the insecure court jester. "I've learned to use a knife and fork," she informed him primly. Indeed she had, although she was still a diamond in the rough who possessed a ready vocabulary of swearwords in English. Johnny had learned to charm instead of acting silly. And so, both newly mature and a surprise to each other, they fell in love, Kini with her whole being and Johnny with his heart, if not his whole mind. For him it was probably more like a shipboard romance. For Kini it would never end. She added another coin to her charm bracelet. The inscription, plain and economical with no fancy flourishes, reads: "Johnie Wilson, Honolulu, HI." Since Johnny's name is misspelled, it is doubtful that he gave Kini the charm. Asked if Kini might not have had the inscription done herself, Napua Stevens Poire said, "I'm sure of it." 1 ' Years latei; with a wide smile, Kini said: Johnny was a handsome man [in Chicago], full of ideas, full of pep....He spoke Hawaiian with a...twinkle in his eyes....At Stanford, he had been bitten by the political bug and he talk-talk-talked about how the Democratic party could do this or that. The ward politics of Chicago fascinated him. He'd worked out all sorts of ideas for fighting the...setup in Hawaii. He itched to return home and get going. 20

What Kini didn't say is that she probably triggered Johnny's decision to go home. But it wasn't until July 30, 1896, that he landed again in Honolulu, from the Mariposa. His legend has it that Johnny was in the steamy Democratic convention hall in Chicago on July 10 when

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William Jennings Bryan delivered his famous Cross of Gold speech.21 It would have been a tight schedule—covering thirty-five hundred miles in twenty days from Chicago to Honolulu by railroad and steamship—but not an impossible one. Even more inspiring for Johnny than the speech was the silvertongued Nebraskan's nomination as the Democratic presidential candidate against impossible odds. Johnny, too, would often face impossible odds; frequently, he would transform a forlorn hope into victory. But like Bryan, who lost the election, Johnny would never quite fulfill the reach of his ambition.

PART TWO

Road Builder in the Jungle

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Johnny returned to a tropical seaport that had grown to about thirty thousand in population. A new vehicle called the bicycle competed with horses and buggies on the streets.1 People of the island heard the gramophone for the first time in August. 2 In February 1 8 9 7 an audience at the Opera House previewed the veriscope, moving pictures that the press pronounced superior to magic lantern shows. 3 The press took absolutely no notice of Johnny's arrival, and he discovered that his dreams of political reform in Hawai'i were easier to explain to a pretty girl in Chicago than they were to put into practice in Honolulu. But with real estate and construction booming, 4 the skills he had learned at Stanford were in demand. He first joined the engineering staff of Dillingham's Oahu Railway. " I was assigned to lay out the... tracks and ditches for Oahu Plantation," he said later. "The Oahu Plantation was financed by H. Hackfeld &C Co. and while they were waiting for money, I found another job with the government." 5 So Johnny became an employee of the administration hated by royalists. Most Hawaiians treated the new Republic of Hawaii as if it did not exist. To exclude the barefooted masses who might object to the drive for annexation, the new republic, which had replaced the old provisional government, set property requirements for voters. Hawaiians cooperated by ignoring elections although such sulking was a bad mistake in the opinion of some like C.B.Wilson. Kini stood on the Hawaiian side. The indications are that she took up work as a seamstress. How much she saw of Johnny we do not know. They were separated again by social status and by their mothers, both of whom disapproved of the love affair. Johnny and Kini also took different views about the new government.

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He worked as an assistant under W. W. Bruner, the road engineer in the public works department. Early in 1 8 9 7 they began to survey for a project approved by the legislature in the amount of $40,000: construction of a carriage road over the Pali, or cliff. 6 This pass in the Ko'olau Mountains provided the overland link between the windward side of the island and Honolulu. For generations, Hawaiians on foot had brought baskets of taro and fish and bales of hay on carrying poles to market up the dangerous cliff trail and over the pass. Many of the travelers placed offerings before a sacred rock near the summit in gratitude for safe passage. In 1 8 7 6 the government of the monarchy had contributed half of a subscription of $700 toward improving the trail so that horses could use it. Johnny later described the trail: It w a s called a horse trail but y o u couldn't ride a horse d o w n it [on the w i n d w a r d side of the pass]. Y o u slid d o w n a n d the horse slid after y o u o n his ears. C o m i n g up the horse climbed ahead and y o u f o l l o w e d along at the end of a rope tied to his neck. It w a s tough going a n d very f e w persons m a d e the trip. If y o u had business on the other side of the island y o u w e n t around by schooner or steamer. 7

Freight and produce also had to go around the long way by ship—and couldn't make the trip at all in stormy weather. For Johnny Wilson, the new Pali Road provided an opportunity to demonstrate the importance of highways as sinews of Hawai'i's economy. Here was a project that transcended racial and economic differences, a work that would benefit Hawaiians as well as haoles. And the survey he made for Bruner fired his imagination still more. A newspaperman described this surveying adventure twentythree years later: S o m e d a y s , in the thick f o r e s t . . . hanging o n t o trees like grim death, he w a s able to get only a single sight, and in the eight or ten or twelve hours he w o r k e d , [he] put d o w n only a single stake. But he kept it up and laid o u t his road for 8 , 1 0 0 feet f r o m the Pali d o w n [on the w i n d w a r d side]. 8

This acrobatic survey taught Johnny something he could have learned in no other way. The composition of the lava in the cliffs

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was not tough basalt, as other engineers assumed, but a crumbly mixture of ash with pockets of denser basalt. Many years later; engineers would take borings before attempting so difficult a job as the Pali Road. Johnny made up his mind about the composition of the rock simply by climbing over it. Tenders for the Pali Road came due on April 20; when only one bid (Johnny's) came in under $40,000, the deadline was postponed to April 26, 1897. Veteran engineers knew they could not carve a road through lava rock for $40,000; when Johnny bid $ 3 7 , 5 0 0 , they laughed at him. He was twenty-six years old and had never built anything. The Pali Road would be the most difficult and risky test of engineering skill attempted in Hawai'i. 9 Johnny made the bid because of stubborn confidence in his own judgment and because of his instinct for opportunism. He sent word to Lou Whitehouse in Oakland that a golden opportunity awaited in Hawai'i. Whitehouse came immediately. 10 Raising bond money presented a formidable problem. The public works department required that a road contractor put up half the value of the contract as bond to pay for finishing the project in case he should fail. Other engineers estimated it would take at least $60,000 to do the job. What banker would underwrite twenty-six-year-old Johnny Wilson's belief that he could complete this impossible assignment for $37,500? Johnny did not go to a banker. He went to another plunger who enjoyed the excitement of taking chances, Ben Dillingham, owner of the railroad, and explained that he knew something the other engineers didn't about the composition of lava on the Pali. He could move the rock for much less than anybody suspected and make a big profit besides. Dillingham believed him and went his bond. 11 The Pali Road was the beginning of the Johnny Wilson legend; nobody had heard much of him before, even to laugh at—which they now did, but not for long. Wilson and Whitehouse attacked the pass in the Pali with an energy that left community leaders pleasantly breathless. On May 26, 1 8 9 7 , they broke ground with a gang of 40 men. By June 1 , some 1 3 0 workers were wielding picks and shovels. 12 Not much information survives about the construction techniques Wilson and Whitehouse used. We do know that the labor-

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ers pushed wheelbarrows. Horses or mules pulled the heavier equipment. "We got most of our labor from the plantations by offering workers $ 1 5 a month," Johnny recalled later. "This was five dollars more than they were getting. Then we gave them a bonus on a piece-work basis so that each man made from $ 1 to $ 1 . 5 0 a day." 13 The men had to be housed in camps at the foot of the cliff. Stables had to be built at the summit for the horses and mules, and drivers hired to handle them. Tremendous slices of the cliff had to be cut away to provide a grade of no more than eight percent. It was this awesome rockmoving job that had frightened away the other contractors. To make such enormous cuts in the cliff by pick and shovel was impossible, and Johnny had never intended to. He solved the problem by blasting. A Hawaiian gang under a daredevil named Joe Puni did this dangerous work, 14 which would set historic preservationists' teeth on edge these days because he covered with rubble the burial ground of an epic battle. It was on the Pali in 1795 that Kamehameha the Great had defeated the chief of O'ahu to seize control of nearly the entire island chain. Johnny said later that he found eight hundred skulls and the bones of defeated warriors, thrown over the cliff during the battle, still moldering at the bottom. Rock blasted from the cliffs obliterated this historic, natural cemetery. In 1897 everyone applauded Johnny's ingenuity. The Japanese and Chinese workers lived in different camps because they tended to get into squabbles. Two Japanese returning to their camp from work happened upon a pig that had strayed from the Chinese camp and took it home. The Chinese owner of the pig tracked down his property and claimed it, but the Japanese finders demanded a reward. This led to an energetic war between the camps with picks, shovels, and stones as weapons. Two workers were arrested, but Johnny bailed them out so they could be on the job the next morning.15 By this time, the haole establishment had taken notice of the young part-Hawaiian engineer whose skill and energy were contibuting so commendably to the public welfare. The Pacific Commercial Advertiser commented on September 7, 1897, while 2 1 1 workers toiled on the Pali Road:

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J.H.Wilson is the son of Mr. C.B.Wilson of this city.... He is trying to build up a reputation here as a reliable contractor, and will succeed. As he is part-Hawaiian, we take special pleasure in calling attention of others, Hawaiian and part-Hawaiian, to his case. He has entered this large field of industry, instead of loafing about the town looking for some "easy berth." The outlook for the native and part-native race would be more promising if the young men would show similar ambition.

Hawaiians chuckled over this left-handed compliment because they knew that the smart haoles had predicted only a few months before that Johnny would fail. They liked the idea that one of their kind could beat the haoles at their own game. This became a cherished part of Johnny's legend. In October Wilson and Whitehouse announced that they would let loose a blast that would blow away an enormous cliff overhang. Twenty-one holes seventeen feet deep would each be loaded with two kegs of black powder. Fourth of July and Chinese New Year would pale in comparison to this fireworks spectacular. On October 4, 1897, the Pacific Commercial Advertiser announced that readers were invited to watch from a safe distance. The story hit the front page the next day. "Upwards of 200 people rode, drove, walked or pedalled up to the Pali yesterday to see the big ledge of rocks blown out into space," the Pacific Commercial Advertiser reported on October 5. Two of the brothers of St. Louis College had a number of pupils at the summit, and they walked all the way. President [of the Republic Sanford B.] Dole made the trip [on] horseback and showed the keenest interest in the work; strangers, malihinis and kamaainas were there, and everyone pronounced the blast a great success Downward rushed the tons of red dirt and boulders like a torrent of water and carrying sticks and trees with it to the bottom of the gulch. This blast closed the old road forever.

By this time Ben Dillingham's railroad had gone beyond the sugar plains of Ewa to the remote Wai'anae Coast on O'ahu, and the ambitious industrialist was ready to push on around the uninhabited, cliff-bound wilderness of Ka'ena Point to link up with the sugar plantation at Waialua beyond. Construction of the railroad around Ka'ena Point would be the most difficult of the entire line.

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This was the kind of project that appealed to Johnny. Walter Trask, Johnny's friend in later years, said that Dillingham's son, Walter wanted to build that portion of the railroad but that Johnny underbid him. And Walter could not understand at the time how Johnny did it.16 Johnny did it by again taking advantage of something he knew that the other contractors didn't, this time about ships. Workers and equipment had to be taken to remote Ka'ena Point, either overland or by ship. Any contractor had to factor these costs into his bid. A contractor who bought his own ship would not have to pay someone else for transporting men and equipment to Ka'ena Point. Then, on the return trip, he could haul paying freight back to Honolulu. George Townsend, Johnny's amiable seafaring uncle, fell in with this scheme and recommended leasing the little steamer Iwa from Robert Hind on the Big Island. The Iwa was built of wood; sixty feet long, ten feet wide, and drawing five feet, five inches, the little steamer could carry twenty-six tons. Johnny said later that he chartered the Iwa for $60 a month.17 On October 14, 1897, the Pacific Commercial Advertiser reported: The steamer, Iwa, recently bought by Wilson &C Whitehouse for the transportation of men and supplies to Kaena Point in connection with work on the new road, started out about 4 A.M. yesterday but was forced to return on account of the refusal of the pumps to work. After making the necessary repairs, the Iwa sailed, carrying 25 Japanese laborers and necessary provisions. She was in command of Capt. Townsend.

The little Iwa chugged leisurely along the Wai'anae coast. Because there were no harbor facilities on this wilderness coast, it anchored off a deserted beach and landed the Japanese workers in boats. In honor of the occasion, they named the place Yokohama Beach, which it is called to this day.18 Johnny's immigrant workers were not always comfortable in the lonely camp. The Barking Sands of nearby Makua Valley, which made coughing sounds when walked over, aroused comment. Then word filtered back to Honolulu that ghosts walked the Japanese camp. Johnny told the Pacific Commercial Adver-

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tiser that the ghost sightings were hallucinations resulting from fish poisoning.19 Joe Puni and his dynamite crew soon arrived, and the blasting began. By the end of the yeai; two hundred men toiled under the scorching sun at Ka'ena Point.20 Meanwhile, scrapers were at work on the cool Pali Road to level the twenty-foot-wide road bed, and laborers wielded sledgehammers to break up boulders into stones of the right size for the subsurface of macadam. At the same time, Japanese masons stood on precarious perches along the cliffside to build rock retaining walls that are still in place today. On November 17 a Japanese worker fell five hundred feet to his death.21 On December 2. a Japanese mason and his companions were lifting a heavy rock into place over their heads when he overbalanced and fell fifty feet to a ledge below, bounced fifteen feet farther out, and dropped all the way to the bottom, where trees broke his fall. He survived. Two days before, a rock hurled into the air by a dynamite blast had knocked a Japanese workman down, but some horse liniment had fixed him up again.22 On December 28 gale force winds blew down the workers' camps. An eyewitness told the Advertiser, "I feel sorry for the poor Japanese laborers, many of whom could not work yesterday on account of having to search about for their clothes and cooking utensils. The tent used for the kitchen was blown away in toto and it is believed that the largest part of it was blown to Honolulu." 23 All of this must have kept Johnny very busy. He had to divide his time between Ka'ena Point and the Pali, and he took a trip to Laupahoehoe on the cliff coast of the island of Hawai'i to start the road project there. On December 18 the Pali Road was open to horseback traffic, and on January 19, 1898, carriages went over the Pali. A week later, the first passenger and parcel service over the new road opened for business. The Pali Road would be for decades the most important highway in the Hawaiian Islands. But Johnny wasn't there to see how quickly his road had stimulated economic activity. He had bounced off to California, afire with more ideas that would wake up his homeland.

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Johnny woke up in San Francisco on February 16, 1898, to read that an explosion had sunk the U.S. battleship Maine in Havana Harbor. While war fever swept the nation, he tended to business, negotiating to acquire the Hawai'i agency for Kelley Springfield rubber tires. Such a franchise could be profitable in Hawai'i because nobody there sold rubber tires for carriages. Johnny intended to sell a lot of tires, because he was about to add the Hawaiian Carriage Manufacturing Company in Honolulu to his modest empire. Another reason for his trip may have been Olyve Griffin, a woman about whom we know very little. Auntie Harriet Ne said she was a schoolteacher.1 Arthur Trask said she was the sister of one of Johnny's Stanford classmates.2 Napua Stevens Poire said Kini refused to talk about Olyve.3 Johnny never mentioned her in his correspondence, although their subsequent relationship indicates that he must have wooed her at some time. This trip provided a likely opportunity. He returned to Honolulu aboard the Zealandia on March 20, 1898, and large advertisements for his rubber tires appeared in the newspapers with stories about the impending Spanish-American War. Five days after Admiral Dewey sank the Spanish fleet in Manila Harbor, Johnny took over the Hawaiian Carriage Manufacturing Company, of which Gus Schuman, of Schuman Carriage, was the chief competitor.4 By June the company had sold twenty-one carriages and seven sets of harness.5 Kitty Wilson died on Saturday, May 2 1 , 1898, after a short illness. Her obituary reported that Johnny, "now one of the city's successful businessmen, was the special pride of his mother."6 It may have been the memory of his mother's expectations for his social position that made Johnny feel he should choose a haole

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wife. This would explain his interest in Olyve Griffin and his reluctance to give in to the attraction he felt for Kini. He was certainly attracted to her, and she to him. The beautiful Kini was not without other suitors. Auntie Harriet Ne said a newspaper man named Sam Kamakau came up from Kona just to be with Kini, and "John Kunewa from Maui used to catch the boat all the time to go to Honolulu to meet Jenny. He was a court clerk." Auntie Harriet added that the man Kini wanted was Johnny. And what she wanted she got.7 The United States was now at war with Spain. Annexationists sensed that their dream was about to come true.8 When on May 2.5, 1898, boat boys in Honolulu Harbor defiantly hoisted the Hawaiian flag,9 their gesture was swamped by the exciting news that three thousand troops bound for the Philippines would soon land in Honolulu. It would be the biggest boat day in Hawaiian history. When the USS Charleston arrived in advance of the troop transports, the captain was presented with an American flag by a patriotic delegation including Prince Kuhio, Prince David, and Queen Dowager Kapiolani, widow of Kalakaua. 10 Then the troop ships steamed into port, and the town put itself at the disposal of the boys in khaki. Everything was free: streetcar rides, baseball games, cigars, lunches, tours of the Bishop Museum, concerts, soda water, ginger ale, fruit, and bathing facilities at the Myrtle and Healani boat clubs in Honolulu Harbor. Johnny caught the fever like everybody else. The Pacific Commercial Advertiser reported, "The Stanford Students' Company on the Peking are the livelyist lot on the voyage. Stanford boys were piloted around town in wagonettes by Will Soper, John Wilson, Frank Andrade, Leslie Scott and Olaf Sorenson, all Stanford men." 11 On July 7, 1898, President William McKinley signed a joint resolution of Congress annexing Hawai'i to the United States as a territory. Hawai'i's sugar planters gained free access to U.S. markets, and Hawaiians irrevocably lost their nation. The formal annexation ceremony took place in Honolulu on August 1 3 . Kini said years later that it was a very sad day. Many Hawaiians cried. They began to wear tiny Hawaiian flags in their hatbands as a gesture of mute protest.12

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Johnny probably wasn't there. He had embarked on another scheme to improve the lot of fellow Hawaiians and make a profit at the same time. His idea was to provide a better market for independent farmers like his relatives at Pelekunu on Moloka'i. The inspiration for this brainstorm sprang from the Iwa, which had become a gold mine, regularly carrying paddy (unhulled rice) from Chinese mills in the country at Mokule'ia and Waialua, O'ahu, to Honolulu. But there was also taro to be hauled from remote landings that scheduled steamers seldom served. Why not investigate the potential of going into the rice and taro business with his own steamers to haul the cargo? To teach himself about rice Johnny set off on horseback over the Pali and around the lush, tropical, windward side of the island on a meandering shore road that was covered in places at high tide. Hawaiians in ancient times had grown taro in valleys tucked into the folds of the towering Ko'olaus. The valleys were watered by streams that flowed into the ocean. Now Chinese were growing rice there as well, and their rice mills stood by the streams that turned the waterwheels. Johnny's rice mill notebook provides a rare description of these long-gone factories. His first entry is dated July 7, 1898, at Waihe'e, O'ahu. He described the Ah Kana Rice Plantation mill. The water used for rice fields and taro patches included a "fall [of] about 200 feet in 1V2 miles to the ocean" and a "fall from [the] waterfall [of] about 450 feet to [the] ocean, distance zVi miles." Johnny noted that the volume of water was about 500 cubic feet per minute. The next day he went to Kahalu'u Valley, then to picturesque Waiahole Valley. He described Ah Chun's rice mill in Waialua and another mill at Kapalama in Honolulu. On July 3 1 Johnny went to Kahana Valley with its graceful bay to talk to Wing Hing Lung about his rice mill.13 The little Iwa, meanwhile, with Joe Puni in charge, made a voyage to remote Kalalau Valley on Kaua'i to check out taro production there.14 In September he hauled taro from Maui and Moloka'i to Honolulu. It took the ship fourteen hours to sail from Makena, Maui, to Honolulu at the rate of about seven knots, a respectable speed. The ship was also dependable, and its steamengine was simple enough for Johnny himself to fix. Johnny told the Pacific Commercial Advertiser, on embarking

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in the Iwa for Moloka'i on October 1 7 , 1898, that he was going deer hunting.15 His real purpose, now that he knew about rice mills, was to investigate the possibility of building a mill in Pelekunu Valley. His notebook for October 2 1 , 1898, records the barometric and temperature readings at the head of the stream. He estimated the width of the mill dam at 1 9 ^ feet and the velocity of the water at 10 to 1 1 . 5 feet per second. He took more readings on October 22 and 24 and scribbled his calculations on the pages. His mill wheel would measure forty-two feet.16 Johnny's interest in rice and taro, when the big investors were going into sugar, is significant. After annexation, speculation by investors in new sugar plantations made headline after headline. But Johnny never considered himself a conforming member of the financial establishment. He liked to think of himself as a little man whose ingenuity could lick the world. His satisfaction came from doing the unconventional, from confronting new challenges, from outsmarting the big boys. He would always be a maverick. In addition, rice and taro came from soil to market in a different way than did sugar. Sugar lent itself to large plantations worked by contract labor. It was mass-production agriculture. Rice and taro were better suited to small, independent farmers like Johnny's relatives in Pelekunu Valley. Hawaiians had always been independent, hating the regimentation of sugar plantations, and Johnny was the same way. In U.S. history, his heroes were the small homesteaders who had turned the empty prairies into waving fields of grain. Those selfsufficient pioneers in America who lived off the land equated in his mind with his pioneering Hawaiian ancestors who had turned the uninhabited valleys of the islands into lush gardens of taro. That is why he now studied the potential of rice and taro in Pelekunu Valley with the same thoroughness he had applied to surveying the Pali. His notes on taro provide valuable information about Hawaiian varieties and methods of cultivation.17 He jotted down freight rates for sacks of taro and bundles of pa'i'ai, dried taro, and the load capacity of lifeboats.18 His notebooks are a historian's gold mine because Johnny knew what he was talking about. He not only operated the Iwa but also ran a poi shop for three years in Honolulu.

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On one of his trips about this time Johnny built an ingenious landing at Pelekunu. Previously, the Iwa's boats had to beach on shore because there was no pier. To build a pier on the beach would be futile because the heavy winter surf would demolish it. So Johnny constructed a derrick with a sixty-two-foot boom atop a ledge of rock along a cliff trail that led up from the floor of the valley. A whaleboat could lie below the derrick. A hand crank lowered a basket to transfer cargo into and out of the whaleboat. Thus, taro could be shipped in all but the worst weather. 19 The little Iwa permitted Wilson and Whitehouse to underbid other contractors for construction of a small landing and access road at remote Nahiku, Maui, a bid that led to larger contracts later.20 The steamer could land construction equipment there at a saving no other contractor could match. Johnny built a tiny wharf on the leeward side, a tongue of lava that jutted out and formed a delightful, scenic bay. The prosperity that followed annexation provided Wilson and Whitehouse the chance to land a lucrative $39,975 contract when the legislature voted to eliminate the health hazard of cesspools in Honolulu by building a sewer system. 21 Johnny boarded the Peking on December 4, 1898, for San Francisco to buy the sewer pipe. He also attended the big Stanford-University of California football game, and it is likely that, on this trip, he proposed marriage to the elusive Olyve Griffin before returning to Honolulu on the Gaelic on D e c e m b e r 3 1 .

When the year 1899 began, Miss Jennie Kapahu was listed in the city directory as a seamstress doing "fancy needlework" and residing at her mother's house on Queen Street. We find Johnny at Nahiku hewing his road to Hana through the Maui jungle while Whitehouse was in Hilo supervising construction of two more roads on Hawai'i, one of which would cross gulch after gulch on the rugged Hamakua coast. 22 Wilson and Whitehouse had firmly established a reputation as daring engineers. All through January, February, and March, Johnny was on the run, getting new contracts and sailing to Maui to check on road construction. Whitehouse kept just as busy, and he got married besides. Their nonstop activity matched a frenzy of real estate

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deals and sugar speculation all over the territory. No one could deny that annexation had brought an economic boom to Hawai'i. In the middle of it all, Herbert Hoover, Johnny's Stanford classmate and the future president of the United States, stopped at Honolulu in February on this way to China to look up his old friend. Johnny recalled later that he took Hoover on a buggy ride to the Pali, proudly showing off his greatest accomplishment. Hoover, on his way to making his fortune in China, pressed Johnny to come along, promising that the opportunities were greater there. Johnny refused.23 Then, on April i z , 1899, Olyve Griffin arrived on the Australia. The next morning, the Pacific Commercial Advertiser announced: The wedding of John H. Wilson and Miss Griffin, Rev. Parker officiating, took place last evening in the home of Superintendent Geo. Denison of the Oahu Railway & Land Co. The bride...is a very charming young lady. The groom is one of the best known young men of Honolulu His many friends extend congratulations.

Obviously, Kini did not have a chance to throw a wrench into this tightly timed matrimonial schedule. But she quickly made up for it. Napua Stevens Poire said Kini did her best to break up the marriage.24 There are indications that she used all her abundant sexual attraction, her common bond with Johnny of Hawaiian blood, and just plain outrage at being so shabbily used, to win him back. Apparently, Olyve made it easy for Kini. According to Walter Trask, Johnny's new wife was something of a social butterfly, an ornament at what would be called cocktail parties twenty-five years later.25 In San Francisco, Johnny may have found this glamorous and decided that Olyve was the kind of a woman his mother would want him to marry. But he seldom attended that kind of a party in Honolulu. He was more comfortable with Hawaiian friends around a table with a nice catch of fresh fish, seaweed condiment, and a common poi bowl, plenty of drink and talk with Hawaiian music and a few spontaneous hulas thrown in. At such a gathering of Johnny's friends, Olyve was out of place.

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She must have demonstrated to Johnny in a very painful way that he was a child of conflicting cultures. Marriage to Olyve could only alienate him from his Hawaiian friends, and he had no wish to be alienated. His Hawaiianness had become a valued part of himself. To make matters worse, according to Walter Trask, Olyve brought along her brother, who needed a job. Johnny gave him one on Maui, but the brother turned up short in his accounts. It is likely that Johnny realized rather quickly that he had made a horrible mistake. Kini was there to console him. In later filing for a divorce, Olyve accused her husband of committing adultery with a certain Jennie, last name unknown, at various times beginning on April 1 5 , 1899—three days after the wedding.26 Living with Johnny could not have been easy for Olyve; he never stayed home very long. By April Z4 he was back on Maui buying a mosquito net to use at a construction job. The Pacific Commercial Advertiser reported that his activities at remote Nahiku had stimulated business at two stores, a restaurant, a church, and a schoolhouse.27 He was still on Maui on May 3, 1899, when he paid $9 for horse hire.28 Johnny's problems multiplied when the little steamer, Iwa, caught fire and sank on May 2.5, 1899, off Punalu'u, O'ahu. Four days later he made a claim for insurance, and the Advertiser wrote, "It is rumored that contractor Wilson will order another steamer from the coast immediately."29 Meanwhile, he invested in two old schooners, the Rob Roy and the La Ninfa.30 Two other events then occurred in rapid succession while Olyve was in town. The first concerned show business. In Omaha, Nebraska, town fathers had sponsored the Greater America Exposition, another world's fair. The Honolulu Chamber of Commerce voted to sponsor an educational Hawaiian exhibit at the Omaha fair.31 Meanwhile, showman E.W.McConnell, who had managed Lorrin Thurston's cyclorama at Chicago and the Hawaiian Village at the San Francisco Mid-Winter Fair, asked Johnny to throw in with him to present a hula show in Omaha on the midway.32 Johnny accepted this proposition. We can only speculate why. On the face of it, there seems to be no substantial reason why a

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successful Honolulu contractor should suddenly bounce off to Omaha with a Hawaiian troupe of musicians and hula dancers. True, the Hawaiian Village could be profitable. But being away would jeopardize Johnny's contracting projects at home. It could be that Johnny's restlessness, which never left him, had simply overcome him again. More important, the trip to Omaha would free him of Olyve and permit him to be with Kini, who would dance in the hula troupe. This was undoubtedly the deciding factor. Mekia Kealakai selected the performers.33 As Johnny was organizing his hula troupe, Wilson and Whitehouse won a substantial bid of $29,500 to construct the outfall for Honolulu's new sewer system.34 Once more, it was a risky engineering job; they would be laying sewage-disposal pipe in water out into the ocean from the shore at Kaka'ako. The problems presented by such a project were considerably different from those presented by road building.35 Johnny had never attempted anything like that. Nevertheless, although he continued planning his excursion into show business, he took the bid. Johnny and Olyve lived together as man and wife from April 1 2 to June 23, on which date the Pacific Commercial Advertiser reported that Mrs. John H. Wilson had sailed on board the Mariposa and that her husband would soon follow. But he didn't. Auntie Harriet Ne said a child was born to Olyve in San Francisco, but Auntie Harriet didn't know much about this and neither do we because there is no hint of it in any of Johnny's papers. Olyve had hardly departed when the Advertiser announced on June 28, 1899, "All the necessary talent for the Hawaiian Village at Omaha has been signed. There will be dancing, string music, popular singing and chanting, poi pounding, [a] canoe and curiosity exhibit, etc." On July 4, 1899, the troupe sailed on the America Maru. Kini was not named with Johnny on the passenger list. She apparently went steerage with the other performers. Johnny's uncle, George Townsend, was designated manager of the troupe. Then it turned out that Johnny had brought his uncle along for another reason. While on the Pacific Coast, Captain Townsend would select a steamer to replace the Iwa. On July 22, 1899, the Pacific Commercial Advertiser informed its readers that a new Hawaiian steamship line called the Mid-Pacific Navigation Company had been capitalized at $20,000 with the privilege of

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increasing to $100,000. John H. Wilson was named president, L. Ahlo vice-president, Wong Quai secretary, and Henry Crane auditor. "The real promoters of the affair are J.H.Wilson and Henry Crane," the Advertiser reported. But L.Ahlo, who owned a lot of Chinatown, and Wong Quai must have put up the money, a tribute to Johnny's powers of persuasion. He had not given up his dreams of transporting rice and taro for Hawai'i's small farmers, a proposition his Chinese backers understood. Johnny was now juggling innumerable financial balls from a mind-boggling variety of angles including show business, construction, carriages, agriculture, and shipping. Meanwhile, Kini had him safely under her wing. They did not marry, although there is no doubt that they set out for Omaha as man and wife. Johnny may have been reluctant, after the fiasco of his single attempt at matrimony, to embark on another perilous adventure like that. And Kini apparently did not press him as long as there were no other women on the horizon.

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Johnny and Kini found the Greater America Exposition of 1899 under way on bluffs that had once been corn fields overlooking the Missouri River two miles from downtown Omaha, Nebraska. On this same site the spectacularly successful Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition had attracted 2 , 7 1 8 , 5 0 8 visitors the year before and had returned a 92.5 percent dividend to its stockholders. 1 A cultural display sponsored by the Honolulu Chamber of Commerce featured canned and preserved fruits, grains, vegetables, shells, cloth, handiwork, a Hawaiian canoe, and many photographs and pen sketches of Hawaiian scenes. This exhibit in the grand court, under the direction of newspaperman Dan Logan, did not attract too much attention.2 Johnny's Hawaiian Village troupe on the midway portrayed culture on another level and created a lot more excitement as well as criticism. "It is a private concession [financed] by Omaha people," Logan wrote home to make clear that he had no connection with this sideshow. " I paid my quarter to see its performance in a theater erected for the troupe." 3 In spite of his determination to be displeased, Logan admitted that he did not really think "the troupe [would] mislead intelligent people as to Island life and customs." Debate about the ethnological value of midway shows like Johnny's had raged through the trans-Mississippi fair the summer before with severe criticism directed at an Indian congress that

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camped beside the fairgrounds and fought a daily mock battle with white soldiers to attract spectators. The Indians always lost. One observer said the only significance attached to putting Indians, a defeated people, on such display was expressed in the old Roman salutation of the gladiators, "Caesar, we who are about to die salute you." Geronimo, the old Apache war chief, visited the fair and said he saw no sense in the sham battles between whites and Indians.4 N o w the Greater American Exposition was caught between the same scientific and entertainment goals. Johnny said later that McConnell's biggest moneymaker at Omaha was the baby incubator; midway crowds could view this medical marvel on its first public exposure for 25 cents. "He made a clean up," Johnny wrote to a friend. " I was told by the boys working for him that he cleaned up at least $ 1 , 5 0 0 per day for sixteen weeks." 5 It would be easy to dismiss Johnny's Hawaiian Village as just another sideshow. Yet there would never be another group of Hawaiian musicians and hula dancers like those he assembled for this and his next foray into show business. His hula girls had been trained by the last king of the Islands in the ancient art of the dance. His musicians had studied under Henri Berger, and some of them, like the hula dancers, had toured Europe. The songs they performed, like the jazz and blues coming out of the South, were original compositions in a new genre. They were the pioneers of an evolving culture. Years later museums would realize the importance of the chants that accompanied the hula and the significance of the original songs that were being sung. But in Omaha, the troupe was a sideshow and Johnny its tireless promoter. The Hawaiian Village, staffed by about forty natives, attracted attention first for performances that had not been planned. Half a dozen children who accompanied their musician parents to Omaha spent their time swimming in the artificial lagoon. It wasn't long before people began throwing pennies into the water to watch the kids dive for them. According to the Omaha newspapers, the Hawaiian entertainers kept mostly to themselves.6 The musical director of the exposition was so impressed by the Hawaiian musicians that he put them in a large gondola on the

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lagoon for Venetian Night to introduce them. The Omaha WorldHerald reported: T h e y floated twice around the little b o d y of w a t e r lying east of the bridge. E v e r y b o d y present expected to hear fine singing, yet no one expected to listen to such delightful voices, so strong, round and full of sweetness

T h i s is beyond c o m p a r i s o n w i t h a n y other music at the

exposition. 7

Kini and the other dancers apparently made no attempt to tailor their performances to the taste of fairgoers, so an exposition pamphlet tried to describe the Hawaiian hula in terms Nebraska cornhuskers would comprehend: "The hula-hula dance by six attractive Hawaiian maidens is another attractive feature. This weird dance bears a striking resemblance to the muscle dance of the Orientals, but is less suggestive and more symmetrical and harmonious." 8 To advertise the show, Johnny hired the best barker on the midway, a fellow who went by the title Professor W. Tobin. This impresario mightily impressed visiting Honolulu newsman Ed Towse, who described Tobin's spiel in a dispatch for the Advertiser: H e is an industrious y o u n g m a n and he read up on H a w a i i before he mounted the platform. H i s pronunciation w a s all right and his volubility something marvelous. In three lectures Tobin could tell more a b o u t H a w a i i than a n y b o d y ever thought of. T o one f r o m the Islands, this spieler's descriptions w e r e as f u n n y as anything could possibly b e . . . s o as to beat all the circus posters ever written. 9

News from Hawai'i was not good. Johnny's schooner La Ninfa went on the rocks at Hanalei, Kaua'i, with a load of rice, and became a total loss.10 But he insisted that his steamer line would soon be in operation with a $zo,ooo vessel commanded by George Townsend.11 Always restless, Johnny took the train for Chicago and New York. He continued on to Washington, D.C., where he visited former Queen Liliuokalani, who was trying to recover land lost through the revolution. She was delighted when he arrived bearing gifts of poi and dried fish.

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On September 20, 1899, he was back at the fair; an Omaha newspaper reported that "Mr. Wilson says the ex-Queen was in very good health, has a comfortable place at the American capital and appears quite contented, with no thought of an early return to the Islands." 12 A worrisome straw in the wind appeared when Johnny's partner in Hawai'i, Lou Whitehouse, separated himself from Johnny by forming his own contracting company in October 1899. 13 Meanwhile, work on the sewer outfall went forward under Joe Puni. Then, in December still another ominous event occurred. Bubonic plague broke out in Honolulu. By this time, the Greater America Exposition had folded after a disappointing attendance. It was time for Johnny to go home and attend to business. He arrived in Honolulu on the Australia with several members of the Hawaiian Village on December zo, 1899. Kini was not on the passenger list, so she probably traveled in steerage.14 Johnny found Honolulu in a state of shock and Chinatown under strict quarantine.15 The plague had spread like a prairie fire through tenements inhabited by immigrant Chinese and Japanese and urban Hawaiians. Chinese businessmen protested the government's decision to burn the worst sources of infection.16 So the nineteenth century ended in Honolulu to daily bulletins listing deaths. On Saturday, January 20, 1900, a fire set to burn infected tenements got out of control in a strong trade wind. 17 By the time the Honolulu Fire Department put out the blaze, thirtyeight acres of tenements had burned to the ground and about seven thousand infected people were homeless. Detention camps were set up; C.B.Wilson was put in charge of one in Kalihi. 18 The fire resulted in personal tragedy for Johnny: it wiped out the income property of L.Ahlo, his Chinese backer for the steamship line, and that dream went aglimmering. Worse still, work on the sewer outfall stopped because Johnny's Japanese and Chinese laborers languished in the detention camps. Then Olyve brought suit for divorce, an intense embarrassment. The notice appeared in the pages of the Pacific Commercial Advertiser on April 1 7 , 1900. Johnny's business associates now were informed that Olyve accused him of infidelity, which he admitted; but he stubbornly refused to accept blame for lack of support, although Olyve alleged that he did not properly share with her an

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income estimated by her at $10,000 a year and lands valued at $20,000. 19 It was at the time of the great epidemic that Hawai'i's leaders turned to consideration of how they should adapt to the American political system thrust upon them by annexation. The result was the founding, during these days of travail, of the Republican and Democratic parties in the territory. Johnny participated in these historic events in what turned out to be an important way. He helped found the Democratic party of Hawai'i at an informal meeting with four other citizens of similar political persuasion, a gathering that went unreported in the newspapers and is recorded here for the first time out of Johnny's memory. He said later that the group got their heads together after the quarantine ended on April 30, 1900, to form a party.20 Johnny did not name the people who attended this gathering that soon led to publicized meetings. The godfather of the Democratic party in Hawai'i was acknowledged to be John S. McGrew, a haole medical doctor, who had brought his political allegiance with him to the monarchy of King Kalakaua. 21 He was encouraged by a haole saloon keeper, Charles J. McCarthy. Prince David Kawananakoa also leaned toward the unpopular party, and on Kaua'i a new haole engineer named Delbert Metzger led a valiant congregation of four Democrats.22 The Republicans, of course, started organizing first, and Johnny's father, C.B.Wilson, joined them as did most sensible citizens of Honolulu from Sanford B. Dole on down. In later years, Johnny said there was much indecision among Hawaiians about which party to join during that formative stage, partly because familiar labels had become confused.23 The Republicans appeared to be primarily old-time annexationists. Yet Democrat McGrew had plumped for annexation, and Republican C.B.Wilson had been the last holdout against the annexationists who overthrew the queen. The Democrats could claim the party of President Grover Cleveland, who had supported Liliuokalani. But Republicans insisted that only their party had the power to help Hawaiians in Washington because a Democratic delegate to a Republican Congress would have no influence.24 These political developments became public in the week of

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May 5, 1900, when the Republicans in Hawai'i organized committees and discussed a primary convention.25 On May 1 0 the Young Men's Republican Club came into existence. Finally, on May 16, McGrew, McCarthy, and E. P. McClanahan called an organizational meeting of Democrats, and the next day about five hundred people showed up at the Drill Shed.26 John E. Bush and J. K. Kaulia, both Hawaiians, spoke through interpreters. McGrew was elected chairman and McCarthy his assistant. A bright young part-Hawaiian, John Wise, was elected secretary. Johnny is not mentioned, probably because he had no pretensions about running for office. He just wanted to promote the ideals of Thomas Jefferson. The Pacific Commercial Advertiser reported that fewer Hawaiians attended the Democratic meeting than attended the Republican one and that Hawaiians appeared to be standing aloof from both new parties.27 Johnny's business stature plummeted when Honolulu citizens demanded completion of the sewer system, and he couldn't deliver what he had promised. George Houghtailing, an engineer and city planner who later worked under Johnny, said the job probably required equipment, like a dredger and pile drivers, that weren't in Johnny's contract. On May 27, 1900, the cabinet of the territorial government asked for an explanation. The next day Johnny requested an extension; he was refused and the contract taken away from him, the final humiliation in his run of bad luck.28 The government eventually completed the outfall with much difficulty. There is no disgrace more damaging for a contractor than failure to fulfill a contract. Johnny's reputation as an engineer and as a responsible contractor suffered a painful reverse that would later come back to haunt him. Kini continued to console her dear friend in private. Walter Trask said that to avoid public curiosity they often went to a little construction shack at the end of the rickety pier built to lay the sewer pipe through the reef at Kaka'ako. Olyve's divorce attorney, a man named Lightfoot, hired a Honolulu police detective to trail Johnny and catch him in the act of infidelity. This police detective, Chang Apana, later became famous as the inspiration for mystery writer Earl Derr Biggers' fictional sleuth,

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Charlie Chan. However, in 1900, Charlie Chan was no match for Johnny Wilson. Walter Trask said Johnny loosened a board on the pier whenever he and Kini went out to the shack. One night Chang Apana followed them. The detective stepped on the board, slipped off the pier, and fell into the water.29 It was one bright spot in Johnny's otherwise grim existence. Business failure and marital difficulties were not looked upon as unforgivable sins in Hawai'i's Democratic party. So the sympathy and understanding Johnny found there, as well as his enforced idleness, spurred him to play his first role as a party member. While it was a minor role, it placed him in the middle of the feverish political activity that followed annexation. His education in practical politics began in June when Robert Wilcox resurfaced as a popular martyr among Hawaiians after having served his prison term for leading the revolt of 1 8 9 5 . Wilcox now called for home rule in Hawai'i, that is, government by the people of the Islands rather than by fiat from Washington. The term "home rule" also came to express for Hawaiians their desire to recapture control of their own destinies. Hawaiians joined the Home Rule party in droves. Johnny also believed in home rule, and so did a lot of other people. A citizens' committee census of Honolulu taken in January indicates clearly the political implications of the home rule movement. Hawaiians on O'ahu, at 12,820, outnumbered all other ethnic categories. Chinese came next with 1 0 , 7 4 1 , but most of them were aliens, who couldn't vote. "Other foreigners" (haoles) placed third at 7,927. Japanese followed with 7,298, but they were also largely aliens. Then there were the Portuguese, considered a swing vote, at 5,466. On the other islands, Hawaiians outnumbered haoles by even greater percentages. Hawaiians, if mobilized, could carry any election.30 However, Johnny discovered that Hawaiian politics under territorial status was considerably more complicated than that. In the first place, the delegate to Congress, although Hawai'i's most important elected official, carried no vote to Washington. He could only introduce bills and plead their cause among voting members of Congress from the states. The most powerful political office in Hawai'i was that of governor. The governor held veto

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power over Hawai'i's elected legislature and exerted extensive power of patronage. But he was appointed by the U.S. president, not elected by the people. It was this combination of circumstances—the overpowering number of Hawaiian voters coupled with their lack of power— that made Johnny an early advocate of statehood for Hawai'i.31 The governor of the State of Hawaii would be responsive to the majority of Hawaiian voters instead of to the sugar lobby in Washington. The business-plantation establishment did not favor statehood because it would dilute their control. This same recognition of the lack of voting power under territorial status taught every Democrat and Republican in Hawai'i to take seriously the national party conventions, where Hawai'i's delegates could vote. Though limited to four or six votes among hundreds of delegates, those votes counted in the determination of national party policy and toward the nomination of the next president of the United States. Those votes could be exchanged for pledges by national parties to support Hawaiian interests. And national party conventions also gave local Republicans and Democrats a strong argument against the Home Rule party because it had no national counterpart. The Home Rulers might be strong in Hawai'i, but they had no connections in Washington. It was no wonder Hawaiians had difficulty making up their minds which party could best further their own interests. Hawai'i's Democrats demonstrated the importance of representation at national conventions when John Wise cast the deciding vote in Kansas City after a bitter battle over a party plank again advocating the inflationary policy of free silver. The Hawaiian Star later wrote, "The Democracy in Kansas City... permitted Hawaii, which had no vote of any kind in the electoral college, to decide the momentous question of reaffirming the silver plank." This was heady stuff for the tiny delegation from Hawai'i.32 Hawai'i's first territorial election campaigns got under way in September with three candidates in competition for delegate to Congress. Sam Parker, a wealthy rancher and former member of Liliuokalani's cabinet, stood for the Republicans. The Democrats chose Prince David Kawananakoa, Johnny's candidate. And Robert Wilcox ran on the Home Rule ticket. Wilcox conducted a whirlwind campaign, racing from island to

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island urging Hawaiians to vote.33 They finally took advantage of the electoral process by sweeping him into office despite a wellorganized and heavily financed Republican campaign. Johnny said later that he campaigned hard for Prince David,34 but the Democrats appeared impotent. Voters also elected a territorial legislature, and one local issue in that first campaign was county government.35 Many citizens, including Johnny, felt it was time for home rule in their own back yards. Each island should have its own government instead of being dictated to from Honolulu by a governor appointed by the president. Once the elections were over, all three parties appointed committees to draw up county government legislation. Johnny signed up for the Democratic committee and was assigned to the statistics section. He was good at dredging up facts and figures because he read a lot and kept track of numbers such as voter registration by race. This hobby made him a pioneer in transforming the Democrats into a multiracial party. He served on the committee with typical Democrats: two hack drivers, a few attorneys, an electrician, two printers, a farmer, a schoolteacher, a judge, a painter, a surveyor, another contractor, and one fellow who ambitiously listed himself as a capitalist but who really had been a hotel manager.36 The Republican county charter committee was heavy on wealthy businessmen with a sprinkling of less important people, including C.B.Wilson. 37 The Home Rulers, also called Independents in the newspapers, had a lot of Hawaiians on their committee, including Prince David and John Wise, who must have switched over from the Democrats after the election.38 There was a lot of interchange between the Democrats and the Home Rulers at this time and constant talk of fusion, which never got off the ground. By February 1 9 0 1 , Johnny and his fellow Democrats had drawn up their proposed county charter, which the Pacific Commercial Advertiser ridiculed for its naivete and alleged contradictions. The county act proposed by the Home Rulers received the same treatment. The Republican charter was held up as a model of perfection. The legislature, dominated by Home Rulers, then passed a patchwork bill calling for county government in Hawai'i

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along the lines set forth by the Home Rule county charter. Governor Sanford B. Dole promptly vetoed the bill. Johnny's involvement with the legislature of 1901 was not all wasted effort. The legislators conducted an investigation into the sewer outfall fiasco and absolved him from blame.39 But his contracting business showed little sign of reviving. His name appeared only now and then on a passenger list to another island. The only evidence of his activity in the construction industry was the hauling of sand from Waiklkl Beach on Liliuokalani's property, and they were both sued for it.40 Johnny and his royal sponsor won the suit. Still restless, he turned from politics back to show business. He accepted an offer from Emmet McConnell to take a Hawaiian Village to the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. Johnny's troupe, including Kini, arrived in Buffalo on April 1 7 , 1 9 0 1 . His singers and dancers, with Mekia Kealakai and David Nape in the band, were the best in Hawai'i. But this time a formidable critic appeared at the fair in the form of Rose Davison, partHawaiian, formerly a schoolteacher and now director of Hawaii's cultural exhibition at the fair. The Salt Lake Tribune described Miss Davison, when she passed through Utah, as being "of herculean stature, and gave a sort of John L. Sullivan impression at the hotel." 41 She took one look at Kini and the other hula girls and vigorously registered objections. "These dancers are common people of the lowest strata of Hawaiian humanity," Rose told a reporter from the Buffalo Sunday Morning News, "and what is more they are never seen and seldom heard of in Hawaiian life. It seems to me that it is very unfortunate that we should be so misrepresented in this way." 42 Obviously, Kini still had a lot to overcome before she would be accepted by "decent" Hawaiians like Rose. Such criticism inspired the Pacific Commercial Advertiser on May 14 and June 10, 1 9 0 1 , to run front-page cartoons of Johnny's show. One cartoon was entitled "Hawaii at the Exposition, Our Civilization on Parade." The cartoon shows a hula girl wearing a grass skirt and what appears to be nothing but a lei on top standing on display at the Hawaiian Village entrance. Johnny's troupe responded to the criticism. On June 10, 1 9 0 1 , a

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report from Buffalo said, "The native Hawaiian Village on the Midway made a pilgrimage yesterday afternoon to the Spectatorium of Jerusalem and the Crucifixion of Christ [another Midway attraction]. The Rev. Dr. Merrill conducted religious services in the village before the pilgrimage." A large crowd followed this unusual procession and watched as the Hawaiians took their places before the crucifixion. The narrator of the attraction told the story of Christ on the cross and a tenor sang "The Holy City." "The Hawaiians were deeply moved," the report said. "They stood with bowed heads until the soft light came [on] again above the figure on the cross....Then softly, sweetly, the Kamehameha Glee Club of the villagers began to sing 'I Cannot Always Find the Way.' It was beautiful." 43 About two weeks later a story appeared in the Advertiser quoting a Buffalo source. The story explained that [the hula] could be called an innocent experience of native grace to the Hawaiians. A n d to them the fact that a girl is a hula hula dancer does not detract from the sincerity of her Christian professions. That this is the light in which they regard their performances is shown by the evident sincerity and devotion of the Hawaiians during their [church] services yesterday. 44

But Rose Davison wasn't convinced. A Buffalo newspaper reported that she visited the Hawaiian Village and "took occasion to score the promoters of the show roundly for the vulgar production which they were giving to the people, and gave them a tongue-lashing which they probably remembered." 4S The savage criticism of Johnny's hula troupe, with its reflection on the woman he loved, may have been one reason he did not return to Hawai'i after the exposition closed. Another reason might have been the immense appeal of Hawaiian music, an appeal that brought lucrative offers from top vaudeville agents. So Johnny and most of his Hawaiians began a long trek back and forth across the land, exposing audiences from New York to San Francisco to the music and the hula that Kalakaua knew. Johnny's show business diary is an endless listing of payments to musicians and box office receipts in Milwaukee and Cleveland and Lansing and Toledo on Keith's Empire Vaudeville Circuit, playing the best theaters.46 Then it was back to New York for a

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long engagement at the Orpheum Theater in Brooklyn. Johnny had an offer from the Moss Empire Circuit to go to London, but he didn't take it. By February 1902 the troupe had crossed the nation to California, where it played the Orpheum Theater in San Francisco, then went to Los Angeles, and returned to San Francisco. Years later, Johnny wrote to a friend and explained that he returned to the West Coast because the wife [although he and Kini were not married] objected to the life. Being an island girl, she was somewhat homesick for her fish and poi, so [we] routed westward over the Kohl & Castle, Hopkins and Orpheum Circuits, and closed in San Francisco. Upon disbanding in San Francisco, part of the organization returned to Hawaii with me, while the others divided into quartets and quintets and worked their way back east. 47

Many of the musicians remained vagabonds for years, including David Nape and Mekia Kealakai, and some never returned at all. They wandered the stages of the nation making Hawaiian music, and Johnny was always proud to know that he had helped to introduce a new pattern into the bewildering kaleidoscope of American culture.

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No friendly news items welcomed Kini and Johnny back to Honolulu when they landed on the pier at 8 A.M. on Saturday, April 5, 1902. 1 It was just as well, for the sake of appearances, that they slipped back quietly. Honolulu was still a small town. Olyve in her divorce suit had charged them with adultery in Omaha and San Francisco two years before. Now they were back, still unmarried, after traveling together around the country for another year. It wasn't the only strike against them. Rose Davison's attitude toward hula dancers was not unique in Honolulu. If anything, such prudery had increased since the overthrow of the monarchy. Less than a month after Johnny and Kini returned, the Advertiser ran another front-page cartoon on the subject of the hula, this time in reference to the world's fair that was coming up in St. Louis, Missouri. The cartoon showed the entrance to a Hawaiian Village midway show, featuring hula girls, under a caption that read, "What we don't want at St. Louis." 2 It bothered Johnny more than it did Kini. This was his first real experience with ostracism, and he still felt the need to please at the same time that he rebelled against conformity. Should he give Kini up because she had become a roadblock to his career? He couldn't do that because he loved her. Should they continue their common-law relationship? That would be unthinkable in Honolulu for a man of his reputation. Should he marry her? He had made that mistake once before. He couldn't live with her and he couldn't live without her. What to do? Johnny decided to take her to remote Pelekunu Valley, where formal marriage and Kini's lack of polish didn't matter. Auntie Harriet Ne described it as a "honeymoon." 3 In a way, it was. Pelekunu Valley had always been Johnny's Hawaiian place, and Kini was his Hawaiian love.

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But he wasn't sure that strong-willed Kini would go along with his plan. This is most likely the reason he conspired with her mother to kidnap her. Kini's mother still didn't approve of Johnny very much; however; since Kini insisted on having him, her mother agreed that it would be better if they lived hidden away in Pelekunu Valley. Johnny's diary shows that he arrived in Honolulu on April 5 and sailed for Pelekunu on April 7. Napua Stevens Poire said Kini told her years later that she found herself in Pelekunu Valley before she knew what had happened because everybody ganged up on hei; even her mother. Kini told Napua that this forced march bewildered and hurt her.4 Auntie Harriet said the Hawaiians in the valley wondered how long Kini would stick it out. s This seems a fair question. Kini had just come from the bright lights of vaudeville theaters. She had dined in restaurants, bathed in bathtubs, snapped on electric light bulbs at the flick of a switch, relieved herself in commodes that flushed. None of these conveniences existed in Pelekunu Valley. Few places in Hawai'i were more primitive. Auntie Harriet said Luukia still lived in a grass house, although photos from that time show wooden shacks. 6 The entry in Johnny's diary for Tuesday, April 8, 1 9 0 2 , reads, "Arrived Pelekunu &c occupied Koehana's house." Auntie Harriet said it was half cliff cave, a dugout extended by boards. Johnny's diary entry for April 9 reads, "Placed 1 1 2 eggs in the incubator." From show business he had turned to farming, raising chickens and hogs and taro, until he could resurrect his defunct contracting business. And Kini stuck it out. She stayed by her man, learning to raise chickens and to feed hogs. Auntie Harriet said Johnny's relatives soon began to respect the quickness of her intelligence. As one of Hawai'i's premier hula dancers, she was always asked to perform on holidays and parties. But she did so only after Johnny nodded permission. 7 He had become very sensitive about her dancing. Auntie Harriet said Johnny's first gift to Kini was a mirror to hang on the wall. Napua Stevens Poire said Kini became pregnant but lost the baby by miscarriage and was unable to have another. "I felt so useless," Kini told Napua. "But Johnny treated me like a queen." Kini ran the farming operations in Pelekunu Valley while

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Johnny went looking for construction work. This made her an equal partner. The farm supported them financially when there was nothing else. It was their safety net, and an obligation that Johnny respected. In May he landed a modest contract that got him started in construction again: $7,378 to build a waterworks in Lahaina, Maui, the former whaling port.8 He couldn't have had much time for politics although there was plenty of political activity, all discouraging for Democrats. Prince Kuhio had returned to Hawai'i. He was very popular among Hawaiians because he had been thrown in jail for his participation in the 1895 revolt. At first, the prince had flirted with the Home Rulers.9 But their party was on the wane after a lackluster performance by Robert Wilcox as delegate in Washington, where he had no standing with either Republicans or Democrats. Republicans in Hawai'i, still smarting from defeat, recognized the political appeal of Prince Kuhio and approached him about running for delegate to Congress on their ticket, where he would be well financed and in tune with the Republican administration in Washington. Their argument was that he could do more good for Hawaiians with the powerful Republicans than with the hapless Democrats or Home Rulers. On September 2., 1902, the Pacific Commercial Advertiser announced that Prince Kuhio would be the GOP nominee for delegate. John Wilson never blamed Kuhio for this decision, nor did he criticize Hawaiians for voting Republican to put the prince in office. Years later he explained that Hawaiians revered the ali'i, and Kuhio was a prince of the blood. Johnny's own father had become a respectable Republican while Johnny chose "the unwashed" (the Democrats), and other Hawaiian families had split politically. The impotent Democrats finally endorsed Robert Wilcox, who lost to Kuhio in November. It appears that Johnny didn't take much part in this campaign. He was probably too busy trying to keep body and soul together. His last payment for the waterworks in Lahaina came on February 4, 1903. 1 0 With nothing else on the construction horizon, he accepted another offer from showman Emmet McConnell to organize a Hawaiian Village for the new world's fair in St. Louis. This time Kini stayed behind. The hula had become taboo. And

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when Johnny arrived in St. Louis he was unable to round up his musician friends because "the boys held me up and wanted too much." 11 They were no longer naive graduates of reform school, but seasoned vaudeville performers. He returned to Pelekunu Valley with nothing to show for his effort. Only chickens, hogs, and taro stood between Johnny and Kini and destitution. He continued to beat the bushes for construction contracts, wallowing from island to island in little steamers. On September 16, 1903, he arrived in Honolulu from Moloka'i on the Lehua with several other passengers, two horses, one mule, a jackass, and sixteen packages of sundries. He probably made the trip partly for political reasons: the Democrats had called a mass meeting to pick candidates for upcoming municipal elections, a county bill having again passed in the previous legislature.12 The Pacific Commercial Advertiser treated this gathering of Democrats with a sad lack of respect: "September zz—A big crowd of the unterrified, the followers of Thomas Jefferson, [about fifty] met in Waverly Hall last night, nominated Col. C.J.McCarthy fourth district candidate for supervisor Frank Harvey for the fifth district, and F.J.Testa at large." A number of Home Rulers attended. From the reports it is clear that the Democrats had not yet organized the party into precincts, probably because there were not enough of them to do so. Johnny campaigned for McCarthy, the haole saloon keeper; and for Harvey, a part-Hawaiian who worked for the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company. The Republicans, having mounted well-financed torchlight parades and a huge GOP luau, took nearly all the municipal offices including five of seven seats on the O'ahu Board of Supervisors on election day. The minority supervisors consisted of Democrat Harvey and a Home Ruler. Robert Wilcox, the colorful revolutionist, died during the campaign on October Z3, 1903, while running for sheriff. He had been ill for some time. Drafted by the Home Rulers against his will, he hemorrhaged while making a speech and passed away a few days later. John Wise ran in his place.13 On November Z3, President Teddy Roosevelt appointed another Republican governor for Hawai'i, George Robert Carter who dismayed Johnny by trading off most of the island of Lana'i to a large landowner. Carter refused recognition to about a hun-

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dred Hawaiians, most of whom had been born on the island and had applied for homesteads.14 Johnny returned to Moloka'i and got a job surveying for a breakwater at Kalaupapa, the leper colony, just down the coast from Pelekunu. On November 29, 1903, a tidal wave hit that side of the island. Johnny later told Morris Fox, a city hall employee, that he told Jennie to "grab some belongings and head mauka. The wave(s) swept past and through the house, going in the front door and out the back. The house survived. A rock wall, which enclosed the front yard where they had hibiscus bushes, was destroyed."15 In January 1904 Johnny landed a small contract, $1,634, to build two small schoolhouses on Moloka'i.16 He probably used some of the lumber to also build a house for Kini farther up Pelekunu Valley. At least, we know he built such a house after the tidal wave. It stood on a rock foundation overlooking a stream and facing a waterfall. From the sea, the white house peeked out through the tropical foliage of the valley. The location was idyllic in a sylvan way, but it rained a lot up there. Later, Johnny bought Kini a piano, the only one in Pelekunu, and it. stood in the place of honor in their house.17 It was about this time the new municipal government in Honolulu encountered stern opposition that pitted the Republican establishment against home rule exponents like Johnny. County government had popular appeal on O'ahu but it would dilute control by the plantation oligarchy that ruled the neighbor islands. There were too many Home Rulers on O'ahu. Democrats polled most heavily in O'ahu's fifth district. A lawsuit by William R. Castle challenged the legality of the new county act, and the supreme court on January 14, 1904, declared the act unconstitutional. Johnny continued to chase contracts. On March 2, 1904, he arrived in Honolulu on the Lehua with fifty bundles of hides, five pigs, and sundries. He found the Democrats conducting a modest resurgence, organizing precinct clubs for the first time in preparation for the upcoming presidential election.18 He said he did not join a precinct club until later; but he donated money in amounts he could afford.19 He returned to Pelekunu and in May landed a contract for a $2,500 culvert at Maliko Gulch on Maui.

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Johnny never stopped trying to get back into road building. On July 16, 1904, the Maui News in Wailuku advertised for bids on a road to be constructed from the village of Ke'anae toward the settlement of Kailua, the bids to be due at noon on July 26. This was a major contract, the carving of a road a little more than ten miles long through the jungle on a cliff coastline on the northeast side of Maui. It was just the kind of a job that excited Johnny. But he couldn't swing such a major undertaking himself. He persuaded another contractor, John Duggan, to go partners with him, Duggan probably financing the bond and the equipment while Johnny did most of the work. On August 6, the Maui News declared Wilson and Duggan low bidders at $33,242 on the Ke'anae Road job. Lou Whitehouse came in $10,000 higher. At last, Johnny had a contract worthy of his mettle. The road he contracted to build on the spectacularly beautiful Hana coast of Maui made the Pali Road on O'ahu look like a driveway. On every island, the northeast tradewind had for eons sent surf pounding against northeast shores, cutting away the land and creating walls of cliffs. This action of wind and surf had on Maui carved out one of the dramatic coastlines of the world with the village of Hana near the far end and a great bluff called 'Opana Point at the other. In between, Hawaiians lived in tropical valleys on the shores of little bays, on flat places like Nahiku, and on the little peninsula of Ke'anae, which jutted out from the cliffs. It was on this remote and forbidding coast that Johnny had to land his construction equipment. Steamers calling to pick up cargoes of taro had to anchor on the leeward side of the Ke'anae Peninsula and land whaleboats on a gray stone beach because there was no jetty at the time. It behooved Johnny, therefore, to get his men and equipment landed at Ke'anae quickly in the calm weather of summer before winter surf made landings dangerous. We don't know much about the specifications for that first road Johnny built toward Hana. It could not have been much more than a rough horse trail surfaced with stones. The primary mechanical difficulty was to blast out cuts where cliffs were too sheer to scratch out even a flat path wide enough for a carriage. Of all the cuts, the most spectacular was at Honomanu, where the road clung to an enormous cliff face high above the ocean, then sloped down the broad, undulating cliffside to the limpid, blue bay.

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Anybody can still get a sense of the adventure Johnny felt building that road. The highway today follows the same tortuous path along the cliffs and through the jungle across fifteen mountain streams, most of them fed by picturesque waterfalls framed in foliage above the road, between Kailua and Ke'anae. Over the same distance there are ten hair-raising hairpin turns and only a few straight stretches longer than several hundred yards. Like Johnny's Pali Road, his scenic road to Hana has become a tourist attraction. But at the time Johnny built it, the road presented more of a labor problem than an engineering problem. To attract the Hawaiian vote, the Democratic party endorsed "citizen labor," as opposed to hiring alien Chinese and Japanese immigrants. Hawaiians had long protested the hiring of these newcomers at lower wages, a practice that took food out of the mouths of deserving kama'aina citizens. Republicans also adopted this policy, so government contracts required that only citizen laborers be employed on government jobs like the Hana Road. Most of the manual labor on Johnny's Pali Road and on the railroad around Ka'ena Point had been done by alien immigrants. Now Johnny had to hire citizen laborers, and it was not easy to recruit them. On September 2.4, 1904, Wilson and Duggan advertised in the Maui News for 1 5 0 pick and shovel laborers. The ad read: "Only those who are citizens or eligible to become citizens are wanted. ...Workers can apply at Honomanu or Keanae Camps." When that appeal did not produce results, Wilson and Duggan placed an advertisement in the Star at Honolulu on September 27 offering steady employment for citizen laborers to work on Maui: "Sleeping quarters will be furnished but each laborer should have their own bedding. Credit can be had at the Camp Store for provisions." The Maui News on October 1 , 1904, took editorial notice of the labor problems of Wilson and Duggan. "It is extremely difficult to secure citizen labor," the editor wrote, "and sometimes practically impossible to do so, as illustrated by the Wilson & Duggan contract on Maui." The newspaper suggested that government policy as to citizen labor be modified (and immigrants allowed to work) so that public projects might go ahead. His big Hana Road contract did not dampen Johnny's enthusiasm for politics. In trying to promote the Democratic party on

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Maui and Moloka'i during the 1904 fall election campaign for territorial offices, he received a firsthand lesson in neighbor island politics. He had become friendly with a young haole Democratic attorney in Wailuku, James Coke, who set his cap for a senate seat, thereby displaying uncommon courage because Maui was rockbound, plantation-dominated Republican. The Maui News served as a Republican propaganda sheet, not simply on the editorial page but on the news pages as well. On September 24, 1904, page three was made up to look like the front page, with a large photo of the Republican candidate for delegate, Prince Kuhio, prominently displayed. The page carried a news story about a bridge in Halawa Valley on Moloka'i that had been recently washed out, then replaced in record time by the Republican superintendent of public works. Readers who wanted new bridges in their districts were urged to vote the straight Republican ticket. The next story concerned itself with the new pier at Puko'o on Moloka'i, constructed in only five weeks by the Republican administration. A following paragraph pointed out that citizens who needed new wharves should vote Republican. In later issues, the Maui News thoughtfully ran full pages of Republican propaganda couched as news in the Hawaiian language so that subscribers who did not read English would get the point. On October 29 the only report in the Maui News informing readers about a Democratic rally in Wailuku appeared on the Republican propaganda page. Naturally, the Democrats didn't come off too well in the story. On O'ahu, the Republicans flexed their muscles in other ways. Both candidates for the territorial senate, Republican John Lane and Democrat Frank Harvey, one of his party's top vote getters, worked for Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company, a rock-ribbed Republican firm. General Manager J.A.Kennedy announced that it would not be in the company's interest to have two employees run for the senate. Harvey was asked to retire from the race. He ran anyway and lost. What was good enough for the Republicans was good enough for Johnny Wilson. Since he was a major employer on the Hana coast, and since his workers were citizens, he got them all registered and let them know that he expected them to vote Democratic if they wanted to keep their jobs. At Ke'anae, he organized

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the Hawaiian taro growers. On Moloka'i, the day before the election, he hired a launch at his own expense and transported Hawaiians from Pelekunu and neighboring Waiau and Halawa valleys to the polls at Puko'o to vote Democratic.20 It didn't do any good: Jim Coke got swamped on election day.21 Johnny's next experience with the easy arrogance of plantation overlords on Maui came after he submitted the low bid to construct a series of tunnels and an irrigation ditch in Waihe'e Valley near Wailuku for the Wailuku Plantation. He spent a lot of time getting bitten by mosquitoes while surveying the route of the ditch in the tropical valley.22 But it paid off when his bid of $60,000 came in $2Z,ooo lower than the bid of his closest competitor, Lou Whitehouse.23 A consortium of Japanese tunnel diggers bid $ 1 3 1 , 0 0 0 . It looked as if Johnny was about to score. Before Johnny could begin work on the ditch, disaster struck at Pelekunu. In March, residents fell ill from some mysterious cause, and several people died. Kini stayed behind as a nurse while Johnny went to Honolulu for help. His appeal appeared in the Pacific Commercial Advertiser24 and prompted A. L. C. Atkinson, secretary of the territory, to send a relief expedition. A U.S. Army doctor, two nurses and five hospital corpsmen volunteered to go along. With Johnny as guide and an Advertiser reporter taking notes, the party landed with food and medicine. The doctor diagnosed the disease as typhoid caused by drinking from a contaminated stream.25 While residents of the Pelekunu Valley recovered from typhoid, Wailuku Plantation pulled back on its acceptance of Johnny's low bid to build the irrigation ditch and tunnels in Waihe'e Valley. Apparently, Johnny's bid showed the plantation officials that they could get the ditch built for much less than they had anticipated. If so, maybe they could beat the price down still more. They went to another contractor, who hadn't bid at all, and negotiated the price they wanted. Frozen out, Johnny hired his attorney friend, Jim Coke, and brought suit against the plantation while the new contractor went to work. There is no indication that Johnny got any satisfaction at all from the plantation.26 There can be do doubt that these hard times reinforced Johnny's natural inclination to rebel against the establishment.

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The legislature meanwhile passed yet another law authorizing the organization of county governments in the territory, this time over the governor's veto. In June 1905 the supreme court upheld the constitutionality of the new county law, and both Democrats and Republicans lined up candidates for municipal offices. There is no information about Johnny's participation in this election. Perhaps he was too busy, as a small, independent-minded small businessman, trying to buck the system. Early in 1906 the territorial department of public works put out a request for bids for an improvement of a portion of the Pali Road. Johnny was known for his low bids on such projects, so the bid was put out with a forty-eight-hour time limit while he was away on Kaua'i, giving him no chance to even start adding up figures. Johnny's father, C.B., rose up in righteous anger at such shenanigans. He blasted away with salvos in the press against the department of public works and demanded that the contract be let out for bid again. Other than entertaining newspaper readers for a few days, C.B.Wilson's histrionics did no good.27 In August 1906 Johnny bounced back with a contract to build a private railroad on O'ahu from Kahuku to Hau'ula on the windward side of the island. The Pacific Commercial Advertiser reported, "Contractor Wilson and his assistants... have headquarters at Hau'ula at which place the gang of [250] Japanese is at present camped. Storekeeper Bowman is with the outfit The line is being rapidly pushed ahead and, it is expected, will be in operation between Punaluu and Kahuku by October."28 The election campaign of 1906 got under way while Johnny built the railroad. This brought politics to the village of Hau'ula, where he had his headquarters. On Wednesday, September 5, 1906, at a Republican precinct meeting, there was some discussion about support for Republican candidate A. M. Brown, who was running for sheriff. The Reverend Nuuhiva rose and gave his fatalistic view of the situation: "I'm not a politician. I am a worker in the vineyard. My politics are love and goodness, sweetness and light I see that you are all for Brown. Even if I am not for Brown, what good is it for one poor man to knock him down?" Then the Reverend Nuuhiva seated himself, having expressed the attitude of quite a few voters about opposing the Republican machine.29

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But Johnny didn't give up. In this election he campaigned for Democratic stalwart E. P. McClanahan, who ran for delegate to Congress against Kuhio, and for Curtis Iaukea, a prominent partHawaiian and the Democratic candidate for sheriff. Johnny also supported Democrat Frank Harvey for the board of supervisors. 30 This time the Democrats did better. McClanahan lost to the popular Kuhio, of course, but Iaukea became sheriff after a contested election. And Harvey and Fern took seats on the board of supervisors. 31 There was one more feature of the election that would affect the cause of the Democrats and Johnny's future. Republican Lincoln L. McCandless, popular among Hawaiians in spite of his wealth and large landholdings, narrowly lost his race for a senate seat and complained that the party had dumped him. Important Republicans did not weep: they had never been comfortable with McCandless. He was too outspoken, a maverick instead of a team player. McCandless would soon desert the Republicans to join the Democrats and would cause the GOP much more grief that way than he had as a Republican. The president appointed a new Republican governor, Walter Francis Frear, former justice of the territorial supreme court and a director of banking, sugar, railroad, and pineapple companies. John Wilson didn't think much of Frear because his land policy favored the plantations. Johnny turned from the railroad and the election to Kaua'i, where he won a contract to build a county road from Makaweli to Hanapepe. Once more he ran afoul of the plantation mentality that didn't accommodate his independent ways. A school superintendent who later had the same problem and got fired described what it was like at Llhu'e, the county seat: "Lihue is under the domination of a few people who are not satisfied except everyone else in Lihue and on Kauai give submission to them. It is a tyranny, a benevolent autocracy." 32 On Kaua'i, Johnny went bankrupt in early 1 9 0 7 . Kaua'i county officials claimed later that Johnny Wilson was incompetent. For example, he had failed to operate a rock crusher properly. Johnny said the county owed him money, probably for machinery, and that officials forced him into bankruptcy to avoid paying him. They did it, he said, by refusing to pay him for road work

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as increments were completed, a universal practice. Then they bought up debts he owed to private firms. When they demanded payment and he couldn't raise the money, he had to declare bankruptcy.33 In later years, Raymond Aki, Kaua'i Democrat, sided with Johnny. He said plantation people dominated the board of supervisors and the plantations "borrowed" the equipment Johnny ordered to build their own roads. The plantations were in such control that the county of Kaua'i was shut down for three months when one of the plantations refused to pay its taxes. Johnny Wilson could not buck such power and get away with it.34 So, five years after returning to Hawai'i in disgrace, he hit the bottom again.

PART

THREE

The Bumpy Road to Politics

— 12

LESSONS

IN

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PATRONAGE

At this time Johnny's life took the turn that led to his future career. His engineering skills began to merge with his interest in politics, and the automobile served as a catalyst. On all of the Hawaiian Islands, cars were tearing up the rock and clay macadam roads, which had been firm enough to support horses and carriages, but couldn't withstand automobiles. Already on Kaua'i, Johnny had experimented with a new surface, tar mixed with rock aggregate. He was one of the first road builders in Hawai'i to do this. The board of supervisors on Maui had also initiated a roadbuilding program. They were confronted not only with inadequate roads for the increasing number of automobiles but with road supervisors who were not competent to apply the new surface. At a road engineers' conference in Honolulu, one of the participants from Hawai'i county put it this way: "Incompetent overseers, and indolent laborers coupled with haphazard methods, lacking all known principles of decent construction, have absorbed the road money, leaving no roads and worse politics." 1 Such concerns caused the Maui County Board of Supervisors to create a new position, superintendent of roads, to be filled by a professional road builder. The supervisors voted to advertise the position in the Maui News; the ad appeared on July 30, 1907. Johnny applied for this position. The Maui News announced on September 14, 1907, that the board of supervisors had voted to hire John H. Wilson as superintendent of roads with authority over road supervisors. The newspaper editorialized that "the new office should be a great benefit and eliminate confusion of different policies by [road] overseers

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who hire and fire at their own discretion. Many express fear that they will continue to do so and will give orders in conflict with the new superintendent." This traditional independence of road overseers resulted from their ability to deliver the votes of their road gangs on election day as instructed. Consequently, the overseers were carefully selected by the board of supervisors, who wished to be elected the next time. The Maui News had put its finger directly on the problems of political patronage that were to arise. Johnny worked hard to deliver what the supervisors paid him for—efficiency and professionalism in the road department, the best roads for the least cost. The Maui News immediately took notice of his energy. In the first month, citizens in the capital of Wailuku found their streets cleaned and the grass cut on both sides. Soon afterword, the road to nearby Kahului was macadamized, and the supervisors agreed to pay for new concrete sidewalks for Market Street in downtown Wailuku. The new year, 1908, began with a meticulous report about road-building operations to the board of supervisors from its new superintendent of roads. He reported that lost time at the rock crusher had been reduced from 61 percent in November to 55 percent in December.2 Johnny also pointed out that "the cost of [horse] shoeing is in excess of what it should be in the Wailuku District and I consider it my duty to show this Honorable Body one of the many leaks of public funds." Whereupon Johnny listed figures to show exactly what shoeing a horse should cost.3 The supervisors certainly had no reason to fault the new superintendent of roads for such professional reports, but brows knitted on January 8, 1908, when Johnny asked the board of supervisors to fire a road overseer named Summerfield. No details appeared in the Maui News. Maybe Summerfield had a brotherin-law in the horseshoeing business. Perhaps the road overseer refused to discharge a cousin when Johnny told him to. Whatever the reason, the worried board of supervisors called a special session the next day to hear the charges and Summerfield's defense. The board then went into executive session and unanimously exonerated Summerfield.4 Johnny handed in his resignation on February 15; it was accepted on February zz.s Although his first experience in what might loosely be termed a political

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office didn't last very long, it did give a hint of the fireworks that frequently exploded when politics and Johnny mixed. In April he picked up a few small construction contracts from Maui county, an indication that the board of supervisors continued to respect him, a situation that often developed after Johnny did battle. He had a way of waging honorable combat so that, when it was over, it was nevertheless easy to like him. And he didn't hold a grudge. Kini must have accompanied him now and then because it was about this time that she took part in a hula research project in Honolulu. Nathaniel B. Emerson, a scholarly medical doctor of missionary descent, was researching what became a book called

Unwritten Literature of Hawaii: The Sacred Songs of the Hula.

Published in 1909 by the U.S. Bureau of Ethnology, it has become a valuable source used by anthropologists. Kini's friends later said that she was one of Emerson's major informants about the esoteric oral literature of the ancient hula. (Like most haole writers of his time, Emerson did not name the Hawaiian authorities from whom he got his information, so Kini was not credited for her contribution to the book.) Meanwhile, Johnny persuaded someone in the Republican administration that there should be a U.S. post office at Pelekunu. This small political coup greatly benefited Johnny's neighbors because it ensured that the steamer would regularly stop in the remote valley to pick up mail, thus providing an opportunity to send taro to market. Kini became postmistress. Auntie Harriet Ne said Johnny taught Kini how to keep books because a shortage in her accounts would be embezzlement. Johnny moved from Maui to O'ahu, where a new branch of government, now in the pangs of birth, offered exciting prospects. The legislature had passed a law providing for city and county government on O'ahu with a major at its head.6 The addition of an executive branch to the existing board of supervisors offered a challenge to both Republicans and Democrats and stimulated political activity. Perhaps this opportunity, coming after Johnny's taste of political appointment on Maui, lured him to O'ahu. Prince David Kawananakoa had died in San Francisco in early June. Johnny's later friend, Walter Trask, said that the death of Prince David inspired Johnny to take up the torch and lead the

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Democrats, and this is part of the Johnny Wilson legend.7 Johnny's papers, however, don't support the legend. He had no pretensions about running for office. He didn't even attend Prince David's funeral because he was on Maui at the time. But the evidence does indicate that he was becoming very active politically. He certainly took an interest in the Democratic national convention in Chicago in July 1908, where William Randolph Hearst contended with William Jennings Bryan for the presidential nomination. The wealthy new Democrat, Link McCandless, paid the travel expenses of Democratic delegates to the national convention 8 to set the stage for his nomination as their candidate for delegate to Congress. So there were two new political developments added to the upcoming campaigns in the fall of 1908 that excited the Democrats including Johnny: the election of Honolulu's first mayor and the campaign of the first Democratic candidate for delegate to Congress able to finance his own all-island campaign in opposition to the unbeatable Prince Kuhio. We have to assume that Johnny in his dapper suit and straw hat tilted at an angle became acquainted with Link McCandless amid all this bewildering activity. We know that he campaigned for Link, and because McCandless was to play a large part in Johnny's future, we will pause to describe this maverick Republican. Walter Trask, who later worked as secretary to Link in Washington, described him as a "frontiersman," a throwback to the time of Andrew Jackson. 9 McCandless, a big, moon-faced fellow, had large appetites for women, political power, and money. He had amassed a fortune by drilling artesian wells and had accumulated large land holdings. In 1904 he had married a woman of social position. The marriage lent him a respectability he might not otherwise have enjoyed, but Link always remained a diamond in the rough. He tended to shoot from the hip instead of thinking through issues, and he was absolutely fearless in his convictions. Johnny said later about the new Democrat, McCandless, "Due to his wealth, we always felt that he could better afford the expense of a campaign then most of us, and since he was always willing to make the run, we supported him, thinking him sincere in his statements in regard to supporting the Democratic party.'" 0 During the fall campaigns, McCandless electrified the Demo-

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crats with his outspoken criticism of "the greed and unfairness of the sugar plantations." 11 Part-Hawaiian Joe Fern, the supervisor and Democratic candidate for mayor, had been a stevedore boss. He appealed to crowds on the stump because he spoke three languages—Hawaiian, English, and Portuguese. When the Republicans criticized his fluency in English, he countered, " A man can do a thing in Hawaiian as well as he can in English." 12 His Republican opponent, John Lane, also part-Hawaiian, was a bookkeeper for Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company. His arrest for treason by the hated provisional government in 1903 had endeared him to Hawaiian voters—but not enough to win the election. Jon Fern squeaked in while Link McCandless lost and Johnny contributed his energy to the Democratic campaign. The new mayor of Honolulu faced formidable odds. The Pacific Commercial Advertiser called his election a "day of official burlesque." 13 He was also saddled with an overwhelmingly Republican board of supervisors unwilling to relinquish any of the total power the board had exercised before the office of mayor was instituted. The supervisors had become used to hiring and firing, appointing department heads, and generally running the store. Joe Fern, however, was determined to be more than a figurehead, and the law gave him the power of appointment. His most important appointment was that of Johnny Wilson as superintendent of roads at $250 a month; Johnny would be boss of two hundred to three hundred road workers w h o were voting citizens. 14 The board countered on the last day of 1908 by notifying municipal workers to hold onto their offices and not let the mayor's new appointees usurp them. This included T. P. Cummins, the incumbent road supervisor. The first action taken by the Republican board in 1909 was to draw up its o w n list of appointees from which the mayor was free to choose. To nobody's surprise, Johnny's name did not appear on this list.15 O n January 4, 1909, the mayor's inauguration day, the new Republican supervisors organized themselves, ignoring the new mayor and appointing Dan Logan as their chairman to run the meeting. Fern refused to put their motions, but they acted as if he weren't there. 16 So the new city and county government got started with the speed of a steam plow with frozen gears. While the mayor and the board were deadlocked in chambers,

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Joe Fern's road workers found themselves locked out of the stables and the rock quarry. Johnny outflanked the enemy by appearing at the office of the road supervisor before defensive measures could be taken. He sat on one side of the desk while Tom Cummins sat on the other, both pretending to be road supervisor.17 If Johnny was dismayed by this introduction to politics on O'ahu, he didn't show it. For three months he went to work every morning to sit in for the Democrats at city hall, which at that time was some rented rooms in the Mclntyre Building downtown. It was not Johnny's fault that he became a focus for the standoff between the mayor and the supervisors. He was always reluctant to ask favors of the party, and his papers do not list Joe Fern as one of the candidates whom he had especially worked for, although they were good friends. From Fern's point of view, Johnny made a logical choice for road supervisor. The new mayor had to be careful during his first term of office to choose well-qualified appointees, and the ragtag Democrats didn't offer too many choices. It may have been for this reason that Fern reappointed quite a number of holdover Republicans and even some new ones. But Johnny was qualified and a deserving Democrat. Besides, the road crew provided the single biggest bulk of political patronage, and Fern wanted them bossed by a reliable party member. It was for precisely this reason that the Republican supervisors were determined to put their own man in. So Johnny found himself caught in the middle of a power play between the new Democratic mayor and the Republican board of supervisors to determine who would run city hall. If nothing else, it must have taught him the importance of patronage. The Republican supervisors passed an ordinance to establish their powers of appointment, 18 an action that was declared illegal, being in direct violation of the new city and county law passed by the legislature. The question arose at the end of January which of the two teams of workers was to be paid. Johnny kept careful track of the hours spent by his workers, who were doing nothing. To the dismay of the supervisors, they were unable to pay their own workers because the mayor refused to sign the vouchers. Finally, the supreme court rendered a decision declaring that the supervisors under the new law did not have the power to

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appoint. 19 Still at issue was the question of whether the mayor's appointments required confirmation by the supervisors—whereupon, Johnny sued for back pay. Finally, the Republican board conceded that Joe Fern had the right to appoint Johnny Wilson. Tom Cummins on March 3, 1909, relinquished his office to Johnny during a mock funeral ceremony. 20 To the intense embarrassment of the Republican supervisors, their own appointees demanded pay for the time they had spent on the job, and the supervisors couldn't pay them. There was no telling how many of them might turn Democrat. So a friendly Republican legislature voted an appropriations bill to correct this oversight. As the dust settled, Johnny and Kini got married. We don't know very much about this. Our primary informant is Auntie Harriet Ne, w h o said it was a big wedding at the Waiklkl home of Liliuokalani. But not one word of this social event appeared in any of the newspapers, and Johnny kept no diary at this time. Napua Stevens Poire said Kini's mother was more friendly toward Johnny after the former queen hosted his wedding. The marriage certificate is dated Saturday, M a y 8, 1909. The ceremony was performed by the Reverend William E. Silva, pastor of the Hoomana Kaauao Church of Honolulu, and was witnessed by the Reverend Silva and Robert W. Cathcart, one of Johnny's chief lieutenants in the road department. 21 W h y did Kini and Johnny marry? Was it because he now had a steady income? Was it because he was afraid their common-law relationship would become public? Had Kini at last talked him into it? We don't know the reason except that they were in love. Nothing really changed, though; Kini went back to Pelekunu to care for their chickens, hogs, and taro patches while Johnny stayed in Honolulu to look after the roads. She turned up on passenger lists every now and then en route from Moloka'i to Honolulu, where, in 1909, Johnny bought some land in the Kaimukl section behind Diamond Head Crater, mostly red dirt and boulders. He paid 3 cents a square foot. 22 As road superintendent, Johnny took charge in no uncertain terms. A dam burst in upper Palolo Valley in Honolulu on the weekend of March 13, 1909, sending a wall of water twenty feet high down the valley, tearing out taro, sweet potatoes, onions,

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bananas, mountain apple trees, vegetables, two houses, and a bridge. This happened on a Friday. On Saturday, Johnny's assistant, David Crowningberg, a Republican, wanted to put off replacement of the bridge until Monday. Johnny called in a small crew, took them out to Palolo Valley, and by nightfall had the bridge up again. On the following Monday, he fired his deputy supervisor and offered him a job as cantoneer, a position responsible for patching potholes. The Republicans accused Johnny of building his own political machine. Johnny's independent ways soon put him at loggerheads with a Republican supervisor. Johnny considered himself to be working for the mayor, who had appointed him for his competence and who let him pretty much alone. But Republican Jim Quinn, a taxi driver elected supervisor, considered himself qualified to instruct Johnny in road building because Quinn was chairman of the board's road committee. At a night meeting of the board on Friday, April 2, 1909, Quinn badgered Johnny for oiling a street without permission. Quinn scolded Johnny's gang for eliminating oats from the menu of horses at the city and county stables. Supervisor Robert Aylett, another road expert, observed that horses don't need oats. But Quinn insisted he knew all about horses.23 Supervisor Quinn spent so much time driving around to show himself on road jobs that the workers took him for Mayor Fern, who did not own a car. Quinn was out driving on the windward side of O'ahu when he stalled in high tide across the road. The saltwater caused extensive damage to the engine of his Thompson tourer. Quinn's exasperation provided the initiative for building a new highway around the island above the high tide mark.24 On September 2, the Advertiser announced that Johnny would begin oiling Merchant Street. Emma Street had already been spread with heavy oil and good results reported. But Jim Quinn knew better. In January 1 9 1 0 he became interested in a new patented paving material called Bitulithic, said to be superior to oil asphalt because of its secret ingredients and the heating process. Once it covered a road surface, it was alleged to be hard as rock.25 A convincing salesman named Joseph Gilman represented Bitulithic in Hawai'i. But he did not convince Johnny, who pointed out that the patented paving material was much more expensive

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than the oil he used. A major tug of war ensued between the Republican supervisors and Johnny Wilson, w h o was backed by M a y o r Fern. The mayor finally vetoed a contract with Bitulithic that the supervisors had approved. Johnny always claimed he saved the city a great deal of money.26 There was no indication yet that taking dumb orders from people w h o knew less than he did made Johnny hanker for the power to give orders himself. He hung onto his temper as best he could and tried to learn about new paving methods. O n January 8, 1 9 1 0 , the Advertiser threw charges of moonlighting at Johnny: O u t of a series of interviews... emerges the fact that Johnny Wilson, whose time and road building skill belongs to the municipality, is drawing 5 per cent commission on the Kahana R o a d contract and is also receiving $50 a month as supervising engineer for the contractor [John Emmeluth] Where is Johnny Wilson? Is he w o r k i n g for the the Honolulu road district or is he working for Emmeluth? W h a t are the supervisors going to do about it?

Johnny said it was no secret that he advised Emmeluth about the road job and that he was getting paid for it, but the city wasn't losing out because Johnny did the work during weekends on his free time. He might have asked why the newspaper had never questioned the propriety of Republican George McClellan's accepting salary from private firms as a lobbyist when he was secretary to the delegate in Washington. Mayor Fern refused to fire Johnny, so the issue died. 27 The political pot began simmering again in 1910. Elections loomed ahead with a new ingredient added to the political stew. It was called "assisted immigration," another dimension of the citizen labor issue. Republicans proposed aid to immigration as a relief measure for plantations suffering from a shortage of labor. Johnny tried a taste test of this new ingredient before the Democratic convention got under way in Honolulu on September 14, 1910. He took a postcard survey of Democratic precincts that would send delegates to the convention and found that 90 percent of the precincts he surveyed opposed assisted immigration. This may have been the first political poll taken in Hawai'i, and it shows that Johnny was probably ahead of his contemporaries in

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political sophistication. 28 Johnny said later that more conservative Democrats, including pioneer party wheelhorse Charles McCarthy and Honolulu attorney Edward Watson, came out in favor of assisted immigration and that Link did too until he saw Johnny's poll. McCandless, w h o knew a popular issue when he saw one, changed his mind about siding with the conservatives. 2 ' Johnny later wrote: W h e n the issue [support for assisted immigration] came up before the convention w e voted d o w n the proposal by four to one. Ever since, McCarthy, Watson and the other fellows opposed to Link have been saying that McCandless runs the party. As a matter of fact, that crowd is sore because they can't run it. 30

The Star explained to its readers that a majority of Democratic delegates considered the present number of 35,000 alien plantation workers in Hawai'i enough since the total population numbered only 190,000. The Democrats called instead for homesteading, the homesteads to attract farmers w h o would cultivate the land. These lands should first be offered to local citizens because their failure to occupy the land was seen as a grave injustice by the Democratic party. If any land remained, it could be worked by outsiders. 31 We have here in a nutshell Johnny's political philosophy, and it appears that he had a part in shaping the policy of the Democratic party to his view at the time. However, there is no indication that he wanted to run for office. Like his father before him, he seemed to enjoy pulling strings behind the scenes. Joe Fern joined with McCandless and Johnny in their stand on immigration. The 1 9 1 0 political campaigns began. The Republican legislature had tried to pull the teeth of the Democrats by passing a homesteading bill of their o w n in the previous spring session. Link McCandless took credit during the fall campaign for pushing the Republicans into action on the homestead issue. But he was beset by problems. The split that had opened during the Democratic convention over the immigration issue grew wider, with McCarthy and Watson steering clear of Johnny and McCandless. Dr. J. H. Raymond, a Democratic stalwart on Maui, announced, "I'm through with

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Fern, McCandless and Rivenburgh [Link's campaign manager]. I will not vote for them under any consideration." Asked if he would vote for or against McCandless, Democrat Delbert E. Metzger on Hawai'i answered enigmatically, "You can go to hell." 32 Kuhio rolled to an easy victory over his Democratic opponent in November. Johnny's support for McCandless hurt him. Though Joe Fern was reelected mayor of Honolulu, his road supervisor immediately became the focus of a renewed battle between the mayor and his Republican board as the city and county administration got under way in 1 9 1 1 . When Fern refused to fire Johnny, the board tried to abolish his position. On discovering that they lacked the legal power to do so, the supervisors tried to eliminate his salary. This also turned out to be illegal. But they were empowered to reduce it by about half, which they did.33 Johnny thumbed his nose at them, determined to demonstrate his conviction that the mayor, not the supervisors, ran his department. He refused the board's order to fire his clerk, Robert Cathcart, who had been best man at his wedding. So they reduced his salary still more, to $100. Johnny still wouldn't quit. "Wilson Has Drop On Supervisors," the Pacific Commercial Advertiser told its readers in a large headline on February 1 1 , 1 9 1 1 . "Fern's Protege Is Very Bold Man and Refused to Carry Out Instructions." The mayor backed his road supervisor. Then Johnny defied the board in writing, explaining that he refused to accept their orders regarding his department because they had no legal standing. "Wilson Is Still Top Bowwow," the Advertiser headlined.34 Given Johnny's bullheadedness, this stalemate might have gone on forever if Joe Fern had not decided that Honolulu needed government more than he needed Johnny Wilson. Fern backed off and appointed another road supervisor.35 So Johnny retired once again to private life. We will see that he had already an idea or two about how to make a go of it.

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John H. Wilson, relieved of responsibility for the public roads of O'ahu in February 1 9 1 1 , quietly established a private relationship with Lincoln L. McCandless. The two went into business together and teamed up politically. Friends of the happy couple called the arrangement a marriage made in heaven. Their enemies pronounced it a disaster. For Johnny it would mean a period of financial security, and for Link the eventual realization of a dream. N o one could predict the bitter discord that would follow. Republicans assumed, of course, that threadbare Johnny Wilson had become millionaire Link McCandless' stooge and mouthpiece. The story was more complex. In 1 9 1 1 legislators created a loan fund to build a belt road, later called Kamehameha Highway, around the island of O'ahu above the high-tide line. Road contractors, including Johnny, eagerly anticipated a chance to bid on the lucrative increments of this highway construction. 1 But as in the past, Johnny needed a backer. In return, he could offer considerable financial reward. Link McCandless recognized a good business deal even more quickly than he did a popular campaign issue. Johnny would supply the engineering expertise and Link the money. They became equal partners in a bid on the first increment of the belt road. Because the Republican government bureaucracy was more afraid of McCandless than of Johnny, the partners did not publicize Link's participation. Their political beliefs also resulted in a working partnership. Johnny was a young and astute Democrat who could be useful to Link in his crusade to be delegate to Congress. Why should not

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Link take advantage of Johnny's energy and political connections? Johnny, in turn, recognized Link's usefulness to the Democrats if he could be steered in the right directions. To advise Link about how to spend his money politically might accomplish what Johnny wanted, Democratic control of the territory. The partners may have underestimated the hostility that establishment business leaders already felt toward upstart Johnny Wilson. On September z8, 1 9 1 1 , the Pacific Commercial Advertiser reported that John H. Wilson was low bidder on the first increment of the belt road, five miles in the vicinity of He'eia, at $79,367. Lord and Young, a major contracting firm with all the right connections, came close with a bid of $79,710. Lou Whitehouse was far back among the losers. The first hint that Johnny was in trouble came the next day. "For two hours the [road] commissioners [in secret session] wrangled over the bids, trying to decide whether to award the contract to John Wilson, as low bidder, or to Lord-Young as more responsible," the Pacific Commercial Advertiser reported.2 After five days of secret sessions, the road commission awarded the contract to Lord and Young as the responsible bidder. The secretary of the commission refused to allow newspaper reporters to read the minutes of the meetings. Mayor Fern, a member of the commission, said he was the only one who voted for Johnny Wilson. None of the other members would talk to the press. Link blamed the decision on politics. The Advertiser demanded that all the bids be thrown out, not because Johnny had been shabbily dealt with, but because specifications called for a needlessly expensive heavy-duty road. This attempt at cost cutting ran into a snag when James Dole, speaking for the Hawaiian Pineapple Company, explained that he needed the heavy-duty road to haul his pineapples in trucks to the cannery from his fields in He'eia. Dole's self-serving argument quieted criticism in the business community, and Lord and Young signed the contract.3 Nobody paid much attention to Johnny when he complained that he was fighting a ring of contractors who ganged up on him. His old friend, Lou Whitehouse, dismissed Johnny's conspiracy theory. "It sounds like ragtime," Whitehouse told the Star. "Wilson evidently... raises a cry of 'conspiracy' when anything goes wrong with him."4

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Most likely, Johnny was not so much the victim of a deliberate conspiracy as he was of an unspoken consensus among the good old boys that it was time to end Johnny Wilson's consistent refusal to play their gentlemanly game. Two society items give an indication of how far Johnny had grown out of step with the establishment. One item announced that Mr. and Mrs. L. M.Whitehouse had entertained Mr. and Mrs. Marston Campbell at the University Club. Campbell was superintendent of the territory's public works department, which awarded Hawai'i's most lucrative public contracts. Campbell was also the most influential member of the belt road commission, and he had voted against Johnny's bid. A second society item related that Johnny Wilson and Joe Fern attended a luau in Kaka'ako, on the waterfront, for city and county road workers and their families.5 Road workers did not award contracts. Even Link McCandless gave up on Johnny's belt road bid as a hopeless cause. But this time Johnny refused to be fatalistic. The belt road commission had dismissed him as an irresponsible contractor, his death knell as a businessman. He could either knuckle under and be ruined or fight to clear his name. Johnny sued with his own money to prevent payment to Lord and Young for work on the He'eia portion of the belt road. 6 The belt road commissioners immediately filed a demurrer to squash the suit. The judge failed to see an overriding logic in their argument and ordered the litigants to be ready in ten days to present their cases in court. 7 The fireworks continued. Mayor Joe Fern, as a member of the commission, filed an answer to Johnny's charges by admitting to all of them and adding a few of his own. Fern contended that the commission, in contravention of the law, gave Wilson no opportunity to testify before the commission as to his financial responsibility, that Johnny was maliciously treated, and that the job was awarded to another contractor for reasons other than Wilson's inability to perform the work. 8 The other road commissioners, in filing an answer of their own, rolled out their big guns. They brought up Johnny's failure to complete the sewer outfall and his bankruptcy on Kaua'i as proof of irresponsibility. They contended that he had performed unsatisfactorily twice as a road supervisor. For these reasons, the com-

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mission had no alternative but to award the belt road contract to a responsible contractor.9 But it wasn't until January 1 9 1 2 that the trial got under way. Johnny's lawyer, M. F. Prosser, wasted no time going after Marston Campbell. He accused Campbell of malice against Johnny and added that the He'eia portion of the belt road was being built more for a private company to haul pineapples over than for the general public to drive on. 10 Next, Prosser introduced a parade of witnesses who must have somewhat unsettled the belt road commissioners' opinion of Johnny as a lightweight who could be easily stepped on. First, Link McCandless admitted that he was in partnership with Johnny Wilson on the He'eia belt road job. Asked as to his financial responsibility, Link confessed that he had never counted his money, but he guessed that he was worth more than the $ 1 0 0 , 0 0 0 that would cover the contract and other incidentals. 11 When the commission's attorney, Arthur Wilder, asked Johnny why he had bid on the job without mentioning McCandless, Johnny answered that he hadn't mentioned Link for political reasons. Link was a leading Democrat, and it was possible that the commissioners might have been even more opposed to him than to Johnny. Then Jim Quinn, Johnny's old nemesis on the board of supervisors, took the witness stand and declared Johnny Wilson to be absolutely reliable. Then followed respected engineers Hugh Howell, W. E. Rowell, John F. Rawles, and the county engineer in support of Johnny's competence. The bitterest pill of all for the road commissioners to swallow must have been the testimony of industrialist Benjamin F. Dillingham, who stated that Johnny had done a considerable amount of work for Oahu Railway and that the work had always been satisfactory. 12 There was still more. It turned out that respected businessman Cecil Brown, who had gone bond for Johnny a time or two, had informed the belt road commission of John Wilson's financial responsibility as a partner of Link McCandless. Attorney Prosser introduced Brown's letter to this effect, which the commission had ignored. Prosser then rested his case. 13 On January 3 1 , 1 9 1 2 , the circuit court judge granted Johnny an injunction to stop payment by the road commission to Lord and Young on the He'eia portion of the belt road. The court criticized

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the commission for not giving Wilson an opportunity to defend himself against allegations of incompetency.14 The decision did not end Johnny's troubles—the commissioners appealed—but it gave him great satisfaction and went a long way toward saving his reputation. Back at the city and county, the Republican board was trying to tell the new Democratic road supervisor how to do his job. So Mayor Fern appointed Johnny's father, C.B.Wilson, whose Republican credentials were impeccable, as road supervisor. C.B. proved to have even less respect than his son for the competence of the board in matters of road construction. When they tried to instruct him in his duties, he told them it was none of their business.15 We have to concede that the patient mayor might be excused for wondering if even St. Francis of Assisi would be able to satisfy his Republican board. Election year fever now infected Johnny and his fellow Democrats. Joe Fern began making noises as if he wanted to run for delegate, then changed his mind. Next, popular Democratic sheriff Bill Jarrett, usually silent as a church, insisted that Link McCandless must go—where, he didn't say.16 On March 9, 1 9 1 2 , veteran conservative Democrat Charles McCarthy announced for delegate in opposition to Link. Rivenburgh, the mayor's secretary, became McCarthy's campaign manager, thereby becoming an enemy of McCandless. Those who were labeled radicals, including Johnny, lined up behind Link. The split in Democratic ranks had become official. An Advertiser cartoon showed the Democratic mule poised to kick Link out of the corral and into the next pasture.17 Johnny's diary entries for March 1 9 1 2 show that he joined the Democratic seventh precinct in Kaimukl, fourth district, where he had built a house on his land, and attended precinct meetings all over town, organizing support for Link McCandless. 18 In addition to all this activity, he also began organizing dockworkers. On March 27 he paid $8 in dues to the International Longshoremen's Association, and his diary shows attendance at meetings where stevedores remembered him from his youth. This activity further branded Johnny as a radical, labor unions being dirty words in the vocabulary of most Republicans. Hawaiian dockworkers were not strangers to collective action.

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Johnny wrote later, "The Hui Poola was a local organization [of dockworkers] and, I presume, the first labor organization of Honolulu. It was composed of stevedores only and was a well organized group as far back as I can remember—1880, i 8 8 z . " 1 9 The brawny members of Hui Poola proudly marched in black pants, blue flannel shirts, black hats, and white gloves for the Kamehameha Day parades. As a pioneer labor leader in Hawai'i, Johnny brought members of Hui Poola into the international union. He wrote later: T h e younger element of the Hui Poola came to me to assist them in organizing the I L A [International Longshoremen's Association] in Hilo, Kahului, and Honolulu. A charter w a s granted in Hilo with David E w a l i k o as the first president; another in Kahului, M a u i , with Morris Keohokalole as president; and myself as president of the H o n o lulu chapter. 20

Newspapers now referred to Johnny, for the first time, as a prominent Democrat. With the Democratic territorial convention a few days away, his name surfaced as a possibility for national committeeman. 21 Johnny was never quoted, but there can be little doubt that he had become a strong voice in the party, partly because of his force of personality, partly because he had McCandless' money behind him. The organization of the McCandless forces at the convention had all the earmarks of Johnny Wilson's manipulation. T.J. " H i l o " Ryan, a McCandless man, jack of all trades, and indefatigable critic of nearly everything, printed up a thousand meal tickets at Link's expense. Johnny, on the glad-hand committee, met neighbor island delegates at the foot of the gangplank as they came off the steamer. Each received a meal ticket and was escorted to the Occidental Hotel as a personal guest of Link McCandless. 22 McCarthy forces didn't have a prayer. Link got everything he wanted without a single compromise. Convention delegates voted him their candidate as delegate to Congress. He got the platform he wanted and his choice of delegates to the national convention. They elected his man, John Wilson, the new national committeeman. 23 As a result, for the first time Johnny held an important position in the party. If the Democrats could elect a president

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(which they hadn't done in the history of the territory), Johnny would be making the recommendations concerning the appointment of territorial officials. If Johnny's political star had begun to rise, his roots remained in Pelekunu. On Sunday, April z i , 1 9 1 2 , his diary recorded that Kini on Moloka'i sent three pigs that weighed 470 pounds; he sold them to Yee Hop for $39.95. Two days later, the supreme court upheld the circuit court ruling on the belt road contract dispute. The court ruled that the road commission had not permitted Wilson to show that he was a responsible bidder and, by so acting, had implied that he was irresponsible. The court also ruled the specifications were faulty and threw out the bids. A day after the supreme court ruled in his favor, Johnny sailed for Vancouver on the Marama with Morris Keohokalole to attend the national ILA convention of longshoremen in Tacoma, Washington. He wrote later: T h e H a w a i i delegation to the T a c o m a convention accomplished t w o things w o r t h mentioning. 1 . Workmen's compensation idea w h i c h eventually became l a w in 1 9 1 5

2 . Keohokalole and I took the floor

against the adoption of [a] resolution [whereby no Oriental could become a member of the I L A ] . I feel confident that if H a w a i i did not take the floor in behalf of the Oriental, the resolution w o u l d have been adopted without opposition. 2 4

Johnny wrote later that he was president of the ILA chapter in Honolulu for one year, and that his big mistake was in limiting the term of office. "This gave the Republicans a chance to step in and use [the union] as a political machine," he explained. "John Wise and Charles Achi were the Republican leaders who finally took over and under whose leadership the members gradually withdrew. The Big Five was opposed to organized labor so the two above-mentioned gentlemen were the hatchet men for the Big Five." 25 While Johnny was on the West Coast, he got a cablegram from Link saying the He'eia increment of the belt road had come up for bid again. Johnny caught the first boat back to Honolulu. Once more he submitted the low bid, and again the commission tried to freeze him out. Lord and Young won a bid for the second

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increment at the same time. The commission announced that it did not have the money to build both increments simultaneously, so the second increment would be built first, leaving Johnny high and dry. Commissioner Joe Fern entered a vigorous protest, an outcry arose in the press, and the commissioners did an about-face. Finally Johnny Wilson went home with the belt road contract in his pocket.26 His life became increasingly hectic. ILA members wanted to run him for sheriff. There is no evidence that Johnny sought this position. On May 29, 1 9 1 2 , he departed for the national Democratic convention in Baltimore, where he would first attend a meeting of national committeemen. Link saw him off at the gangway, talking expansively to reporters about William Jennings Bryan as the next president. Johnny kept his mouth shut. Kini, at home, did not. She enthusiastically embraced the Democratic platform plank in support of women's suffrage. She must have gone to Honolulu to see Johnny off and then stayed for a while because she got involved in early May in the Women's Suffrage League, composed of wives of local Democrats. They scheduled a suffrage rally for 7:30 P.M. on June 10, 1 9 1 2 . The Evening Bulletin announced, "Jennie, wife of John Wilson, will preside."27 Reporters were ambivalent about the women on the platform that night. They wrote that Mrs. Waialani quoted from the Bible to prove that God made a mistake when he made man, so he had to make woman to correct the mistake. Mrs. Kikaha pronounced herself to be a Republican and asked the Democratic women not to be afraid of her. "Why are we not entitled to the vote?" she demanded. "I ask those who are nominated for the legislature by both parties to go there and grant us this privilege." The story said Hawaiian men sat quietly listening to their wives. Some of the younger men gathered in hostile groups; one of them shouted from a tree, "Ain't it hell? Do we want them women running about and taking all our jobs? They rule the home. Ain't that enough?" But Joe Fern took the podium in support of suffrage, and the girl friend of the heckler hauled him down from the tree. He obediently bought her a soda pop. Kini was not quoted.28 In Tacoma, Johnny stayed a few days to purchase items he

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would need for his contracting jobs, including eighteen horses and the Ida May, a trim gasoline schooner built in 1903 in Seattle. At 60 feet, 6 inches long, the Ida May was the right size for hauling construction materials to neighbor island jobs and for carrying taro from Pelekunu Valley. From the West Coast Johnny traveled on to Chicago to link up with his construction foreman, J . J . Smiddy, who had worked on ships and in sugar mills and knew a lot about road building. In Chicago Johnny ran into some of the Democratic delegates en route to the national convention including a young Portuguese Democrat whom he would come to know very well, Manuel C. Pacheco, a printer who worked for the Star-Bulletin. Pacheco had stopped in Chicago to take in the Republican convention. After this down-home reunion, Johnny embarked for Baltimore and one of the most stirring conventions in the history of the Democratic party. The legendary William Jennings Bryan was there, a stout, balding man with disorderly hair; so was Tammany boss Charles F. Murphy, the kingmaker, with a square, red face. William Gibbs McAdoo, an antitrust New York businessman, earnestly buttonholed delegates for Woodrow Wilson, the scholarly governor of New Jersey. And there was another Democrat besides Johnny who was attending his first national convention—Franklin D. Roosevelt. Johnny said later that the only person he knew at his first meeting of the national committee was Norman E. Mack of New York, whom he had met at the Buffalo exposition. Mack introduced Johnny to party wheelhorses Homer Cummings, Bruce Kramer, Arthur Mellen, and John Costello, who made him welcome. Johnny wrote later, "We all played the political game the same way." 29 The committeeman from Hawai'i spoke up for territorial status for Alaska and for a Democratic plank that would require that only bona fide residents of Hawai'i hold appointments to territorial jobs. Then the Democratic convention opened with Johnny wideeyed and determined to learn the political game. He took careful notes of everything on a legal size, yellow tablet as he sat among the 1,088 delegates.30 His writing hand must have gotten tired, because he stopped taking notes after the first day. By that time the floor was littered with pamphlets and fragments of speeches.

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The convention lasted for a tense week with subtle, shifting moods and incomprehensible turnarounds of support for the candidates. Yet it was all tremendously exciting—the machinery of politics in action, democracy at the shirt-sleeve level. On the fortysixth ballot, Woodrow Wilson, Johnny's man, was nominated for the presidency. It was July 23, 1 9 1 2 , before Johnny returned to San Francisco, where he bought feathers and a new dress for Kini, then boarded a steamer for Hawai'i. His hectic pace continued through September while he organized the He'eia belt road job and contributed a strong voice to the Democratic county convention on O'ahu, where he was chosen manager of the upcoming campaign. For Johnny, the party now came first and personal considerations second. That's how he came to fall out with his old friend Jim Coke during the 1 9 1 2 campaign. Coke wanted to run for territorial senator. Johnny, as campaign manager, thought Coke would be more useful to the party as city and county attorney. But Coke ran for senator, and Johnny was a long time forgiving him.31 The Republicans got off to a shaky start. Businessmen wanted to dump Kuhio as delegate in punishment for his support of homesteading. The Democrats, with Johnny making decisions and calling the plays, put together a strong slate: McCandless again for delegate, Fern for mayor, silent Bill Jarrett for sheriff, and Charlie McCarthy for treasurer. Fiery and dedicated Manuel Pacheco ran for the board of supervisors along with popular veteran W. H. McClellan. Coke and Curtis Iaukea signed up for the senate. Julius Asche, J. M. Poepoe, and Link's brother ran for the house. For once, the Democrats had candidates for all offices, and they generated a big head of steam before November. On the eve of the election, five thousand Democrats gathered at 'A'ala Park to hear the candidates. The Star-Bulletin called it the largest crowd of Democrats ever assembled at Honolulu. Kini was there helping her man. The newspaper reported, "Mrs. J.H.Wilson spoke eloquently in Hawaiian, addressing her people in behalf of the Democratic platform because it contains a plank supporting women's suffrage." 32 Tuesday, November 5, 1 9 1 2 , produced an exceptionally heavy vote. Johnny worked as captain of the seventh precinct of the

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fourth district in Kaka'ako. He said he voted the straight Democratic ticket as always although he hated to cast his ballot for Coke and attorney A.J.Wirtz. 33 The Republicans enlisted sports hero Duke Kahanamoku, just back from breaking Olympic swimming records in Stockholm, Sweden, as captain of the second of the fourth. But the play backfired. The Star-Bulletin reported, "His lack of familiarity with the procedure delayed the vote badly."34 That night, as the returns came in, the Democrats went delirious. First they got news of a Democratic landslide on the mainland with Woodrow Wilson elected as president to head the first Democratic national administration in the history of the territory. Then Link McCandless carried O'ahu by 818 votes. Other returns showed the Democrats running stronger than ever before. Coke made it to the territorial senate. So did Delbert Metzger on Hawai'i. Link's lead faded away when the votes came in from neighbor island Republican strongholds; Kuhio was reelected delegate. And the legislature stayed Republican. But the Democrats on O'ahu elected a mayor, a sheriff, a treasurer, three senators, and ten representatives. And for the first time, the Democrats would have a majority on the O'ahu board of supervisors. The party appeared to be remarkably alive and well. Republicans in Hawai'i woke up the next day to find that they would have to deal with a Democratic administration in Washington. Johnny, as Democratic national committeeman, suddenly found himself in a position of power and influence.

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Woodrow Wilson's Democratic administration, when installed in Washington, would give the Democrats in Hawai'i their first opportunity to reshape the destiny of the territory in their own image. For Johnny this meant a reversal of policies that favored sugar plantations and big business over small farmers and working people. The president-elect stood in opposition to trusts and high tariffs and in support of labor and the little man. A Democratic governor of Hawai'i appointed by Woodrow Wilson would, in Johnny's view, encourage the distribution of government land to small homesteaders instead of leasing it to the plantations. A Democratic governor would ensure that plantations bore their fair share of property taxes. Other officials would be appointed, including judges and the governor's cabinet, who were not beholden to what Johnny called "the interests." One response by his fellow Democrats to the election victory surfaced almost immediately—competition for appointments to government jobs. The prospect of appointment to top-level territorial offices made local Democrats as giddy as old maids who had waited twelve years for proposals of marriage. The governorship represented the best catch. Johnny Wilson harbored no pretensions of being governor or of holding any other territorial position. But as national committeeman it was his responsibility to inform the president of party recommendations. This came at a bad time for him because he had his belt road contract on O'ahu to fulfill. Then, just after the election, he landed another big contract, $ 8 3 , 7 5 0 , to build the Nahiku to Ke'anae portion of the Maui belt road on Hana's spectacular cliff coastline. 1 So he was very busy while other Democrats tiptoed around the dazzling prospect of becoming governor.

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The Democratic Territorial Central Committee immediately endorsed Link, the leading candidate and party standardbearer, who had spent $4,706.40 on his losing campaign for delegate.2 Three days later, Honolulu attorney and conservative Democrat E.M.Watson of Mississippi announced that it was not his way to seek the governorship, but he would consider it a high honor should this office be conferred upon him.3 Then Clinton J. Hutch, in San Francisco, put in a claim on the basis that he had helped swing California into the Democratic column for Woodrow Wilson.4 Next Bertram Rivenburgh, the versatile campaign manager, bobbed up as a self-appointed compromise candidate.5 He resigned his post as secretary to Mayor Fern and sailed for Washington. The governorship was not the only political plum that starved Democrats hoped to pick. Post offices all over the territory provided opportunities for postmasterships. Senator James Coke, according to the Star-Bulletin, was a good bet for U.S. attorney in Hawai'i. Maneuvering for judgeships produced friction when the Hawaii Bar Association met to consider recommendations. Aging Republican attorney W. O. Smith accused the Democrats of disgraceful conduct at the meeting and was, in turn, chastised by Jim Coke, who pronounced himself deeply grieved by Smith's intemperate language.6 The truth seems to be that the Republicans were having a hard time adjusting to being on the outside looking in, while the Democrats were having an equally difficult time falling over themselves in their eagerness to be appointed to something. Watson, who held no endorsement from the party in Hawai'i and who was bedridden by a stroke, shipped off his letters of recommendation from powerful Democrats in southern states directly to President-elect Woodrow Wilson. By this time, Honolulu Democrats W.A.Kinney and Bertram Rivenburgh were in Washington to stir the political waters. Meanwhile, the O'ahu County Democratic Committee endorsed both McCandless and C.J.Waller, a businessman.7 The Republican Star-Bulletin, as if it were the organ of the Democrats, had already determined that Watson was the strongest candidate, probably because he was closest to being a Republican. Amid this confusion, John Effinger, secretary of the Democratic Territorial Central Committee,

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received a letter in February 1 9 1 3 from one James F. Stutesman in Washington, D.C., offering to lobby for the candidacy of Lincoln McCandless. Stutesman asked $1,000 as a retainer and $ 1 0 0 per week for expenses until the appointment was made.8 But why should Link pay a stranger for this work? He had by this time received the important endorsements of the Democratic Territorial Central Committee and the county committees, and precinct endorsements were rolling in. He was, without a doubt, the party front runner. Why should he not use the machinery of the party and send his good friend Johnny Wilson, Hawai'i's Democratic national committeeman, to Washington in the interests of all Hawai'i's Democrats and to bring home the governorship for Lincoln L. McCandless? There can be no doubt that the prospect of jumping on the Washington merry-go-round excited Johnny, and he agreed to go at Link's expense. But he was right in the middle of the two biggest construction contracts he had ever accepted. Probably the deciding factor for him was the opportunity to install in the governorship a Democrat whose political leanings coincided with his own. Besides, Link deserved to be governor after leading the disarrayed Democrats since 1908. Johnny hoped to get back before he had to start the Maui job. Before he set out he put his father, C. B. Wilson, in charge of the road gangs on the He'eia belt road project and made Link promise to consult his competent friend, J. J. Smiddy, newly appointed city and county road supervisor before he made major decisions. Curio store owner and party secretary John Effinger, wellmeaning but impulsive, fussed over Johnny like a mother sending her firstborn off to preschool. He wrote a blizzard of confusing notes to Johnny that did, nevertheless, document useful information about the other candidates for governor: C.J.Waller of the Metropolitan Meat Market was a tight-fisted businessman and under the thumb of the meat trust or large ranching interests; he had hired Bertram Rivenburgh to work for him in Washington. Edward Watson, the handsome southern lawyer, didn't even own a home in Hawai'i.9 Johnny sailed on February 18, 1 9 1 3 , on the Lurline and into a gale that blew away railings on the ship. But that wasn't nearly as exciting as Washington.

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He checked into the Raleigh, an elegant hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue at 12th Street, midway between the White House and Capitol Hill; the Raleigh was the haunt of the legendary Joe Cannon, Speaker of the House, and second only to the Willard Hotel as a headquarters for visiting politicians.10 Along the magnificent length of the bar, Johnny rubbed elbows with reporters from the Washington Star two doors down, who gossiped about the new administration as if they were discussing a family moving into the neighborhood. Washington teemed with jubilant Democrats. Seven trainloads of Tammany New Yorkers, led by Charles Murphy, arrived the day before the inauguration. Suffragists made the biggest headlines, demonstrating in bare feet despite the cold. We don't know if Johnny squeezed in among the 100,000 visitors who traveled to Washington to witness the inauguration. But we can be certain that he carefully followed announcements of appointments to the president's cabinet. The last appointment to be made, only a day before the inauguration on March 4, was that of Californian Franklin Lane to the post of secretary of interior, the office that administered U.S. territories. Johnny was happy to read that the Washington Post gave Lane, a former member of the Interstate Commerce Commission, high marks for his part in breaking up a trust proposed by the Union Pacific and the Southern Pacific railroads. 11 Johnny's first order of business, the day after the inauguration, was a meeting of the national committee, concerned mostly with senatorial deadlocks in Illinois and New Hampshire. Then he set about lobbying for the Hawai'i Democrats. From the beginning, Johnny had plenty of competition. Democrats from all over the nation were applying for political jobs. The president was so besieged by job applicants that he announced on March 1 0 that all requests for government positions had to be routed through the appropriate cabinet officer. But C.J.Waller got in to see the president before the edict came down. Prince Kuhio, Hawai'i's delegate, was ensconced with U.S. congressmen in the Cannon Building on the south side of the Capitol building. In spite of the political differences between them, Kuhio gave Johnny the run of his office and free use of the Honolulu

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newspapers, city directory, and other reference materials he kept on file. Advice from nervous Democrats at home arrived by the bushel; Effinger smothered Johnny with letters, Manuel Pacheco cabled instructions in code that was usually garbled, and the central committee sent conflicting endorsements for political offices. Johnny dutifully relayed the endorsements—including those for James Coke for U.S. district attorney in Hawai'i and Palmer Woods for secretary of Hawai'i (lieutenant governor)—with his recommendations to the proper cabinet officers. Meanwhile, anti-McCandless Democrats in Hawai'i ignored their national committeeman. Charlie McCarthy sent his application for collector of customs through Bertram Rivenburgh to William McAdoo, secretary of the treasury. 12 Johnny's own recommendations to Secretary of Interior Lane pointed out that Link had the endorsement of eighty-five precinct clubs in Hawai'i, four county committees, the territorial central committee, the national committeeman, and the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, as well as most of Hawai'i's business community except the sugar interests. The Link-for-governor bandwagon rolled along smoothly until Bertram Rivenburgh threw a wrench in the works. He mentioned to Secretary Lane that Link was known in Hawai'i as a womanizer and that Johnny acted as his hired mouthpiece. When Johnny got in to see Lane at 9 A.M. on March 1 7 , 1 9 1 3 , the interior secretary questioned him closely about the character of Lincoln McCandless. Had he led a model life? Rivenburgh had found Link's weak spot. It was true that McCandless had a reputation with the ladies; gossips said he had fathered illegitimate children. Not that he was unique in this among Hawai'i's prominent citizens. But to the upright administration of the new president, philandering was a distinct black mark. Johnny answered honestly. " M y answer to him [Lane] was as follows," he wrote to Link directly after the interview. "Mr. McCandless is a married man and has a family, and for the last eight or ten years he has led a moral life. I admit, that before he married, and while he was sowing his wild oats, he did get mixed up with some tail that was

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astray." Johnny pointed out to Lane that at least one prominent member of the clergy in Hawai'i had endorsed McCandless for governor. He would not have done this had Link been leading an immoral life. Then came the charge that Johnny owed Link a lot of money, therefore McCandless had him in his pocket. Johnny answered: N o , we are partners. Show me any contractor that handles contracts that run into $100,000 to $2.00,000 that can swing it without the aid of a money man. I have an agreement with Mr. McCandless. He is supposed to furnish all the money necessary to carry on certain contracts and he is to get a certain percentage of the net profits for the use of his money. 13

Lane appeared satisfied with these explanations. But he kept delaying his recommendation to the president for governor of Hawai'i. Johnny was eager to put the appointment for governor behind him, return to Hawai'i, and get started on his road projects. T.J. Ryan, working for Johnny on the He'eia job and assigned to look after Kini, had already written to remind him that "the Belt Road Commission of Maui expects you to commence work on the Maui [Hána Road] contract at once upon your return." 14 Yet Johnny hesitated to leave Washington until the president had appointed Hawai'i's governor. After a long talk with Hawaiian attorney William Kinney in his hotel room, Johnny wrote to Link, "He advises me not to leave here until the matter [of the governorship] is settled and I am commencing to think so, too." 1 5 Thus began a long period of painful indecision for Johnny while he tried to get Link's bandwagon rolling again. He sent Lane an endorsement for Link from Honolulu's Episcopal bishop, Henry R Restarick, obtained by John Effinger. 16 In Washington, Johnny enlisted Judge Will King, Democratic national committeeman from Oregon, as lobbyist for McCandless. A purchase of land that Link made from King at Johnny's suggestion to help King out of a cash shortage didn't hurt. 17 O n March 20 Johnny wrote Link, "Kinney and [Delegate] Kuhio called on Secretary Lane on Tuesday... they took the opportunity of putting in a good word for you regarding the yarn Rivenburgh told Lane about you keeping a number of wahines [women]."

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It was hard work. Johnny added plaintively that he had been making the rounds of offices, but "one can only make three visits at the very most in a day. One loses a great deal of time waiting to get in I'm with congressmen and senators and national committeemen from various states all the time, and in that way I learn a lot about what is going on." 1 8 It gradually dawned on some of Hawai'i's prominent antiMcCandless Democrats that they might profitably seek Johnny's help to land the appointments they wanted. On March 20, Charlie McCarthy asked Johnny to promote his application for collector of customs at the Port of Honolulu. 19 But Johnny was not easily seduced by his new power. In his view, the party came first, individuals second. On April 3, he wrote McCarthy: "I believe my say towards federal patronage would have more weight if our boys [like yourself] would get together... settle our differences at home through our county and territorial committees. We should settle upon but one candidate for each office, then everybody boost for that." 20 Link's chances seemed improved when Lane asked Johnny to bring him to Washington to see the president. Jubilation broke out among McCandless supporters in Hawai'i. McCandless sailed with his wife and daughter on the first ship to San Francisco. (Honolulu's Republican newspapers ignored the departure.) Johnny wrote Link detailed instructions about which trains to catch to get to Washington the quickest way. Then another bombshell dropped. Effinger wrote that the ministerial association in Honolulu was collecting affidavits about Link McCandless that would give evidence about his immoral character.21 The chief informer was William Henry, the jailer, who kept houses of prostitution in Iwilei. Bishop Restarick informed Effinger that he would have to withdraw his support of McCandless and stand with the other ministers. Henry, the jailer, was a Frear appointee. Effinger explained to Johnny, "Henry is about the last man in the Islands to go on a purity campaign. [But] he feels that if he can get sufficient strength to make McCandless fail that no appointment will be made [for governor] and that Frear will hang on and consequently he will hold his job." Meanwhile, in Washington, a California congressman called

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Johnny to tell him he'd received a cable from magazine writer Arthur Dunn in Honolulu stating: "I have investigated the three candidates for governor, and find McCandless immoral, Watson impossibly invalided, Waller the only possible candidate." Johnny had never heard of an Arthur Dunn in Hawai'i. He went to Delegate Kuhio's office to check the Honolulu City Directory. No Arthur Dunn was listed. Johnny went through Kuhio's files of Honolulu newspapers and found an Arthur Dunn on a passenger list with Gilbert J. Waller's name en route to Honolulu. So it appeared that Waller had talked Dunn into smearing his political opponents. Armed with this information, Johnny made the political rounds to quash the smear.22 The incident convinced him he should stay in Washington a while longer. "One cannot afford to be away from here one day, as there is no telling what might crop up," he wrote T.J. Ryan on April 4. "If I were not here to nip the Dunn cable, it might have done a lot of harm." 23 The threat against McCandless by the ministerial association was more serious, although the evidence turned out to be faulty. The grand jury met to consider the charges against McCandless and ignored them. Fiery Manuel Pacheco wrote to Secretary Lane, "This is a case of blackmail pure and simple The affidavits which are said to have been secured were from a woman of the worst character and who has absolutely no standing in court." 24 In some repects, the attempt to smear McCandless helped him. Pacheco wrote in his next letter to Johnny on April 5, "The whole town is roused up over this dirty business of the missionaries. ... Even [respected banker] P. C. Jones is up in arms against this rotten act on the part of the Missionary Union [s/c]."25 Jim Coke turned friendly to McCandless, and Effinger wrote that Bishop Restarick had changed his mind about siding with the ministers. But the Star-Bulletin reported that the ministerial association's probe of McCandless had come at the request of Secretary Lane and that the ministers had responded by asking Lane to reject Link as unfit to be governor. Jubilation among McCandless Democrats turned to gloom again.26 Johnny's job became still more difficult when Democratic attorney Kinney in Washington insulted Secretary Lane, then startled Washington with scare stories about how Asians were taking over

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Hawai'i. Kinney said, "The Hawaiians fear that if conditions are not changed the Asiatic population will become so dominant that the United States government will ultimately be compelled to take away the franchise of all citizens [in the Islands], and Hawaii would then be worse off than ever."27 Johnny, in the Washington Post, countered Kinney's scare statistics about Asians. "The fact [is] that, while Asiatics are largely in excess of any other race in Hawaii, they are in no manner a menace," Johnny told a reporter. "They are not increasing [and] ...of the 90,000 Asiatics, not more than 500 have ever registered as voters." 28 The Star-Bulletin reported that John Wilson was getting very good press in Washington. Meanwhile, attorney Watson, the stroke victim, sailed with a nurse for Washington from Hawai'i to lobby for his gubernatorial ambition, and Secretary Lane became impatient. He said that he might reappoint Republican Walter Frear to stay on as governor if the Democrats did not stop squabbling. The Star-Bulletin story said Lane's intention was to scare the Hawai'i Democrats into getting behind one candidate. Republicans in Hawai'i took the cue, and "influential citizens" cabled the president asking him to retain Frear until the Democrats made up their minds.29 That would be never. Link arrived in Washington, and Johnny took him in tow. They went first to see Secretary Lane who, after a forty-minute interview, turned to Johnny and said, "I think you had better take Mr. McCandless over to see the President and see that he tells the President exactly what he has told me." "I could not get before the President until Thursday the 10th," Johnny wrote to Effinger. "I went in with L.L. and introduced him to the President. They talked over our homestead laws, immigration policies, and the sugar tariff for fifteen minutes. I think Link made a good impression on the President as he seemed to agree with everything Link said." 30 But there were continuing reports about the impatience of the administration with squabbling Hawai'i Democrats. The Star-Bulletin wrote that President Wilson might ask for a change in the Organic Act that would permit him to appoint a non-Hawai'i resident as governor. The change would not be necessary if Hawai'i Democrats could agree on a choice.31

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Johnny was about the only prominent Democrat not in the running. His purpose was to promote the party. On April 2 1 he wrote to Edward E. Howell in Omaha about his aims: I am not after any position for myself I, with my friends, have built quite an organization in Hawaii. Last November, w e pretty near elected every one on the ticket in the City of Honolulu, and about onethird in the legislature. By securing the federal patronage, w e will make H a w a i i a Democratic territory, something unknown before. 3 2

Six months after the nation elected a Democratic president, Hawai'i still did not have a Democratic governor. Republican Frear now took advantage of this vacuum to reappoint some of his Republican cabinet for another term. Johnny was furious that Delbert Metzger and other Democratic senators did not put up a battle against confirmation of the appointments. A letter from J. J. Smiddy, Johnny's friend in the city and county road department, gave Johnny some heartening news from home: "You have accumulated a reputation since you left of which you possibly know nothing. Businessmen and others speak of you now as the quintessence of Diplomancy [sic], Political Ability and Bulldog Energy, and one and all say that if Link wins it will be through you only.'" 3 It must have been about this time that the administration apparently took Johnny under consideration as a candidate for governor of Hawai'i. Johnny did not mention such a possibility in his correspondence from Washington, but he told about it later in speeches to fellow Democrats: Secretary Lane offered to send my name to the President in 1 9 1 3 , when w e were in deadlock at the time Judge King, w h o some of you boys know, with Tom Pease, the secretary of the national committee, were the ones sent to me by Secretary Lane I turned the offer d o w n by saying that I had been sent to Washington to advocate the appointment of Mr. M c C a n d l e s s w h o had received the endorsement of every precinct club in the territory but one, also the endorsement of every county committee and the central committee, so I could not see h o w I could very well allow my name to be used. 34

N o w Kini's patience snapped. Johnny's road gang was supposed to be taking care of her but apparently failed to do so. She ran out of money. Johnny wrote plaintively to T. J. Ryan:

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Mrs. W i l s o n . . . f e l t that I should be home attending to w o r k instead of being here "fooling a w a y valuable time," as she put it, so she wrote raising the very h — a b o u t things in general. It perhaps is my fault for staying here so long. I believe the job [on O ' a h u ] would have gotten along much better had I not attended to this affair here. I probably have made one of the biggest sacrifices ever w a s made by a Democrat in Hawaii. We n o w have the M a u i job underway and [we are] losing the very best part of the season If this matter is not brought to head in the next few days, I will probably pull out and leave Link here to do the watching. 3 5

But Johnny didn't pull out. Even when McCandless returned to Hawai'i Johnny stayed in Washington and kept on trying. He was encouraged toward the end of M a y when he learned that Lane had made his recommendation to the president about the Hawai'i governorship. Johnny believed Lane had recommended Link. But nothing happened, and by the end of May, Metzger had come to town and had seen the president. And so did Johnny. O n Thursday, M a y 22, he sat in the Oval Office and earnestly warned the austere Woodrow Wilson that sugar interests in Hawai'i were lobbying against the president's tariff bill when they were not desperately fighting the appointment of a strong Democratic nominee for governor. "I believe he listened to me, for it was not more than four days afterwards when he made an attack on the lobbyists which the Senate has seen fit to investigate," Johnny wrote to Judge Will R. King, the national committeeman from Oregon. 36 John H. Wilson immediately began feeding the Senate Judiciary Committee information about the sugar lobby. He said he did not mention the governorship appointment to the president. A list of his daily expenses is revealing: 10 cents for Washington papers, 10 cents for San Francisco papers, 4 cents for stamps, 20 cents for carfare, 50 cents for tips, and $3.70 for meals. Weekly expenses included $24.50 for his room, $1 to have his suit pressed, $2.50 for telephone calls, $2.85 for laundry, and $1.25 to rent a typewriter; for a total weekly expenditure of $64.58. "I will be more than thankful when the time comes that I must pack up and return to my legitimate walk in life," he wrote. "I long to be where I thought I would make my mark at Heeia and Nahiku, but I'm afraid if I'm not out of here pretty soon the work will get so far behind that it will take me years to catch up." 3 7 He

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was right. Pineapple trucks drove over the oil surface of a newly completed portion of the road before it was dry and tore it up. Johnny had told his workers again and again to see that this did not happen. Alone and short of money in the heat of Washington, Johnny also suffered from an infected jaw. " A lump developed within the last few days under my jaw on the same same side that was operated before," he wrote T.J. Ryan on July 1 4 . Dr. G e o r g e Tully V a u g h n , one of the head physicians at the G e o r g e t o w n Hospital, advised me that an immediate operation w o u l d save me a w h o l e lot of pain and time going to the hospital

I intend calling on the President before

T h e doctor charges S i 0 0 , besides [which] I

have to p a y the hospital fees in advance w h i c h are between $ 5 5

and

$75- 38

One of Johnny's most productive friendships in Washington was with the president's secretary, Joseph Tumulty. When Tumulty produced his file of names under consideration for governor of Hawai'i, Johnny received a shock. Sam Damon, A. A. Wilder, L. E. Pinkham, and Delbert E. Metzger were in the file along with the better known candidates. 39 Meanwhile, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt, a friend of Interior Secretary Lane, endorsed Link. Johnny wrote a long letter to the president on June 1 0 giving information about the backgrounds of each of the new candidates, with his opinion of each. A passing comment regarding L. E. Pinkham, about whom the president knew absolutely nothing, was one Johnny later regretted. Johnny wrote honestly, "He is probably the best equipped man of all those mentioned for governor except Mr. McCandless." 40 By June 1 6 Johnny's bankroll was down to $40. He had to write Link: " I presume you may think I am extravagant, [but] I cannot possibly cut any lower than I have been. The only way I can keep from spending would be to remain in the room day and night. But that would not accomplish much." 41 Link sent him some money. Johnny decided to have his jaw tended to in Hawai'i. Meanwhile, he made a last-ditch effort to demonstrate the superiority of McCandless as governor of Hawai'i. Once more he

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wrote down for President Wilson in great detail the biographies of the candidates and mailed the information to Tumulty. This time Johnny described Pinkham as "a tool of the sugar interests in Hawaii" and noted that he "was until recently their paid labor recruiting agent in the Philippines. He has always been a Republican and once held the position of President of the Board of Health in Hawaii [under a Republican administration]."42 Soon thereafter, Hawai'i Democrats were infuriated by the appointment of Tennessee lawyer Jeff McCarn as U.S. attorney in Hawai'i. The Star-Bulletin blamed Johnny for shooting down Jim Coke, who was bitter about Johnny's lack of support. "Wilson has been opposing me since before the last county campaign of 1 9 1 2 [when] he wanted me to run for county attorney. I declined to do this," Coke told the newspaper.43 Dapper Lucius Pinkham, the latest entry in the governor's race, arrived in Washington on July 20; on July 24 Wilson nominated him governor of Hawai'i even though Johnny had told the administration that Pinkham was not a Democrat. In Hawai'i, the StarBulletin reported, "Surprise and incredulity greeted the cable received at 9:50 A.M." The newspaper's Washington correspondent wrote that the Pinkham appointment was President Wilson's way of spanking Island Democrats for failing to agree on a candidate.44 Johnny wrote to Ryan on July 3 1 , "Tumulty...said this morning that it was on account of the constant knocking of the ministerial association that Link was knocked out, and as the President thought Pinkham was a Democrat, he appointed him."45 And so Johnny's long and painful stay in Washington failed to accomplish what he came for. Yet he agreed to meet Pinkham when Lucius called and asked for an appointment. They had a long talk on July 25. Johnny wrote in his July 3 1 letter to Ryan that the governor-elect promised to turn all the patronage over to the Democratic party if it supported him. In return, Johnny urged local Democrats to work with Pinkham. Then Tumulty, who seems to have sincerely respected Johnny, became upset over Pinkham's lack of Democratic party affiliation. Johnny said the Democratic National Committee was also up in arms about the appointment of a Republican to the governorship of Hawai'i. When Tumulty urged Johnny to give him more details

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on Pinkham's background with a view to blocking his confirmation, Johnny put off his departure to do the research. Nothing came of it. Tired and discouraged by the Washington merry-go-round, Johnny packed on August 1 2 , but when he went to bank for the money Link was to send him, it had not arrived. So he had to delay his departure again. He wrote in sadness to Senator John W. Kern, chairman of the Committee on Pacific Islands and Puerto Rico, "I have been here since March 2nd endeavoring to secure appointments for men who are recognized in the territory as Democrats, but it seems as though it is a detriment to a person to have the organization supporting them. "46 Tumulty kept asking for information about Hawai'i until the moment Johnny caught a train headed west on August 1 3 . Johnny's last act was to send the president's secretary biographies of Ollie T. Shipman, Big Island rancher and businessman, and Wallace R. Farrington, publisher of the Star-Bulletin in Honolulu. Years later; Johnny wrote bitterly to a friend that Democrats on the national scene "know how hard I worked for Link during the Wilson administration, and was offered the governorship by Secretary Lane I turned it down for Link, and who did we get, Pinkham." 47

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John Henry Wilson, at age forty-one, returned to Honolulu on the Wilhelmina on Thursday, September 2, 1 9 1 3 , after his frustrating introduction to Washington politics to find his reputation as a contractor at risk and his business partnership with Link McCandless losing money.1 A portion of the uncompleted O'ahu belt road at He'eia, paved against Johnny's advice during heavy rains and used by nine-ton pineapple trucks before it was dry, had already deteriorated so badly it needed repaving. Link negotiated to foot the bill on condition that the contractor not be held liable for future costs.2 That took care of the profits. And the Maui belt road was far behind schedule. Johnny wrote later: The firm [Wilson and McCandless] showed a profit on the books until I went to Washington W h e n I left H a w a i i it w a s understood between Link and I [s«c] that my father and Mr. J . J . Smiddy w o u l d run the w o r k while I w a s away. But I was not gone much over ten days when he [Link] began to butt in H e discharged my father a n d . . . [placed] in charge one of his well boring men w h o knew nothing about the work. Consequently, when I returned I found the business a w a y in a hole. 3

It must have occurred to Johnny that he had been used not only by Link but by the Democratic party in Hawai'i. Yet he did not resent this because he had learned in Washington that in politics everybody, even those with the noblest intentions, used everybody else to do what each thought was best for the nation. Johnny had clear ideas about what was best for the nation and Hawai'i, and he had also learned that he possessed a talent for

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playing the political game, for persuading other people to respect his views. That's what made the game so seductive. Johnny had discovered that it was very exciting to work for his ideal world through political action. If Kini ever had a rival from that time on, it was politics. But he was not ready to run for office. Politics for Johnny was a mistress, an addiction, and a civic responsibility; engineering remained his livelihood. This choice may have been partly due to Kini's influence. According to family friend Walter Trask, she placed no trust whatever in politics as a means of support.4 Kini had become a woman of the 'airia, the land, close to her chickens and pigs. If politics was more exciting, she knew it was less dependable. So Johnny didn't say much to reporters when he came down the gangplank, except to urge Democrats to support gubernatorial nominee Pinkham so long as he fired his Republican cabinet. As quickly as possible, Johnny took charge of the road contracts. On October 10 he was at the picturesque cliff landing at Nahiku, Maui, impatiently seeing to the unloading of the Ida May. That day he wrote Link: I asked for an extra team and lumber w a g o n . W e n o w have the extra animals but no harness nor w a g o n s . I do not see w h a t Ernest w a s thinking about, sending the animals without harness or lumber w a g o n . T h e schooner could easily have brought the lumber w a g o n if it w a s taken apart. I cannot m o v e cement, sand or lumber until w e receive a lumber w a g o n . 5

Johnny was probably most contented, not counting his visits with Kini at Pelekunu, when he was piloting the Ida May with a cargo of construction equipment or taro from one island to another. He often acted as his own skipper. In the winter of 1 9 1 4 he sailed from Honolulu for Nahiku with $6,000 under his pillow and ten or twelve workmen and their wives on deck. After loading cattle at Moloka'i, he continued on to Maui in spite of a warning by an old Hawaiian that a storm was coming. The storm hit and Johnny put into a cove. But the Ida May dragged its anchors and drifted out to sea. "We tried to make Nahiku," he said later.

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The wind streaming through the Kahului Gap drove us around. Finally I took the old Hawaiian's tip. I ran the Ida May to Lanai. We stayed off Lanai for two days and two nights. The wind blew the sand [from the eroded plains of Lanai] into our poi so that we had to keep it under cloths when we ate. That was the storm in which the [interisland steamer] Claudine almost sank. I wasn't afraid for the Ida May. I only turned to Lanai because of the cattle. They were falling down in the wind. If it hadn't been for the cattle, I would have made Nahiku. 6

Yet in spite of such seafaring adventures, in spite of Kini, in spite of his love for road building, Johnny could no longer divorce himself from politics. And for him, after he had recommended the new governor to disappointed McCandless Democrats, the administration of Lucius Pinkham turned out to be a disaster. There were more Republicans than Democrats at the new governor's welcome banquet. When Pinkham invited thirty-nine Democrats to meet with him on January 5, 1 9 1 4 , to talk patronage, he neglected to include the two most influential Democrats in the territory, Link McCandless and Johnny Wilson. 7 Then the governor informed Hawai'i Democrats that he did not wish to take part in party councils but preferred to hear personal recommendations for filling territorial offices. 8 In other words, party organization would have no meaning with Pinkham at the helm. The governor said righteously that he was following the lead of the president and pronounced himself the sole arbiter of loyalty to his leader, Woodrow Wilson. Link McCandless called Pinkham the territory's most Republican governor. Pinkham ignored recommendations by the Democratic Territorial Central Committee, on which list Johnny was down for superintendent of public works. Johnny removed himself from the list.9 He took more seriously the new governor's recommendations for appointments to the supreme court, attorneys Edward W. Watson and Arthur A. Wilder.10 Though Democrats, Watson and Wilder were law partners serving Henry Hackfeld and Company, major sugar factors, and were otherwise beholden to the Republican establishment. Already reappointed as chief justice was A . E . G . Robertson, a respected, old-guard Republican who consistently stood with sugar plantations on legal questions regarding homesteaders in the competition with plantations for government land.

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The person who derailed this cozy double dose of back scratching was never named, but he had all the earmarks of Johnny Wilson because his protest went to Joseph Tumulty, the president's secretary, and nobody else in Hawai'i was so close to Tumulty as to pick him to be the messenger for his bombshell. John Wilson was already on record in opposition to these appointments.11 On March 3, 1 9 1 4 , the Star-Bulletin reported that "a prominent citizen of Honolulu" had written a letter to Tumulty explaining that the appointments recommended by Governor Pinkham for judges would hand over to the sugar interests the majority of the territory's supreme court. "There is no hope," the letter read, that these men will ever change their fixed positions and g o against their former clients in assisting the government to break up the trusts [in H a w a i ' i ] T h e y [ H a w a i i a n sugar planters] are a smooth bunch w h o succeeded in fooling President [ T h e o d o r e ] Roosevelt and [William H o w a r d ] T a f t , and are n o w trying to mislead President [ W o o d r o w ] W i l s o n . [This] will put a w e a p o n in the hands of the enemies of the D e m o c r a t i c party that will be used in every argument in the coming c a m p a i g n .

The Star-Bulletin story reported that Tumulty turned the letter over to President Wilson, who hastily sent it to Attorney General James C. McReynolds, in charge of judgeship appointments. "Just as Mr. McReynolds was all heated up about this letter and its allegations," the newspaper reported, "Mr. Wilder walked into his office and advised him that the Democratic party in Hawai'i would go on the rocks unless the necessary appointments were promptly made." The next day Wilder visited the president and gave him the same advice. The president then appointed Watson but not Wilder. Democrats in Hawai'i had waited twelve years to reward the party faithful with government jobs. Now Pinkham's determination to remain aloof from the Democratic precinct, county, and territorial organizations reduced the rank and file to futile bickering among themselves. This is precisely what Johnny had tried to avoid. The Star-Bulletin correspondent in Washington reported that President Wilson had thrown up his hands in despair over conflicting requests for appointment to the postmas-

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tership of Honolulu. 12 He appointed a mainlander, ignoring the party endorsement for capable Manuel Pacheco, who had worked for years to build the organization. A Mississippian was appointed customs collector. Jefferson Davis McCarn from Tennessee, foisted on Hawai'i by the national administration as U.S. attorney, proved to be the most spectacular misfit. He first tried to instruct the governor on appointments, was then sued for malpractice by a female client over a divorce case, and finally drew a pistol on another attorney in the courthouse hallway after a dispute in court. A federal grand jury indicted him for assault. 13 Johnny approved of the appointment of another young Tennesseean, Ingram Stainback, a former student of the president at Princeton, as attorney general for the territory. Even though Stainback had practiced in the territory only a short time, Johnny felt that he showed courage that other attorneys lacked in dealing with sugar barons. 14 But his frustration about Pinkham grew as did that of other prominent Democrats. The territorial central committee composed an eight-page letter to President Wilson listing grievances. The letter complained that, among other things, the new governor reduced tax assessments on land for sugar plantations, denied small homesteaders while leasing government land to plantations, and appointed a sugar man with a conflict of interest to the land board. 15 Johnny concurred in the sentiments of the letter, signed by Manuel Pacheco as chairman. In Pelekunu in the summer of 1 9 1 4 , Kini finally got tired of the rain. She staged a one-woman mutiny and moved to a drier place on Moloka'i at Kamalo, where Johnny had a cattle ranch. Johnny found out about it when the steamer carrying supplies to Nahiku arrived late at his construction camp. The captain presented Johnny with a note from his wife. She had commandeered the vessel at Pelekunu and loaded it with chickens, pigs, and household furniture, including the piano. "It was a regular Noah's ark," Johnny said later.16 Other families moved away from Pelekunu Valley because the steamer stopped making calls when the post office closed after Kini left. Furthermore, the villagers couldn't sell their poi for lack

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of a means to ship it, and they were a long way from doctors. Johnny tried to help out by hauling taro for Pelekunu Hawaiians in the Ida May. In a quiet general election overshadowed by war news in 1 9 1 4 , Republicans won by a landslide, electing a majority on the board of supervisors as well as all other O'ahu county officials except the sheriff, Democrat Charlie Rose. John C. Lane became mayor of Honolulu. Joe Fern went to work as city jailer. Republican Ben Hollinger, manager of a rubber tire company, got elected supervisor and became a strong voice in city politics. Wholesale firing of Democrats holding city and county jobs followed the installation of the new GOP administration in 1 9 1 5 . By this time, John H. Wilson was an acknowledged power in the Democratic party. His office at Number 5, Pauahi Street, in a building owned by Link McCandless, became the meeting place for policy-making committees. Republican newspapers nicknamed it Tammany Hall. 17 The offices of the Aloha Aina, the Democratic newspaper supported by Link, were in the same building. Link and Johnny continued their political alliance, but their business relationship fell apart. Johnny wrote later, "I spent a few years, about two, trying to pull [the business] out of the hole, but [Link] interfered so much that I found it impossible, so we dissolved the partnership. He took the equipment and the property he owned and was to assume all the liabilities.'"8 On his own again, Johnny got a contract to build the new jail.19 On February 8, 1 9 1 5 , he signed a contract with K. Kagimura to lease a quarry in the Mo'ili'ili section of Honolulu20 and began selling crushed rock to other contractors and to the city. This proved to be a profitable venture. In December 1 9 1 5 , Johnny landed a major contract with the Dowsett Company to build the roads for a new subdivision in Nu'uanu, Honolulu's most affluent residential district. Signing the contract gave Johnny the opportunity to pioneer a new and experimental form of paving, concrete.21 The presidential election year of 1 9 1 6 opened with the Link McCandless-Johnny Wilson and Lucius Pinkham factions lining up for a test of strength to pick delegates to the Democratic national convention in July.22 Anti-McCandless Democrat Charles

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J. McCarthy, whom Pinkham had appointed territorial treasurer; led the Pinkham slate, supported by Bertram Rivenburgh, appointed chairman of the territorial land commission. They drafted William Jarrett, a popular Hawaiian, to oppose Johnny for national committeeman. Then Joe Fern jumped to the Pinkham slate. Johnny organized the McCandless Democrats in his usual meticulous fashion. The territorial Democratic convention took place on April 1 7 , 1 9 1 6 . If Fern had been overawed by Pinkham's power of appointment as governor, he had seriously underrated the hold that Johnny and Link held on the loyalty of the party's rank and file. The McCandless slate swept the convention, electing the national committeeman and all the delegates (with one delegateship on Maui under protest). Jarrett cried foul and claimed victory in spite of the numbers.23 But Fern held no grudge. Pinkham now had reason to be worried; McCandless Democrats threatened take their case against him to the national convention, where it would be embarrassing to both him and the president. Jarrett sailed on the same vessel with Johnny Wilson to argue his claim for the office of national committeeman. J . H . Raymond of Maui, a Pinkham man, set out with them to contest the disputed delegate seat.24 The Star-Bulletin billed the affair as "a real, old fashioned Bourbon scrap." 2S But it didn't turn out that way. In the first place, part-Hawaiians Wilson and Jarrett got along famously on the ocean liner in spite of their political differences. Secondly, in St. Louis Johnny's contacts on the national committee beat Jarrett before he started. The McCandless slate won both election disputes after the most perfunctory of hearings.26 There was no request to the convention by the McCandless faction to publicly spank Pinkham, as Honolulu's Republican dailies had predicted. But the Hawai'i delegation asked for and got a plank in the Democratic national platform stating the party's disapproval of appointment to territorial offices of applicants who were not bona fide residents of the territory. Hawai'i's delegates called this the "home rule plank." 27 Journalism student Joe Farrington, the future publisher, covered his first national political season for his father's Star-Bulletin. He wrote that Hawai'i delegates wore yellow leis on their hats and

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that everybody "eyed the wearers as curiously as they eye a Hindu in Honolulu." Young Farrington reported: H a w a i i w a s in evidence in St. L o u i s a n d , in contrast to the position and place that H a w a i i occupied at the Republican convention at C h i c a g o , w a s very much in evidence. A l t h o u g h the [ H a w a i ' i ] vote amounted to practically nothing in both places, and the contests of both party delegations w e n t almost unnoticed by the public, people k n e w that H a w a i i w a s " o n the m a p " at St. L o u i s a m o n g the delegates. A t C h i c a g o only the H a w a i i delegation and the L o r d k n e w they w e r e there. 2 8

Woodrow Wilson again received the Democratic nomination for president. In Chicago the Republicans nominated former New York governor and jurist Charles Evans Hughes. If Hawai'i's Democrats failed to stage " a real, old fashioned Bourbon scrap" in St. Louis, they managed very well in Washington, D.C., a few days later. Johnny, Link, and Pacheco arrived in the capital on Monday, June 1 9 , 1 9 1 6 . Johnny's diary makes no mention of his activities there. Honolulu newspapers said the local Democrats, armed with the home rule plank, buttonholed congressmen and cabinet members in an attempt to light a fire under the administration in regard to patronage and homesteading and to get rid of Pinkham. The evidence indicates that the veteran trio—Wilson, McCandless, Pacheco—kept their political performance within the bounds of acceptable criticism. But alternate delegate T. B. Stuart, a circuit judge in Hawai'i, didn't know the rules. In Washington he penned a letter to President Woodrow Wilson that raised eyebrows and created headlines. Stuart accused the president's administration of bestowing the entire federal patronage on opponents of Hawai'i Democrats, of violating acts of Congress in regard to homesteading, and of threatening to sell the public lands at auction in California if Hawai'i Democrats didn't stop complaining. 29 On returning to Hawai'i, Link commented, " I might have said the same things to some extent, but in a different way." 3 0 Johnny told reporters, "The local party has already approved all of his [Stuart's] statements but does not approve of the way he went at it...outside of that he told the truth. We knew that [cabinet members] had been deceived... by their friends." 31 Stuart resigned his judgeship.

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As the excitement subsided, local Democrats buckled down in Johnny's office to prepare for the upcoming campaigns. Manuel Pacheco turned over his chairmanship of the territorial central committee to W. A. Bryan, a professor at the University of Hawaii who mixed politics with science. The Star-Bulletin saw his election as a move toward conciliation between McCandless and Pinkham forces.32 Link McCandless obviously did not dictate the platform, which supported the frontage tax, a system whereby property owners helped pay for the cost of improvements such as streets that bordered on their property and increased their value. Link, who owned a lot of property, had fought the frontage tax with righteous indignation, claiming that he paid too many taxes already.33 Johnny favored the frontage tax, which was later called the "improvement district" system. The anticipated reconciliation moves came late in August when party chairman Bryan invited Pinkham supporters including McCarthy and Rivenburgh to speak at a Democratic meeting in Phoenix Hall on Beretania Street. The governor himself did not accept the invitation, pleading illness. So a delegation went to his bedside on August 30, 1 9 1 6 . Pinkham received them as if he were a Mideast potentate and lectured them on obedience.34 The reconciliation fell apart when Johnny and Link disavowed any connection with the delegation.35 Johnny and the Hawai'i Democrats received mostly bad news in the election of 1 9 1 6 . The contest that kept thousands of voters glued to the Star-Bulletin's flickering screen on King Street that night was the race for president of the United States. Each lantern slide of election returns, deftly manipulated by movie projectionist and popular Republican legislator Eddie (E. K.) Fernandez, showed Woodrow Wilson and Charles Evans Hughes locked in even combat. The Star-Bulletin's election coverage crew finally headed to bed at 1 A.M. with the election undecided. Hawai'i voters did not learn until two days later that Wilson was still their president.36 On December 6, 1 9 1 6 , a game of musical chairs began in the Hawai'i judiciary when Edward Watson resigned his seat on the supreme court to take a better-paying job in private practice as law partner to Charles F. Clemons, who resigned as a federal

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judge on December 27. Watson became attorney for the territorial public utilities commission in place of James Coke, w h o was appointed circuit judge. Johnny, w h o never held a very high opinion of the dedication of attorneys to principle, was hauling eggs and mules in the Ida May from Moloka'i. Two presidential appointments that met with Johnny's approval took place early in 1 9 1 7 . Curtis P. Iaukea received the nod as secretary of Hawai'i after Pinkham had originally cast his approving eye on Wade Warren Thayer; attorney general in the Republican Frear administration. Iaukea was a part-Hawaiian, former royalist, and long-time Democrat. He served the territory with distinction. Then came an even bigger surprise. President Wilson appointed a brilliant, young Chinese-Hawaiian attorney, William "Billy" Heen, to a circuit judgeship. Heen's appointment was held up for confirmation in the U.S. Senate by southern solons on racial grounds; but the president stood firm, and Heen became a judge w h o made an excellent reputation on the bench. The performance of Iaukea and Heen gave Johnny great satisfaction because it demonstrated the competence of local Democrats, a quality that the Republican establishment had done its best to deny and to convince the administration in Washington did not exist. 37 O n January 15, 1 9 1 7 , Johnny wrote in his diary, "Completed Dowsett contract this day at noon." The new subdivision opened at the end of March to great fanfare, partly because of its concrete roads, a first in Honolulu. 38 Johnny did not know that this would be his last major contracting job. O n April 6, 1 9 1 7 , President Wilson declared war on Germany, and everything began to change.

Johnny Wilson as a baby, circa 1 8 7 2 . ILWU photo.

Johnny Wilson as manager of the Hawaii National Band on tour of the United States in 1 8 9 5 . Hawaii State Archives photo.

Johnny Wilson, businessman and builder of the Pali Road, 1 8 9 7 . ILWU photo.

John H . Wilson, left, Democratic national committeeman from H a w a i ' i , chats with President Franklin D. Roosevelt during his visit to H a w a i ' i in 1 9 3 4 . Hawaii State Archives photo.

Johnny Wilson on the campaign trail, circa 1 9 5 0 . Hawaii State Archives photo.

Mayor John H. Wilson, in black suit, and Jennie Wilson greet Lieutenant General Henry S. Aurand and his wife at a New Year party on January i , 1 9 5 1 , at the Aurand home. Hawaii State Archives photo.

Mayor Johnny Wilson lecturing young Democrat Frank Fasi in his city hall office about 1954. Fasi beat Johnny in the primary, ending his political career that year. ILWU photo.

Jennie Wilson weeps over her husband's casket, 1956. Napua Stevens Poire and Herman Lemke at right. Honolulu Advertiser photo.

Kini Kapahu, right, as a hula dancer at the Columbian Exposition Chicago, 1893. Hawaii State Archives photo.

Kini Kapahu in the 1890s. Hawaii State Archives photo.

Kini (Jennie) Wilson on lanai of home in Wai'alae Valley, circa 1 9 3 0 . H a w a i i State Archives photo.

Jennie Wilson attends opening of Wilson Tunnel in 1960. Mayor Neal Blaisdell in white. Honolulu Advertiser photo.

Hawaii's top Democratic leaders Johnny Wilson, sitting, and Jack Burns, right, during the 1952 presidential campaign. Sakae Takahashi is at left, in front of Sammy Amalu. ILWU photo.

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The onset of war with Germany scarcely disturbed the familiar rhythm of Johnny's life. It was politics as usual during the municipal election of 1 9 1 7 . Johnny signed on as campaign treasurer for his party.1 The Democrats promised better roads and free garbage collection while Republican supervisor Ben Hollinger took credit for the new zoo and for new schools and parks. Republican rallies featured movies of the Keystone Cops and music by Dudie Miller's famous local orchestra. Joe Fern, ill with diabetes but running again for mayor, spoke from the stump in a manner he felt his audience would understand and hoped they would believe. "The Republicans no good," he said in pidgin. "Lie, lie, lie. This time John Lane mayor. You go fish market, you buy one aku [tuna]—60 cents. Before, Joe Fern mayor, you can buy for 10 cents." 2 When the votes were counted in June, Joe Fern was back in the mayor's chair with ousted Republican John Lane complaining that he had been knifed by his own party. The winner spent $295 on his campaign, the loser $150. 3 Fern attempted to draft Johnny as city engineer, an appointment that was emphatically rejected by the Republican majority on the board of supervisors. The Republicans had absolutely no use for Johnny Wilson.4 On Hawai'i, faithful Democrat Delbert E. Metzger was appointed magistrate, and in Honolulu, Jim Coke was named chief justice of the Hawaii Supreme Court by the administration in Washington. The ugly reality of war intruded upon relaxed Honolulu toward the end of 1 9 1 7 , when schoolteachers of German descent came under suspicion of disloyalty.5 Voluntary food rationing brought the war home to all the Islanders on a more personal level. For Johnny, the changes that accompanied the war were subtle.

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On May 3, 1 9 1 7 , he signed a three-year contract with Kim Ye Song to grow taro on twenty acres of land in Pelekunu Valley. It was land formerly cultivated by Hawaiians who had moved to the city because the valley offered no future.8 His old patron, Queen Lililuokalani, died at 8:30 A.M. on Sunday morning, November 1 1 , 1 9 1 7 , to a great outpouring of grief and respect by all races of Hawai'i. 9 Her funeral recalled the last days of the monarchy. Now only Prince Kuhio remained of the Hawaiian ali'i. The death of Liliuokalani and Johnny's taro contract with a Chinese were entirely unrelated events. But both reminded him of the increasingly precarious condition of many fellow Hawaiians: robbed of traditional leaders, torn from the land, crowding into urban centers where they worked at low-paying jobs or squatted on vacant parcels of real estate. For years Johnny had hauled taro to market in the Ida May to provide an income for Pelekunu Hawaiians. The death of Liliuokalani seemed to spur a similar concern among other prominent Hawaiians for the less fortunate of their race. On October 7, 1 9 1 8 , Mayor Joe Fern announced the organization of the United Hawaiian Association for the purpose of assisting Hawaiian businessmen. M. K. Kalekaua, Thomas Smith, Joe Fern, Joseph Kalana, William K. Rathburn, S.M. Kapakanui, and M.U. Silva $1,000 in the company; each invested Curtis Iaukea and John Lane gave $500 apiece.10 In the same year the Hawaiian Civic clubs, spearheaded by Prince Kuhio, were formed to help educate Hawaiians and to encourage their interest in public affairs. Then scholarly John Wise, now a territorial senator, introduced a plan, conceived by Hawaiian leaders including Kuhio, for returning Hawaiians to the land as a means of rehabilitating them.11 This rehabilitation plan became the primary expression of the groundswell of concern by Hawaiians about their own welfare. But, as we shall see, it took a direction that Johnny did not favor. His relationship with Link McCandless underwent a similar unstated wartime evolution. In 1 9 1 8 this old political ally was prosecuted as a war profiteer for selling rice above the price set by the local food commission. Link in his bullheaded way insisted that he was merely selling his rice for the same price asked in Cal-

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ifornia and took the food commission to court on the grounds that it had no authority to set prices. He finally won his case. The courts ruled that compliance with food commission regulations was voluntary. Some of his admirers looked upon Link's victory as another case in which he had tweaked the nose of the rich haole establishment. But his defiance in self-interest of what most citizens regarded a patriotic responsibility did not go down well generally, anymore than did his defiance of the frontage tax law. 12 Link and Johnny remained friends and political allies, but they drifted apart in philosophy. Johnny's long support for homesteading also received a blow during the war. And it happened just when the little man was to have his chance for a piece of rich government land monopolized by sugar plantations. The Organic Act that established the Territory of Hawaii and was revised in 1 9 1 0 provided a formula whereby twenty-five citizens could petition for homesteads, and the land commissioner was instructed to "expeditiously...survey and open for settlement [such agricultural lands]." 13 Substantial acreages of prime government agricultural lands now under lease by plantations were coming up for lease renewal. Citizens were petitioning, and, by law, the lands had to be opened for homesteads. This made sugar planters very nervous, because there was only a limited supply in Hawai'i of first-class agricultural land on which sugar could be profitably grown. Only 7.5 percent of the total area of Hawai'i was suitable for agriculture, compared with 73 percent for Iowa. Much of that 7.5 percent was government land. Something had to be done, or major portions of lands now cultivated by sugar plantations would become small farms, as Johnny Wilson had dreamed for so long. Fortunately for the plantations, the war provided an argument to delay implementation of the Organic Act in the name of patriotism. Sugar, in short supply, was pronounced essential to the war effort. On these grounds, the planters petitioned for continued use of valuable government lands to encourage sugar production. A bill favoring such action was passed by the territorial senate in special session but died in the house. 14 Governor Pinkham had always favored the plantations as opposed to homesteaders. The appointment of another governor in

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April 1 9 1 8 did not change matters much from Johnny Wilson's point of view. The new governor was Charles J. McCarthy, territorial treasurer, former saloon keeper, and prominent antiMcCandless Democrat, who took no strong stand on homesteading. He was backed by sugar interests and influenced by them.15 It was Interior Secretary Franklin Lane who placed the imprint of the national administration upon Hawai'i's wartime land policy. Lane visited the Islands in June 1 9 1 8 for the inauguration of Governor McCarthy on what had the earmarks of a fence-mending expedition. This time Link McCandless and Johnny Wilson were invited to all the functions.16 Secretary Lane, after meeting with homesteaders on the Big Island, talked like a Jacksonian Democrat in his speech at the inauguration. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin quoted the speech in full on June zz, 1 9 1 8 : "There has been much difference of opinion, much of it an honest difference, as to the possibility of applying the homestead law to the sugar lands, but that experiment must be made," Lane said. "This part of our common country should give an opportunity to the man of capacity and energy to secure a home for himself, a home off which he can earn his own living, a home... in which self-respect will be developed out of which can come sound judgements as to the welfare of the nation." Johnny approved of that. Why should not small farmers grow sugar on productive land and make a profit as did the large plantations? Lane said he was not convinced when he was told that "the homesteader would be powerless because of his inability to compete with the more elaborately and scientifically devised management of the great corporation [sugar plantation]." Lane was also unconvinced that homesteaders would have to build their own mills and railroads to succeed as sugar planters, arguments that plantation owners used to explain why small planters were unable to compete. The interior secretary then placated the sugar planters by advocating an extension of their leases. He added: It is true at this time [that] the c o u n t r y . . . gravely needs w h a t e v e r f o o d p r o d u c t s these islands c a n produce [sugar]

A s to those lands w h i c h

are n o w subject to homesteading, and those w h i c h soon will be by the

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expiration of their leases, a policy has been devised w h i c h will m a k e sure that these lands will not fall into idleness.

In other words, a presidential executive order would extend the leases in wartime for continued use of productive land by sugar plantations. And Lane opened the door for another concept that provided the rationale for the future Hawaiian rehabilitation project, putting homesteaders on less productive lands not used by sugar plantations: "The United States has conducted through the Interior Department for some years a reclamation service, the purpose of which is to reclaim from a desert condition government and private lands [and to] bring water upon them The men who go down upon these lands are homesteaders."17 The Star-Bulletin praised Lane's wisdom in glowing terms, and when the secretary returned to Washington, he told reporters, "As to the homestead lands, we have everything all fixed up, with everybody satisfied." Johnny Wilson and other radical Democrats in Hawai'i remained silent about the delay in implemention of the homestead law. It seemed one more obstacle that the little man in Hawai'i would have to overcome to get out from under plantation control. Lane's visit did, however, boost John Wilson's reputation as an important Democrat. On a tour of the island, the interior secretary gazed in admiration on Johnny's serpentine Pali Road and pronounced it "worthy to rank with the achievements of Swiss engineers in the...Alpine districts." And Lane's blessing for the building of an improved civilian-military belt road around the island would play a part in Johnny's future.18 The armistice on November n , 1 9 1 8 , did not end for John Wilson the war's impact. His evolving relationship with Link and the effect of the war years on the welfare of Hawaiians and on homesteading continued to play a larger part in his life. Politics brought it all in focus when the party asked him to run for the territorial senate in 1 9 1 8 . The formal request came at the end of June from W. A. Bryan, chairman of the Democratic Territorial Central Committee, and Palmer Woods, standout Democrat from Kohala, Hawai'i. 19 Always before, Johnny had said no. We can only guess why he said yes this time, because he left no explanation. The party probably asked him to run because he lived in the

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fourth district, a Republican stronghold. Johnny was one of the few Democrats who had a chance to win there. The high probability that homesteading would be a big issue in the next session of the legislature could have been one of his reasons for agreeing. Johnny may have recognized that Hawai'i had entered a watershed: important political decisions would have to be made. Women's suffrage was in the air. Hawai'i faced a housing shortage. Hawaiians were in trouble. The city charter still needed revision. Absentee rule from Washington had became increasingly irksome after Congress imposed wartime prohibition on Hawai'i. These were issues for a politician to resolve. So Johnny joined the ranks of Democratic candidates with Joe Fern as their campaign manager. John Wilson made his first appeal for votes on September 21 in the bandstand at 'A'ala Park. He received one sentence in the Star-Bulletin that gave no indication of what he said.20 He was just one of the crowd. And he suffered the indignities that political candidates bear. On election eve, Kaka'ako rowdies hooted Link and Johnny off the stage.21 The next day he led the Democratic slate in his district with 3 , 1 3 5 votes. But John Wise, the weakest candidate on the Republican side, slipped in over Johnny with 3,338. 22 For John Wilson, two things were notable about that election. First, he proved himself a viable candidate in a heavily Republican district. Second, the campaign got his political juices flowing. There is every indication that running for office turned Johnny into a politician. Before, it had been a duty. Now it became a passion. Before, he had been reluctant to make headlines. Now he enjoyed them. Before, he had worked on the sidelines. Now he jumped into the arena. The belt road controversy started him off. Secretary Lane's enthusiasm for a civilian-military belt road around O'ahu had gone to the head of Republican supervisors. It was a motherhood issue. Confident that the legislature would appropriate the funds and eager to take the credit, the supervisors voted to let a contract to start the road before they had the money. When Ed Lord and other big contractors showed up on March 4, 1 9 1 9 , with certified checks to enter their bids, there was Johnny Wilson with a "vigorous protest."23 He had corralled Albion F. Clark, a member of the road committee of the Honolulu Ad

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Club, and W. C. Achi, an interested Republican attorney, to back him up. Johnny explained that he would sue if the city let the contracts. He pointed to an attorney general's ruling that held it was illegal for the city to let a bid for which no money was available. Mayor Fern allowed that Johnny might have something there. The Republican supervisors were furious over this typical Johnny Wilson stunt to embarrass them. They let the contract over his objections. Albert M. Cristy, deputy city and county attorney, blasted Johnny as an "irresponsible critic."24 The fact remained that the supervisors had egg on their faces. The legislature started an investigation to find out what was going on.25 By March 13 the legislators had decided there was no cause for alarm over the belt road. But Mayor Fern refused to sign the contract a week later because, he said, "I am responsible. If I sign the contract for which the auditor has not the money, I am liable to go to jail." 26 The supervisors backed down when they realized they really didn't have the funds. Johnny's energy did not go unnoticed by the Democrats. He said later he was sprucing up the Ida May with an intention of sailing it to Tahiti to visit his relatives there when Link McCandless and Joe Fern came on board. "They asked me to attend a Democratic central committee meeting," Johnny recalled. "I took off my greasy dungarees and went to town with them. And I nearly fainted when they asked me to become their campaign manager."27 This comment hardly squares with the evidence. If Johnny was surprised, he didn't show it. He accepted the job with enthusiasm and immediately began lining up strong candidates. On April 14, with Link McCandless, he called on Circuit Judge William Heen and asked him to run for O'ahu city and county attorney.28 It was a masterful stroke. Heen was smart, concerned about the community, and full of ambition. He had made an exemplary record as a judge. He was so concerned with ethics that he wrote for an opinion from the U.S. attorney general about whether he might, without conflict of interest, run for office while a judge. If elected, of course, he would resign. This was a refreshing innovation in the political arena of Honolulu. The attorney general ruled there was no conflict of interest.

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The young Chinese-Hawaiian judge became the hero of the campaign, thundering from the stump against the gambling connections of Republican city and county attorney Arthur Brown. Heen's fearlessness and his information about crime in Honolulu electrified the audiences. Gen. John H. Soper; a life-long Republican, went to work for Heen. Rock-ribbed Republican Frank C. Atherton promised to vote for Heen. Johnny directed this campaign with a firm hand through the primary and into the general election, scheduling rallies, carefully steering the Democratic bandwagon along.29 Even the Republican Honolulu daily newspapers came out for Heen. Now it was the GOP candidates who complained about the press. Heen attracted what newspapers called the largest crowd in the history of Democratic election eve rallies, about three thousand people when the speeches started and five thousand when they ended. On the opposite side of 'A'ala Park, Republican speakers were drowned out by cheers for Heen when he was introduced.30 On June 4, 1 9 1 9 , Heen won by a landslide and carried other Democrats with him, including a majority on the board of supervisors. Joe Fern once more trounced his old opponent, John Lane. There was pandemonium at Democratic headquarters in the Waity Building at 10:30 P.M. when the returns came in. The delirious party faithful, so used to losing, armed themselves with brooms and marched around Honolulu to celebrate a "clean sweep." 31 The Star-Bulletin wrote, "For the Democrats planted a time bomb in the ranks of the Republicans, and its explosion brought forth results far greater than had been expected." Much of the credit had to go to Johnny Wilson. So it was no surprise that Mayor Joe Fern appointed Johnny as his city engineer and that the Democratic majority on the board promptly confirmed the appointment. He was installed in office on August 1, 1 9 1 9 , and took charge of the project he had held up for so long, the belt road. With Johnny now working full-time in Honolulu, Kini ended her banishment on Moloka'i and moved into the house on 13 th Avenue in Kaimukl. She continued to keep chickens, raising eggs for market, and to raise hogs. Johnny now owned a Buick, his first automobile, and Kini enjoyed riding it in. But she never, as long as she lived, learned to drive.

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Johnny was no longer reluctant to lead. When Joe Fern become very ill, Johnny emerged as the most visible member of the mayor's administration. And he displayed the diplomatic skills he had learned in Washington. On September 5, 1 9 1 9 , he asked his persistent critic, Lorrin A. Thurston, publisher of the Pacific Commercial Advertiser, for cooperation in selling a bond issue of $150,000 authorized by the legislature to improve the Pali Road, the most popular scenic attraction on O'ahu for tourists. The initiative for selling bond issues is not normally taken by city engineers. But Thurston, a strong exponent of tourism, took the bait. "The Advertiser is more than happy [to cooperate]," editor Edward P. Irwin editorialized. "There should be no difficulty of disposing of the $150,000 Pali Road bonds right here in Honolulu. Not only do we need the road at once, but the bonds themselves are a good investment. " 32 Governor McCarthy took a different view. There were numerous bond issues for commendable projects on the governor's plate, and he had no intention of letting Johnny Wilson upstage him. McCarthy announced curtly on September 10 that the Pali Road bonds would not be in the first issue. They must wait their turn.33 That didn't slow Johnny down much. On February 4, 1920, he became the subject of a flattering biographical sketch in the Advertiser written by W. K. Bassett, a newly arrived bohemian from San Francisco. The story by Bassett, a hard-drinking and erudite journalist, depicted Johnny as a heroic builder of the Pali Road. The long-lasting friendship that sprang up between Bassett and Johnny dates from this interview. On Friday, February 20, 1920, Mayor Joe Fern died of diabetes, and all city offices closed. The Star-Bulletin wrote of him, "He was a father to his people, an old school Hawaiian, open handed and sympathetic Daily there was a stream of Hawaiian poor crowding his waiting room and coming to him for assistance in family rows, for legal advice or a loan to straighten out trouble with their children." Hawaiians from all walks of life arranged to give Joe Fern a proper funeral. Palmer Woods announced that horses would not be necessary to draw the hearse. The people would haul on the ropes. The mayor's secretary bought crepe at his own expense to tack over Joe Fern's office door. His body lay in state in the throne

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room of 'Iolani Palace, the only common Hawaiian ever accorded this honor normally reserved for the ali'i. Speculation about who the board of supervisors would appoint to replace Fern produced a deluge of names including City and County Supervisor Jonah Kumalae, Representative William P. Jarrett, John H. Wilson, business tycoon Walter F. Dillingham, former governor George R. Carter, former secretary of Hawaii A. L.C.Atkinson, and Link McCandless. Territorial Secretary Curtis Iaukea said he would accept the appointment if selected. The speculation ended abruptly on February 25, 1920, with no muss or fuss and no oratory when the Democratic majority on the board of supervisors voted in John H. Wilson as the new mayor of Honolulu. He had been, after all, the architect of their majority. The politely subdued reaction of the Pacific Commercial Advertiser to Johnny's promotion reflected an establishment view of him as a persistent irritation of questionable reputation. He was now married to a woman of no social standing whatever with whom he had lived in common law. He was a business failure twice over and an opportunist who had ridden to prominence in the Democratic party on the back of Lincoln McCandless. His radical views on homesteading and labor constituted a more serious problem because the man was clever and engaging. If such views were allowed to spread, they could wreck the economy of Hawai'i. John Wilson refused to accept the political realities that ensured prosperity, and because of this he represented a danger that must be carefully watched. Johnny's reputation among the Democrats was considerably different. His friends knew him as the man who had refused the governorship for the good of the party. His partnership with McCandless, although criticized by Kini according to Napua Stevens Poire, had added a strength to the Democrats that the party had never known before. Most of all, he spoke for the little man with a vision that was uniquely Hawaiian and American at the same time. His democracy was that of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, with overtones of taro planters and Hawaiian stevedores that could be understood by common people trying to find their place on an island caught between old Hawaiian values and the new American system. He was fair, tough, and fearless, and for this he com-

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manded a great deal of loyalty as he stepped into the office of mayor. Republican publisher Wallace R. Farrington's Star-Bulletin editorialized with cautious optimism, "If Mr. Wilson is as good a mayor as he has been a city engineer... Honolulu will be fortunate." 34

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His Honor, the Mayor

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On Thursday, February 29, 1920, John H. Wilson, age fortyeight, took the oath of office as mayor of a tropical city that retained many of the charming aspects of a village. Only church spires and a clock tower or two rose above the metropolitan sea of foliage interrupted here and there by small islands of major buildings and the larger island of downtown Honolulu. Narrow little streets in unlikely places went by picturesque names like Corkscrew Lane and Baseball Road. They led to equally picturesque destinations like Kalihi Camp and Post Office Arcade.1 Life tended to flow along in an orderly manner. Matrons of the kama'aina elite, remote from social capitals, were careful to maintain the proprieties. Society pages, therefore, listed "calling days" for the convenience of newcomers.2 It became necessary to provide newcomers with such information, because there were a surprising lot of them. The polyglot population of Honolulu numbered about 82,000, up by 34 percent from 52,000 only ten years before. And the population would increase by another 41 percent to 137,500 in the next ten years.3 So Honolulu was like teenagers growing out of their clothes. This created problems for the mayor. Population growth had been especially troublesome during recent years when country people, attracted by high wartime wages, flocked to the city. The newcomers crowded into the lowincome districts of Kalihi and Kaka'ako and into Papakolea on the slopes of Punchbowl Crater, where Hawaiians lived in shacks constructed of packing crates and lumber scavenged from junk piles. The war years had also increased the price of everything while diverting attention from civic improvements. Now the city desper-

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ately needed more schools. Everybody complained about the rickety sewer system and the inadequate waterworks. Shortly after Johnny took office, Lorrin Thurston's house in lower Nu'uanu Valley burned to the ground because firemen couldn't get water to it.4 Miles of streets were still unpaved and not even signed, although Johnny had tried to put up street signs as city engineer. The board of supervisors had refused to provide the money. Honolulu didn't even have a city hall. The mayor operated out of the Mclntyre Building at Fort and King streets, his highway department rented offices in the Kapiolani Building nearby, and other municipal officials occupied various small offices around town. John Wilson knew as well as everybody else that, as mayor, his tools for solving these formidable problems were not impressive. Three major centers of power exercised control over Islands politics; the office of mayor came in a poor fourth—or fifth if he couldn't control the board of supervisors. First, under Hawai'i's Organic Act, the president's administration and the Congress in Washington made decisions at the highest level. The president appointed Hawai'i's governor, judges, and numerous other important government officials down to postmasters. Congress set trade policies including the tariff on foreign sugar, which directly affected Hawai'i's sugar exports. It decided the extent of immigration to the Islands from the Philippines and other Asian countries, thus exercising some population control. Congress also authorized improvements to the harbors and military installations that played a part in the prosperity of Honolulu. Second, Hawai'i's appointed governor was more powerful than any elected state governor. He could not be impeached by the local voters, and he was empowered to suspend the writ of habeas corpus and to place any part of the territory under martial law. He could veto bills passed by the elected legislature, and he exercised centralized control in the territory over education, welfare, safety, sanitation, health, highways, and public works. His power of patronage extended throughout the Islands. Third, the locally elected legislature determined land policy, voted taxes, granted franchises, and regulated the press, schools, and many other aspects of life in the Islands such as forbidding the wearing of bathing suits in public. The legislature also granted

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or took away the powers of the counties and voted appropriations and approved bond issues for city projects—or refused to vote them.5 Within this framework, the mayor and his board of supervisors were responsible for operating the police and fire departments, collecting garbage, building and maintaining streets, constructing schools, establishing and operating public parks and playgrounds, planning future city growth, and licensing automobiles. If the city and county business was the most mundane of political chores in the territory, it was also closest to the people, and it provided a modest opportunity for patronage. The unique office of mayor went beyond that. The mayor did not make policy decisions like the governor or exercise wide control like the legislators, and he had to obtain approval from his board of supervisors for his programs. But he had a platform on which he had been elected by the people. He spoke from a single executive office while the legislators and supervisors got lost in the crowd. His job was pretty much what he made of it. Joe Fern had been, until it was too late for him to enjoy it, a Democratic mayor saddled with a Republican board. Patient and fair, Fern had usually been content to steer where the board wanted to go and not presumptuous enough to step on the gas. The new mayor, natty in white duck suits and with a pheasant lei around his Panama hat, held no such reservations—and he was blessed with a Democratic board. He took charge from the moment he walked in the door. Johnny Wilson not only steered, he constantly checked the tires, asked for an overhaul of the motor, demanded higher octane gasoline, complained about the streets, and changed the road map because he knew exactly where he wanted the city to go. Johnny appointed as city engineer the young assistant he had brought into the engineering department, Fred Ohrt, 6 generally conceded to be one of the best engineers the city ever had. Then the new mayor began mobilizing public opinion behind programs he had promoted during his own term as city engineer. He combined the talents of cheerleader and coach. His promotion of the Kaka'ako improvement district near the waterfront is an example. On Friday, March 19, he and John Wise addressed the Hawaiian Civic Club. Wise explained his plan for

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rehabilitating Hawaiians by placing them on homesteads. Johnny enthusiastically pushed his program for improvements in K a ka'ako, an industrial district and still inhabited largely by H a w a i ians. 7 N o t content with the lecture circuit, J o h n n y enlisted the aid of the newspapers. A headline about roads in the Star-Bulletin on Saturday, April 1 0 , proclaimed, " B i g Program M a p p e d Out By County." It didn't matter to Johnny if somebody else had voiced the idea first. H e said later: I am perfectly willing to admit that the law [providing for improvement districts] was put into the books by a Republican administration in 1 9 1 4 , and Manoa improvements and a few others were put through between then and 1 9 1 9 [when Johnny became city engineer]. But... there was growing laxity in this public project. When I took office [as mayor] in 1 9 2 0 the first World War was over and men were returning from military service and [were] in need of employment. It was then that I decided we could create employment for these returning soldiers [by] pushing through improvement districts We put through fifteen improvement districts during my two terms before I left office in 1930. 8 Republican supervisor Eben L o w had spearheaded construction of Honolulu's municipal market to combat the soaring prices of meat and produce that followed World War I. Showing no signs of jealousy, the Democratic mayor became the municipal market's most enthusiastic supporter. H e w a s on hand with the R o y a l H a w a i i a n Band and about a thousand eager customers w h e n the market opened on M a y 1 5 , 1 9 2 0 . " H u g e tables of watermelons went like hot cakes, luscious strawberries from W a h i a w a were all sold in half an hour," the Star-Bulletin reported that day. Wonderful cabbages were weighed and sold at 1 0 per cent above cost. ...There was no hesitation on the part of the people of Honolulu as to their sentiments regarding fresh eggs at 70 cents a dozen. To a man they bought them as long as they held out. Members of the Housewives' League were on hand, each wearing a maile lei, waiting on the good-natured customers—weighing, measuring, making change, and by this work showing that the spirit of the League was a boost to the market, which is one of the first attacks on high prices to be inaugurated in Hawaii.

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Flushed and smiling, Republican Low introduced Democrat Wilson, who made the only speech of the day. Johnny explained that he would be happy to turn the market over to the Housewives' League, but there were rules and regulations that had to be considered by the board of supervisors. 9 One reason for Johnny's concern over high prices and about finding jobs for voters was that, from the moment he sat down in the mayor's chair, people came to his office looking for work. " I should judge that 50 per cent of all those who call in to see me here want aid in finding a job," he said later. " N o man with a heart in him would refuse to listen to these pleas Naturally, I try my best to place them somewhere." He said finding jobs consumed two or three of his working hours every day. 10 Johnny told reporters where he stood on Honolulu's lack of a city hall. "This way of being scattered in different buildings is a waste of time and tends to inefficiency," he said on March 10. "It is a disgrace that a town of this size has no city hall of its own. The sooner we can get together here and have our own headquarters in one place, the sooner we can begin to do business as it should be done. I am going to work on it." 1 1 He ordered the city attorney to secure a lease for the entire Kapiolani Building so that the city and county government could be consolidated in one place. Supervisor Kumalae protested because he didn't want to move his Hawaiian newspaper office out of the ground floor. Johnny won the battle, and by the end of M a y all city and county offices had moved to the new location. Supervisor Kumalae continued to be a problem. The Democratic supervisor had been a contender for the mayorship after Joe Fern's death. A rumor went around that Link McCandless had promised to "take care of him" if he threw his vote to Johnny, and Link had backed down on his promise, so Kumalae felt aggrieved. 12 Elected as a Democrat, he flirted with the Republican minority on the board to enhance his power as the swing vote. The 1 9 2 0 Democratic presidential convention was to be held in nearby San Francisco. Many local Democrats, including Kumalae, wanted to go. He tried to unseat Johnny as national committeeman at the territorial convention but lost on a 555 to 2 9 1 vote. 13 The new mayor sailed for San Francisco on June 16; a fight immediately broke out among the Democratic supervisors about

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who should preside in his absence. Senior member W. H. McClellan came out on top. In San Francisco, Johnny lobbied old acquaintances on the national committee in the interests of Hawai'i Democrats, who favored a liberal policy of homesteading public lands in the Islands to promote a larger middle class. The national committeeman from Hawai'i also demanded adequate appropriations from Congress for harbors and highways. 14 At the convention that followed, Johnny leaned toward presidential candidate A.Mitchell Palmer but soon decided that the vote would go to James M . Cox, a newspaper editor and governor of Ohio. 15 It did, and young Franklin D. Roosevelt, from New York, got the nod for vice-president. The Republicans nominated handsome Warren Harding. From San Francisco, Johnny drove with two friends to Los Angeles. As he rode along, he kept an eye on the highway and jotted in his notebook, "Concrete with squeegee top stands up fairly well. Concrete... six inches [thick] stands up but four inches is a failure... poor foundation [is the] cause of cracks." 1 6 In Los Angeles, he visited a municipal market, where he noted that the building measured 80 by 1 8 0 feet, that the floor was dirt, that there were four rows of tables, and that only the meat stalls were enclosed. 17 Johnny returned to Honolulu just in time for the excitement that attended the launching of women's suffrage. He instructed the somewhat reluctant city clerk, a Republican, to begin registering female voters. A newspaper reporter observed that the clerk was visibly perturbed by the pressure brought to bear upon him. Meanwhile, Kini called a meeting of women in Poola Hall (stevedore headquarters on the waterfront) to urge women to sign the rolls. Kini traced the history of women's suffrage and urged the women to carefully investigate each candidate. 18 Two days later, a dozen Hawaiian women lined up at the clerk's window when he opened his office. The first woman in Honolulu to register was Mrs. Louise McGregor. 19 A new problem arose when two women filed as candidates on the Democratic ticket for the territorial senate. Roy A. Vitousek, first deputy city and county attorney, pointed out that the new Nineteenth Amendment merely extended the right of suffrage to

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women "without in any way affecting the qualifications for office, where the Organic Law says only males shall hold office." Johnny became involved because the first woman, Mrs. Helen K. Sniffen of Maui, sent him her nomination papers. He walked them to Iolani Palace and turned them over to Secretary of Hawaii Curtis P. Iaukea, who accepted them. Iaukea said he'd let the courts decide whether or not women could hold political office. The second female candidate, Mrs. Mary Atcherly of Honolulu, added considerable color to the primary campaign that fall because she sometimes broke into the hula on the stage when inspired by a frisky campaign tune. There was nothing lighthearted about her political platform, however. Mrs. Atcherly stood for, among other things, a fair minimum wage, free distribution of schoolbooks, an increase in pay for teachers, and commitment to an insane asylum or to the leper colony only on the verdict of a jury.20 Since neither Mrs. Sniffen nor Mrs. Atcherly survived the elections, male legal experts were saved the embarrassment of disqualifying them from office. In the general campaign for territorial offices, Prince Kuhio once again beat Link McCandless for delegate, and the Republicans elected all but five legislators. Although Johnny wasn't running, he made headlines during the campaign when he butted heads with Prince Kuhio about the Hawaiian rehabilitation plan that became the Hawaiian Homestead Act. The concept had become an act of faith among many Hawaiians and, for Kuhio, his supreme goal. Johnny took a broader view of homesteading. Under the Hawaiian rehabilitation plan, only Hawaiians would be permitted to homestead the government lands that had once belong to the Crown. Hawaiians had long complained about competition from newcomers. Why should they compete with haoles and Japanese for homesteads on land that had been taken away from them? 21 At the same time, leaders of the sugar industry were losing productive cane land to homesteaders under provisions of the Organic Act. They saw that sympathy in Congress for Hawaiians might provide a way out of their dilemma. They would support the Hawaiian homestead plan, provided the homesteads were put

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on second-class agricultural land plantations did not use and the Organic Act changed to remove the threat of homesteading on prime cane land. Meanwhile, some of the income from leases of government land by the plantations could be used for reclamation of less-productive lands for Hawaiian homesteaders. The first homesteads would be on the island of Moloka'i. It was this plan that Kuhio, in his long support of Hawaiian homesteaders, had embraced. Johnny considered the plan a cynical ploy by the sugar planters, who would keep those lands good for farming and give up only those they had already rejected as useless. The Hawaiians would be left with land good for nothing, and other citizens would have no opportunity to homestead at all. The war of words began on the night of September 23 when Kuhio and his campaign manager, John Wise, addressed a large crowd from the steps of a tenement owned by Jonah Kumalae on Queen Street. Starting in Hawaiian and then switching to English, Kuhio once more explained the merits of the rehabilitation program under which undeveloped government land on Moloka'i would be set aside for Hawaiians, who could borrow up to $3,000 from a fund to get started. The delegate conceded that his opponent, Link McCandless, criticized the program as class legislation because it reserved government land for Hawaiians only and was, therefore, allegedly unconstitutional. Yet who had more right than Hawaiians to these lands that had once been Crown lands, owned by the king, not the government, and traditionally used by the people? Only under the haole Republic had these lands become the property of the government. Ioela Kiakahi, a Democrat of Kaka'ako, begged to argue. He said he didn't want to go to Moloka'i. It was too far away. Why not cut up a few of the big plantations on O'ahu and parcel out the land to Hawaiians? Kiakahi said that he, personally, would be satisfied with about five acres of prime cane land. Kuhio explained that most of the prime agricultural land on O'ahu was private property and that lease rentals paid by the plantations for prime government agricultural land would support the rehabilitation program. If plantations did not lease the prime land, there would be no funds for rehabilitation. As he grew more and more emotional, the prince declared that any

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Hawaiian who opposed the rehabilitation measure was a traitor to his race.22 This was too much for Johnny, who felt that Kuhio had been taken in by the sugar planters. In a statement to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin on September 24, 1920, he said that parceling out privately owned agricultural land on O'ahu to small homesteaders wasn't "so humorous as it might seem." He explained, "Under Sections 366 and 375 of the Land Laws, the governor is permitted, with the concurrence of the land board, to buy any lands outright for the purpose of opening them for homesteading. The legislature can apply the law at any time it wishes by making an appropriation." Johnny said the need was not for more land laws but to apply those already on the books, something the sugar planters fought grimly to prevent. He said the Democrats had tried for years to do what Kuhio now insisted he wanted, put the Hawaiians back on the land. If Kuhio was so interested in reclamation, why had he never in all the years he had been in Washington applied to the Federal Reclamation Service for some of its fund of $200 million to make the land on Moloka'i fit to live on? Even more important was some provision for getting produce from Moloka'i to market on O'ahu. Johnny said: I k n o w of fifty H a w a i i a n families w h o h a v e left M o l o k a i — f a m i l i e s w h o o w n their o w n land with w a t e r on it, and their o w n houses w i t h furniture in t h e m — b e c a u s e they couldn't m a k e a living. W h y ? Because they couldn't get their produce to market

If there is a real desire to

rehabilitate the H a w a i i a n [on M o l o k a ' i ] . . . a sampan line could be subsidized. I ' m losing money on one that I ' m running right n o w and have been running for years, just to help out the small farmer on M o l o k a i . 2 3

It did not bother the mayor that he had taken the unpopular side and that sentiment was swinging behind Kuhio. The Star-Bulletin, an early critic of rehabilitation, had about-faced to come out in support of the measure. Johnny later predicted that land selected on Moloka'i "would break the spirit of even the pioneers who hewed themselves homesteads out of the tangled forests of the [N]orthwest [of the U.S.]." 24 The Hawaiian homestead bill eventually became law. Johnny never changed his mind. He believed it was criminal, if well mean-

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ing, to put Hawaiians on land with no water on Moloka'i where there was no market for their produce. The problems later encountered by Hawaiian homesteaders on Moloka'i proved that Johnny was very close to the mark. The mayor found a lot of things about Honolulu that needed fixing. He launched an investigation of the waterworks, suspicious because payments by water users were not rising to match population growth. He asked for $ 1 , 0 0 0 to hire a consultant in accounting to figure out how to streamline the antiquated system of bookkeeping at city hall and to coordinate it with that of the territory. The two systems were entirely different, and his orderly mind rebelled at not being able to make sense of comparative expenditures. The board of supervisors gave him $499 to cover his investigations. 25 Citizens of Honolulu discovered that their new mayor's interest in reform extended to music. The era of Tin Pan Alley Hawaiian song writing had begun, and tunes with titles like "Wicky Wacky Hula" were flooding the market, even infecting the Royal Hawaiian Band. In Johnny's opinion, this venerable institution was going from bad to worse. What the band needed was a leader steeped in Hawaiian musical tradition. Since Johnny was empowered to appoint the band leader, he sought out his old friend, Mekia Kealakai, who was leading a Hawaiian troupe in a London theater. Mekia, now a headliner, wasn't enthusiastic about returning to remote Honolulu. But Johnny wrote him a long letter in which he made an appeal the veteran Hawaiian song writer could not refuse: "The old Hawaiian music is dying. Come back and do your part toward bringing it to life. Hawaii Nei needs you!" 2 6 Kealakai abandoned fame in Europe, took the next boat back to Honolulu, and once more the strains of "Old Plantation" and "Lei Awapuhi" sounded sweetly from the bandstand as an antidote to the sputtering of Model-T Fords. As 1 9 2 0 drew to a close, Johnny launched another crusade. He began dickering through Ray Vitousek with Bishop Estate for a park on Kahala Beach. He told reporters, "If something of this sort is not done, we shall wake up some day to discover that the people have no place to g o . . . because wealthy men will have taken all the picnic places for private residences, and grounds for

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hotels." 27 On December 29, the mayor announced that Link McCandless had donated two lots on the beach at Kualoa, twenty miles from Honolulu, for a park. Johnny led an expedition of officials including Governor McCarthy on a trip around the island to survey park sites at Waimanalo and Hale'iwa as well as Kualoa. In the following August Johnny acquired park land at Waialua. In 1 9 2 1 the mayor joined in a challenge to the powerful Honolulu Rapid Transit in a franchise fight. HRT operated like an independent government within the city, raising its fares and cutting service on streetcar lines at will because its franchise permitted it to do so. Now the franchise was up for renewal. HRT and the city and county were deadlocked on terms. The company wanted a guaranteed 8 percent profit. The city and county wanted HRT to receive a "fair profit." When Johnny suggested that the terms be put to a referendum, HRT president A. L. Castle countered that it was "to the advantage of the public to keep politics out of the streetcar service." So Johnny proposed that the city and county buy the company and operate the streetcars. The franchise that eventually came out of the legislature contained concessions by HRT.28 The mayor's secretary quit, and Johnny hired W. K. Bassett, the newspaperman, as his assistant. Bassett, a whiz at research as well as writing, went to work on a comprehensive report by the mayor to the legislature about city and county programs with special emphasis on water problems. Johnny had at last found a competent aide who thought as he did. Honolulu's mayor was unintimidated by the popular fear, promoted by the sugar industry, that the Japanese were taking over Hawai'i. Sugar interests, again in need of more plantation workers, were lobbying in Washington for the importation of Chinese by playing on the threat of Japanese domination. Walter F. Dillingham, chief spokesman for the planters, testified on August 1 3 , 1 9 2 1 , before the Senate Committee on Immigration that the importation of Chinese "coolies" was necessary to prevent the eventual control of the Islands by the Japanese. Johnny made his view clear when he addressed Hawai'i's workers on Labor Day. W e in H a w a i i stand on the borderline between the east and the w e s t [he said]. It rests w i t h u s . . . t o decide, t h r o u g h sane and sensible recog-

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nition of the rights and privileges of others, whether there shall be here in Hawaii an insurmountable barrier between the east and the west, or whether w e shall stand here together and w o r k for the new adjustment and mutual cooperation of all the peoples of the earth. 29

To make such a public statement in the climate of anti-Japanese sentiment then current in Hawai'i required either a lot of courage or considerable naivete. And Johnny Wilson was not known to be naive. Republican President Warren Harding took office in March and in June appointed newspaper publisher Wallace Rider Farrington governor of Hawai'i. Charles McCarthy's term had not expired, but the plantation-business establishment was impatient with territorial treasurer Delbert Metzger's tax assessments on plantation land. The oligarchy prevailed on McCarthy to take a higher-paying job as representative in Washington for the Honolulu Chamber of Commerce. So the annoyance of Metzger was removed. 30 When McCarthy went to Washington, Johnny felt that another Democrat had sold out to the sugar interests. Farrington, a liberal Republican, then did what Democratic appointee Pinkham had refused to do. He invited the Democratic mayor of Honolulu to Iolani Palace for a conference to coordinate territorial and city and county programs. Johnny lost his share of battles as mayor. Having drummed up interest among the board of supervisors in building a city hall, he proposed that the city and county buy the Allen site downtown bordered by King, Alakea, and Richards streets. But the supervisors in their wisdom decided on a larger site out beyond Iolani Palace grounds in the hinterlands on Punchbowl Street, a full four blocks from downtown. Stubborn as usual, Johnny was determined to have his way. He said the citizens of Honolulu would wear out enough shoe leather in ten years walking to city hall on Punchbowl Street to pay for it. To make matters worse, the supervisors turned down his proposal to buy the Kapiolani Building and then sell it at a profit when it came time to build city hall. The mayor had to swallow his pride and accept the Punchbowl site. The honeymoon for Johnny Wilson began to pall when economic conditions worsened in 1 9 2 1 . The Hawaiian Sugar Planters

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Association proposed a drop in plantation workers' wages from $ 3 0 per month to $25. Stevedoring firms contemplated wage cuts. Contractors did the same, lowering the wages of plasterers by $ 2 a day. Following suit, the supervisors decided to cut salaries of workers at city hall. Johnny declared himself strongly opposed to this on economic grounds. He said there had been no decrease in the cost of living to justify a wage cut. "To reduce wages first and let prices follow is putting the cart before the horse," he argued. "The employees of the city and county are earning their money." There was no wage cut at city hall. 31 The economic slump made the bonds issue to pay for city and county improvements unsalable. Johnny refused to be beaten. To show that the bonds were a good investment, he talked Link McCandless into taking $30,000 worth, then whipped up a whirlwind sales campaign in which he enlisted the Rotary Club, the Ad Club, the Automobile Club, and the Chamber of Commerce. 32 But times were hard and wages low, and after the first burst of publicity the bond sale proved slow going. By November 29, the mayor's committee had sold $68,000 worth of bonds; there was still $ 3 2 , 5 0 0 to go. On Saturday, January 7, 1 9 2 2 , Prince Kuhio Kalanianaole died, and the familiar political scene in Hawai'i underwent a profound change. But Johnny was not thinking of that when he expressed his feelings about his boyhood friend: "He was a Prince of the Blood and by the verity of his royal line he gave in a princely fashion of what he had. Nobility was his; unselfishness, strong ability, and personal charm. We mourn him sincerely, deeply." 33

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Kini Kapahu Wilson thoroughly enjoyed being the wife of Honolulu's mayor. She enjoyed riding in the mayor's new city and county Cadillac with Johnny behind the wheel. She enjoyed having a Japanese maid do the housework in their Kaimukl home. She enjoyed the deference shown her by people who had been discourteous before. And she had blossomed to become a handsome, vital matron. A notation of her dress size in Johnny's diary gives her measurements as "waist 3 3 , bust 42-44.' M The mayor's wife was also acquiring a bit of social polish. Yet Kini's enjoyment of the good life did not change her basic values. She still raised pigs and chickens in the back yard—although she had a hired man, now, to do the heavy work. Johnny's diary is sprinkled with jottings about hog and egg sales to the municipal market. Most of Kini's friends were Hawaiian. On Kamehameha Day, June 1 1 , she served as chairman of the committee on arrangements. When the Shriners convention came to town, she was in charge of a booth to demonstrate weaving at the "Hawaiian Village" in Kapi'olani Park. 2 It appears that Kini did not mingle with Johnny's important political friends. Los Angeles mayor Edward Cryer and his wife visited Honolulu in October 1 9 2 2 for two weeks, and Johnny entertained them. But he must have left Kini at home. Mrs. Cryer wrote in her thank-you note, "I'm sorry we didn't see more of Mrs. Wilson, and I want to tell her how much my friends have admired those two little fans she made for me." 3 Perhaps Johnny didn't take Kini out more because he knew what a flirt she could be. Auntie Harriet said that at one formal dance Kini had placed the head of a male guest on her shoulder.

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Johnny walked by and shook his head in disapproval, but she merely shrugged impatiently. Later, behind a potted palm, she called him a jealous old fool. He offered to have their marriage annulled if she felt that way about him. Kini immediately reversed herself and promised never to flirt again.4 Walter Trask, whose father became an important Democratic politician in Johnny's day, said his mother did not like Kini Wilson although the families were related. "My mother called her a crazy woman," Walter said.5 Another part-Hawaiian friend of the family, Herman Lemke, later praised Kini. "She was fantastic," Lemke said. She had her own drawing card, so to speak. She had her own friends, not Johnny's friends. She was a champion among the Hawaiians, first. And, number two, whenever she went to a big [Hawaiian] event, she upstaged Johnny every time. She was the belle of the ball, you know. She was the one that everybody gravitated to.6 Kini further displayed her independence in Johnny's second term as mayor, when he was unable to attend the national Democratic convention in Chicago and she went in his place as delegate. The Star-Bulletin quoted her perceptive observations about the raucous proceedings.7 Then she startled Honolulu by coming home with bobbed hair, a new fashion as yet unaccepted by matrons in Hawai'i. Johnny liked her hair long, but he excused her: "For years she suffered from severe headaches." He added wistfully, "She did have a splendid head of hair."8 It was, admittedly, an unconventional marriage. Kini, a Catholic, attended mass at the Fort Street cathedral; Johnny belonged to Congregationalist Kawaiahao. Napua Stevens Poire said they argued a lot because Kini had a hair-trigger temper and Johnny tended to give orders. Auntie Harriet said Johnny spent a good deal of time soothing Kini's ruffled feathers. But the marriage worked for the unalterable reason that they were in love with each other.

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Johnny's activities during the remainder of his first term as mayor can be divided into two parts: his leadership in replacing Kuhio as delegate to Congress with a Democrat and his difficult role as head of an increasingly troubled administration, a role complicated by the moral laxity that accompanied Prohibition. After Kuhio's death, both parties found themselves with an embarrassment of candidates for the vacant office of delegate to the U.S. Congress. The Republicans had more success in weeding out those most embarrassing. They talked sugar planter Harry Baldwin of Maui into making the race. He would receive the full support of the party. Norman K. Lyman of Hilo and John Wise were permitted on the ballot "for appearances" on condition that they did not get too much in the way.1 The Democratic Territorial Central Committee, sensing victory at last, threw its vote to the faithful war horse, Link McCandless, then did its best to discourage self-appointed contenders Mrs. Mary Atcherly and Jonah Kumalae. Atcherly announced that she would not be deterred by the decision of the committee, and Kumalae didn't even bother to attend the meeting called to talk him out of running.2 Republicans closed ranks behind Harry Baldwin while the Democrats seemed determined to self-destruct. On March 21 the Star-Bulletin ran a front-page cartoon of GOP candidates Wise and Lyman cheering on Baldwin while the Democratic candidates were dressed as circus clowns with Link swinging a chair at his opponents, Kumalae kicking McCandless, and Atcherly throwing juggling balls at the other two. On Saturday, March 25, 1922, Baldwin beat Link almost two to one, with Atcherly and Kumalae far back out of contention.

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The headline read "Link's Reign As Democratic Boss Is Ended," and the story quoted "influential" Democrats irate about his lack of leadership as well as disruption in the party. Political headlines blossomed two years later when Harry Baldwin decided he didn't like being delegate to Congress and would not run in the next election. Republican John Wise announced on July 1 5 that he would be a candidate. Then Link surprised everybody by dropping out. He said politics had become too expensive. He'd spent $10,000 running against Baldwin and didn't feel like going for $20,000. 3 The Democrats now faced not only the problem of finding a new candidate but of financing his campaign. Wilson stepped forward. He joined forces with Sheriff Charlie Rose, who had demonstrated his political clout in the last election, to organize the Democrats. They recruited the popular young high sheriff, Bill Jarrett, a part-Hawaiian who hardly ever said anything, as candidate for delegate on the Democratic ticket. This time it was the Republicans who fought among themselves. They fielded four candidates while the Democrats all got behind Jarrett. Even so, the outlook for the Democrats didn't look good. The Star-Bulletin reported on September 23 that the Democrats, without Link's money, were few and disheartened. However, enthusiasm mounted for Bill Jarrett in the general campaign even though he hardly said more than a few words on the stump, just the opposite of Link McCandless. Perhaps the voters found this contrast refreshing. Also, Jarrett was modest and sincere, the kind of quiet, responsible son a mother would be proud of. And men admired him. Inmates at the prison had wept when he turned over his keys to a new high sheriff. The less Silent Bill Jarrett said, the more people cheered. An enthusiastic rally in Kaka'ako set the tone. An all-woman band played a long Hawaiian song in Silent Bill's honor. He was smothered in leis. Then he said about six words and everybody shouted themselves hoarse. On election eve at 'A'ala Park, eight thousand voters turned out to hear Jarrett say practically nothing.4 Republican John Wise, the more intellectual and articulate of the two part-Hawaiian candidates, lost to Bill Jarrett by a resounding 3,477 votes. The Democrats drove around town honking auto horns in jubilation. Jonah Kumalae announced that he

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would donate two thousand pounds of poi for a free victory luau. Link McCandless contributed more food, and Johnny volunteered as head cook. John Wilson was always proud of his role in electing the first Democratic delegate to Congress. His job as mayor would not give him the same satisfaction. Money was in such short supply in 1 9 2 2 that the public schools could not pay a $7,000 city water bill. Further, the schools were so crowded that the Department of Public Instruction had to rent facilities from Japanese language schools. (Johnny advocated double shifts in the classrooms.) Realtors complained that Honolulu needed a thousand new homes. The waterworks was riddled with politics and losing money, a time bomb about to explode. But the entrenched bureaucracy there resisted reform. The municipal market scandal officially ended Johnny's honeymoon as mayor. Supervisor Manuel Pacheco complained about a loss of $870.73 reported by the market for one month of operation. Johnny answered that the market was not supposed to make money and blamed the board for not permitting manager Fred Luning to give the kind of service that would increase sales. A $ 1 , 0 0 0 loss turned up, and an audit indicated that bookkeeper Billy Miles might have dipped his fingers into the till. City attorney Bill Heen asked for an indictment of Miles on a charge of embezzlement while supervisor Eben Low accused market employees of jawboning, or taking produce home without paying for it. Through it all, Johnny defended manager Luning. 5 Next came the ferry fuss that left voters wondering whether to laugh or grit their teeth at the mayor. On April 29, 1 9 2 2 , tour operator J . Walter Doyle, former newspaperman turned theatrical promoter, complained about the closing of Kamehameha Highway at He'eia for six months for repairs. Thereupon Johnny came up with the world's most original idea for a detour. He proposed a ferry that would load automobiles at Kane'ohe Bay and transport them around the section of highway under repair to a landing farther down the coast. Supervisor Pacheco called the idea a "fairy scheme," and even Johnny's lieutenants in the road department weren't sure how to operate a ferry. Johnny assured them there was nothing to it and talked an admiral at Pearl Harbor into loaning him a scow for ferry purposes. Johnny Wilson's ferry made headlines for several months before his Democratic board lost its patience and voted the plan down. 6

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Regardless of the problems he faced, Johnny continued to speak out on controversial issues, such as the bout of anti-Japanese hysteria that broke out following a plantation strike. When superpatriots complained that immigrants from Japan refused to be "Americanized," the board of public instruction closed Japanese language schools, on the grounds that they were a menace to good citizenship.7 There was discussion about the threat of Japanese block voting to take over the territory. Johnny told the Nippu Jiji, a Japanese-language daily: I a m sure that the J a p a n e s e voters will not b a n d themselves together to control the political machinery of this territory.... T h e s e y o u n g J a p a nese are educated in our schools, disciplined in A m e r i c a n manners a n d a d o p t A m e r i c a n customs

T h e H a w a i i a n s are gradually substituting

A m e r i c a n f o o d for their native f o o d . T h e same is apparent a m o n g y o u n g Japanese. I have full confidence in m y A m e r i c a n brothers I have no d o u b t that they will become g o o d A m e r i c a n citizens. 8

One other person who believed as Johnny did was Dr. Romanzo Adams, a professor at the University of Hawaii. The Star-Bulletin published a series of articles in which Adams predicted that Hawai'i's Japanese would behave much like everybody else when they became citizens and went to the polls. Johnny clipped the articles. They are in his papers.9 The Japanese language school controversy went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled closing the schools unconstitutional. The mayor's problems at city hall did not go away, and his secretary, W. K. Bassett, didn't make it easier. In February, Bassett was arrested for drunk driving. The newspaperman offered to resign to save embarrassment for his employer. Johnny refused to accept the resignation.10 The following March, another alcoholic escapade landed Bassett in jail. If these antics of the mayor's secretary offended some people, they apparently amused others. An Associated Press correspondent named "Honest" John Spell and an Advertiser reporter, Mike Mitchell, decided to break Bassett out of prison. They cooked up their plot while under the influence of John Barleycorn. It must be kept in mind that all this took place during Prohibition. They wrapped a loaf of bread with a file sticking out of both ends in some newspaper then went to the jail, where they

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demanded to see Bassett. The desk sergeant said Bassett was asleep. The newspapermen held a whispered conference, then handed their package to the desk sergeant and asked that it be delivered. When a police attendant showed Bassett the loaf of bread with a file sticking out of it, he denied any intention of sawing his way out of jail. "I am on my usual three weeks vacation to the mayor," he said. "I have often thought that I would like to find some place off the beaten tourist path to spend part of it. This jail is just the place." 11 Republican supervisors did their best to embarrass the mayor over this fiasco. They tried to dock Bassett's pay for the week of his incarceration. Johnny submitted the question to Bill Heen, who delivered the opinion that there was no reason the mayor's secretary could not take his vacation in jail if he wanted to. Thus he was legally entitled to pay while relaxing behind bars.12 Johnny, who appreciated the taste of well-aged 'okolehao, probably enjoyed this comic relief from the heavy duties of his office. But he would soon discover the dark side of ridicule at the expense of law enforcement. It began in May 1923, when he got drawn into a controversy within his administration by David Trask, chairman of his civil service commission, who worked in the building inspector's department. Trask, a fiery and articulate part-Hawaiian Democrat, had become convinced that Arthur McDuffie, captain of detectives in the police department, was guilty of taking a diamond ring worth $2,000 from one John D. Austin. McDuffie energetically denied the charges. The civil service hearings in the McDuffie graft case became so heated that City Magistrate O. P. Soares, in whose courtroom the hearings were held, told Trask he would throw the commission out unless Trask could keep order. Johnny defended Trask, commending him as a "man with a stiff backbone." 13 When the hearings ended, commissioners Palmer P. Woods and John E. O'Conner voted against chairman Trask and cleared McDuffie. But Trask found more evidence of alleged police corruption in Wahiawa, the military town near Schofield Barracks, and his crusade to clean up the police department received strong voter support. Two public meetings called for law enforcement. The American Legion jumped into the fracas with a plan to

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organize Minute Men Vigilantes. These armed citizens would bring criminals to justice at no cost to the city. And several civic organizations proposed that August Vollmer, police chief at Berkeley, California, be called in to investigate the Honolulu Police Department. The mayor stood in the center of this storm. Johnny admitted that there was a lot of room for improvement, and he called for more police officers. He argued, "If he [Vollmer] had anything to say it would not be condemnation of the [Honolulu] police department. It would be sympathy for it, and surprise that it has met the conditions as well as it has." He told the American Legionnaires, "I do not believe that the administration of justice on your part and independent of the police would be practical or conducive to law and order."14 The mayor also pointed out that newspapers that had ridiculed Prohibition were now condemning the police for not enforcing the law.15 Then unsavory revelations produced by the Waikiki Social Club scandal in August 1923 caused irate citizens to complain that this speakeasy had operated for three months before it was raided by police. When an officer knocked on the door, a voice answered, "What are you bothering me for? You get yours, don't you?" Clinking of glasses could be heard.16 Trask's strong stand against police corruption projected him into the municipal campaign of 1923. He stood for sheriff on the Democratic ticket and electrified rally audiences. Eloquent and emotional, he blasted the police administration of fellow Democrat Charlie Rose. Trask became the hero of the primary campaign and W. K. Bassett, who filed for supervisor (and whose resignation Johnny had finally accepted), the clown. Yet there was more to Bassett than alcoholic escapades. A talented journalist, he started a weekly protest newspaper called the New Freedom in which he espoused his antiestablishment views with bitter humor and imagination, for which he was severely chastised by important community leaders whom he called to task. As a result, he came to be considered by his admirers as a martyr crucified by his powerful critics. Link, in a burst of McCandless rhetoric from the stump, called Bassett the "Jesus Christ" of Hawai'i. 17 Still unable to keep away from the bottle, Bassett got drunk again in early October and smashed a rental automobile for which

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he could not pay the fee of $40. The owner of the rental car company, one E. A. Davis, beat the mayor's former secretary so badly he had to be taken to Queen's Hospital for repairs before serving a jail sentence for drunken and heedless driving. 18 The 1 9 2 3 primary campaign for sheriff of Honolulu was called the most bitter in history. Trask won it by about 1 0 0 votes. Johnny swamped Jonah Kumalae 5,853 to 779 for nomination as Democratic candidate for mayor. Bassett, again out of jail, polled surprisingly well and won a place on the Democratic ticket for supervisor. The general election that followed in November reflected the ambivalent moral attitudes of the time. Johnny won reelection as mayor. Trask, the spokesman for law enforcement, became sheriff. W. K. Bassett, the jailbird, was elected to the board of supervisors with the third highest vote of all the candidates in both parties.

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Voters gave the Republicans a four-to-three majority on the board of supervisors for Johnny's second term. Given the mayor's stubbornness and the contentious nature of the GOP leader on the board, it is not surprising that city hall quickly erupted in bickering that resulted in a fist fight. The mayor's adversary in fisticuffs was Ben Hollinger, a curlyhaired, pug-nosed Republican tire dealer who had been reelected to the board of supervisors. Hollinger had suffered through four years of Johnny Wilson and a Democratic majority, in his opinion a tragic aberration in local politics. During this time Johnny Wilson had assumed the responsibilities normally reserved for warmhearted and civic-minded Republican supervisors like Hollinger: providing city jobs for grateful voters, opening parks to the applause of parents, widening streets and building sewers that earned editorial praise, riding camels at the zoo before busy newspaper photographers. Now, at last, the city business could again be carried on in a proper manner. Hollinger led his majority of four into battle as the new administration took charge on Wednesday, January 2, 1924. His army of fellow Republican supervisors was colorful if not distinguished. There was Hollinger's water boy, Sunny Cunha, a grossly overweight (about 400 pounds) former sports star and song writer, taking his first elective office. Bill Ahia, in the sash and door business, had the advantage of political experience. E.W. Quinn tended to think a little too much for himself, but Hollinger had to put up with him. This quartet of gladiators was arrayed on the board against three Democrats: veteran and ailing William McClellan, capable Lester Petrie of the Oahu Railway, and the indomitable W. K. Bas-

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sett. In his second-floor office directing traffic was Hollinger's nemesis, the evil genius of the Democrats, Johnny Wilson. The opening move had already taken place. Fred Ohrt, Johnny's respected head of public works, had turned in his resignation in December. Johnny wanted to replace him with a Democrat. Hollinger had other ideas. He held out for Republican chairmanships of all committees of the board. With the GOP majority on the board, this would give the Republicans control of city hall. Johnny wanted the chairmanships divided to reflect the popular vote: four for the Republicans and three for the Democrats. A final caucus of the new board to peaceably settle this disagreement came to naught because Hollinger and his fellow Republicans absented themselves an hour before the noon deadline, when the Republican majority would take control. The mayor hastily called into session the old board with a Democratic majority. He appointed his building inspector, Louis Cain, a strong Democrat and Wilson backer, to take Ohrt's place as city engineer. He appointed Lewis Abshire, a civil engineer and another faithful Democrat, to fill Cain's position. The old board confirmed both appointments. 1 Hollinger was enraged. The next day his Republicans passed out committee assignments. Hollinger took finance, Quinn took roads, Cunha took water, and Ahia took parks. The Republicans gave the Democratic minority one committee, police, with Bassett, the expert on jails, as chairman. 2 Hollinger then drew up a budget. Not only did he entirely reject all assistance from the mayor, who normally submits the budget, but he threw in a clause eliminating Cain and Abshire from the city payroll. The Republican majority promptly passed the budget, and Johnny just as promptly vetoed it. This left the city and county workers with the prospect of no pay checks, because the Republicans were unable to muster the five votes necessary to override the veto. 3 George C. Ross, special deputy auditor, was busy at this time inspecting the books of the water department; Dan Pahu, the chief clerk, came under indictment for taking $43.95 that did not belong to him.4 At a rancorous board meeting on February 26, 1 9 2 4 , Hollinger hurled charges at the mayor of embezzlement in the water department, insisting that Pahu was only the tip of the iceberg.

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Johnny refused to be stampeded. He said the investigation was under way and in the hands of the city and county attorney. Until the evidence came in, the mayor would not comment on Hollinger's charges.5 Thereupon the Republican leader undertook his own crusade to clean up the waterworks. On February 29 he announced that $20,000 was missing, but he did not give details. On March 20 Hollinger predicted that the cash shortage in the waterworks would reach $200,000 by the time he presented his evidence. Two days later auditor Ross resigned, with the comment that it was a thankless job (because of Hollinger's interference). The Republican majority voted funds to hire private investigators, an action Johnny said was illegal. By this time, in the opinion of many, Hollinger had become the white knight of city hall. He received a temporary setback on May 1, 1924, when the territory's supreme court ruled that Cain and Abshire had been appointed legally. At that point the Republicans voted to reduce their salaries to $ 1 a year, but neither would quit.6 Respectable Republican leaders downtown generally applauded Hollinger's energy and the embarrassment it caused the Democratic mayor, but cooler heads found the bickering at city hall distasteful. A self-appointed committee of Republican businessmen headed by Senator William Mclnerny therefore called on the mayor to offer a compromise.7 They proposed that Cain and Abshire hold office for six months and then retire in favor of appointees acceptable to Hollinger. This would atone for the fast shuffle Wilson had dealt the Republicans by his last-minute appointments. Johnny received the delegation courteously and took their suggestion under advisement while the Star-Bulletin editorially advised him to meet the committee half way. After pondering the matter, Johnny announced that it seemed strange to him that the committee had not accepted the opinion of the supreme court. In his view, Hollinger was guilty of a "serious error," trying to run the office of mayor. Johnny said the Republican majority seemed to believe, perhaps sincerely, that they had the right to control the executive functions of the city but that this was never contemplated in the law, and he could not compromise the statute.8 On June 1 7 the committee proposed a second compromise to

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solve the Cain-Abshire dispute. They suggested that Cain return to his post as building inspector and Fred Ohrt be brought back at $ 1 0 , 0 0 0 a year, more than twice the normal salary, as city and county engineer. The Democratic supervisors rejected this idea on the grounds that the voters should not pay extra just to satisfy Hollinger.9 Johnny said later that he resented Hollinger's grandstanding and his leaking of confidential information gathered by accredited investigators. It is true that Johnny had tried to overhaul accounting procedures at city hall three years before, at which time Hollinger was not interested. Yet the mayor was clearly on the defensive, and as a result, his stubbornness set in. More and more, the dispute became a battle of wills between two bullheaded politicians. The rancor came to a head at the close of a board of supervisors meeting on August 6, 1924. A melee broke out in the hallway between the aggressive Louis Cain and Republican supervisor Bill Ahia. This led to angry words between the mayor and Hollinger. Johnny responded by punching Hollinger in the nose. The Republican supervisor, though a big sports fan, immediately retired to safer ground. 10 In later years, Johnny admitted that he was ashamed of himself for taking such a direct approach toward their disagreement. But at the time, there was no evidence at all that he was sorry. His behavior reminded old-timers of C.B.Wilson. "For seven months Ben Hollinger has been insulting me," Johnny told reporters. "That he is a coward is shown by the fact that he wouldn't fight back. He proved by refusing to fight that he's of a cowardly type, and that he has nothing back of the bullying tactics that so far have marked his conduct in the board of supervisors." There was much more in the same vein that is probably best forgotten. 11 A crowd jammed the courtroom of Municipal Judge Harry Steiner the next day when Johnny pleaded guilty to assault. He later paid a fine of $20. But the ugly war at city hall was only beginning. On August 1 3 Hollinger presented his long-promised list of charges, many vague but some more specific, of alleged corruption in Johnny's administration. 12 Johnny replied that these

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charges were not only out of date but had already been disproved. Former building inspector Cain called Hollinger's charges false and malicious. 13 By this time the grand jury had begun to hear witnesses about corruption in the waterworks. Jesse Uluihi, chief clerk of the water department and a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, was hauled up on charges of extorting money from water users.14 Uluihi proclaimed his innocence and asked for a hearing. Johnny refused to fire him until the evidence was in. Hollinger accused the mayor of stonewalling. By the end of August, an auditor had uncovered a petty cash shortage of $10,373 in the water department. City Attorney Heen ordered an investigation. The grand jury indicted Uluihi on a charge of extorting $150; Hollinger continued to broaden his o w n investigation into other departments. Star-Bulletin reporter Mike Mitchell wrote a humorous story lampooning the Republican supervisor's magnifying glass surveillance of city hall. 15 O n September 5, 1924, the Star-Bulletin took editorial notice of the lack of real work being done by the board of supervisors. M a n o a residents complained about not getting water, and a team of auditors advised that the water department would soon collapse unless it was bolstered instead of torn apart. The unpredictable W. K. Bassett further complicated matters by skipping town in the middle of September. Johnny said later that he advised Bassett to go. But at the time the mayor told reporters that the departure took him by surprise as it did everyone else. So it appears that Bassett slipped away without telling most of his friends. His New Freedom newspaper was in debt, and he left behind staff members w h o had not been paid. The Star-Bulletin reported that Bassett had donated his entire $100 per month salary to the Kalihi Boys Home during his tenure on the board of supervisors. 16 N o w the Republican majority on the board refused to accept Johnny's appointments to replace Bassett. Cunha, the overweight musician, demanded a Republican replacement, even though Bassett had been elected as a Democrat. It was not until January 6, 1925, that the Republican majority on the board of supervisors confirmed Johnny's appointment of E. E. Bodge, a Democratic businessman, to replace Bassett.

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The waterworks continued to embarrass Johnny. A jury found James P. Awana, a water department employee, guilty of embezzlement. On the bright side, a judge pronounced Jesse Uluihi not guilty. To quiet the criticism, Johnny talked the former governor, Charles McCarthy, a conservative Democrat, into taking over the waterworks. 17 The Republican legislature that convened in February quickly administered spankings for the bickering at city hall. Some critics demanded the office of mayor be abolished. Experienced lawmakers like Mclnerny refused to go that far, but the legislature shortened the term of mayor from four years to two. 18 In addition, a new law went into effect that prohibited supervisors from transacting private business with the city.19 Legislation taking the water department out of the hands of the city and county and placing it under an independent commission20 that eventually became known as the Board of Water Supply passed both houses. Johnny protested vigorously, but his appeals fell on deaf ears. Fred Ohrt took charge and did an outstanding job. Hollinger continued to assume the direction of city business while it degenerated into shambles. Republicans in the legislature declined to discipline him, but they also refused to appropriate funds to support his budget. This refusal resulted in pay cuts at city hall, which, of course, were resented by city employees. On July 7, 19x5, Bill Heen resigned as city and county attorney. On July 29, David L. Conkling, city and county treasurer, was indicted on charges of embezzlement. Johnny immediately fired him. Now supervisors began resigning with such frequency that new faces entered and departed as if through a revolving door. Johnny valiantly tried to find replacements while Hollinger and Cunha fought them. By the end of the year the city and county was in such financial straits as a result of Hollinger's budget that police had to volunteer for traffic duty because there was no money to pay them. McCarthy, head of the waterworks, negotiated a private loan to keep the water flowing through Christmas. On December 9 Hollinger invaded the police station and demanded the resignation of thirty-one cops to meet his budget. The Star-Bulletin organized a fund to pay traffic officers. Hollinger's new budget as 1926 dawned was greeted by all concerned with dismay.21 The Commission on Public Accountancy

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called it a farce. But the dauntless Republican supervisor would not be convinced. On January 28 a responsible Republican finally tried to rein in the rambunctious GOP representative at city hall. Frank C. Atherton, publisher of the Star-Bulletin, printed a long open letter that devoted most of its criticism to castigating Johnny for his stubbornness but also reminded Hollinger that his irresponsible behavior had caused hardship to innocent citizens.22 Johnny quickly took advantage of Atherton's interest in city affairs by offering to appoint him to fill a vacancy on the board if he would accept.23 Atherton was not quite that interested. Hol-linger meanwhile made committee assignments that eliminated Democrats entirely from city affairs. His budget gave raises to city employees in departments he favored; other departments did not receive raises. On June 1 5 Democratic supervisors announced that Hollinger's budget would be about $250,000 short of appropriations and tax moneys necessary to support it. About this time a political science professor at the University of Hawaii wrote a series of articles for the Star-Bulletin in which he opined that there was nothing wrong with the city and county administration except the people in charge. The professor pointed out that the supervisors were consistently violating their own rules.24 It was in this climate that the campaign of 1926 got under way. McCarthy resigned from the water department. Johnny took time out to attend the funeral of his father, who died on September 1 3 , 1926, then got up at 6 A.M. to address dockworkers. Marmion Magoon, a businessman, volunteered as Democratic campaign manager, and rallies for the primary election began. On the stump, Johnny blamed Republican attorney Alfred L. Castle for masterminding the GOP crusade to take over city hall. The mayor didn't believe Hollinger was smart enough to do it by himself. Castle denied the charges. He said Hollinger, Cunha, and Ahia were not water buffaloes who could be led around by the nose and that he had advised them only on legal matters. Results of the primary election demonstrated that the fiasco at city hall had rubbed off on Johnny. His Republican opponent for the office of mayor was Senator Charles Arnold, who had also served on the board of supervisors. He polled so strongly that he missed outright election in the primary by only 197 votes. Johnny played hardball in the general campaign. He reminded

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Democratic city employees that they would be fired if Arnold was elected mayor. The Democrats worked up a lot of enthusiasm before the election, and five thousand voters attended the final Democratic rally at 'A'ala Park. But they did not save the mayor's job. He lost to Arnold by 3 2 1 votes. The election did provide Johnny with satisfactions. Republicans Hollinger; Ahia, and Cunha all lost their seats on the board. Yew Char, a Democrat, was voted to the house of representatives as the first Chinese to sit in that body. And Dai Yen Chang, another Democrat, became the first Chinese elected to the board of supervisors. The defeated mayor had been right about one thing. The day after the election, the Star-Bulletin predicted the collapse of the Democratic party because about seven hundred Democrats holding city and county jobs were up for appointment by the new mayor and "it is entirely possible that the new administration will exercise its power as it sees fit." 2S

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Johnny retired to a house at the end of the streetcar line in a raw, new suburb of Honolulu called Kaimukl. To get there one followed old Wai'alae Road as it emerged from a cluster of roadside florists in Mo'ili'ili, curved around a quarry, and climbed Kaimukl Hill behind Diamond Head Crater amid lava boulders and red dirt. It was here that Kini and Johnny lived on ioth Avenue. The chicken and hog pens they kept in back were not unique in such outlying districts of Honolulu, yet the press of population and the price of land kept pushing such agricultural pursuits farther and farther into the countryside. We have to assume that this is one reason Johnny, always restless during periods of inactivity, decided to move farther out to Wai'alae. Old photographs taken from the far slope of Kaimukl Hill looking over out over Wai'alae toward the volcano crater called Koko Head show a dirt road leading into a barren expanse of scrub stretching from the mountains to the sea. At the bottom of the hill was a valley on the left, then another and another and another all the way to Koko Head, each valley devoted to dairy ranches or hog pens if there was anything there at all except kiawe trees, gnarled and thorny and related to mesquite. Far away on the ocean side, a line of palm trees marked the affluent beach cottage community of Kahala. Almost all this land was owned by the Bishop Estate from royal holdings inherited by Bernice Pauahi Bishop of the Kamehameha line, and the income produced by the land supported the Kamehameha Schools for Hawaiian children. The Bishop Estate acquired its income by leasing the land. So the trustees must have been happy to lease a couple of farm plots in the valley at the bottom of the hill to Johnny Wilson in 1927.

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His hog pens and chicken coops fit right in with those of his neighbors, mostly Japanese farmers. He said he sold his property in Kaimukl, purchased in 1909 for 3 cents a square foot, for 35 cents a foot in 192.7. 1 Johnny had no intention of limiting himself to hogs and chickens in Wai'alae Nui Valley. To him, the boulder-studded desolation was a fresh opportunity. He would clear away the boulders on sixteen acres and then divide the property into lots for houses. The boulders would be fed into a rock crusher to be erected as another profitable enterprise, for the crushed rock could be sold to road contractors. This activity would be called the Waialae Land Company, and his investors would be mostly Japanese of modest means.2 But Johnny did not talk about it because he had learned to be secretive concerning his business plans. Large, established firms had a way of stealing good ideas from small operators like himself or squeezing them out. So these dreams were still confined to his agile brain ready to be announced at the proper time. Now he was concerned with building a house for Kini in Wai'alae Nui Valley on red dirt amid the boulders and kiawe. He drew a rough sketch of the floor plan in his diary.3 The plan shows seven rooms plus two lanais, the largest room being eighteen by twelve feet. This house was sturdily constructed of brown lava stone. The cattle barn, hog pens, and chicken coops went in nearby. One person who remembers the house at about this time is Nona Beamed member of a large, part-Hawaiian extended family talented in both song and dance. She was then a small child, and her grandmother brought the Beamer children to Kini for hula instruction. Nona painted a vivid word picture of Kini and Johnny in their Wai'alae Valley home. "The house always smelled of dried fish," said Nona. Uncle Johnny was such a sweet, gentle man. In the twenties, he drove an open touring car with pockets in the door. He took butterscotch candies out of the pockets for the Beamer kids He was straight and tall [to a child] with a pince-nez. He spoke formal English. We went to the house for hula lessons [Kini] sat in a rocking chair and spoke only Hawaiian. Kids were to be seen and not heard. She had a cane [In performing the hula], there was no waste motion. Her

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gestures were well defined, not fluid w i t h a soft wrist. E v e r y t h i n g staccato. T h a t ' s w h a t I remember a b o u t her, intense. She w o u l d talk to g r a n d m a [giving instructions in H a w a i i a n ] . G r a n d m a w o u l d tell us and w e w o u l d d o it. T h e n if she [Kini] didn't like w h a t w e did, she w o u l d lash out w i t h her cane. I w a s a b o u t five

She w a s an honest person. L o t s of H a w a i i a n s w e r e secretive

a b o u t the hula, almost ashamed. Auntie Jennie w a s very decisive a n d articulate. She w a s kind of a homebody, kind of a hermit. She never g o t out. 4

While Johnny built his house in 1927, the Matson Navigation Company erected a new luxury hotel on Waiklkl Beach, the Royal Hawaiian, as a destination resort for the white ocean liners that brought tourists to Hawai'i in increasing numbers. The Royal, a pink palace in the Mediterranean style, employed Hawaiian musicians and hula dancers to entertain guests. In this way, the Hawaiian dance began to escape its reputation for indecency. The hotels also presented luaus for the guests, and Johnny's diary indicates that he and Kini supplied Hawaiian food for these events to supplement their sales of eggs and hogs.5 Johnny's diary in August and September 1927 lists sales to the Moana and Royal Hawaiian hotels of items such as mullet, poi, dried aku (tuna), lu'au (taro top), sweet potatoes, pineapples, water melons, squid, 'opihi (limpets), ti leaves, and paper napkins. While Johnny and Kini eked out a living by catering luaus, he kept in touch with concerns of the Democratic party by correspondence. The party's most persistent curmudgeon, T.J. "Hilo" Ryan, wrote from Kurtistown on the Big Island about his experience as a small homesteader in competition with Olaa Plantation. He explained that small planters raised half the cane grown at Olaa, but the low prices the plantation paid made the work a losing proposition. This was at a time when plantations were complaining about a labor shortage and were bringing in immigrants from the Philippines. If Ryan's letters to Johnny were convoluted, they were also to the point. He wrote: T h e small planters are raising more cane per acre and a better quality cane than the sugar companies are raising on their o w n land, and yet they will not give the small planter as much for his cane raised w i t h o u t assistance of either men or money as it cost the sugar c o m p a n y to raise cane on their o w n land by the old g a n g system. 6

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By 192.8 Johnny was ready to put his stone crusher in operation. First he had to obtain a building permit. Harry Stewart, the building inspector and an old friend, was about to issue the permit when a letter of complaint signed by three hundred property owners in the Kaimukl-Wai'alae area arrived at city hall. They objected to the building of a stone crusher within city limits.7 Johnny believed that he was being persecuted once again by the big boys, who must have stirred up opposition to his quarry and stone crusher because they didn't want competition. Supervisor G. Fred Wright, a Republican and chairman of the public works committee, held up the permit. Johnny felt aggrieved that his noble plan to "make poor land fit to live on" should be greeted with such suspicion. However, the lively Democratic territorial convention on April 2 6, 1928, turned his attention again to politics. Johnny was again elected as national committeeman. He insisted that the delegation be instructed to vote for A1 Smith.8 Johnny asked for an instructed delegation because Link McCandless tended to forget Hawai'i interests at national conventions, where he reestablished ties with delegates from West Virginia, his home state. The territorial convention next turned its attention to nominating a delegate to Congress. Bill Jarrett had died. McCandless, disgruntled by having his hands tied at the national convention, petulantly announced that he would not run for delegate. This left the Democrats without a candidate. On May 16 Bertram Rivenburgh, a faithful but undistinguished Democrat, agreed to run. It was the best the party could do. Johnny sailed for the Houston convention on the Malolo on June 9, 1928, leaving Kini behind. University of Hawaii professor Thomas A. Bailey, who reported in a series of articles on the convention for the Star-Bulletin, wrote that the recently completed Sam Houston Hall provided the most modern conveniences for delegates: T h e r e are several gigantic fans in the roof capable of c h a n g i n g the air m a n y times during an hour. In addition, scores of small revolving fans are placed at strategic points. M o r e than 2 0 Frigidaire w a t e r coolers provide ice w a t e r f o r parched throats. A n d outside and inside there are countless h a w k e r s of cold drinks and sandwiches.

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A new invention called amplifiers carried the voices of speakers to every corner of the hall. According to Bailey, the major failing of the Democrats was that they talked too much. However; he was impressed by the eloquence of a speechmaker from Hawai'i who was traveling with Johnny, Bill Heen. By the time Heen rose to second the nomination of A1 Smith once again, the convention delegates were worn to a frazzle. Then an unexpected thing happened. "As Heen stood there in his light suit with two golden leis around his neck, the crowd sensed something unusual," Bailey wrote. T h e y sank into silence after having m a d e plenty of noise while the former speaker w a s yelling

H e w a s the only speaker since s o m e of

the big guns of the p a r t y had occupied the p l a t f o r m to c o m m a n d the attention of the m o v i e men. His address w a s brief and w a s one of the most effectively delivered seconding speeches of the day. It seemed a bit amusing to me to see this native H a w a i i a n standing in a D e m o c r a t i c convention and beating these southern orators at their o w n g a m e . " H e speaks better English than I d o , " one guest f r o m A l a b a m a remarked to me. 9

Hawai'i delegate Walter J. Doyle said Franklin Roosevelt told him to pass along his best wishes to Walter Dillingham, a college classmate. Then Doyle and Heen set out with Johnny for New York, where he attended a meeting of the national committee on July i i , 1928. Johnny didn't return to Hawai'i until August 29. During his absence, Billy Miles, chairman of the O'ahu County Democratic Committee, took out nomination papers for Johnny in the mayor's race. But his campaign got off to a bad start. He was greeted shortly after he arrived in Honolulu by an irate group of householders from Kahala Heights, an area that is not on the map, determined to put his rock crusher out of business.10 The Democrats opened their campaign two days before the Republicans on September 1 7 , 1928, at 'A'ala Park with thirtyone candidates on the platform and four thousand spectators in front. Johnny again appealed to the voters on the basis of his experience. He defended his stubbornness in the cause of good government, admitted that some Republicans were capable but

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said they were not so concerned for the little man as were the Democrats, and promised to see any voter who came to his office as mayor. Democratic women, too, pitched into the campaign. Mrs. Helene Magoon, wife of the candidate for supervisor, was head of the auxiliary. Kini served as first vice-president. They attended precinct meetings to get out the Democratic vote. 11 Residents of Kahala Heights continued to embarrass Johnny. They circulated a petition demanding that he state his position on the stone crusher, which, they said, would endanger the health of two thousand schoolchildren. Johnny took the position that the stone crusher would not be within the city limits and was therefore permissible. The site of the stone crusher was a good half mile from the school and much farther from Kahala Beach, where the protest seemed to originate.12 Republicans ended their primary campaign by plowing through sixty candidates, each given four minutes on the platform, in a rally that must have left voters limp. Democrats were even more exhausted after a five-hour rally.13 But spectators gave Johnny H. Wilson a resounding ovation. The primary and general elections of 1928 produced some new wrinkles in Hawai'i politics. On election night, results were announced for the first time by loudspeaker from new sound equipment hired by the Star-Bulletin. The loudspeakers were also used to broadcast World Series games to street-corner audiences.14 And Republicans for the first time tried house-to-house campaigning. Johnny denounced this innovation as an unfair tactic, probably because the Democrats didn't have the staff to compete door to door.15 In the general election, Republican Charles Arnold and Democrat John Wilson ran neck and neck. The result of the mayor's race was still in doubt when the Star-Bulletin's curbside and radio election reporting activities finally folded up at 12:30 A.M. It was not until the next morning that 1 3 1 votes put Johnny back into the mayor's office. He would again have to work with a four-to-three Republican majority on the board of supervisors. Republican Pat Gleason became sheriff, and the legislature, as usual, belonged to the GOP, with Bill Heen the only Democrat in the senate. Republican dele-

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gate to Congress Victor K. Houston easily beat Democrat Rivenburgh. Johnny's old classmate at Stanford, Herbert Hoover, beat Al Smith by a landslide to become president of the United States. Johnny Wilson remained one of the few Democrats in Hawai'i who could beat the Republicans.

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Johnny reoccupied his old office on the second floor of the Kapiolani Building, the temporary city hall, on January 2, 1929, while accountants at Alexander and Baldwin added up profits of $2 million for the previous year. Maui Agriculture made in excess of $ 1 million.1 The stock market continued to climb. It appeared that the good times would never end. But Johnny discovered that there was something artificial about this prosperity. If the big companies were making money, it wasn't filtering down to the people. In all his political experience, he was never so overwhelmed with applications for city and county jobs. By December 1 2 , 1928, some 460 workers had applied, with expectations that the total would reach 700. Before the December 17 deadline, 936 people had asked for work. 2 There were the usual requests from high-placed party members expecting favors, like the letter Johnny received from Curtis Iaukea in behalf of his son, Fred. Fifty-two of the friends of Cornelious Gumpher signed a petition respectfully requesting that he be hired as the mayor's chauffeur.3 But most of the applicants were simply desperate for a job, any kind of a job. Julius Asch, the former deputy sheriff, had fallen on hard times like many others. He wrote to Johnny: "Is there not some position in the city government I can fill? I am up against it and need a job more than I ever needed anything in my life. Can you do anything for me?" 4 The Star-Bulletin reported on January 3, the day after Johnny was sworn in, "Throngs of job-seekers...lined the corridors and the outer office of Mayor Wilson; [while] some of the mountains of flowers and leis which decked the desks and personages of the new administration still exuded their fragrance and beautified the scene."5

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Johnny believed that government should make jobs for people in times of hardship, a philosophy the New Deal later put into practice. But before he could act on this radical proposal he had to establish working relations with his board of supervisors. Fortunately, it went more smoothly than the press predicted. One reason was that the board this time contained some superior people. On the Republican side were quiet and respected Lawrence Judd, manager of the Hawaii Meat Company, who excelled in negotiation and compromise rather than confrontation, and G. Fred Wright, an experienced and capable supervisor, tough but fair, the top vote-getter for the Republicans. Judd and Wright balanced the inexperience of Ned Chillingworth and John A. Hughes. Veteran Manuel Pacheco headed the Democratic team. In later years, Arthur Trask called Pacheco a statesman for his dedication to good government. He outpolled even Fred Wright. Dai Yen Chang had a season on the board under his belt. The most aggressive of the Democrats was Louis Cain, and Johnny had to rein him in a time or two. Contrary to editorial expectations, the majority Republicans permitted the minority Democrats to take the most important committee chairmanships. The mayor was careful to reciprocate by an evenhanded allotment of important appointments, thirteen to the GOP, thirteen to his own party, although militant Democrats like Louis Cain didn't like it.6 Johnny appointed fourteen haoles, eleven Hawaiians, and one Portuguese to major jobs. Auntie Harriet Ne said the mayor hosted monthly luncheons for his Hawaiian city hall workers at the Alexander Young Hotel dining room, a haole social center furnished with snowy linen tablecloths and gleaming silver, to teach them etiquette.7 He befriended non-Hawaiians as well. When a younger brother of Tuck Yee Yap, a Wilson supporter, graduated from Punahou prep school, Johnny got him into crowded Stanford, although only children of alumni were being admitted. The mayor explained later that he had written to the Stanford president to say that he considered Tuck "one of my boys." 8 We can assume that the mayor took pride in the modernization of Honolulu when the first automatic traffic signals went into operation on March n , 1929. The new traffic signals were tech-

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nological marvels, using not only red and green lights to direct the motorists, but also sound and semaphore.9 From traffic the mayor turned to garbage, which turned out to be a major challenge to his new administration. Garbage collectors had grappled with the problem of where to put it for some time. Residents of Kaimukl had exploded in protest because garbage trucks dumped in an old quarry. Harassed refuse workers were filling swamps in Kapi'olani Park with garbage, and the StarBulletin took a stern view of such a haphazard solution to the problem. Editor Riley Allen asked in editorial indignation, "Will holes in the Royal Hawaiian Hotel grounds be used? Or Moana lua Gardens, or the Waialae Country Club? How about Iolani Palace Grounds?"10 The beach road along Ala Moana, the back yard of Honolulu, had became a city dump because it was out of sight and convenient. Now citizens complained about the health hazard and about the stray dogs, of which there were an uncounted number, that foraged at the dump. Dogs had always roamed the city at will. The capture of twenty-one dogs at the Ala Moana dump, as the result of a new pound law, must have convinced the mayor that he'd better tend to the garbage problem. He went about it in his usual disciplined way. There were several accepted methods to dispose of garbage: It could be taken by barge to sea and dumped, a method used in the past. It could be used as landfill. Or it could be incinerated. Johnny, working closely with his supervisors, decided on incineration. The city, therefore, would build a plant to burn the garbage and thereby dispose of it.11 The next step was to decide where to place the incinerator. Johnny and the supervisors picked Kewalo, on the shore of Honolulu Harbor near the entrance channel, as a site convenient to the source of garbage.12 Star-Bulletin editor Riley Allen took exception to this decision. He launched a crusade against placing so unsightly a structure as an incinerator at the mouth of the harbor, where it would be the first Honolulu landmark tourists would see on arrival. Since Riley was also president of the Honolulu Chamber of Commerce, he had considerable leverage. He went to Lawrence Judd, recently appointed governor; for satisfaction. Judd, who believed in compromise, found a new site

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in Kalihi, much to the approval of the Outdoor Circle, a formidable group of matrons who had abolished billboard advertising in Hawai'i to the applause of everybody except people in the advertising business. The matrons championed Riley Allen. Then the influential Ad Club also lined up behind the Judd site. In spite of this enthusiasm, engineering studies demonstrated that the Judd site was too small to accommodate all the garbage generated by the growing city of Honolulu. Even Lyman Bigelow, Judd's territorial director of public works, came out against it. The governor conceded that his plan wouldn't work. Construction of the incinerator at Kewalo went forward while Riley Allen and members of the Outdoor Circle grumbled in the background.' 3 By this time the mayor was receiving thirty to forty applications for work per day from unemployed voters while the city needed sewers and roads. So Johnny pushed hard for a major public works program that would provide jobs for the unemployed and, at the same time, would result in necessary public improvements. To finance this scheme, he would borrow $ 1 , 3 2 0 , 0 0 0 by issuing municipal bonds that would be repaid from tax revenues. A reluctant board of supervisors voted in July 1929 to invoke a referendum on the bond issue, a move that Johnny approved. He took his case to the people, lecturing to civic clubs, while critics accused him of crying "unemployment" to make jobs for Democrats. The mayor pointed out that approximately half the money would be spent under the direction of Lyman Bigelow, territorial superintendent of public works, who worked for a Republican administration. He added: If y o u d o u b t that there is widespread u n e m p l o y m e n t in H o n o l u l u , just sit in this office for one d a y and listen to the appeals f r o m scores of sober, industrious people w h o s e only desire is a chance to w o r k S o m e of them tell me they have been out of w o r k for four and five w e e k s and, frankly, I don't k n o w h o w they exist. F o r with all of o u r p r o g r e s s . . . life is becoming harder in H a w a i i , and especially for the Hawaiians.14

But the Honolulu Realty Board, headed by Republican Samuel Wilder King, announced in August that it would oppose the bond issue if it resulted in an increased tax rate. Johnny received

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another setback when the city attorney ruled that the plebiscite must be postponed because of an error in publication. During the sixty-day postponement of the plebiscite, public opinion shifted. Democratic supervisor Dai Yen Chang changed his mind and decided to oppose the bond issue. On September 26, 1 9 2 9 , a canvass of voters indicated that the plebiscite would fail. Johnny put it off for another week, hoping for a turnaround. On October 9 the board of supervisors voted the entire project down in a fog of words. 15 Ten days later, panic on Wall Street caused the stock market to crash in the first of a series of plunges from thirty to ninety-six points day after day. Investors scrambled to unload their holdings; losses totaled billions of dollars. In Hawai'i on November 8, 1 9 2 9 , city engineer Lou Whitehouse announced that he had only $267,000 available to complete $4 million in recommended improvements. He said $800,000 had been taken out of the $1,067,000 permanent improvement fund for "necessities," leaving only $267,000. Hard times had become official. December provided a diversion because the new city hall, officially named Honolulu Hale and designed in Moorish style, opened its doors to the public on the seventeenth. The mayor proudly received visitors in his big office on the second floor facing King Street on the Punchbowl side. At last, the City and County of Honolulu had a spacious and handsome home to call its own. Johnny properly recalled the efforts of other mayors, as well as his own, that had made it happen. 16 But female employees on the third floor were less than pleased by the accommodations male planners had provided in their rest room. The ladies complained that the rest room lacked linoleum, shades, and an awning while such amenities were provided in the rest rooms at Theo. H. Davies, Bishop National Bank, the Hawaiian Electric Company, the Y W C A , and Liberty House downtown, and Gumps in Waiklkl. Mrs. Faith W. Axtell, in the bureau of plans, led the revolt, assisted by Mrs. Emila Kramer, Miss Mapuana Peters, and Mrs. Helen Parish of the legal department. They drew up a budget of $ 9 4 7 that corrected the situation. 17 Belt tightening became the order of the day in government with the dawn of 1 9 3 0 . But there was disagreement about whose belt

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to tighten. When the Republican majority on the board voted to spend $70,140 for twenty-eight more police officers, Johnny vetoed the bill. Johnny maintained that Sheriff Pat Gleason had not demonstrated the necessity for a larger police force. It may have been only coincidence that Gleason was a Republican and the mayor a Democrat. The board failed to override Johnny's veto, and the issue hung fire.18 Riots by unemployed workers broke out in ten mainland cities. Tear gas quieted a demonstration in front of the White House in Washington. In «Ionolulu a juvenile crime wave erupted; police made forty-two arrests, which they said cleared up sixty-five burglaries.19 F.Lang Akana, executive secretary of the Board of Industrial Schools, blamed part of the problem on a heavy migration of workers from the plantations to the city, where there was not enough work for them; many spent their time hanging around pool rooms.20 "Mother" Margaret Waldron, the hardheaded and bighearted keeper of Atkinson Park in Kaka'ako, recommended that the Y M C A swimming pool be kept open in the evenings so young men would have something to do. On March n , 1930, Johnny told a Star-Bulletin reporter that he was besieged by a hundred job seekers daily. He pointed out that the bond issue could have provided work for many of the unemployed and that government construction projects had fallen off. "Unless the people of Honolulu start something to give these men work, we will have to start a breadline," the mayor said. "They don't care what their jobs are—they want to eat." 21 That woke a few people up. Governor Judd, saying he was impressed by the mayor's concern, called a citizens meeting for Wednesday, March 19, to go into the matter. The governor invited Johnny to attend. On March 1 7 the board of supervisors voted $100,000 for road improvements to relieve unemployment. Two days later, the Chamber of Commerce announced it would make an unemployment survey. A questionnaire went out to seventyfive firms. A month later the Chamber of Commerce committee recommended help for the jobless. Findings of the committee included the information that unemployment was most severe among the unskilled class and that the largest single factor was a migration

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of agricultural labor from the country to the city. Johnny could have told the committee members that before they started their survey.22 The police department also occupied the mayor's attention during 1930. Johnny contended that the force had become top-heavy with bosses: there had been only 1 executive for 9.3 men in the patrol division in 1926 compared to 1 executive for 4 men in 1929, only 3 supervisors for 21 men in the detective division in 1926 compared to 6 supervisors for the same number of men in 1929. Johnny finally agreed to hire 38 more policemen; the sheriff reciprocated by adopting some of the mayor's recommendations for an overhaul of the department.23 Although 1930 was an election year, Hawai'i's Democratic politicians did not display much interest. The Star-Bulletin on August 18 reported that they were having trouble filling the ticket. Link McCandless, called upon at age seventy-one to run again for delegate, declined. Finally, at the end of August, he reluctantly stepped into harness for another campaign. Johnny waited until the deadline to file for mayor on September 5, 1930. Fred Wright had already been campaigning against him for nearly a month. John Wilson's campaign speech notes for 1930 indicate that he stressed the public works completed under his administrations, those he planned to undertake, and those that could have been started had the bond issue passed. There is no indication of wild promises or high-flown rhetoric. Johnny always appealed to common sense, not emotion. He remained as much an engineer as a politician. This time it didn't work. The Republicans drew ten thousand spectators, the Democrats three thousand on Friday, October 3, when the two parties held their final rallies for the primary campaign at opposite ends of 'A'ala Park. At the polling booths the next day, Republican Fred Wright received thirty votes more than a simple majority and was elected outright. It was Johnny's worst defeat, and he took it hard. So did a number of rank-and-file Democrats who had worked at voting booths. David Kepoikai, at the fifth precinct of the fourth district, said he had seen twenty-four improperly marked ballots counted for Fred Wright. Ioela Kiakahi said two haole inspectors had a bottle and were drinking from it while they

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counted votes at the ninth precinct of the fourth district. Another Democratic worker said sandwiches sent to Republican vote counters contained paper money instead of sprigs of lettuce. Billy Miles, chairman of the Democratic Territorial Central Committee, announced on October n that the party would ask for a recount, and attorney William B. Pittman filed fraud charges on behalf of the mayor. Judge A. E. Steadman ordered night sessions so the case could be disposed of quickly. Johnny testified in his own behalf, telling about the election workers who had reported irregularities. But fifteen paragraphs from the mayor's petition were immediately stricken as hearsay or too general. Then a recount of votes in the first precinct of the fourth district turned up no irregularities. On October 2.3, Judge Steadman dismissed the suit, and Johnny declared the matter pau, finished.24 He was fifty-eight years old and, by this time, voters of Honolulu had quite a clear picture of him. Detractors rightly complained that he was contentious, and criticism tended to make him overlook his faults rather than try to correct them. The dust and feathers that frequently flew when he did battle slowed the machinery of government as fog slowed traffic. He might have better served the voters had he been more diplomatic instead of insisting on having his own way. His administrations were plagued by the scandals at the municipal market and the waterworks. While no one ever doubted Johnny Wilson's honesty, his loyalty to friends seemed to make him reluctant or unable to deal properly with these problems. His high tolerance for disreputable behavior in close associates endeared him to admirers; but respectable friends like Riley Allen, who admired Johnny, must have been too embarrassed at times to admit their admiration. At the same time, Johnny Wilson—by the force of his personality—securely established the office of mayor as an important political post in spite of its limitations. He handled a period of explosive growth in his city with administrative skill and unfailing decision. While he did not originate the improvement district, he utilized this machinery for development of roads and sewers and other necessary infrastructure with unprecedented energy. And he expanded the public park system as no mayor had done before.

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Probably his most appealing trait was compassion that cut across racial lines. He spent much of his working day trying to find jobs for needy constituents. It was he who awakened the establishment to Honolulu's critical problem of unemployment at the beginning of the Great Depression. Clearly, during his terms of office John Wilson provided leadership that served his city well. When Johnny stepped down as mayor, he knew he had been in the wrong place at the wrong time during the election. He wrote to a friend in New York, "It has been very plainly brought home to me that the political effect of depression and unemployment is fatal to an incumbent If history repeats itself, we shall see a Democrat installed in the White House in 1 9 3 3 . " 2 5

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Defeat had a way of broadening Johnny's horizons. And so, when he departed from the mayor's office, it was to embark on a scheme as unlikely as his voyage on a whaleship. It happened that one Chang Chau, described on his letterhead as a general business agent and notary public in Honolulu, was at this time representing the government of China in efforts to build a road from Nanking to Shanghai. When negotiations with Walter H. Dillingham broke down, Chau turned to Link McCandless and Johnny Wilson. Figures scribbled by Johnny on leftover executive stationery indicate why he was interested: "Nanking to Shanghai, Hangkow to Nanking, 350 miles. Estimated cost $ 1 5 , 0 0 0 per mile or $5,250,000.'" Chang Chau represented Sun Fo, the minister of transportation in the government of Nationalist China. Sun Fo was the son of Sun Yat-sen, the late, great reformer of Chinese feudalism. Sun Yat-sen had been educated at Iolani School in Honolulu and his son at St. Louis College there. So it was only natural that the Nationalist Chinese turn to Hawai'i for help in building their road. Sun Fo extended an invitation for Link and Johnny to visit China and settle the matter.2 But there were annoying complications, chief of which was the inability of the Chinese government to pay for the road. Sun Fo could offer only bonds that had to be be purchased by bankers in the United States before construction could begin. Johnny sounded out a mainland banker friend 3 who told him he thought it would be impossible to dispose of Chinese bonds in the New York market. At this point, it appears, Link McCandless walked away from the deal.4 He and Johnny never made the trip to Nanking.

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So Johnny teamed up with his old partner Lou Whitehouse, on a new approach to his dream of making a fortune in China as the year 1 9 3 1 got under way. One way to provide security for the road bonds for investors would be to charge a toll on the road, the toll being used to pay off the bonds. Another method of payment could be a tax on the gasoline purchased by automobile users of the road. 5 Bankers, familiar with chaotic conditions in China, were not impressed, and Johnny's impossible dream went aglimmering. He and Kini continued to sell hogs and eggs in lonely Wai'alae Nui Valley. They also received a small income from a few rental properties. Their "family" now included wayward boys who helped on the farm. Johnny explained the arrangement in a letter to W. K. Bassett in California. "After you left here," Johnny wrote, " I became the foster father to a couple of kids that were turned over to me from the Salvation Army Boys Home. I built them a cottage in one corner of the farm." 6 Johnny's reports to the Salvation Army director show that he paid each of the boys a small wage for milking cows and other work and bought them clothing. Kini supervised their behavior when her husband was not there.7 The Wilsons also took in several youths from Tahiti who arrived on a yacht and had nowhere else to go. One other activity, which erupted in the kind of controversy that seemed to always follow Johnny, occupied him at the end of 1 9 3 1 . He and Republican Fred Lowrey were appointed jury commissioners for the first circuit court of the territory with salaries of $5 for each day of time they spent in the work. Each of the commissioners picked five hundred prospective jurors from a list of names of registered voters in the first circuit to make up a list of one thousand names from which juries could be drawn. 8 By coincidence, a jury picked from the names on Johnny's list sat on the most notorious court trial in the history of Hawai'i, the Massie case. The jury's verdict sent shock waves through the nation and resulted in criticism, at the highest levels in Washington, that the people of Hawai'i were not competent to govern themselves. The trouble began when four local youths were tried on a charge of raping Thalia Massie, a Navy lieutenant's wife, on a

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back road at the lower end of Waiklkl on Saturday, September i z, 1 9 3 1 . Feelings ran high against the accused, especially in N a v y circles. However, conflicting and inconclusive evidence did not convince members of the jury. They could not reach a verdict. An admiral launched outspoken criticism of this alleged injustice. During the tense period that followed, one of the accused youths was kidnapped by Mrs. Grace Hubbard Fortescue, socialite mother of Thalia Massie, and her son with the help of several Navy men. They murdered the kidnapped youth in an attempt to wring a confession from him, and were themselves put on trial. Mrs. Fortescue brought in Clarence Darrow as defense attorney for a second court case more sensational than the first. When the jury convicted the defendants, pressure brought to bear by the Navy was so severe that Hawai'i governor Lawrence Judd commuted the sentences of ten years to one hour.9 The conviction aroused resentment in Navy circles everywhere including the nation's capital. Hearst newspapers on the mainland took up the crusade to protect decent white women in Hawai'i from ravishment by bands of degenerates who lay in wait for them. Three different congressional committees held hearings about conditions in Hawai'i. One of the bills subsequently introduced into Congress would have permitted the president to appoint a mainlander as governor. Another bill called for a commission form of government, stripping Hawai'i residents of most of their voting rights. Assistant U.S. Attorney General Seth Richardson came to investigate law enforcement in Hawai'i, where, the critics contended, whites could not get a fair trial by local juries. Richardson concluded that the police department badly needed reform but that Hawai'i was generally governed as well as mainland states. As for juries in Hawai'i, Richardson had no criticism at all. He wrote that jury commissioner John Wilson was "of good judgement, honest, racially tolerant, intelligent and meeting in all respects the requirements of the statutes for such office." The assistant attorney general found the two jury commissioners to be "conscientious, honest, able, intelligent and as qualified as this method, or perhaps any method of selecting jury commissioners, could obtain." 10 Yet the decision of Johnny's jury would hurt him in the years to

2l8 / JOHNNY AND THE ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION come. As one historian put it, the Massie case caused "an irrational mistrust [of local Hawaiians] on the part of many of the nation's most influential leaders." 11 This was one element of the political climate in which Hawai'i's Democratic national committeeman found himself during the political election year of 1 9 3 2 . Already John Costello, prominent New York Democrat, had asked Johnny's support for New York's governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, as the Democratic presidential nominee. James E. Farley, chairman of the Democratic State Committee of New York, was even more persuasive. 12 Johnny's mind was already made up. He liked what he had seen and heard of the crippled but charismatic Roosevelt and began rounding up support among delegates to the upcoming state Democratic convention. But not all Hawai'i Democrats were enthusiastic about the New York governor. Johnny wrote to Farley on March 16, 1 9 3 2 , to report on the opposition to Roosevelt in Hawai'i: A rumor is going the rounds that... Walter Dillingham, one of the leaders in big business and Republican politics, is a close personal friend [of Roosevelt] and a class mate [at Harvard] and for that reason w o u l d have a greater influence on him than the local Democratic organization. The boys seem to fear a repetition of the Pinkham appointment due to the Dillingham connection. 1 3

On April 5 Johnny received a letter from Roosevelt himself, and on April 1 2 Farley wrote to Hawai'i's national committeeman: "You can be assured that Governor Roosevelt will deal with you in Hawaii, and in every other state, with only the duly accredited Democratic organization." The next day a letter arrived from John Costello to reassure Johnny of Roosevelt's sincerity, and in the same mail came a letter from Homer Cummings, another old friend on the national committee, urging Johnny to get behind Roosevelt and to bring to the national convention a delegation instructed to vote in his behalf. Then Norman Mack, Johnny's first friend on the national committee, cabled, " I will very much appreciate... if the delegates from Honolulu will support Governor Roosevelt." 14 Never had a national candidate so ardently courted the delegation from Hawai'i, and Johnny led the Roosevelt bandwagon at

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the Democratic territorial convention on April z8, 1932. He pushed hard for a delegation that would be instructed to vote for the N e w York governor at the national convention. Link M c C a n dless and a faction led by Delbert Metzger from the Big Island argued that the Hawai'i delegates should not be bound to vote for Roosevelt because an uninstructed delegation would put them in a better trading position. But even though Johnny had lost the mayoral election, he still held a firm hold on the party. His resolution for a delegation instructed to vote for Roosevelt passed unanimously. The convention also passed a resolution aimed at encouraging Link to run for delegate to Congress; it named him as the Democratic choice for governor to be appointed by a new Democratic president. Other resolutions denounced the flooding of Hawai'i with cheap labor from Asia and supported the Seth Richardson report that argued against taking government out of the hands of Hawai'i voters. Johnny received a letter of thanks from Roosevelt for securing an instructed delegation, and Jim Farley wrote, "Just as soon as you reach Chicago, look me up at the Congress Hotel." Johnny made reservations for his delegation at the Stevens at $4 per night, $6 for two persons. But the Great Depression was in full flower, and local Democrats were even more underfinanced than normal. Metzger wrote to Johnny from Hilo after the local convention: "One thing is certain with me and that is that if I spend all the kala [money] necessary to be spent on the Chicago trip, I cannot carry any banner in running for office on this island in the fall." 1 5 Johnny wrote back with instructions for raising money by holding benefit luaus, raffling pigs and selling laulaus (pork, butterfish, and taro top steamed in ti leaves). Johnny's diary shows that Link gave him $150 to help defray his own expenses. Meanwhile, the national committeeman from Hawai'i was still unemployed. We can assume that this is w h y Johnny dreamed up the idea for promoting a Hawaiian Village at the Chicago Century of Progress, a world's fair, to be held in 1933. So he went to the convention as usual with more than one fish to fry. He arrived in Chicago at 9:30 A.M. on Saturday, June 18, 1932; Farley immediately put him to work on the Roosevelt team under Bill Howes of South Dakota, one of Farley's lieutenants. We can

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follow some of Johnny's activities f r o m the telegrams Farley sent him at the Stevens Hotel, telegrams being a more convenient method of communication in the hurly-burly of the convention than telephone calls: J u n e 2 3 : Important conference at Roosevelt headquarters tonight at eight P.M. Y o u r presence is absolutely essential. J u n e 2 5 : If y o u k n o w the names of the members [in the H a w a i ' i delegation] of permanent organization, rules, credentials, and resolutions committees, please send them by telegraph collect to me immediately... J u n e 2 5 : A meeting is being called for three o'clock Sunday, J u n e 2 6 at my office, 1 1 6 4 Congress Hotel. Please bring this telegram with y o u for identification. 1 6

Since national committeemen did not sit with their delegations, Johnny could not keep as vigilant an eye on his troops as he wished. As the voting got under w a y on the convention floor, he received w o r d that one of Hawai'i's delegates was trying to get Link McCandless, Delbert Metzger, and two other H a w a i ' i delegates to bolt for one of Roosevelt's opponents, Governor H a r r y F. Byrd of Virginia. Johnny rushed to the floor and found that the rebel was Ingram Stainback. " I warned Mr. Stainback that w e were bound by the unit rule and our six votes had to be counted in a block for Roosevelt," Johnny said later. " A t first Stainback got belligerent and I sailed into him and demanded that he stay with the instructions. We had a f e w words, but he changed his mind and behaved." 1 7 Roosevelt received 666V2 votes on the first ballot taken on J u l y 1 , A1 Smith, 2 0 3 % , and J o h n Nance Garner, 90V4; the rest were scattered among six other candidates. Even when the Roosevelt drive began to sputter, J i m Farley, Roosevelt's political strategist, could count on John Wilson to deliver Hawai'i's six votes. It was not until the fourth ballot that night, after the California and Illinois delegations swung to Roosevelt, that Farley nailed down the nomination with 9 4 2 votes for Roosevelt, 2 0 1 % for other candidates. The next day Farley wired Johnny, "We appreciate your fine work We are counting on you to go forward in the campaign to make Franklin D. Roosevelt the next President." This was the

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kind of attention to political detail that Johnny understood and respected. He rounded up all the Hawaiian musicians in Chicago, more than two dozen, and made them promise to vote for Roosevelt. 18 On July 7 Johnny addressed a Chicago Kiwanis Club about the Massie case. He was substituting for Chicago resident Clarence Darrow, who was unable to fill the engagement. Probably nowhere else but in the United States could a part-Hawaiian hog farmer help nominate the next president of the United States, then fill in for the most famous attorney in the country. Johnny gave the Kiwanis Club members an earful that was probably diametrically opposed to what Darrow would have told them. He explained that big business in Hawai'i, with the aid of the government in Washington, had brought about Hawai'i's racially mixed population. Full-blooded Hawaiians, Johnny noted, numbered only 6 percent of residents. In 1890 they had made up 40 percent of the population, and in 1 8 3 2 , 90 percent. Johnny assured the Chicago businessmen that citizens of Asian parentage were peaceful and law abiding, as well as loyal Americans. To write off Hawai'i as uncivilized because of the Massie case was unfair. The good citizens of Chicago knew that their city was not as dangerous as some critics would color it because of A1 Capone. As for Hawaiians, Johnny asked his audience to understand the difficulty his fellow natives had encountered while changing their whole lives to scurry after the elusive dollar. Johnny assured his listeners that Hawai'i was a good place to do business. There had been no bank failures, no bread lines, and the health of Islands citizens was good. The visiting speaker concluded, "Hawaii needs more taxpayers so if you think of moving you are welcome." 19 During the remainder of July, Johnny's diary lists interviews with Century of Progress fair officials. On July 26 he wrote, "Reported on costs for the Hawaiian Village." On July 28 he completed a deal for his attraction and reported with Nat D. Rogers, chief of the amusements division of the department of concessions, to the general manager of the fair. N o w all Johnny had to do was find the money to build his village and stage the show. When he returned to Hawai'i on August 1 1 , 1 9 3 2 , he was met in Honolulu by a Democratic reception committee; his diary

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entries shifted from politics and show business to egg sales. But not for long. He soon jumped into the election campaign with upbeat Democrats who sensed victory in the fall. The Star-Bulletin named Jim Coke, who sailed for San Francisco on September 9 for a conference with FDR, a prominent candidate for governor. Some 1 5 0 Republicans and 81 Democrats filed for the primary. Johnny stood again for mayor of Honolulu, Link for delegate to Congress. The Democrats wasted no time blaming the Republicans for all the ills that had befallen Hawai'i during the previous two years of the depression. In the past, the Star-Bulletin had given Johnny and his Republican opponent equal coverage during an election campaign. This time the newspaper noticeably featured his Republican opponent, Mayor Fred Wright. Johnny got two paragraphs on a back page when he blasted Wright for cutting the wages of city workers from $4 a day to $3.75. Wright's rebuttal covered most of a frontpage column. Wright said he had reduced wages 1 0 percent by legislative mandate, and he described his efforts to keep men at work. The primary election returns showed that Republican Mayor Wright, a capable and respected politician, still held strong appeal for the voters. He outpolled Johnny. But Link ran ahead of Victor Houston, Republican delegate to Congress. Democrats were jubilant in their dilapidated headquarters, the assembly room of the old city hall at Alakea and King streets. Every time a candidate came up the creaky stairs, there was loud applause. So the general election campaign opened to enthusiasm by Democrats and worry by John Wilson. He could not match the well-financed campaign of Wright, who had spent $ 1 , 6 7 1 in the primary to Johnny's $23 8.20 Some of his meager campaign budget went for leaflets that explained "Why American Citizens of Japanese Ancestry Should Support John H. Wilson for Mayor." 21 The campaign worker who probably paid for this appeal was Takaichi Miyamoto, a Democratic businessman who had become a strong Johnny Wilson backer. Election day, Tuesday, November 8, 1932, proved to be an exhilarating experience for all Hawai'i Democrats except John Wilson. Franklin Roosevelt beat Herbert Hoover by a landslide. Link was finally elected delegate to Congress. Charley Rose cap-

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tured the sheriff's office of Honolulu for the Democrats, w h o also elected a city and county treasurer and a five-member majority on the board of supervisors. The Democrats elected three more senators from O'ahu for a total of four, and ten Democrats gained seats in the house. But incumbent M a y o r Fred Wright squeezed out a victory over Johnny by 263 votes. Hawaiian women at the Wilson headquarters wept in the early morning of November 8. Link McCandless walked in. The delegate-elect was in an expansive mood. He told about fifty discouraged John Wilson workers, "Never mind. We'll make Johnny governor. " 22

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One Democrat who did not become giddy over the Democratic victory of 1 9 3 2 was J.T."Hilo" Ryan. Ryan knew from experience that the one thing Democrats could not handle was success. The old curmudgeon wrote to Johnny on November 2 1 , 1932, to offer his condolences and to observe that Link and the other Democrats could keep their heads level when defeated, "but having succeeded it is all too likely that the whole hui [gang] will go haywire, pupule [crazy] and blow up the whole works." 1 Symptoms of this tendency appeared directly after the election. Within a few days, Link changed his mind about backing Johnny for governor and went around telling friends that Wilson would make a better superintendent of public works. Precinct officers asked Johnny if he'd told Link he didn't want to be governor. Johnny answered that he hadn't seen Link and that he would accept whatever the party gave him. He added that he would not seek the governorship unless Link stepped aside.2 But Link did not take himself out of the race. He coyly danced around it to the embarrassment of the party, which had endorsed him for governor at the territorial convention. Yet if Link were appointed governor, a special election would have to be called to replace him as delegate to Congress. The Democrats could lose this important office to the Republicans in a runoff election. That would be a major disaster. Walter Trask, who became the delegate's secretary in Washington, said the reason for Link's flirtation with the governorship was his wife, who decided she would rather be first lady of Hawai'i than just another minor elected official's wife in the nation's capital.3 McCandless went to Hilo, where he promised Delbert Metzger his support for governor as he had promised Johnny. Then he toured the neighbor islands to line up backing among central

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committee members in his own behalf. Link's strategy seemed to be to divide and conquer in an effort to take personal control of the party. Metzger rose to the bait and added another divisive element, the traditional competition between the neighbor islands and O'ahu. Members of the Democratic Territorial Central Committee from the neighbor islands resented the power of more populous O'ahu. Metzger used this argument among neighbor island Democrats to call a hasty meeting of the central committee, although he was not a member, to endorse a candidate for governor—himself, he hoped, with Link's backing. Metzger wrote later that the neighbor island committee members were firm in their opinion that the next governor should be one of their own. 4 Johnny did not attend the meeting, which he thought premature. Party rules called for endorsements first from the precincts of candidates applying for endorsement. Metzger didn't have such an endorsement, but he did have two proxies from Hawai'i. The rules forbade a nonmember to bring proxies to a meeting, and members were allowed only one proxy. But nobody including Link seemed to be paying much attention to the rules at this extemporaneous gathering. Before the meeting, a female party member waiting to interview Link heard him through an open door in his office in conference with Metzger and two other central committee members. They agreed that the powers in Washington would not permit a partHawaiian like Johnny to be governor and that, to make matters worse, Johnny was married to a part-Hawaiian. John Wilson was deeply hurt by this information. He later wrote Ryan, "This talk is doing the most harm and I cannot stop it. I cannot find a reply." 5 Louis Cain and other O'ahu members at the central committee meeting insisted on entering Johnny's name as a candidate. It came down to a vote between Metzger, who was there, and Wilson, who wasn't, as the choice should Lincoln McCandless take himself out of the running. In a secret ballot Metzger won the endorsement sixteen to twelve with two O'ahu members voting against Johnny. The other O'ahu delegates compared notes and decided the anti-Wilson votes from O'ahu came from Link and Billy Miles, the party chairman, who was in Link's camp. 6

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The vote caused strong resentment on the O'ahu county committee, further splitting the party. Indignant O'ahu precincts ignored the central committee endorsement and began lining up support for Johnny. Hawaiians, some of whom were Republicans, were especially active. Princess Abigail Kawananakoa and the Hawaiian Civic clubs signed petitions in his behalf. Old T. J. Ryan had been right. Already the smell of success was turning sour. He wrote: In m y opinion, w h e n R o o s e v e l t . . . reaches the subject of appointment of a governor for H a w a i i and finds such a . . . h e l l of a mess spread before h i m . . . h e w o u l d be perfectly justified in concluding that the D e m o c r a t i c party in H a w a i i is a crazy bunch, and forthwith appoint Clarence C o o k e [rock-ribbed Republican] as our governor. 7

Link created more resentment among fellow Democrats when he rushed off in December during a lame duck session of Congress while the GOP delegate Houston was still in office. Link worked with Houston for passage of the Hawes-Cutting Bill, which permitted immigration of Filipino laborers to Hawaii but not to the mainland. For twenty years Democrats in Hawaii had opposed this plantation policy. Johnny and the central committee sent cables of protest, but Link continued his lobbying efforts until the bill passed.8 For Johnny this was an ominous turn of events. He had seen too many prominent Democrats disregard party policy when it suited their interests. N o w it appeared that Link was more concerned about his considerable investments in sugar than he was about principles of the Democratic party. Then came bad news for Johnny concerning his Hawaiian Village. On January 5, 1 9 3 3 , he wrote one of his backers in Chicago, "Since writing you last, all we have been able to raise is about thirty thousand dollars which is seventy thousand dollars short." Two days later a more encouraging letter arrived from Sam Halstead, an old Stanford classmate, and Johnny took heart again. 9 The inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt now approached, and Johnny, with an invitation as national committeeman, prepared for the trip while his friends boomed him for governor. The indications are that they took up a collection to send him to

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Washington and that contributors included Supervisor Louie Cain, Japanese businessman Takaichi Miyamoto, and Chinese banker K.T. Ho. Link as delegate to Congress, his wife as national committeewoman, active Democrat J.Walter Doyle, and Johnny made up the Hawai'i delegation for the inaugural. A letter from the chairman of the inaugural committee in Washington asked Johnny to name the ten most prominent Democrats in Hawai'i, in addition to those just mentioned, so that they might also receive invitations. Johnny named Louis S. Cain, Manuel C. Pacheco, William H. Heen, David K. Trask, Henry Freitas, William B. Pittman, Judge J . B . Poindexter, Dr. Rufus H. Hagood, Delbert B. Metzger, William E. Miles, Judge J.S.Ferry, E.P.Murray, and Ernest N. Heen. 10 Johnny set out for Washington on February n , 1 9 3 3 , with a file folder containing the endorsements made by the central committee for appointments to fill political jobs in Hawai'i. He had also received a confidential request from Jim Farley asking him to name important Hawai'i Democrats who would be seeking appointment, especially those who had opposed Roosevelt's nomination. 11 Hawai'i's national committeeman went to Washington as the representative of his party. He certainly wanted to be governor and felt qualified, but as national committeeman his first duty was to support McCandless or the candidate chosen by the Democratic party, whoever that was, if Link turned it down. The old Raleigh on Pennsylvania Avenue, where Johnny got a room at $4 per night, had gone sadly to seed since his stay there in 1 9 1 3 . But it was still convenient. Autos had entirely replaced horses on Washington's wide boulevards, and the streetcars were more streamlined. Johnny found a letter to Link and himself waiting from Metzger, who advised tartly, "Please get busy and do not let an unavoidable minute of delay pass in getting action on the governorship." 12 When Roosevelt announced his cabinet choices on March 1 , 1 9 3 3 , Johnny learned that Harold L. Ickes of Illinois would become secretary of interior, handling the business of the territories including the appointment of governors. Judgeship appointments would be handled by Homer Cummings, Johnny's old

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friend on the national committee, as attorney general. Jim Farley, as postmaster general, would be in charge of appointing postmasters. And Treasury Secretary William H. Woodin of Pennsylvania would handle customs collector appointments. In spite of Metzger's urging, there was no possibility of getting immediate action on Hawai'i's governorship appointment. The day after his inaugural, the president asked for and received emergency powers to combat economic chaos. The next day he announced the temporary closing of banks. Roosevelt called the Congress into special session and began hammering out programs for the jobless, for rescuing homeowners faced with foreclosures, for aiding farmers. Johnny tried, however, to get a hearing on the appointment of a governor for Hawai'i when he thought the time was right. O n March 15 he wrote a three-page, single-spaced letter to Farley listing those Hawai'i Democrats w h o had worked for an instructed delegation to nominate Roosevelt and those w h o had opposed it. After listing Link as a lukewarm Roosevelt supporter, Johnny gave him his due: "During the last twenty-five years, Mr. L.L. McCandless, now territorial delegate to the 73rd Congress, has been the good angel of the Democratic party in Hawaii, with myself and a few others trailing along behind." Other than this, and describing his own efforts to secure an instructed delegation, Johnny did not promote himself, nor did he mention his aspirations for the governorship. He added: I consider the appointment of a governor for Hawaii to be the most important political matter affecting the Territory. It should be made as early as possible. The territorial legislature is n o w in session, and the new governor should be given ample time to formulate whatever reform measures he may have in mind. 1 3

Farley immediately sent a courteous reply. O n the morning of March 23, 1933, the national committeeman from Hawai'i had his first interview with Jim Farley, a husky, balding six-footer whose affability masked a shrewd political sense and a tenacious capacity for detail. He and Johnny liked and respected each other. W h a t John Wilson probably did not know then was that Harold Ickes looked upon Farley as a ward heeler with little grasp

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of economics or foreign affairs. The president didn't care for Farley's wife, and called her "shanty Irish." 14 It may have been an unspoken recognition of the patronizing attitudes they had both overcome that created the bond between John Wilson and Jim Farley. Farley asked Johnny how many votes Metzger could deliver. Johnny told him truthfully that Metzger hailed from a district that had voted Republican the last time and represented not more than 1 5 percent of the Democratic vote in Hawai'i. As far as Farley was concerned, that did it for Metzger. As for Link, Farley said: It w o u l d be asinine to think about appointing M c C a n d l e s s governor. Y o u g o and tell him I said the President w o u l d never appoint him g o v ernor if he resigned. Because he [Roosevelt] does not believe in the expense of holding an extra election and he has already turned d o w n a couple of congressmen w h o w a n t e d to resign to accept presidential appointment. Tell him to forget it.

At the close of the interview, Farley told Johnny that the president was getting requests from an important backer, who had donated $27,000 to his campaign, that he appoint retired judge Ben Lindsay of Denver, now living in California, as governor of Hawai'i. Johnny reminded Farley of Hawai'i's residency law. Farley smiled and said, "John, laws can be changed overnight." 15 There is no evidence that Johnny discussed at this interview his own prospects for appointment to the governorship. He still felt bound as national committeeman to represent the party, not himself. But the prospect of the appointment of a carpetbagger as governor alarmed him. He went from Farley's office to the Raleigh, where he wrote down the conversation exactly as he remembered it. Then he called Link at his office and asked that he stop by Johnny's hotel room on his way home. Link didn't bother until the next morning. Johnny relayed to Link Farley's opinion, but McCandless remained unconvinced that he had no chance. He said he would talk directly to the president. Johnny offered to take him across the street to hear the news from Farley himself. Link wouldn't go. 16 Convinced now that it would be futile to continue to work in behalf of either Link or Metzger and that his own chances were Hawai'i's best bet to prevent the appointment of Lindsay, Johnny

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began to work in behalf of his own candidacy. By this time, fiftyseven of the fifty-nine precincts on O'ahu plus several on the neighbor islands had endorsed him, as had all but two elected Democrats on O'ahu. 17 He cabled Hawai'i and wrote letters explaining what Farley had told him. To Senator Bill Heen, Johnny recommended that the legislature pass a resolution favoring Johnny's appointment. Such a maneuver had resulted in an early appointment of a Democratic governor for Alaska. In this way, Hawai'i could install a strong Democratic governor before the legislature went into session. Johnny explained to Heen his ideas for putting the unemployed in Hawai'i, many of whom were Hawaiians, to work. He could get $3,000,000 to start from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to divert water from the wet valleys on Moloka'i to the arid Hawaiian Homes Lands at Ho'olehua. This would revive the prostrate Department of Hawaiian Homes Lands program. Johnny also wanted to dredge idle fish ponds on O'ahu and Moloka'i, thus putting people to work and providing food at the same time, mostly at federal expense.18 Johnny also wrote to Billy Miles, party chairman on O'ahu, asking for a recommendation from the central committee, and formally threw his hat into the ring by announcing his candidacy in a letter to Jim Farley.19 But what seemed logical in Washington appeared quite different in Hawai'i. After a shower of congratulatory telegrams and a story in the Star-Bulletin naming Johnny as a good bet for governor,20 a cable arrived from Ernest Heen to explain that Republicans in the legislature would block a recommendation for John Wilson. They wanted Link appointed governor and Charles Rice appointed secretary of Hawaii; in this way they hoped to keep McCandless in line and to win back the vacant delegateship to Congress for the GOP in a special election.21 Metzger, still believing that he had Link's support, saw his chances improved now that McCandless was out of contention. William B. Pittman, whose brother was a U.S. senator, felt he had become front runner now that Metzger and McCandless were rejected. And Judge Joseph Poindexter, who had never won election to anything, saw himself as the compromise candidate.

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Meanwhile, Link told Johnny that he was getting requests from Hawai'i to stay in the race, and Johnny believed him. Meanwhile, the Hawaiian Village at the Century of Progress receded with each step forward. Miyamoto explained that his partners were not interested in projects outside Hawai'i, then cheerfully asked Johnny to look up a wine manufacturer Miyamoto might do business with now that the end of Prohibition was in sight. Hawaiian Pineapple Company, Walter Dillingham and Frank Atherton in Honolulu, and Bill Roth of Matson Navigation Company in San Francisco turned down Johnny's scheme. About the middle of May Johnny threw in the towel and gave up his world's fair dream.22 One bright spot for the busy national committeeman was a cask of 'okolehao that Stewart sent by mail after elaborate, secret preparations. It arrived safely with a note encouraging Johnny to have a drink on the boys at home. The oke provided refreshment for a "happy hour" Johnny held at 4 P.M. every day in his hotel room for Washington newspaper reporters. That's how he picked up a lot of his inside information.23 When his funds ran low, Miyamoto, Cain, and Whitehouse chipped in $500 to keep him going. But he was discouraged as April ended and no governor had been appointed. He had another long talk with Farley, who put his arm around Johnny's shoulder and said, "John, you know me. I never go back on my friends and I know who mine are. Don't get impatient. We will get this worked out shortly." Farley gave Johnny the names of more senators to see.24 Interior Secretary Harold Ickes, a dour, caustic fellow, told Johnny at his first interview that his friends were doing him more harm than good by writing letters saying that "to get next to Ickes you must get to the Congregational Church." Johnny had no idea what the disgruntled interior secretary was talking about except that the letters came from Chicago, Ickes' home state.25 The news from home was bad, too. Ella Whitehouse wrote that Mrs. McCandless was spreading lies about Kini.26 Bill Achi on Kaua'i reported that political boss Charlie Rice criticized Kini before a meeting of schoolteachers, saying, "We should have a governor whose wife is dignified." 27

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Then the specter of a carpetbagger as governor became real. Johnny wrote from Washington on M a y 3 1 , 1 9 3 3 : "I have just learned that the Navy League are the ones that are agitating the mainland governor idea." The House Committee of Territories met to consider the Rankin Bill, which would empower the president to appoint a nonresident governor of Hawai'i. Representative Sterling R Strong of Texas asked Delegate Lincoln McCandless of Hawai'i why the Democrats there couldn't get together. Link answered, "It's impossible." Strong responded by explaining that the president wanted the bill so he could settle the matter, but he would not use his power if the people of Hawai'i could agree upon who should be appointed governor. Link would not step aside to prevent passage of the bill.28 Instead, he returned to Hawai'i in July to gather support. O'ahu Democrats, accusing him of splitting the party, gave him a rude reception. Metzger's eyes finally opened. He wrote Johnny: "Old Link sure fooled me for a long while M y agreement with you stands good—you are to be superintendent of public works, if not governor—and I want to be attorney general if not governor—but I believe you will have to take the public works job." 29 Lou Whitehouse wrote, "About the only thing Link has done since his return is to call every one who is known to be your friend... a traitor to the Democratic party." 30 By this time the Hawai'i Democrats were fighting on all islands. Cain wrote on July 1 3 : "The scrap on Hawaii has developed into Another merry row on Kauai." McCandless factions a siege were splitting off from established precincts, claiming legitimacy, and demanding appointment to federal jobs that McCandless had apparently promised them. With Link out of town, Johnny assumed the duties of the delegate and discovered how Hawai'i could benefit from emergency relief programs emerging in Washington. He wrote Louis Cain that Hawai'i should be eligible for about $6,000,000 in National Industrial Recovery Act funds. He attended weekly meetings, sent instructions to Hawai'i about how to apply, and gave suggestions about whom to recommend for appointment to the advisory board. He said he would recommend either Cain or Whitehouse as administrator at $7,500 a year.31

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At the Raleigh a Mr. Pustau, one of Jim Farley's former assistants and an old Washington hand, took the suite next to Johnny's, and they became close friends. From Pustau, who got it from the president, Johnny learned that the stumbling block to his appointment as governor was Interior Secretary Ickes. It turned out that Ickes was getting a lot of bad information about Johnny, some of it from Link. "Link has told Ickes that it would never do to appoint me as governor as I was only a politician," Johnny wrote to Harry Stewart on August 1 , 1 9 3 3 . If we got into a war I would not be big enough to handle the situation as I was part-Hawaiian and would be prejudiced against the haole element. The N a v y League wants a military man so that they can get a pardon for the Massies, claiming that most or nearly all citizens of Hawaii, particularly the old timers [like Johnny] are or would be prejudiced against the Army and N a v y and are all lovers of the Orientals. 32

As former assistant secretary of the navy, Roosevelt listened to the Navy League. Johnny discovered that Ickes had never heard of the Richardson Report or of the Pinkerton Report, commissioned by Governor Lawrence Judd, which cast doubt on Thalia Massie's claim to having been raped. Johnny filched a copy of the Richardson Report from Link's office and delivered it to Ickes. 33 It didn't seem to do much good. In light of this feeling among top administration officials, Johnny suggested that a commission be appointed by the governor to visit Washington and set the record straight. The governor felt the same way and appointed a three-member commission. Will King of Oregon saw FDR and boosted Johnny, then urged the national committeeman from Hawai'i to see the president and push his own cause. Johnny went to the Oval Office on October 1 6 with a carefully prepared agenda. He described unemployment in Hawai'i and explained that New Deal boards and commissions were not according the Islands treatment equal to that given the states. He asked the president why Hawai'i's appointments for judgeships were being held up. Johnny wrote Will King: " I did not talk about myself at all nor did I say I was a candidate for

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governor.... I walked out as soon as my time was up. I had about thirty minutes with him." 34 Hawai'i's Home Rule Commission came to Washington to demonstrate the Territory's competence in self-government. It should have been Link's duty as delegate to show the commission around Washington, but McCandless wasn't there. When the commissioners were unable to get an appointment with the president, Johnny did so and took them into the Oval Office. Roosevelt asked the commissioners—Judge A.E.G.Robertson, Supervisor Sam King, and Senator Bill H e e n — w h o m they would recommend for governor. Robertson answered that they were a nonpartisan body but they strongly opposed the appointment of a mainlander. The president seemed impressed by the committee. Their interview with Secretary Ickes, however, did not go very well because Ickes expressed himself in favor of a mainland governor. Ickes told the commission no local man was qualified. He also indicated that Link McCandless was no longer being considered. 35 Johnny credited the visit of the commission with ending Roosevelt's support of the Rankin Bill, which eventually died. But the visit didn't break the logjam that held up the appointment of a governor. It had come down to an administration battle between Ickes, Johnny's enemy, and Farley, Johnny's friend, w h o kept urging him to be patient a little longer. Meanwhile, the Waialae Land Company went belly up in early December. So another of Johnny's investments failed because he wasn't there to supervise it.36 The Home Owners Loan Corporation set up business in Hawai'i, however, and Johnny was able to put a few Democrats into good jobs as administrators. He also stood in line for Miyamoto to get him a sake license, then had to straighten out a hilarious confusion in the customs department about whether sake was wine or beer.37 J. Walter Doyle, w h o m Johnny got appointed as head of customs in Honolulu, sent a donation of $25. Johnny used the check on N e w Year's Eve to treat the gang in Washington, including the Trask brothers, Walter and Barney, to a Chinese dinner. He was now getting local Democrats appointed to postmasterships. And

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on January 4, 1 9 3 4 , he received a present from home. The Maui County Democratic Committee endorsed him for governor. McCandless returned to Washington in December, and Johnny had a long talk with him. For the first time, Link suggested he and Johnny get together on a new candidate. They traded names. Then Johnny suggested that they write a letter to the president, with a copy to Ickes, stating that Wilson and McCandless had agreed to the choice for governor of any name on the list presented. The names would be McCandless, Metzger, Wilson, and two new names, one chosen by Johnny and the other by Link. McCandless seemed agreeable but said he wanted to think it over.38 Later he balked at the plan, apparently on the recommendation of his wife. Farley suggested that Johnny have another try at winning Ickes' support. Hawai'i's national committeeman reported on the interview to Louie Cain. He said Ickes' office was a long room in which he sat at his desk on one end while officials waiting to see him sat on sofas and chairs at the other end. A U.S. senator from New York and one from Georgia sat ahead and behind Johnny. The person in conference with Ickes had to speak softly or be overheard by the others. " I don't see how it is possible for Ickes to get anything straight," Johnny wrote. H e has a very strenuous time of i t . . . t h e subjects will j u m p f r o m improvements in N e w Y o r k to the governorship of H a w a i i , then to some matter in G e o r g i a . T h e n G o d k n o w s w h a t else this man has to d o , and naturally the old cuss is as cross as y o u [can] make him

H e sits on

the edge of his chair in a position as if he w e r e preparing to spring on some one. H e does not even shake hands w i t h a Senator or a n y o n e else. H e is a g o o d listener and w a t c h e s a fellow very c l o s e l y . . . . I size him up as a m a n w h o is o p p o s e d to party organization and considers every person connected w i t h the party only another politician or a parasite. 3 9

Ickes showed Johnny a letter recommending O'ahu school superintendent Oren Long as candidate for governor. The story Johnny heard was that Long had been recommended by a relative of Ickes in Hawai'i. Johnny said he would not oppose Long but didn't think he would be accepted by the U.S. Senate.40

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Frustrated, Johnny wrote to Farley on January 1 5 , 1 9 3 4 : F o r eleven months n o w the N e w Deal, as applied in H a w a i i , has been w i t h reverse English o n the D e m o c r a t i c p a r t y . . . . T h e same R e p u b l i c a n g o v e r n o r continues in office six months after his term has expired. Naturally, that Republican continues to r e c o m m e n d and to secure jobs f o r Republicans. I d o u b t if in the w h o l e territory there's one single D e m o c r a t i c o n the Territorial payroll. 4 1

But Johnny cautioned his friends in Hawai'i not to complain to Farley about the delay in the appointment of a governor. "Farley has done his duty," Johnny wrote. "He sent my name in last April and Ickes is the one holding it up." Johnny also said he found the interior secretary looking up Poindexter's record "one day last week...so that shows he is considering him also." 42 Then Johnny received a request for his opinion of Poindexter. He wrote to Harry Stewart, "I had to admit he was a good Democrat and a member of the central committee and was a good judge and lawyer. I did not knock him." 43 On January 30, 1 9 3 4 , President Roosevelt appointed Joseph Boyd Poindexter governor of Hawai'i. Johnny cabled his congratulations to the appointee and wrote to his friends, "I hope you are taking the defeat in a manly fashion. The Wilson gang must retain its reputation for being good sports." On February 6 Farley explained to Johnny how the appointment had come about. He said he was having lunch with the president, Ickes, and a man named Frank Walker. The subject of a governor for Hawai'i came up. Walker butted in and said he had the solution, "an A 1 Democrat who had once been attorney general of Montana and had been sent to Hawaii during the Woodrow Wilson administration." That was how Poindexter's name surfaced. Farley said he and Ickes compromised on Poindexter on condition that he was as Walker said he was. 44 That was why Johnny was asked his opinion of Poindexter. In this bureaucratic way, five thousand miles from Honolulu, the decision was made to fill the most powerful political office in the Territory of Hawaii. On February 1 4 , 1 9 3 4 , Johnny wrote W. K. Bassett that he believed his fight against the Rankin Bill had set Ickes unalterably against him. But he was not sorry. He continued, "You have never found your John H. running off when there was a scrap in sight."

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He said his stay of one year in Washington was not wasted because he had singlehandedly secured for Hawai'i the benefits of the Home Owners Loan Corporation. Since December i , when the office had opened in Honolulu, 850 home owners had been able to borrow about $z,500,000 to save their homes. " B y the time we get through, at least 1,200 or 1 , 5 0 0 mortgaged home owners will be free of the Honolulu banks," Johnny wrote Bassett with the same glee he'd felt after landing the Pali Road contract. 45

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Johnny returned to Honolulu from Washington through a late snow storm in Chicago. But he did not come back as a defeated candidate. "The 'consolation party' staged by Honolulu Democrats this afternoon for John H. Wilson... was one of the greatest receptions held at the waterfront," the Star-Bulletin reported on March 8, 1934. A fleet of tugs and launches decorated with banners reading "Aloha Wilson" met the white Matson liner Malolo off Diamond Head with five glee clubs and well-wishers who boarded the ship to smother their hero in leis. The Star-Bulletin noted that he told reporters who met him at the foot of the gangway on Pier 1 1 that his political future, whether it turned out to be candidacy for the delegateship or for the mayoralty, was up to the party. "I'm a party man and I want to see what my friends want me to do," he said. "I'd like to see what kind of an army, if any, I have left." He promised a visit by President Roosevelt to Hawai'i. Then began a round of socializing that must have pleased Kini after being so long at home alone. On March 23 Johnny wrote to Will King in Washington: I arrived home t w o weeks ago yesterday and I have had only t w o dinners in my o w n home. For the rest of the time I have been obliged to accept invitations from every section of the city. I have been invited by Democrats of Kauai, M a u i and H a w a i i to visit them and I am going to Kauai first. 1

The invitations could not have been inspired merely out of friendship. Johnny's fellow Democrats must have been eager to hear the latest from Washington from a person who had a direct line to the administration and whose influence might be useful to

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an ambitious politician or job seeker. Also, quite a few Democrats needed somebody to complain to. Johnny's correspondence on his return to Hawai'i deals mostly with squabbling within the party. Precincts were electing delegates for the territorial convention in April, and everyone was jockeying for position. Precinct officers on the Big Island complained that T. M. Cummings, a member of the central committee and a McCandless man, was trying to take over there by ignoring the organization and forming unaccredited precinct clubs. A protest from the eighth precinct on Kaua'i complained that the election for delegates had been rigged. Another frustration for Johnny was the new governor's lack of initiative. "The boys seem to be getting impatient with Poindexter as it is now nearly two months since he has been appointed governor and twenty-three days since taking office, yet he has not appointed his cabinet," Johnny wrote in his March 23 letter to Will King. "The attorney general is the only office he has filled. ...He appointed [William B.] Pittman....Nobody seems to be in his counsel." Johnny explained that relief money from the Roosevelt administration was being spent by "key men of the Republican party" on each island as a result of the governor's inaction. When Democrats applied for work, they were told the openings had all been filled. 2 The snail's pace at which Poindexter conducted government business earned him the nickname "Mahope [wait until tomorrow] Joe." Johnny toured the neighbor islands during the end of March and the first half of April 1 9 3 4 . His host on Kaua'i, the first stop, was Judge William Achi, a part-Hawaiian and former Republican, whom Johnny was trying to keep on the bench. Kini went along and had a marvelous time. Then Johnny went on alone to the islands of Hawai'i and Maui "to patch up differences between some of the boys." He got an earful of Democratic disputation and wrote later to King: There seemed to have been a prearrangement to pull off something upon the rest of the party leaders in their respective districts In my investigation, I found that the rules of the party had been entirely disregarded and had I not been called to the other islands they might have

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gotten a w a y w i t h the stuff they w e r e pulling o f f . Mr. [William] M i l e s , c h a i r m a n of the old central committee, w a s evidently in on the deal. 3

Johnny hoped Poindexter would appoint him territorial superintendent of public works with its power to hire workers and pass out contracts. He explained why to Will King: "In that position I could elect [Supervisor Louis] Cain as mayor and return a Democratic board of supervisors and at the same time elect a strong minority in the legislature this coming election and get control of the legislature two years from now." 4 But Poindexter did not oblige. " H e has offered Cain the position I was in hopes of getting," Johnny wrote, discouraged. It looks as if there is a concerted action by the so called southern bunch here in H a w a i i to give me nothing. R u m o r s c a m e to me that there is a concerted action t o . . . s h e l v e me if they can

I seem to be a m a r k e d

m a n . If they d o offer me anything it will be s o m e ten cent job out in the back w o o d s some place w h e r e I could be of no service to the party as a whole.s

It is understandable that the more conservative elements in Hawai'i were reluctant to give Johnny too substantial a platform. His reputation for taking charge was firmly established. Had he been appointed governor, he would have by this time reorganized the territorial administration in his own image. His populist views were too radical for less liberal Democrats and anathema to respectable Republicans. But it was not so easy to put Johnny on the shelf. At the 1 9 3 4 territorial convention on April 2.6, he engineered a reform of the central committee to prevent a minority of neighbor island members from determining policy. Louie Cain was elected chairman. The rebels from Hawai'i, Cunningham and De Mello, bolted the convention. The assessment he made to Link in Washington in a letter on May 2 of Democratic chances in the coming election reflected pessimism. "Things political do not look very bright for the party," he wrote. "Unless some sudden change takes place I do not think our prospects are good at all. I cannot recall anytime in the past when there has been so much fighting among ourselves as there is going on at the present time." 6

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Johnny thought the new governor's appointments would hurt the Democrats at the polls. First, Poindexter had taken William Pittman, a good vote getter from the board of supervisors and had appointed him attorney general. N o w he was stealing Supervisor Louis Cain, the logical candidate for mayor, to make him superintendent of public works. This left Democratic supervisors J.Harold Borthwick and Manuel Pacheco to fight it out for mayor, and the Republicans free to regain a majority on the board. None of this made political sense to Johnny. "Some of the boys want me to run for the mayoralty," Johnny wrote to Link, but m y a n s w e r is, I believe if Pacheco has m a d e up his mind to run, I guess I have to step aside for him, as I h a v e had m y opportunity. . . . A g a i n , Fred W r i g h t has built up a strong machine right under the noses of our boys w i t h o u t their k n o w i n g it. Unless Poindexter plays ball with the organization, I see an uphill f i g h t . " 7

Link wasn't worried. "Now, Johnny,...I can hardly believe ...that," he wrote back. McCandless blamed the Democratic board of supervisors for "failing to put Wright in the background." Link assured Johnny, "Poindexter talks to me as if there will be no appointments made except Democrats." 8 Meanwhile, Hawai'i's national committeeman fought for strong judicial appointments and raised a vigorous objection when the president reappointed Judge J . J . Banks associate justice of the supreme court in Hawai'i. Johnny wrote to his old friend, U.S. Attorney General Homer Cummings: During the past five or six years J u d g e B a n k s has been losing his eyesight, so m u c h so, he is obliged to engage a second person as a reader. . . . J u d g e B a n k s w o u l d be disqualified as a juror due to his w e a k and faulty eye sight

W e n o w have t w o of the three on the supreme bench

w h o s e eye sights have failed them, J u d g e Banks and Parsons.

Mr.

Huber, just appointed to the district court, is also convalescing after a stroke a f e w years a g o

It n o w looks as t h o u g h the [administration] is

using the judiciary of H a w a i i as a sort of h o m e for aging and convalescent D e m o c r a t i c attorneys. 9

Then it turned out that Link McCandless as delegate to Congress was making recommendations to the administration con-

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trary to endorsements by the party at home. He succeeded in getting an appointment for Sarah Cunningham as postmistress in Hilo that almost caused Delbert Metzger to have apoplexy. Mrs. Cunningham was the wife of the Hawai'i central committeeman who was trying to scuttle the party. Johnny fired off a hot letter to the postmaster general to tell him that I have been informed by some of the most reliable citizens of H i l o that M r s . C u n n i n g h a m is not qualified for the position of postmistress of H i l o by experience, education or temperament. Politically, it w o u l d be a grave mistake to a l l o w her to qualify. H e r husband bolted the territorial convention last A p r i l and is n o w busily engaged w i t h his w i f e leading a small g r o u p of D e m o c r a t s to defeat the regular organization. 1 0

Such letter writing was done in a little room lined with bookshelves in Wai'alae Nui Valley amid the clucking of chickens and mooing of cows. Johnny's house was far from the beaten path, but that didn't stop people from coming around to ask a favor or to complain, often about Link McCandless, who acted as if he owned the party. On July 3, 1 9 3 4 , Bill Achi on Kaua'i wrote, "There is only one thing to do, Johnny. You must run for delegate With [Link's] wealth, he is practically telling the rest of the Democrats, 'the hell with you birds, I'm running the party.' Let's show the bugger that we can do without him." On July 6 a letter came from faithful Democrat John Fernandez on Kaua'i: "Johnny, you are the only one that can save Democracy. I and my friends urge you to run. Please let us know." Then came a similar plea from Kohala on the Big Island. 11 On July 1 7 Johnny wrote to party stalwart Isabelle K. Thompson at Makawao, Maui, for advice: "I wish you would write me and let me know what your candid opinion is." On the same date a similar letter asking for advice went to William Mossman at Nahiku, Maui. Both Thompson and Mossman replied that, in their opinions, Johnny would make a stronger candidate than Link McCandless. Mossman added, " I am convinced that without you as our standard bearer this time, we are doomed to defeat that may carry with it other disastrous results." 12 Before Johnny made up his mind, Hawai'i received its first visit

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from a president of the United States. All other matters were put on hold. Already on April zi, 1934, three months before the visit, Hawai'i's national committeeman had written to the president's assistant secretary to "prevent a repetition" of past political junkets. "The President is very liable to see too much sugar and much less of the essentials," Johnny explained.13 Hopes that Roosevelt's visit would rejuvenate the Democratic party in Hawai'i did not materialize. Johnny wrote on July zz: T h e local D e m o c r a t s w a n t e d an opportunity to do something for the President and also to meet him, but his stay will be so short that it will be impossible for him to give us any of his time. T h e g o v e r n o r is giving him a reception and as f a r as I can learn, only a select f e w will be invited to meet him

T h e local D e m o c r a t s are very much

disap-

pointed. 1 4

Hawai'i's national committeeman found a place among the delegation that boarded the USS Houston off Diamond Head to welcome the president, but Johnny and Kini were not invited to the state dinner at Washington Place. He managed to create an opportunity to honor his president at an elaborate ho'okupu, or Hawaiian gift giving, on the lawn of Washington Place. Each Hawaiian society presented Roosevelt, attired in a feather cloak, with gifts such as feather leis and hand-carved canes. Johnny, as a chief of the Order of Kamehameha, came forward with Charles H. Rose and Noa W. Aluli to give the president a canoe paddle once owned by Queen Emma. 15 With Kini, Johnny hosted a luau for his friends in the president's party including Attorney General Homer Cummings. There is an unconfirmed story, part of Johnny's legend, about the luau. Kini, delighted to be accepted among such important people, sat beside her husband. The guest next to Johnny, making polite conversation, asked him how long he and his wife had been married. Johnny told him. Kini, proud of her conquest, nudged her husband and suggested, "Why don't you tell him how long we lived together?" With the presidential visit behind him, Johnny returned to his own concerns. On August 1 , 1934, he wrote to a friend on the mainland:

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I have been home five months and not a dollar have I earned through labor. H a d it not been for a little rent I had coming from some property that I happened to hang on to and a little poultry ranch that I also happen to have on the side, I really do not k n o w w h a t w o u l d happen to me I may run for office and I m a y not Things do not look very encouraging for us Democrats, particularly in H a w a i i . 1 6

On August 8, A. S. Carvalho, secretary of the Andrew Jackson Club of Hawai'i, asked Johnny if he intended to run against Link. H o w should he answer? For more than two decades he and Link had been a team with Johnny doing most of the teamwork. Yet when Johnny had had his chance to be governor, Link's selfishness had blocked him. There was another consideration. Johnny now led the radical, populist Democrats who fought for the little man against the power of the plantations. Link had gone over to the Democrats who were more concerned with their bank accounts. Poindexter, an honest and conscientious if exasperatingly indecisive person, was under the influence of the party conservatives. These Democrats paid Johnny lip service but did not consider him of a caliber for the governorship or delegateship. After all, he was a part-Hawaiian farmer married to a socially unacceptable partHawaiian. Johnny's only court of appeal of such prejudice was the voter. So it came down to who had the best chance at the polls, himself or Link? It seemed to Johnny that McCandless had gotten out of touch with the people and therefore had no chance to win in the next election. But could Johnny win, given his meager income? On August ii, 1 9 3 4 , he wrote to Carvalho: I will run for the delegate to Congress provided that the following t w o conditions can be attended to: First, that a strong platform be adopted by the party supporting President Roosevelt and his administration 1 0 0 per cent Second, finances. It costs money to run a campaign and I personally cannot afford the entire cost like Link McCandless can. T h e Kauai and O a h u boys have offered to pay all cost on their respective islands but, so far, I have not been able to raise sufficient funds to care for the cost on H a w a i i and M a u i . 1 7

The next day Link threw down the gauntlet. They both attended a precinct meeting in Kaka'ako, where Johnny spoke

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first. He explained that he had been asked many times whether he would run for mayor or delegate. Johnny said he hoped Link would understand what he faced in the coming campaign. The " b o y s " on Kaua'i were so annoyed by the way McCandless ignored the party organization that they had issued John Wilson an ultimatum: run for delegate or they would disband. He closed by asking the audience to advise him what to do. To Metzger later, Johnny described Link's reaction: "He began to roar like a bull and immediately issued a challenge [that I run against him] [Then] Link rushed to the governor's office and the press." That afternoon a committee that included David Trask, who sided with Link, came to Johnny and said the governor was willing to offer him one of two positions, the executive secretaryship of the land office or the Hawaiian Homes Commission. Johnny asked Metzger to advise him—and also to suggest a campaign itinerary on Hawai'i. 1 8 So he had already made up his mind. With the primary in early October, he was starting late to build campaign organizations on the neighbor islands. His letter to Metzger indicates how much had to be done: " I have my own automobile which I could take along. Whether or not this would be a saving, I don't know.... I propose to take along with me a loud speaker that one can hook up in fifteen to twenty minutes." Should he bring friends to speak for him or two singing girls who would attract voters but would also add to the expense? 19 He estimated that an all-island campaign would cost $3,500, then worked up a reduced total that came to $2,200. Link and the Republican candidate, Supervisor Sam King, used the Sikorsky flying boats operated by Inter-Island Airways to save time. Johnny had to travel by ship to save money. On O'ahu, Takaichi Miyamoto went to work immediately, inserting stories in the Japanese-language newspapers, ordering campaign stickers, and printing circulars entitled "Mis-Statements by Delegate McCandless." 20 Johnny drafted his musician friend, Bill Holt, as campaign manager. Attorney Harry Mills volunteered to speak for Johnny on the stump on O'ahu when he was away on the neighbor islands. The Wilson for Delegate campaign headquarters opened on September 1 0 , 1 9 3 4 , with a borrowed desk and new locks on the doors. 21

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By the end of August, McCandless was in action on Moloka'i, and he aimed low. Johnny reported to Bert Rivenburgh on Hawai'i that Link asked his audience, "Who is Johnny Wilson? Who is he that wants to go to Washington and who is his wife? All she knows is to dance the hula and to feed hogs." 22 Johnny opened his campaign swing on Moloka'i on September 3, 1934, after an overnight voyage, arriving at 1 A.M. TWO days later he sailed from Moloka'i at midnight for Maui. He would be sixty-three in December, yet his strenuous schedule didn't seem to tire him. The response he got was enthusiastic, but the crowds were not as large as he'd hoped. He had never campaigned on the neighbor islands before, and people didn't recognize him. On O'ahu, attorney Noa Aluli reported that the Advertiser was being surprisingly friendly and that the GOP strategy was to vote for McCandless in the primary, then beat him in the general.23 Link was in Mahukona on Hawai'i accusing Johnny of ingratitude for the money McCandless had given him over the years. In Kohala, Link said all Johnny did in Washington was stay at expensive hotels while Delegate McCandless did the people's work. An emergency call from Aluli on O'ahu brought Johnny back from Hawai'i to answer charges by David Trask, who had taken the stump for McCandless. Trask described Link as the man who had financed the party for twenty-six years and noted that he had been a sick man in 1 9 3 2 when he ran for delegate because John Wilson refused to stand up for his party. Now, instead of running for mayor as he had promised four months ago, Wilson was opposing Link, the man who had helped and carried him in previous campaigns. Trask said Wilson owed McCandless $ioo,ooo. 24 When Johnny boarded an airplane for the first time to fly between the islands, he marked a historic occasion in his long association with the evolution of transportation in Hawai'i. The little Inter-Island Airways amphibian took off at 3 P.M. on September zo, with an ear-splitting roar that made conversation difficult, from an airstrip cleared amid a pandanus jungle at Hilo. The plane was a twin-engined flying wing with a pod suspended below in which the passengers sat. There was a fifteen-minute stop at Maui and a five-minute stop at Moloka'i in a cattle pasture. The crew consisted of a pilot and copilot. Passengers were advised to

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go to the bathroom between stops because there was no toilet on the airplane. Two and a half hours after leaving Hilo, Johnny landed in Honolulu on a coral landing strip called John Rogers Airport. He told reporters he was running for delegate because he had been drafted by Democrats frustrated by Link's persistent disregard for party organization. On the stump that night at Lanakila before a crowd of a thousand Johnny said McCandless' political irresponsibility had nearly led to passage of the Rankin Bill, which would have eliminated residential requirements for the appointed governor. Link was responsible for the Hawes-Cutting Bill allowing Filipino immigration. "He has broken with the party," Johnny said with religious fervor. "For that he must be punished as a man who breaks with the church must be punished. Our punishment can come only at the polls." 25 In a letter dated October i , Johnny denied that he owed Link money: "Every cent I borrowed from him has been repaid." And the liabilities as well as the equipment McCandless assumed by agreement after their failed business venture "was nothing like $100,000 as they state." Johnny added plaintively, "He speaks of my wife as a hog raiser. She is not running for office, I am, so what has she got to do with it?" 26 In the last week of the campaign, Johnny added two more rallies to his nightly schedule on O'ahu and reported that the crowds were picking up. But Link drew five thousand at a rally in Hilo, and a Wilson supporter wrote that Johnny lacked recognition value there. By this time Johnny's campaign expenses had soared to $7,000. Harry Mills became so outspoken in Johnny's behalf in his response to Trask that Mills was barred from the stump. Meanwhile, Link was reported to be spending $1,000 a day to hire workers to blanket the islands with campaign literature. The Star-Bulletin on September 29, 1934, described the McCandless effort as a desperately militant c a m p a i g n drive

H e is facing within his ranks a

rival m a k i n g w h a t m a y be his political last stand. Observers point out that M r . W i l s o n , a t w o time political loser, having lost t w o years a g o the m a y o r a l t y and more recently his bid for the g o v e r n o r s h i p , is fight-

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ing not only for the delegateship but for his place in the public life of H a w a i i as well. A defeat n o w . . . w o u l d be his political swan song, m a n y observers say.

Johnny believed that the momentum had swung his way during the closing days of the campaign, and so he was confident when the polls opened on Saturday, October 6, 1934. Link took a big early lead by virtue of a strong neighbor islands vote and held it while Johnny ran even with him on O'ahu. Sam King led both of them. But the combined Democratic vote totaled more than the Republican count by five to four, indicating that Republicans were voting for Democrats. At 5 A.M. after a long night, the Advertiser reported that by common consensus John H. Wilson was washed up as a prospective nominee for the delegateship, if not in politics entirely.27 Johnny remained optimistic at his own headquarters, hoping that final returns from the fifth district would put him over the top. It was not to be. The unofficial totals read King 23,908, McCandless 1 9 , 1 0 3 , Wilson 1 1 , 2 8 8 . Link had spent $9,032 to Johnny's $7,2.65. On Maui, where Johnny had received only 8 1 1 votes, Isabelle Thompson reported that political power Harold Rice had lined up with McCandless.28 Staunch Democrat Charles Otani wrote from Hilo that he couldn't understand the vote on Hawai'i, where plantations dictated the numbers. There McCandless beat both King and Wilson, indicating strong Republican support.29 From Kaua'i, William Achi wrote, "Your defeat on Kauai is due to the plantations and [the] instructed police machine by the Rice boys who supported McCandless with the idea that Link would be easier to beat in the general election."30 Democratic party worker Gus Supe wrote from Hilo: I never saw an election like this one. All day long it w a s like a funeral. N o one had anything to say. In the evening when the returns were coming in I did not hear a single cheer. People just stood around and said nothing. I cannot account for the vote here Well, I hope that Poindexter will take care of you but I'm afraid not if Link holds a grudge. 3 1

Johnny didn't hold a grudge. Out of the race, he offered to manage the general campaign to help the Democrats win for Link;

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he predicted a difficult battle. McCandless refused the offer. He wanted Wilson out of the picture. So Johnny stood by dismayed by the bungling of new people Link put in charge in place of experienced party workers. The general election was a debacle for the Democrats. Link got squashed by King. Republican mayor Fred Wright swamped Democrat J. Harold Borthwick. The GOP won an overwhelming sixto-one majority on the board of supervisors with Manuel Pacheco the only Democratic survivor. The Democrats lost all the ground they had gained two years before in the legislature, and more. Johnny wrote to Metzger on December i , 1 9 3 4 : A s far back as I can remember, I d o not believe w e at a n y time blundered through a c a m p a i g n as this one. T h e office m a n a g e m e n t w a s 9 0 per cent strangers, so that w h e n a person applied for information it w o u l d m a k e no difference if the fellow had been a life long D e m o c r a t , he w a s t h r o w n out

T h e r e w e r e more fist fights g o i n g o n than I h a v e

ever seen or heard before. E v e n the w o m e n got into hair pulling I feel sorry for the rest of the boys. I could have pulled [William] B o r t h w i c k through as senator for all he needed w a s a change of 4 0 9 votes. A c h a n g e of 3 0 0 votes in the fifth district w o u l d h a v e given us t w o more representatives, and 5 0 8 votes w o u l d have given us three f o r a total of six. In the fourth district, a change of mind by 6 1 3 people w o u l d h a v e given us t w o m o r e and a total of three in the fourth. 3 2

But Monday morning quarterbacking does not win elections. Johnny was still out of a job with no immediate prospects, his defeated party had never been so impotent, and his dreams of bringing succor to the downtrodden in Hawai'i had merely gotten him kicked down once more into their ranks.

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John Wilson seldom had difficulty accepting defeat at the polls once the votes were counted. But he refused to quit. Consistently, a victorious opponent who went to bed after reading an editorial judgment that Johnny was finished as a politician woke up the next morning to discover that Johnny still had a few arrows left in his quiver. The opportunity that remained for Johnny after the Democratic catastrophe in Hawai'i in the 1 9 3 4 election was the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Link, for all his wealth, had become a private citizen whose political influence in Washington evaporated when he lost the delegateship to Sam King. Governor Joseph Poindexter refused to assume leadership of the party. But as every Democrat knew, Johnny as national committeeman retained the useful friendship of several of Roosevelt's cabinet members, especially Jim Farley, with an accompanying power of patronage. There was another dimension to this equation. Johnny had the knack of holding the loyalty of his supporters even when he failed to win. He was known as a party man willing to go to bat for fellow Democrats. This translated into financial support because Democrats trusted and respected him and knew they could come to him for help. His following also cut across racial lines and thus formed the nucleus for an interracial Democratic party. John Wilson was the first Hawai'i Democrat to build what might be called a "machine" simply through his character and leadership. Bill Heen and David Trask were strong vote getters and hard-working Democrats in the populist tradition. Yet neither had Johnny's scope or his powerful friends in Washington. Takaichi Miyamoto's support of Johnny is instructive. The

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majority of Japanese Americans joined the Republican party because it was easier, more comfortable, and more financially rewarding to be a Republican in Hawai'i. But Miyamoto was a maverick who had successfully bucked the plantations by growing pineapples on Kaua'i. Now he was in the liquor business in Honolulu. He enjoyed twisting the tail of the Republican establishment, and he backed Johnny Wilson financially because Johnny was a good tail twister. Miyamoto had also discovered that Johnny's political influence in Washington was helpful in the liquor business, as in getting the permit to sell sake. Johnny for his part, was not disturbed that Miyamoto's reputation in the Japanese community was somewhat below that of leading Asian businessmen who voted Republican. Miyamoto had proved a dependable supporter of Democratic principles, and if Johnny could do him a favor now and then, that was only fair. K.T. Ho, of the Liberty Bank, more respectable than Miyamoto, was another admirer of Johnny Wilson who appreciated whatever influence his friend could exert in his behalf. But, like Miyamoto, his financial support was not so much dependent upon an expectation of reward as on political conviction. A surprising number of wives of influential Republicans voted for John Wilson. Probably one reason Riley Allen, the capable and even-handed editor of the Star-Bulletin, felt the need to give the Democrats a fair shake was that his wife, as Walter Trask remembers, was a Johnny Wilson fan. The bulk of Johnny's support came from Hawaiians, although many of them voted Republican because that was where their jobs and respectability came from. But even they had a soft spot in their hearts for John Wilson, the favorite of Liliuokalani. And so the chicken ranch in Wai'alae Nui Valley remained a control center for the dreams of Democrats, a magnet for Democratic politicians hopeful for political appointment and for Democratic businessmen who needed political influence in Washington. Johnny, who still owed the Raleigh Hotel in the nation's capital a small sum for back room rent, presided over this combination of idealism and self-seeking with a firm concept of what was best for the party and for Hawai'i. Link McCandless didn't give up either, but he wasn't as subtle about it. He sued Sam King, alleging illegal campaign expenses,

252 / JOHNNY AND THE ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION and in a futile court battle that went on and on, demanded that the election be overturned. Now John Wilson's implacable foe, Link engineered Johnny's expulsion from the party during a meeting of Johnny's precinct on December 6, 1 9 3 4 , at Liliuokalani School on the basis of violations including Johnny's alleged failure to honor the endorsement of the territorial central committee for judgeships in the fifth district on the island of Kaua'i and his alleged aid to the Republicans in the general election. 1 Johnny did not attend the precinct meeting in which he was read out of the party. He explained later to Bert Rivenburgh that McCandless man Eddie Ross packed the meeting with some Puerto Ricans from the fifth district and by motion had me expelled from the club Well, you know this is all irregular, and I guess I will have a job getting it straightened out. I presume Link has pulled this off in an attempt to ruin my status with Farley and others in the administration. 2

Meanwhile, numerous Democrats were eager to straighten out the mess Link had left. Johnny wrote to Metzger, "The boys are urging me to take a trip to Washington [to represent the party in Hawai'i] and [I] am expecting to leave not later than the 15th [of December 1934]." 3 Metzger wrote back, "We trust that you hurry on to Washington and that you will use your utmost influence to have Sarah Cunningham [Link's appointee for postmaster of Hilo] removed from this building. To aid your expense account, a draft for $50 is herewith enclosed." 4 Apparently, Johnny had offered to show Republican Sam King, a fellow part-Hawaiian and the newly elected delegate to Congress, the ropes in Washington when he got there. Wilson backer K.T. Ho advised against this: I wouldn't bother much with Sam King because your time is valuable and you cannot afford to make appointments for him. You have your own work parceled out for you in various departments which are more important to you and to your future. I will send some money as soon as I get it. 5

The subscription list of thirty names of people who donated money to send Johnny to Washington, excluding Metzger and Ho,

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records contributions ranging from 50 cents to $30. The names include members of every race in Hawai'i but only one or two of any prominence. The total contributions on the list add up to $ 3 7 2 . 5 0 . This list does not include major contributors such as Noa Aluli, William Achi, and Takaichi Miyamoto. 6 John Wilson departed Honolulu at night on December 1 4 covered with leis and surrounded by Democratic admirers. It was a strange send-off for someone who had been expelled from the party. Johnny told reporters that he had been reinstated and was a member in good standing after his precinct club had voted to expunge his expulsion from the minutes. Link McCandless thundered that it was all in violation of the rules. Johnny left an unhappy wife in Honolulu. During the past two years he had been away more than he had been at home. Kini's loneliness in Wai'alae Nui Valley, and the burden of running the farm by herself, may account for her bad temper. N o w she was also hearing rumors about her husband and getting telephone calls to warn her that he was unfaithful. It may be that the calls were malicious. In any event, Kini was jealous. Three days after he left she wrote him in Hawaiian, "I heard the thing on the dock the night you left. Kaukaohu has been speaking out. You took care of a certain woman in Washington. ...There is much to dishonor you just as that in which your popularity in politics was lost. I have told you many a time, all wicked deeds are not hidden." 7 It was unusual for Kini to write to her husband, and this letter sent so soon after his departure indicates she was very upset. Napua Stevens Poire described her as cantankerous and convinced that Johnny was having affairs—about which gossip the ladies of the Kaahumanu Society, a group of Hawaiian matrons, kept her well informed. 8 There is no hint in any of Johnny's correspondence from Washington to indicate that he had an affair. He wrote about a group of friends from Hawai'i with whom he spent off hours. And he enjoyed the company of Hawaiian musicians performing in Washington. But he was so busy all the time that it is difficult to see how he could have squeezed in a romance. Probably the best source is Walter Trask, who was in Washington as secretary to Delegate Link McCandless and knew Johnny

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there. Asked if John Wilson was a womanizer; Trask said, "No. It would have been so easy. As a matter of fact, he could have been very sportive, you know....I could have helped him go out and have a good time." Trask described Johnny as a "San Francisco sharp dresses very popular with the ladies. There may have been one or two instances that he had a date but I don't know anything flourishing at all." 9 In contrast, Trask did say that Link McCandless, although in his seventies, was "heroic" in the company of women. Johnny arrived in the capital on December 23 and checked into the Hotel Washington at 15th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. A letter awaited him from Jim Farley, chairman of the Democratic National Committee as well as postmaster general, who wanted to know what was going on in Hawai'i. Farley, however, had gone away on Christmas holiday. Johnny did manage to meet with Emil Hurja, Farley's assistant at the national committee, before Hurja left Washington for the same reason. Hurja assured Johnny that Link was now out of the picture. By that time Johnny had come down with a cold and was trying to cure it with 'okolehao. On December 30 Kini penned another unhappy letter. She was beset by bills. It had been four years since Johnny had held a job. "I have many things on my mind," she wrote in Hawaiian. Several days ago I was called by the Bank of Hawaii to pay the mortgage. I refused as I have no money. It is a time of hardship And yesterday Bishop Estate called to immediately pay the taxes. The haole said you had promised him to pay on the 15th but you have not yet paid. The taxes are $ 1 0 6 . 6 3 therefore I was stunned. I am holding $ 1 0 0 for January's rent and $ 1 0 5 is left. 10

Kini was also saddled with the care of the derelicts Johnny brought home. There was Harry, apparently an elderly Hawaiian who had a problem with his teeth. They needed pulling and he required dentures. Johnny kept writing to Harry's sister in the hope that she would pay for the false teeth. In addition to the Salvation Army boys in Kini's care, two Tahitian youths stayed on the farm and got into trouble. One of them seems to have contracted a venereal disease. So Kini had company, but she also had her hands full. The New Year ushered in 1 9 3 5 , and Johnny's diary provides a

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detailed account of his modest expenses in Washington, from $ 3 . 5 0 to $8.75 per day. The diary also lists four to five appointments a day and contributions. On January 3 the list included Achi $ 3 0 , Ah Leong $20, Aluli $ 1 0 0 . Johnny was trying to see that Aluli and Achi were included in the judgeship appointments available to Hawai'i and to carry out recommendations by the central committee for postmasterships in Hawai'i. He received requests for help as well from attorneys Francis Brooks, Louis Le Baron, and Samuel B. Kemp, who were seeking judgeships. Then there was his own future to see about. N o evidence of social engagements with women appears in the diary. Yet Kini was consumed with jealousy. On January 1 1 she wrote somewhat incoherently, " A few days ago I received again this letter from Chicago showing that you promised to divorce me and that you two would marry so she is not marrying a rich man—go now and ask her, you promised to always care for her...and so you are continually hurting me throughout my life." Kini also accused Johnny of consorting with prostitutes in Washington. 11 Johnny answered in a long letter giving Kini the news and assuring her that he was faithful: I am going to Sam King's tomorrow night to dinner, and every night Ben Kong, Aileen Chan Tung's husband, is here with me. You can ask him or even [Delegate] Sam King, who comes here to my room, if they find a wahine [woman] around here. This hotel is more strict than the Raleigh. They have a watchman on every floor and no wahines unless they are with escort are allowed in rooms at any hour. 12

Harry Stewart wrote that he had taken care of Johnny's taxes. As usual, his stay had to be extended. The favored revenge for enemies of a new political appointee to Hawai'i was to write a poison pen letter to Washington. Herbert L. Spain, whom Johnny considered able, was on his way home to take over the Federal Housing Administration office when he was recalled because of complaints from Hawai'i that he was a homosexual. Johnny investigated and found that the complaint came from a disgruntled former army captain unhappy with Spain for denying him a paint contract while Spain was with the Home Owners Loan Corporation. This matter required some time to straighten out. 13

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When Jim Farley returned to his office, Johnny supplied him with detailed reports about the performance of Governor Joseph Poindexter, the election battle between Wilson and McCandless, and the reason for the Democrats' humiliating defeat.14 Johnny received an invitation to lunch with his friend on January 25, 1935, and reported to K.T. Ho that it was a very satisfactory interview. Farley didn't even ask Johnny about his alleged expulsion from the party. He offered him the position of postmaster in Honolulu if he wanted it, and Johnny wrote, "I told him I thought it would be better for the party if I accepted.... The appointment should be made in a few days, then I should stay long enough to see that we are confirmed by the Senate as Link is liable to send protests and affidavits such as he did when he complained about me to Farley." 15 Apparently, such a complication did not occur; and the appointment, when it was made by the president, sailed through the Senate. Three contributors each sent Johnny $ 1 0 0 , and K.T. Ho reported that there had been an editorial in the Star-Bulletin praising Johnny's work for the territory in Washington. On January 1 0 Johnny had a conference with Attorney General Homer Cummings about Hawai'i judgeships and was his guest at a reception for the president. For the occasion, Johnny rented a tuxedo and spent $ 1 5 on a white shirt and tie. He escorted Mrs. O'Day, a congresswoman from New York. This required an explanation to Kini that Representative O'Day was old and married. He added in Hawaiian: I have read all of y o u r thoughts but I a m not complaining to y o u for scolding me. I a m improved truly by y o u r presence because y o u are so very patient in looking after our home. H o w is it that y o u got that i d e a . . . t h a t [I think] y o u are a w i c k e d w i f e ? T h a t is just not so. I have never intended to cause hurt to y o u r affections. I [have] thought of y o u very much and think of y o u n o w until w e are both lying in the earth. But y o u still d o not believe m e . . . therefore I a m forgetting all the things about which you wrote me.16

Another guest who attended the reception for FDR at the home of Homer Cummings was Secretary of State Cordell Hull. He and Hawai'i's national committeeman got to talking about China, and Hull expressed in interest in the road-building project. The possibility that the U.S. government might underwrite the bonds for

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construction of roads in China rekindled Johnny's impossible dream.17 K.T. Ho wrote that the reaction in Honolulu to Johnny's appointment as postmaster was favorable: "I am sending you clippings, showing the very fine attitude of The Advertiser in according you a royal welcome upon your return." Ho offered advice about the China deal, recommending that Johnny go to major bankers for financing now that there was a prospect of government support.18 Johnny answered on February 23, 1 9 3 5 , to explain that he was in New York to visit with bankers and would stop in Chicago to price machinery before continuing on to San Francisco for briefings about his new duties as postmaster. Kini's jealousy flared again when she learned of his stops in New York and Chicago. She was very unhappy, convinced that her dapper husband no longer loved her. In San Francisco, Johnny learned about the postal service. He also arranged to have some peacocks shipped to Kini from Los Angeles because she adored peacocks. On March 5 he wrote, "Yesterday was your birthday and I am sorry I could not be home to give you sixty-three kisses." 19 He arrived in Honolulu on Thursday, March 14, 1935, to be welcomed by a throng of admirers. Johnny reported to Emil Hurja in Washington: I . . . w a s greated by thousands of people w h o c a m e o u t on the launch and lined the docks. I could not ask for anything better than the genuine spirit of faith s h o w n by a lot of m y constituents Immediately after landing, I w a s taken up to see the g o v e r n o r of the territory and w a s also invited to speak before the Territorial H o u s e of Representatives w h i c h w a s then in session. 2 0

Editorial writers, who had predicted the end of Johnny's political career after his loss to Link McCandless, did a 180-degree turn. The Advertiser wrote, "It was a homecoming that marked John H. Wilson as the unquestioned head of the Democratic party in Hawaii." 21 Kini stayed with her man. We have to assume that she kissed and made up with her important husband while reserving her prerogative to deflate him when she felt like it.

PART

SIX

Leader of Hawai'i s Democrats

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One historian has written that the fight between Link McCandless and Johnny Wilson "smashed the Democratic party in Hawaii for the next twenty years.'" Certainly the adherents of Jefferson and Jackson in the Islands were dispirited and squabbling when Johnny returned from Washington as postmaster to lead his defeated party. His tools for leadership were meager. As postmaster of Honolulu, he stood far below the delegate to Congress in prestige, and he possessed only a fraction of the political clout of the governor. Now, amid twenty-seven bouquets of flowers sent to his office in the Federal Building by way of congratulation, he set about his two related tasks, delivering the U.S. mail and reviving the Democratic party. The postmaster's job did not tax Johnny's diverse talents. He directed an army of mail carriers and a fleet of motor vehicles, made sure the accounts were in order, negotiated contracts to haul mail by ship and by airplane between the islands at the least cost to the government, acted as landlord to other agencies occupying the Federal Building, and entertained important post office officials vacationing in Hawai'i. There was even some glamour attached to his new position. On April 1 7 , 1 9 3 5 , the first Pan American Clipper set down amid salt spray on the waters of Pearl Harbor after a flight of nineteen hours, forty-eight minutes from Alameda, California. Johnny's crew was on hand at Hancock Landing with a truck and driver K. Nakamura to receive Hawai'i's first scheduled airmail from the mainland and deliver it with a police escort to the post office. 2 Then he sent a first-day cover to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a stamp collector.

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Johnny's most important duty was supervising the ninety-five lesser postmasters scattered about the Islands and recommending their replacements. 3 It was this power of patronage that provided the postmaster in Honolulu an opportunity to exert political influence. Johnny did not shy in the least from this responsibility. It's one reason he took the job. His first move was to oust the rebellious Sarah Cunningham from her temporary position as postmistress in Hilo and replace her with a reliable and competent Democrat, D. A. Divine. This and other personnel changes that rewarded the party faithful brought an immediate commendation from the O'ahu County Democratic Committee. 4 Johnny's commitment to long-time party workers in the matter of post office appointments apparently brought a number of disillusioned Democrats back into the fold. Delbert Metzger wrote from Hilo on April 1 8 , "The atmosphere has been so cleared since your triumphant return from Washington that nearly all hands are willing to settle down and hit the ball where it will do the most good." 5 But Link McCandless refused to concede leadership of the party to John Wilson, and so the Democrats were split. The division expressed itself in sometimes petty ways. The Jefferson Club of Hawai'i voted with no opposition to hold its annual dinner for Democrats at a Chinese restaurant, the Waikiki Lau Yee Chai, on the evening of M a y 3 1 , 1 9 3 5 . Then David Trask, on behalf of Link, sent postcards around declaring that the dinner site had been changed to the McCandless Building. Johnny wrote to Bert Rivenburgh on Hawai'i, "Well, those that did not receive the postal cards met at Lau Yee Chai's while Link and his gang met at the McCandless Building. The Link gang elected a director in the club who is not even a member." Johnny added that confused Democrats flooded his office to ask about such irregularities. He wrote, "I'm like a priest, I must listen to all their political sins and to their troubles." 6 After a meeting of Democrats, Arthur A. Greene, the acting governor, advised Johnny to call the fight off in the interests of party harmony. "I asked them what did they expect of me?" Johnny wrote to Metzger.

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I also told Greene that my fight was not a personal one, it is one of principle. Link refused to support the platform and ignored the regular committees and rules of the party, and unless he reformed or did something more than just shake hands, I did not see h o w in hell they were going to restore harmony in the party. 7

Governor Poindexter finally offered John Wilson the position of land commissioner, a political plum that paid $1,800 more per year than the postmaster ship. Johnny turned it down. He explained that he was trying to get a Democratic legislature elected that would end the rule of Republican "good old boys." While he waited for confirmation as land commissioner by a Republican legislature, he would be out of action politically, and somebody had to manage the next campaign. 8 The dawn of 1936 signaled a major convention battle for control of the party: Link was determined to regain his former leadership, Johnny equally determined to prevent this unless Link played by the party rules. The governor finally brought Johnny and Link together at a meeting on March 1 to take up the matter of peace and harmony. Johnny reported in a letter to Isabelle and Charlie Thompson on Maui that Link got to his feet and delivered a scorching catalogue of Johnny's political sins and demanded that he be expelled from the party. Then Johnny responded by listing what Link had done wrong. Johnny added: After listening to both of us, the chairman asked me if it was possible for Link and I [sic] to get together. I said, " Y e s , " all I asked is that Link support the Democratic platform. Then the question was put to Link. He refused point blank to get together. When asked if he would support the Democratic platform, he replied by saying he wanted to see the platform first. In other words, he wants to write the platform himself. 9

The Democratic territorial convention met on April 30, 1936, amid charges by Wilson supporters that the McCandless faction had sent delegate credentials only to McCandless candidates instead of to accredited precinct chairmen. So the convention opened with a fight over credentials. Governor Poindexter refused to accept chairmanship of the convention as referee. Jim Farley called Johnny from Washington to ask what he could do to help. Johnny advised him to wire the convention in his behalf.

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The Advertiser reported that Link launched an attack against Louis S. C a i n , Territorial Director of Public Works, charging him with intimidation of delegates. A resounding chorus of boos went up. Link kept on talking but his w o r d s were drowned out even though he spoke into a microphone connected with loudspeakers. The derisive shouts continued as long as he talked. 1 0

During the convention eight different precincts filed thirteen separate protests against seating of delegates. The convention tilted toward Johnny's faction, adopting its rules for seating, a move bitterly assailed by David Trask for McCandless. The vote showed that Link carried Kaua'i and Hawai'i while Johnny's strength lay on O'ahu and Maui. Johnny finally won the votes to certify accredited party precincts. The Star-Bulletin analyzed the convention in an editorial the next day: John H . Wilson earned his victory. H e worked through the regular party channels. A n d with the assured support of the national chairman of the party, James A . Farley... there never w a s a real chance for the socalled " b o o t - l e g " clubs to gain recognition T h e Wilson-Cain forces —all those which are made up of federal patronage and the very considerable patronage which the superintendent of public works can muster and direct—proved entirely too strong for the M c C a n d l e s s group It is a signal victory for Wilson, but though his mastery is n o w secure, it is not the mastery of a united political army. 1 1

Nobody knew that better than Johnny. He invited delegates from the neighbor islands to a meeting at the Young Hotel immediately after the convention to discuss ways to bring the party together for the coming elections. The delegates voted to allow members of rump precincts to become Democrats in good standing by joining accredited precinct clubs. They also agreed on the rules that Johnny had always favored requiring applicants for federal appointment to first obtain endorsement from their precinct clubs, then from their county committees, then the central committee.12 Johnny's supporters on Maui refused to forgive and forget. They went home and organized a victory luau. "I do not think

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much of the luau idea," Johnny wrote on May 7, 1936. "You may antagonize the boys that lost out...unless those that were beaten are willing to attend and forget the past." Now Johnny's cantankerous backers criticized him for insisting the governor should head the slate of delegates to the national convention. On May 15 Johnny wrote plaintively to Jim Farley in Washington that Hawai'i Democrats didn't seem to have much political sense. The governor represented the president in the territory, even if he was only a lukewarm FDR supporter. Delegates around the country would view excluding Poindexter from the convention as criticism of Roosevelt. Johnny returned from the national convention to discover that the Democrats on Maui were playing havoc with the rules they had promised to observe. Isame Ching, president of a new Wilson-oriented precinct club, refused to enroll voters of whom he didn't approve. Johnny's supporters were giving orders without authority. His correspondence at this time is full of patient pleading to observe proper procedure. He wrote to his supporters in Wailuku, Maui, "How do you boys expect to get anywhere when you pull off such foolish stuff as this?" 13 For almost three decades Johnny had tried to lead his followers into the American system by orderly democratic process. He had been unusually resourceful about this, utilizing music and the hula, the economics of taro, his engineering skills, and politics. Now he hit on a new scheme, journalism. He had long felt that the party needed its own newspaper to spread the Democratic gospel, hold the party together, and counteract the Republican slant of the establishment press. The opportunity came when Jonah Kumalae, publisher of the Hawaiian newspaper Ke Alakai O Hawaii, died and his wife put the periodical up for sale. Johnny wrote to Frank Serrao on the Big Island on September 2, 1936: We are taking over Kumalae's paper... which is a four-page weekly, for and during the coming campaign. We intend to make it the mouth piece of the Democratic party of Hawaii and I am asking you to take it up with your county committee... about giving it your full cooperation and support. The paper will be known as the Hawaii Democrat...and it will be run with two pages of Hawaiian and two pages of English. 14

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Johnny decided to sit out the election this time. He explained why in a letter to Bert Rivenburgh dated September 7: I w o u l d have run for the delegateship if I thought there was enough money in sight to finance my campaign. Charlie Rose and I figured, if I ran, I w o u l d cripple both the territorial and city and county tickets, as the party w o u l d have to carry me financially . . . w h i c h may be the means of losing all around. It is the opinion of the boys that w e must win the city election if w e want to keep the party together. It is getting too big to keep it alive with territorial patronage alone. 1 5

The Star-Bulletin kicked off the Democratic campaign with a cartoon showing Link handing Johnny a squalling baby labeled "Democratic party." 16 Rivenburgh offered himself as a sacrificial lamb in the race for delegate to Congress, hopeful that lightning might strike and that he would get elected. Manuel Pacheco, with a better chance, stood for mayor of Honolulu. Johnny worked out a bare-bones party campaign budget for the primary of $3,038.10, much of which came from assessments required of the candidates. This time there appeared for the first time in the list of campaign expenditures an item called "radio," for which he budgeted $2x5. Johnny broke the radio time down into twelve broadcasts of ten minutes each at $12.50 per broadcast and a one-hour broadcast for which the station charged $55, plus a $20 Mutual Telephone hook-up charge. 17 The election demonstrated the impotence of Hawai'i's squabbling Democrats. Republican Sam King, the incumbent, received nearly three times the vote of his Democratic opponent for delegate, and Democrat Pacheco failed in his bid for mayor. David Trask squeaked into the territorial legislature, but Republicans retained muscular control of the legislature and voted in an overwhelming majority of six to one on the city and county board of supervisors. Democrat Joseph V. Esposito, defeated in a run for the board of supervisors, blamed party leader John Wilson for the disarray in which the Democrats found themselves. The Advertiser reported on November 8, 1936, that "rumblings from inside the Democratic party in Hawaii are expected to break out in an open demand for a complete reorganization within the next t w o

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weeks." So Johnny learned all over again that leadership of the Democrats in Hawai'i could be a thankless task. One more defeat added to his list of tribulations. The brief flurry of interest in Washington over his proposal to build roads in China soon expired. Financing for his impossible dream never materialized, and Johnny finally gave it up. 18

- 2 8 -

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John Wilson was probably no more aware than anyone else in his homeland that a tide of political change had begun to rise in Hawai'i, even though he had helped generate it. Forces were coming together that would be harnessed by the Democratic party to overwhelm the Republicans within less than twenty years. These forces were labor and the Japanese-American vote. For several decades Johnny had tried to mobilize these forces. He could be excused for his failure in 1 9 3 6 to foresee the future because labor was still unorganized, and his efforts to bring immigrants from Asia into the party had not been greeted by fellow Democrats with enthusiasm. One historian has credited Johnny with being one of the first Hawai'i Democrats to recognize that the "outs"—Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos, Hawaiians—could unseat the "ins" if properly mobilized. 1 Johnny's papers indicate that his multiracial approach to politics was motivated by compassion coupled with voter statistics. Many other Democrats apparently did not understand this. An example is the controversy in 1 9 3 7 about the postmastership on Wailuku, Maui. For more than a year an appointment had hung fire because the Maui county committee could not agree on recommendations for a candidate. The names before Johnny were Joe Alves, a Portuguese; Ben Decker, a haole; and Aki Tom, a Chinese. Through friendship, Aki Tom had the support of influential committee members. But Johnny was reluctant to appoint him. "We should not force upon the people of Wailuku some person who happens to be a personal friend of mine or yours...without having some regard for the public," Johnny wrote to a committee member. 268

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W a i l u k u is the county seat of M a u i and is the most important o f f i c e in the county. In looking over the registered voters list by races I find in W a i l u k u y o u have: Japanese

682

Hawaiians

587

Portuguese

394

Chinese

149

Americans

134

Y o u will notice f r o m the a b o v e that the Chinese is number four on the l i s t . . . s o , politically, it looks to me to be political suicide to a p p o i n t A k i T o m or a n y other Chinese b o y unless he happens to be very p o p u lar a m o n g the people of W a i l u k u . 2

Since no qualified Japanese candidate was available, Johnny argued for the appointment of a Hawaiian, and he did so over strong opposition. 3 At Kohala on the island of Hawai'i and at other post offices around the territory where there were numerous Japanese voters, Johnny appointed Japanese. But local Democrats often resisted such appointments.4 Johnny's political instincts in matters of race were reinforced by a sense of fair play. In early 1 9 3 9 , during a trip to Washington, an attorney asked help for his client, Kaichi Tagawa, who faced deportation as an undesirable alien because, it was said, he operated a house of prostitution. Johnny had known Tagawa's wife for years and knew the charges to be false. On arrival in Washington, Johnny waded into an officious immigration attorney, informing him that two immigration inspectors in Honolulu were railroading innocent people. " I told him I had two interests in the matter," Johnny wrote later. First, M r s . T a g a w a and her seven children and, second, as a politician of the D e m o c r a t i c party. T h e immigration inspectors... w h o charged T a g a w a w e r e under oath to see that the l a w s of the nation w e r e carried out and they w e r e the first to violate their oaths in the eyes of the O r i ental population of H a w a i i w h o m w e are trying to Americanize. [I suggested that he] prefer charges against inspectors w h o are their o w n stool pigeons. H e w a s not so c o c k y w h e n I left. 5

Johnny testifed at the deportation hearing on April 1 8 and enlisted the help of Will King, the powerful senator from Utah,

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who took up the matter with immigration officials. On May 19 the deportation order was canceled. Such determined defense of immigrants by Johnny brought him political support from Japanese-American voters he helped. But Republicans still commanded election majorities through the power of patronage and control by the plantations. Antone Cravalho, a carpenter on the Wailuku Plantation on Maui, later recalled how plantations exercised their control. He said the Republicans held rallies in comfortable gymnasiums, schoolyards, and other free public facilities that were controlled by Republican administrations and were off limits to Democrats, who were banished to vacant lots. Cravalho said he made the mistake of wearing a Democratic campaign button to work. The foreman fired him.6 Mary Purdy Waihee, mother of a later state governor, remembered why the cowboys of Parker Ranch on Hawai'i voted Republican. She said in her father's time employees were called into the ranch office and instructed how to mark the ballot. All political rallies on the ranch were Republican. The cowboys and their families were brought to the polls on election day in ranch cars and the children treated to ice cream. There were no Democrats in view.7 The first stirring of a tide in a new direction resulted from the Wagner, or National Labor Relations, Act, which President Roosevelt signed into law on July 5, 1935; it granted workers the legal right to organize into unions and strike for better working conditions. The Wagner Act sparked a great leap forward for labor unions and stimulated union activity throughout the nation, including Hawai'i, where the first action was on the waterfront. On the Honolulu docks a tough little German-Hawaiian from Kalihi, Maxie Weisbarth, spoke for seamen as business agent for the Sailors' Union of the Pacific. A six-page, free-swinging, semiweekly newspaper called the Voice of Labor began publication on November 4, 1935. One week before this date, a rawboned young seaman named Jack Hall landed in Honolulu from the Mariposa to begin a career as a union organizer that would make him the most powerful labor leader in Hawai'i. He eked out a living on less than $20 a week working for Weisbarth distributing pamphlets, talking to

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seamen, and writing for the Voice of Labor at 920 Maunakea Street, a waterfront center for union activities in Chinatown. Hall peddled the newspaper in bars on Hotel Street to buy meals.8 John Wilson bought his copies from Hall on the street corner.9 In December 1935 the postmaster went down to the union hall at 920 Maunakea Street to address prospective members of the International Longshoremen's Association about the need to organize, pick the right leaders, and "get into politics." 10 Communist infiltration of labor unions apparently did not worry Johnny, although Hall's friends said Hall read nothing but Communist literature. Johnny said later, "I knew as far back as 1936 that there were Communists here in Hawaii, but I managed to keep clear of that group I lost track of them as there were so few of them at the time." 11 So Johnny's association with Hawai'i's new labor movement began immediately. But he conducted the association in his usual independent way. On October 30, 1936, in the middle of the general election, Pacific Coast docks were shut down by a waterfront strike. Shipping between West Coast ports and Hawai'i came to a halt, filling Honolulu Harbor with stranded ships and putting a thousand passengers and twelve hundred idle seamen on the beach. Movement of surface mail also came to a halt. Johnny's sympathies lay with the strikers, but he was concerned about food shortages. He reasoned that the people of Hawai'i should not be made to suffer because of the greed of the shippers. Neither was it fair to blame the strikers for food shortages.12 To make these points, the union should charter a food relief ship and bring in supplies, thereby casting the blame where it belonged, on the shippers. As a friend of the union and an expert on ships, he would handle the charter and get it financed. Johnny must have gone to a group of union leaders with this proposition in early December while negotiations for a government relief ship were breaking down. The union leaders involved included Maxie Weisbarth, Ed Berman, Harry Kealoha, and a man named Craft. 13 They met with Johnny in deep secrecy at the Young Hotel. His sincerity and enthusiasm carried the day. The union leaders endorsed Johnny's proposal. Jack Hall played no part at this stage because he was still merely a minor union employee.

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With the backing of union leaders, Johnny swung into action, enlisting labor lawyer G. F. Vanderveer in Seattle as an ally and dickering for the old Lurline, tied up in San Francisco and now owned by the Alaska Packers, a fish cannery. Civil Service Commissioner S. F. Zion in San Francisco got hooked on Johnny's plan. Cables chattered back and forth across the Pacific.14 Everyone involved in this conspiracy was committed to absolute secrecy until plans jelled. Not one word must be leaked to the press or to shippers. It was the kind of audacious, public-spirited revolt Johnny loved. It was also vulnerable to self-interest. Takaichi Miyamoto, one of Johnny's financial backers, apparently hoped to add to the cargo some supplies for his liquor store. On Sunday, December 27, 1936, Johnny boarded the Philippine Clipper for San Francisco to meet strike leaders there. The purpose of his trip, he told reporters, was to attend the inauguration of President Roosevelt and to conduct post office business in Washington. Always before he had crossed the ocean by ship, and there is no question that he considered this trans-Pacific flight a historic milestone in his life because he held his diary in one hand and a pencil in the other and jotted down how long it took the airliner to fly from Pearl Harbor past his home in Wai'alae Nui Valley. At 6:30 P.M. by his watch, Johnny wrote, "Fine weather so far, good moon." He landed on the water of the bay at Alameda at 8:35 A.M. the next day. Johnny checked into the Stewart Hotel and wasted no time presenting his plan to the joint policy committee of strikers in San Francisco. "Within five hours of my arrival I appeared before about half of the policy committee in the office of McGrady," Johnny wrote Miyamoto, who stayed behind to work with the strike committee in Honolulu. "[Harry] Bridges was not here as he was at that time locked up in the Long Beach police station for running over a boy." 15 The policy committee "appeared quite friendly and willing to do exactly what the Honolulu strike committee thought best to do." Meanwhile, the full strike committee in Honolulu failed to approve the agreement made with Johnny by their leaders. "Suspicion that the five were profiting" by the relief ship caused the plan to fall through, Miyamoto speculated.16 Johnny learned later that some of the suspicions of the strike

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committee may have been aimed at Miyamoto, who, it appears, had been talking about bringing in liquor. The committee in Honolulu would only agree to the relief ship plan if the San Francisco committee gave its approval. But the San Francisco strike committee would not give its approval unless Honolulu did so first. In a few days, negotiations with Alaska Packers to lease the Lurline also fell apart. Johnny was convinced that the Big Five in Honolulu had gotten wind of the plan and had squashed it through one of the Matson directors, a former pineapple executive in Honolulu.17 He urged Miyamoto to get Jack Hall to write stories about this in the Voice of Labor. By this time, it was too late. So the relief ship foundered before it set sail. Kini had her own theories, after talking to Johnny's half brother Charlie ("Charlie Boy"), who was also active in the labor movement, about what happened and why. She wrote her husband in Hawaiian that "Miyamoto talk too much" and that the strikers accused Johnny of ho'opunipuni, trying to take too much control.18 As usual, she was close to the mark. Johnny went on by train on January 12, 1937, to Washington for the inaugural. This time he sat on the inaugural platform with congressmen and judges. He kept very busy in Washington with business including judgeship appointments, more space for the Federal Building in Honolulu, the effect of the dock strike on Hawai'i, and political developments at home. As 1937 drew to a close, strife broke out in the Islands between the Council of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Jack Hall, who worked for the CIO faction, found himself in conflict with "Charlie Boy," who organized for the AFL. Now stories in the Voice of Labor under Hall's byline blasted Charlie Wilson and his half brother, the postmaster, as traitors to the cause. The aborted relief ship became a plot to bring in liquor for Miyamoto.19 So the new labor movement received a setback. Johnny wrote to a friend on January 5, 1938: A year a g o w e all had high hopes of doing some real g o o d f o r o r g a nized labor but, s o m e h o w or another, things w e n t h a y w i r e . T o d a y p o o r M a x i e [Weisbarth] is doing time. H e w a s sentenced to f o u r m o n t h s at

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hard labor for assault and battery on some sailor.... [Ed] B e r m a n does not c o m e near me a n y m o r e . H e p r o b a b l y feels guilty for the last year f r a c a s [over the f o o d ship]. F o r the past t w o months he has been on the island of K a u a i organizing the plantation laborers and also the longshoremen at the ports of Ahukini and Port A l l e n . . . f o r the C I O . M y half brother Charlie, I understand, is also on K a u a i organizing the longshoremen to affiliate w i t h the A F of L . 2 0

The Democrats started a controversy of their own over the reappointment of Governor Poindexter. Johnny refused to take sides publicly although he favored the governor. He was busy as point man in Washington for the party over what should have been a routine reappointment of his friend, J.Walter Doyle, as customs collector of Honolulu. Doyle had won editorial praise for his crusade against opium smuggling on the waterfront. When his reappointment did not come through, Doyle went to Washington to see about it. The powerful friend of Hawai'i, Senator Will King of Utah, wrote to Johnny on January 20, 1 9 3 8 , that the objection at the Treasury Department to Doyle stemmed from complaints about his drinking. King asked Johnny to investigate. Johnny wrote back: Walter [Doyle] is a bachelor, lives at the Y o u n g Hotel, and is seen quite frequently in the roof garden of the hotel. H e maintains contacts with the w a t e r f r o n t w h i c h is really necessary for a collector of customs to do. It is usual f o r him to entertain ships' officers, members of ships' c r e w s a n d , at times, persons of questionable character.

Doyle and his two assistants had in this way broken up a smuggling ring. Johnny wrote that the opium ring was feeding the Treasury Department false information about Doyle. 21 Then Johnny received a letter from Farley advising that Doyle had no chance of reappointment and that Johnny had better recommend someone else. So Johnny wrote King again and recommended Charles Rose, the former sheriff, in case the Doyle appointment didn't go through. Upright Senator King scolded Johnny for vacillating. "You endorsed Doyle and wrote me only a few days ago that the charges against him are untrue, and that he ought to be reappointed," King answered sternly. "I shall not recommend another person." 22 The senator read the riot act to the Treasury Department, and Doyle was suddenly reappointed.

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This confused exchange illustrates one reason Johnny remained the leader of Hawai'i's Democrats. As a senior national committeeman of his party, powerful people in Washington responded when he addressed them. But the Hawai'i Democrats could not gather themselves into an effective force despite Johnny's valiant efforts in their behalf. He took charge of the Democrat to keep his contentious party together, organizing a stock company. On March 24, 1938, one John E. McEldowney agreed to become the editor-publisher, leasing the newspaper from the company at $ 1 per year for five years. In April Johnny began twisting the arms of Democrats for money to run the newspaper. He wrote to Andrew H. Wong at Wailuku, Maui, on April 2 1 , "The boys on Hawaii have agreed to subscribe no less than $100, and the gang on Kauai headed by Johnny Fernandes and Judge Achi have agreed to raise $100. I have been asked to see if Maui could be depended upon to contribute $100. Honolulu will make up the balance of $700...for a revolving fund of $1,000." In spite of their promises, the "boys" professed to be so strapped for funds that Johnny had to pledge $875 of his own money to keep the Democrat afloat after its resurrection on April 3. On June 1 7 , 1938, the postmaster was named president of the company. Johnny wrote to Jim Farley on July 1 and noted the reluctance of better-heeled Democrats to support foot-slogging efforts like the Democrat: It seems quite strange h o w quickly some people c h a n g e just as soon as the wrinkles are out of their bellies. T h e y immediately become high and mighty and holy and very idealistic and perhaps hypocritical. I notice this attitude more a m o n g members of the legal profession than in any o t h e r . . . . T o build a party in H a w a i i , more attention must be given to the different racial groups in the distribution of patronage, and more especially in positions of rank and dignity. 2 3

The Democrat at least accomplished the happy miracle of bringing Johnny and Link McCandless back together when Link made a contribution that kept the newspaper out of bankruptcy. On this common ground, the two old opponents began speaking again. Yet the Democrats continued to show symptoms of terminal ill-

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ness. The elections of 1938 produced another Republican victory with only one Democrat returned to the territorial house, four to the senate, and two to the board of supervisors in Honolulu. The Democrat staggered along until after the election. On March 7, 1939, Jack Hall informed subscribers of the Voice of Labor that the newspaper had suspended publication. None of these events loomed as ominous in Johnny's future as passage of the Hatch Act by the U.S. Congress on August 2, 1939. The Hatch Act, like the Wagner Act before it, signaled a tide of change. This new law prohibited federal appointees from active political campaigning and soliciting. The days of patronage were coming to an end. And Johnny would have to take a civil service exam to qualify for reappointment as postmaster. Politically astute Jim Farley saw it coming and warned his friend in Honolulu. It was for this reason that Johnny announced suddenly on March 23 that he was being "called to Washington." Apparently, Farley was taking care of his "boys" before it was too late. Farley put it this way: "Don't worry about your situation. There will be a non-competitive examination and everything will be satisfactory. Please treat this confidentially."24 The Hatch Act presented Johnny with a problem considerably more serious than passing a civil service examination in order to remain postmaster. Its provisions prohibited him from being postmaster and Democratic national committeeman at the same time. He was now one of the senior committee members. When he spoke in Washington, the right people in the administration listened. Much of his value to Hawai'i and to his party was based on that seniority. Yet at age sixty-seven he needed to think about how to support Kini and himself in years ahead. Should he resign as national committeeman or give up the postmastership?

— 29 — CLORINDA

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We don't know how long it took Johnny to choose between politics and practicality, but while he pondered his future, events occurred that influenced it. The year 1 9 3 9 treated Hawai'i's sugar plantations no better than it did John Wilson. Kahuku Plantation opened the year showing a net loss of $482,444.97 for the previous twelve months. McBryde Sugar Company posted a $498,309.46 loss, and Maui Agricultural Company lost $3 89,272.4c. 1 This poor performance by Hawai'i's major taxpayers created a problem for the governor. With tax collections down, how was he going to pay for public services? The governor was particularly worried about his new welfare department, organized in 1 9 3 7 , which reflected the changing times and increasing responsibilities of government. Although the welfare department was $292,000 in the hole, the governor could not get the social workers to stop spending money.2 It was true that the money went toward a cause too long neglected. And social workers considered the funds available for their new department to be grossly inadequate. These funds were derived from a percentage of the taxes on income and dividends. Minutes of the Territorial Board of Public Welfare in 1 9 3 8 show that the sympathetic chairman kept trying to explain to the chief of social work, Mrs. Clorinda Lucas, that there was no more money to spend while Clorinda insisted that cuts could not possibly be made. 3 The Honolulu Chamber of Commerce became concerned, predicting a shortfall of $100,000 (which more than doubled in 1939). On M a y 25, Pearl Salisberry, a professional social worker; quit as director of the department.

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By this time Johnny had decided that politics was more important than the post office. He was casting about for another job in which he could remain national committeeman while the governor scratched his head about whom to appoint as welfare director who could stop the hemorrhaging. So Johnny became welfare director, a territorial position to which the Hatch Act did not apply. On June 30, 1 9 3 9 , he moved out of his spacious office in the Federal Building and wrote to Jim Farley: I believe I have accomplished about all I can do here n o w for the H o n o l u l u Post O f f i c e . . . [and] can be of m o r e help to all concerned in m y n e w place. I a m going into a lot of grief and hard w o r k , I k n o w , but I will be kept busy and will be h a p p y in the k n o w l e d g e that I a m really accomplishing something. 4

The next day Johnny moved into a cramped hole-in-the-wall office in the basement of the Territorial Building down King Street. His salary was smaller, too. Governor Poindexter gave him explicit instructions to stay within his budget and to spend no more than 1 2 . 5 percent on administration. 5 In all his long government service, Johnny had never confronted more formidable problems. Money was only one. The welfare department was chronically short of trained social workers. Yet correct social work procedure demanded training because the social worker had to evaluate people's problems through an interview, then counsel them concerning their needs and inform them about the help available. Each interview had to be typed up and filed, along with follow-up interviews, a horrendous clerical task. And social workers were required to accredit applicants for the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Trained professionals like Clorinda Lucas, however, did not think of social workers as bureaucrats, but as specialists in solving social problems, like psychiatrists in charge of society's behavioral malfunction. So it is understandable that Clorinda was not too happy about having a politician, especially one with no background in her field, taking over the department. Certainly, Clorinda was far better qualified professionally than Johnny in social work. She held a master's degree from Columbia University and was a pioneer in her field, the first part-Hawaiian

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to earn such a degree. Clorinda was trying to bring social work in Hawai'i out of the dark ages. In some ways, Clorinda was like Kini. They were both stately, intelligent, and not at all convinced that males were qualified to run the world. Clorinda was also a lot like Johnny. She was stubborn, preferred to give orders rather than take them, and was willing to stick her neck out. Mildred Sikkema, an educator who worked for Clorinda Lucas a few years later, said Clorinda was deeply concerned about the increasing break-up of Hawaiian families and about the abuse of Hawaiian children. She was impatient with what she felt was a lack of concern by legislators for adequate funding of the welfare department.6 Although both Clorinda and Johnny were compassionate, they were half a century apart in attitudes about how to deal with the needy. Delbert Metzger reflected Johnny's view. N o w a circuit judge, Metzger had served on a number of boards on the island of Hawai'i concerned with help for the poor. He wrote to Johnny on July 6, 1939: F o r the past year I have become pretty well disgusted w i t h . . . the director, Pearl Salisberry. H e r chief interest w a s in building up an organization of " t r a i n e d " social w o r k e r s to be imported f r o m the states upon the recommendation of different social w o r k e r unions

T h e s e ideas

of " g o o d p r a c t i c e " and systematic statistical w o r k generally cost so d a m n much that there isn't a n y money left to d o anything else w i t h . 7

Johnny met with his new staff and told them honestly that he was a politician, not a social worker^ and asked that they help him understand their mutual problems. The social workers apparently assumed that he would permit them to run the department for him. This was a serious mistake. Nobody but Johnny ever ran any department he headed. He began his administration by calling for a special session of the legislature to appropriate more money for his foundering welfare department.8 This appeal aroused absolutely no support. His only alternative was to make do with the declining funds available. A directive went out instructing the staff to inform him where cuts could be made. Clorinda's report was notable for a lack of such information. Instead, she detailed the needs that were not being met.9

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Johnny's door was always open, and he soon discovered that quite a few of the needy were dissatisfied with the performance of their overworked social workers. He said an average of ten people a day came in to criticize. Many old people complained that the county welfare office was too far away, being then a mile and a quarter from downtown in the Kalihi section. They had to come on foot and then wait so long to see a social worker that they had to walk home for lunch and back again. Late arrivals were frequently told to come back the next day because there wasn't time for a social worker to see them. Johnny solved this problem by moving the social workers to several empty buildings, owned by the government, that were closer to the people needing services. Even though the move meant that the workers were able to reduce expenses in gas mileage and cut down on overhead, they grumbled about the inconvenience and disruption of their routine. 10 Clorinda stoutly protested the reduction in welfare benefits from $ 1 2 . 6 6 per month per person to $ 1 1 . 1 7 . She was even more opposed to Johnny's idea for offsetting the reduction. He went out and talked grocery stores into giving welfare recipients a 1 0 percent discount on presentation of a printed card. Love's Bakery agreed to deliver day-old bread to the county offices, where the bread was sold for 2.5 cents, a saving of 7.5 cents per loaf. As an experienced poi dealer, Johnny was aware of a surplus in that commodity, so he purchased poi in bulk and sold it at the county offices at 7.5 cents a pound instead of the retail price of 1 2 . 5 cents. By this means, he figured he increased the buying power of his clients by 20 to 30 percent, thereby making up for the reduction in welfare benefits. 11 Johnny's innovation anticipated by quite a few years a later system called food stamps. The social workers, however, felt it beneath their dignity to be in the poi business. Johnny said they were so opposed to it, and so reluctantly advised their clients about these benefits, that he discontinued the discounts when economic conditions improved and increased tax collections permitted a corresponding increase in welfare payments. Then Johnny found old men sleeping under Pier 1 6 and in 'A'ala Park. He enlisted the help of the American Legion to open a

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receiving home where such street people could sleep. The home would be operated by Legionnaires. Johnny's social workers objected that this was not correct social work procedure. His plan confirmed their lack of faith in him, and the newspapers didn't help by calling his receiving home a "flop house." With much dragging of feet by his staff, Johnny found an unused building and opened Kapiolani Home at 1 7 1 7 Meyers Street; there needy Caucasian and Hawaiian men certified by the welfare department could receive bed and board for $ 1 5 a month. 12 It is obvious from his correspondence that Johnny found his job as welfare director more demanding than work at the post office. His political activities had to take a back seat. But he did his best to keep his foot in the door and must have been gratified when, with his strong recommendation, Jim Coke was appointed chief justice of the Hawaii Supreme Court and Delbert Metzger a federal judge in August 1 9 3 9 . Another accomplishment in which he took pride was the appointment of Chester Matoda, a Democrat of Japanese descent, as postmaster in Lihu'e, Kaua'i, in January 1940. However, a petition circulated, sponsored by the incumbent postmaster, one Martin Deier, calling for recall of the appointment and alleging that Matoda had not passed his civil service exam. Prominent Republicans on Kaua'i signed this petition, and Matoda's name was removed from the list. Johnny vigorously went to bat for Matoda in Washington, and on April 30, 1940, Matoda became the postmaster in Lihu'e. 13 It was about this time that Johnny decided to add sugar cane straw hats to his arsenal in the war on poverty. As welfare director, he presided over three divisions: social work, child welfare, and aid to the blind. In the social work and child welfare divisions, needy clients received monthly benefits in the form of money. Aid to the blind consisted, as well, of opportunities to work in blind vendor stands and a government-operated broom factory. Johnny remembered the blind vendor stand in the post office because the vendor had told him proudly that he had learned braille and now was able to support himself by operating the

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stand. Why not give other welfare recipients a chance to learn a useful trade that would take them off the welfare rolls?14 Kini's old sugar cane straw hat gave him the idea how to do this. After years of use, it was still handsome and serviceable. The hats had been much in fashion at one time, but few women made them anymore. They were inexpensive and easy to make, however, and Johnny saw no reason why they would not be salable. Hawaiian women should find such work pleasant and profitable given the proper training. They could also learn to weave lauhala (leaves of the pandanus tree), a dying skill. Johnny's social workers including Clorinda took a different view. There was nothing in their social work training about sugar cane straw hats. It was bad enough that they had to certify workers for the WPA, issue food chits, and supervise the sale of day-old bread. The social workers were monumentally indifferent to Johnny's new plan. Undismayed, Johnny employed a Hawaiian lauhala weaver who knew how to braid and sew pua (sugar cane straw) hats and was willing to teach. He had to find students himself because Clorinda and her social workers made little effort to help. The weaving school began in February 1940 with women ranging in age from twenty to fifty as students.15 Johnny played politics when he had time. He reported to Jim Farley on February 9 that the territorial legislature had passed the "little Hatch Act" in 1939 placing all municipal, county, and territorial positions under civil service, along the lines of the federal Hatch Act, and that this was playing havoc with Democrats in Hawai'i. "[The new regulation] practically places about 90 per cent of our [Democratic] leaders out of active [political] service," he lamented. "It also put all of the independent Republicans out of active politics, consequently the field is clear for the party that has the most money. The Republicans being the money party in Hawaii, it places them in absolute control of both parties."16 Johnny sailed on July 1 for the Democratic National Convention in Chicago via San Francisco, leaving Clorinda Lucas in charge. By this time, he had pulled the welfare department out of the hole and had built up a reserve fund of more than $56,000. He instructed Clorinda to continue reductions in benefits. But she

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went to the territorial auditor's office, found out about the reserve fund, and wrote to Johnny, with a carbon copy to the acting governor, that she would spend the money if necessary in defiance of orders.17 Clorinda's letter was put into Johnny's hand as he boarded the steamer, so there was nothing he could do about her rebellion except write impotently on board the ship, "My instructions from the governor to keep the department within its income... must be observed I have managed to keep the department out of the red, and I have received very few complaints or requests for relief since February this year." 18 Thus began the Clorinda Lucas revolt against her director. Clorinda apparently decided to outmaneuver Johnny by cooperating at last with his weaving program. One reason for her change of heart may have been that Governor Poindexter proudly wore his new pua straw hat on departure for the Chicago convention. Obviously, Johnny's sugar cane straw hats had strong support in high places. But Clorinda still insisted on spending as much as she could of the reserve fund before Johnny got back. He finally had to approve the amount she spent even though she furnished him with no account of where it went. The only alternative was to have her arrested.19 At the Chicago convention, Franklin Roosevelt maneuvered himself into being nominated for a third term while appearing to be uninterested. The convention also nominated Roosevelt's choice for vice-president, Henry Wallace. James Farley, who felt Roosevelt should step down after two terms and hoped to make his own run for the presidency, soon resigned as postmaster general. Johnny went on to New York, where he told a reporter for Women's Wear Daily about his sugar cane straw hats. A story appeared on August 6, 1940, and hatters in the garment section besieged the welfare director for more information. Thomas Brothers were interested in hats "in the rough or unblocked form," which they sold in large quantities. Hyland Hats on Fifth Avenue wished to be considered as an outlet, and A.D.Cohen, straw goods and felts, reported that they would be interested in a large quantity of hats. Macy's wanted to carry Johnny's novel line, while the Mark Company put in a bid as sales agents.

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From New York, Johnny continued on to Washington, where he got acquainted with the Federal Surplus Commodities Administration and wrote home: "I see no reason why we cannot participate in the benefits of this office. They distribute such articles as rice, flour, potatoes, oranges, prunes, dried applies, canned and powdered milk, beans and peas and many more articles. All we must guarantee is that the recipients are reliefers."20 The welfare director returned to Honolulu on August 28 and instructed Clorinda to prepare a manual for the distribution of surplus foods in Hawai'i. By January 1 9 4 1 , when Johnny received a cablegram from the Washington office demanding the manual, Clorinda still had not prepared it. That day, as he was leaving for Hilo, he found on his desk a letter from Clorinda explaining why the food program could not be operated in Hawai'i. 21 So he wrote the manual himself on the overnight voyage to Hilo. By February, with the cooperation of the WPA and county officials around the territory, the surplus food program was put into operation. About forty-five hundred needy people accepted free food every month. One of Clorinda's strongest allies was Ferris Laune, director of the Honolulu Council of Social Agencies, an influential organization that supported welfare reform. L a u n e told the press that J o h n n y has a very peculiar idea of the meaning of "rehabilitation." T h e making of sugar cane h a t s . . . s e e m s to be a h o b b y with him but w e can see no evidence w h i c h w o u l d fit this activity into the public welfare p r o g r a m T h e persons w h o do participate in this craft w o r k are not determined by the social w o r k e r s and no record w h i c h w o u l d guarantee these persons eligibility is kept. 2 2

In spite of such criticism, Johnny's pua hat makers could not meet the demand, and the lauhala weaving program was so successful that commercial weavers went into competition with it. The large influx in 1941 of defense workers at Pearl Harbor helped increase the demand for Hawaiian crafts. The influx also had less welcome effects. Prices on everything began to soar, and the increases created a demand for higher wages. The blind workers in the broom factory went on strike. Johnny settled the strike by providing a bonus system that gave the workers a chance to earn more. A housing shortage also accompanied the influx of defense

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workers. Fifty families were ordered out of the Fred Wright housing area and had nowhere else to go. Johnny received calls for help, so he went to investigate. He found entire families living in one room, taking turns sleeping in the beds. Johnny led a tour of legislators to see the appalling conditions. He asked for authority to spend $100,000 of public welfare funds to build 100 houses for clients. At that time, the department was paying $25,350 per month in rent for 1,653 individuals and 939 families. Johnny reasoned it would be cheaper to build low-cost housing. Senator Harold Rice introduced a bill that would authorize the welfare department to construct the houses, but the bill died in the house because of strenuous opposition from the Honolulu Council of Social Agencies. 23 Ferris Laune commented: This was at a time when w e had a Territorial Housing Authority whose business it w a s to develop housing. N o t only the Council of Social Agencies but also a large number of prominent members of the community felt it was unwise... to build additional slums in Honolulu with territorial welfare money. 24

By the end of the year, a lot of people had become nervous about the possibility of war with Japan. Ambrose O'Connell, first assistant postmaster general in Washington, asked the Democratic national committeeman in Hawai'i why there were so many Japanese postmasters in the Islands. Johnny answered with a long letter that gave voting statistics by race to show that Americans of Japanese ancestry were second only to Caucasians in population and, therefore, should be appointed in corresponding ratio. 25 Then bombs fell on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1 9 4 1 , martial law was declared a few hours later, and the military took the matter of Japanese Americans entirely out of Johnny's hands. He must have felt his age as he prepared to celebrate his seventieth birthday because so many of the warriors with w h o m he had gone into previous battles were now gone. Johnny had survived J.Walter Doyle and Louis Cain. Link McCandless had died the year before, and Johnny had written, "There's no question about it, Link was one of the sturdiest fighters our party ever had. You couldn't bluff him and you couldn't scare him." 26 Only Johnny and Delbert Metzger remained of the original, founding Democrats in Hawai'i.

—3 0 SWAN

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World War II was different from World War I for John Wilson and those of his neighbors who had lived long enough to remember the earlier conflict. That war had been a remote menace like a distant hurricane that caused unpleasant weather at home. This war brought immediate disaster followed by the grim threat of invasion. Hawai'i became an armed camp, its frightened citizens caught in a straitjacket of military regulation. From the night of December 7, 1 9 4 1 , the military governor imposed a total blackout as martial law went into effect. There was constant fear of a Japanese invasion. Four different times an alert sounded for such an invasion, but the sightings later proved to be friendly ships. The beaches, including Waiklkl, were strung with barbed wire. Federal Bureau of Investigation and military intelligence agents rounded up citizens of Japanese and German ancestry suspected of espionage. People prepared evacuation kits in case they had to flee to the mountains. In February, hysteria about the possibility of subversion by local residents of Japanese descent reached a peak. Chester Matoda, postmaster at Llhu'e, Kaua'i, was busy sorting mail on February 1 7 , 1 9 4 2 , when the former haole postmaster, the sheriff of Kaua'i, and a member of military intelligence came into his office and hauled him off to jail, where he was held for forty days, without permission to speak to anyone including an attorney or his wife and nine-month-old daughter. Then Matoda was sentenced to a detention camp in Honolulu. 1 Johnny, as Democratic national committeeman, heard a little of this by letter from Ambrose O'Connell, first assistant postmaster general, in Washington. O'Connell advised him that Matoda had been removed from office and replaced temporarily by the former

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postmaster giving no details. O'Connell asked Johnny how to handle the civil service examinations for selecting a permanent postmaster.2 In April Johnny received appeals for help from Matoda's wife, who wrote: "We do not know just what the charges are against him, but it cannot be even remotely resulting from disloyalty to his country." " I feel desperate that this injustice might go through." 3 The only help Johnny could give Mrs. Matoda was sympathy. John Wilson worried, too, about Hawaiians who survived by fishing to put food on the table. With barbed wire strung across the beaches and machine-gun nests guarding them, the fishermen were afraid to venture out. On March 1 8 , 1 9 4 2 , he wrote to the director of civilian defense:4 A n y t h i n g y o u might be able to d o to restore the beaches to the natives so that they will be permitted to fish and collect sea f o o d w o u l d not only be rendering a service to them but I believe w o u l d be a substantial saving to the government in conserving f o o d in the territory.... Prior to the w a r , and with the beaches at their disposal, they b o u g h t not more than 2 5 to 5 0 per cent of their f o o d .

He added a postscript: "Since writing the above, I learned by way of the grapevine that an airplane dropped a bomb on a school of fish off Waianae, mistaking it for a submarine. A patrol [of fishermen] would avoid such occurrences as Hawaiians can distinguish the difference." There is no indication, in the frantic attempt to defend the island, that anyone heeded this request. When it came time to make his annual informal report to the Democratic National Committee, now headed by Edward J . Flynn instead of Jim Farley, Johnny wrote: "War conditions have attracted so much attention in recent months that all political activities are at their lowest in the history of the Islands. All the committees are dormant and nothing is being done to organize for the fall elections. Still I feel it is my duty to keep you informed." 5 Johnny recommended the reappointment of Poindexter, "particularly in times such as this Should Governor Poindexter decline the appointment, I wish then to go on record as endorsing any N E W D E A L D E M O C R A T , one who is independent and free from influences of the interests."

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Hawai'i Democrats held their territorial convention on June 29 in the Central Intermediate School auditorium. The Star-Bulletin reported: Probably the shortest B o u r b o n convention in island history, the meeting lasted only f o u r hours C o n s p i c u o u s l y absent f r o m the c o n v e n tion w e r e Outside Island delegates, the majority of w h o m w e r e unable to attend because of transportation restrictions J o h n W i l s o n urged D e m o c r a t i c leaders to see that their precinct clubs are kept active and to put up for the c o m i n g election as m a n y D e m o c r a t i c candidates as possible. 6

But there weren't many candidates to put up. The attorney general's office had already been decimated by enlistments into the military services. Johnny had to recommend overage but still active postmasters. William Borthwick declared himself a Democratic candidate for delegate to Congress if nobody else wanted it. On July 1 5 Johnny suffered a severe attack of fish poisoning. He was rushed to the hospital in critical condition. For two weeks he lay on his back. He spent another ten days at home feeling old and useless. His close brush with death for once drained him of energy and optimism.7 On September 1 , 1942, he wrote to the Democratic National Committee: I regret exceedingly that, on the advice of m y physician, I must curtail m y present activities to the extent of w i t h d r a w i n g f r o m a n y active participation in politics for an indefinite period. T h i s entails m y resignation f r o m membership on the D e m o c r a t i c national committee on w h i c h I have the honor of being the senior member, having been chosen originally in 1 9 1 2 . . . a n d also r e m o v e s w h a t e v e r possibility there w a s of m y being a candidate for the D e m o c r a t i c nomination for delegate to C o n g r e s s at the f o r t h c o m i n g primary. 8

Only the fear of God, or death, could have wrung such a statement out of John H. Wilson. Politics and the national committee had been his lifeblood. Yet he could not remain silent when President Roosevelt appointed Ingram Stainback governor. Johnny later wrote, after his energy and normal judgment came back: "The news of I. M. Stainback's appointment... came as a surprise and much dis-

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appointment to the people including myself. I do not know of a more unpopular man in the territory than Mr. Stainback. It seems as though Secretary Ickes is determined to put the Democratic party in Hawaii out of existence.'" The elections that followed, with voters carrying gas masks to the polls, proved another disaster for the Democrats. On O'ahu, only six candidates out of a total of twenty-eight running were elected. Johnny wrote to an unnamed senator in Washington, "With Stainback as governor, I see our hopes fading.... Since Homer Cummings and Jim Farley have stepped out of the picture, everything seems to be going [badly] as far as Hawaii is concerned." 10 Senator Bill Heen eventually became Democratic national committeeman for Hawai'i. By 1943 U.S. forces had driven the Japanese juggernaut from Midway back across the Pacific, and the FBI had found no evidence of subversion in Hawai'i. Hysteria regarding Americans of Japanese descent subsided. The War Department approved organization of an all-Nisei combat team and a Nisei infantry battalion. Chester Matoda was exonerated and released from detention at last, but he did not get his old job back in spite of Johnny's appeal to the postmaster general that injustice be rectified. Martin Dreier, the man who had led the persecution of Matoda, remained postmaster at Llhu'e. On Johnny's advice, Matoda took the civil service exam. He was not even advised of the result, only that he had failed in reappointment. When he wrote to ask for his score, he was informed that he got an 86, an excellent rating, but was rejected for appointment because of public disapproval over his "personality" and his incarceration. 11 Johnny, on a trip to Chicago, made one last attempt to help Matoda by enlisting the aid of the Chicago Civil Liberties Committee. 12 Nothing came of this. But his restless brain refused to slow down, and wartime food shortages gave him another unconventional idea. Why not restore Hawaiian fish ponds and feed the people? In October 1 9 4 2 he asked Ed McCorriston, one of Kini's relatives, to give him a report on the condition of fish ponds on Moloka'i that had been constructed in ancient times for the practice of aquaculture. McCorriston listed fifty-four fish ponds in good to useless condition. Johnny made his own count on O'ahu. 13

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On November 1 8 Johnny wrote to Walter F. Dillingham, director of food production in the office of the military governor, suggesting that the U.S. government undertake the restoration of fish ponds to provide food since food rationing was imposed by the federal government. 14 Johnny's idea sparked a bit of interest and produced some valuable historical information about Hawaiian fish ponds, but Dillingham's staff member in charge of engineering reported that the dredging of fifty fish ponds would cost $ 1 , 5 7 5 , 0 0 0 and that labor and equipment available would be more effective if devoted to some other food-producing activity. 15 In the welfare department, staff shortages and overwork led to increasing complaints from social workers. 16 Agent Morris G. Fox in Hilo protested bitterly that a child welfare worker promised for West Hawai'i had been assigned instead to O'ahu. He objected that a worker sent to Hawai'i was not adequately trained. Johnny answered that there was no one else available: "It is a case of either taking Mrs. Goss or going without a worker entirely." 17 As the war dragged into 1944, Johnny became more short-tempered—and so did his social workers. They strongly resisted his policy of rotating staff members on O'ahu to the neighbor islands as a matter of fairness to the remote hinterlands, where nobody wanted to work. The social workers insisted that the policy created constant disruption. Then Johnny became impatient with the endless committee meetings the social workers attended on company time. His staff spent whole afternoons at sessions of the Honolulu Council of Social Agencies. Clorinda proudly served on numerous boards and committees concerned with social issues. Beset by staff shortages, Johnny sent down an edict forbidding attendance at meetings during office hours without the director's approval. (It was true, of course, that not all of Johnny's own politicking was done after working hours.) This edict inaugurated a war with Mrs. Margaret Ottman, agent in Honolulu, who immediately demanded Johnny's permission to attend vital meetings of committees of the Honolulu Council of Social Agencies on which she was active: confidential and exchange committee, intake and referral steering committee, executive committee, territorial nutrition committee, personal and vocational counseling committee, and the territorial conference on social work. 18

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Clorinda took a leave of absence late in 1944 after the chief of child welfare quit. Johnny promoted a social work supervisor, Herbert Kum, to head both departments. Kum carried out Johnny's orders, but his appointment aroused a new storm of protest. Mrs. Ottman tried to have Kum removed. He would later become one of Johnny's chief political lieutenants. Grace Hamman, chief of the bureau of sight conservation, rebelled and talked the legislature into giving her autonomy while the welfare department paid the bills. The division of authority led to an acrimonious dispute and mutual mistrust between Johnny and Nils Tavares, the Republican attorney general. This ill will would have repercussions later. Johnny's job grew less and less satisfying with the end of the war. The Honolulu Council of Social Agencies demanded an examination of the welfare department in November 1 9 4 5 . Mrs. Ottman resigned, and the council called for her reinstatement. Johnny said later that Governor Stainback began interfering with his department. It was about this time that Johnny offered W. K. Bassett, who was in California and broke again, a job as his assistant. His hiring of Bassett led some political pundits to assume that Johnny was ready for another fling at running for office. But the indications are that Johnny, at age seventy-four, had gotten himself excited about another dream, his last. He was, before anything else, a builder. For Johnny, solutions to problems involved building: roads, schools, sewers, the Democratic party, a better Hawai'i. N o w he saw that one of the most pressing problems in his homeland was a shortage of housing that people could afford. Somebody had to build the low-cost houses. Naturally, John Wilson had figured out how to do this in a typically unconventional way. It appears that Johnny had discovered on his leased property in Wai'alae Nui Valley a soil that had the composition of clay. His broad knowledge of history told him that the first buildings in Hawai'i, after the traditional grass houses of Hawaiians, were constructed of adobe (sun-dried brick) at little cost. Such bricks, made from the proper soil, could be turned into a durable, inexpensive, readily available construction material. John Wilson must have been the first person in Hawai'i to seriously grapple with Hawai'i's modern low-cost housing problem,

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and he was, as usual, far ahead of his time. This had never bothered Johnny very much. Why couldn't he provide affordable homes, and make his fortune besides, by going into the business of manufacturing adobe bricks? So the year 1946 began with Johnny losing interest in his embattled welfare department and spending more time learning how to make bricks. He must have started his experiments in 1 9 4 5 because he said later it took him eight months to perfect the formula. On May 23, 1946, he wrote to the International Clay Machinery Company: Since D e c e m b e r of 1 9 4 1 all building [in H a w a i ' i ] stopped. C o n s e quently there is a great shortage in housing. L u m b e r is obtainable only o n a priority [basis] and even then there will not be enough lumber to care for the immediate needs

O u r present plans are to p r o d u c e a

solid 8 x 8 x 1 6 block. O u r clay after ten d a y s of drying will stand a load w h i c h will be a l l o w e d in one story structures. W e d o not intend to operate kilns until w e k n o w more a b o u t the local clay. 1 9

Johnny estimated that he could build a two-bedroom house for $4,54O.98.20

It must have been at this time that he decided to quit the welfare department. He wrote to Sam Halstead in Los Angeles on June 25, "I have resigned my position [as welfare director] as of July 31st. I am going into the building game. A census was taken last year and it was determined that at least 5,000 families are without homes and are ready to build but are without material." 21 Governor Stainback appointed Oren Long, former superintendent of schools, to take Johnny's place as head of welfare. On July 20 the social workers gave a big luau in Johnny's honor; and on the day he retired the Royal Hawaiian Band serenaded him with the songs that had been written for him in the past: " K u u Pua I Paokalani" by Queen Liliuokalani in 1 8 9 5 , " N a Lanieha" (Four Heavens) and "Johnny Wilson's March" by Mekia Kealakai when he was bandmaster under Mayor John Wilson in the 1920s. 2 2 Johnny announced that he would be sailing on August 9 for a three-month tour of the mainland in search of construction machinery. His trip would take him to Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, and New York. Republicans could be excused for

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heaving sighs of relief when they learned that John Wilson had finally sung his political swan song. The Advertiser gratefully wrote a flattering tribute pointing out his sterling qualities: It is hard f o r us to believe that J o h n n y W i l s o n is to retire f r o m public l i f e . . . n e x t month. H e is a g o o d e x a m p l e of that stubborn quality in the h u m a n being w h i c h k n o w s that " i m p o s s i b l e " has no place in the brave man's dictionary.... Public life has not m a d e him richer. . . . H e has m a d e nothing out of his civic and political career. W e call that honesty. . . . J o h n n y W i l s o n deserves f r o m H a w a i i a great big lei. 2 3

His critics were probably more cautious about anointing him to sainthood. Since his retirement as mayor, he had been a constant annoyance to the Republican establishment and a frequent discomfort to respectable Democrats. His bitter feud with Link McCandless had severely damaged the party. He had taken the positions of postmaster and welfare director with few professional qualifications for either post and for largely political purposes. Yet his contributions to both the Democratic party and the Territory of Hawaii extended beyond the Advertiser's praise. As Democratic national committeeman, he had tirelessly kept the Roosevelt administration abreast of Hawai'i's problems. He had used his power of federal patronage to hold the Democrats of the territory together at their lowest ebb and had laid the foundation for a multiracial party. If Johnny was bullheaded, he was also fair and caring, and these traits had made him a leader. The Democrats would soon come to understand what they had lost with his retirement.

PART

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The Unbeatable Old Politician

OUT

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With retirement, Johnny dropped from public view. He devoted his considerable energy to starting a brick factory in Wai'alae Nui Valley six miles from the political intrigues in downtown Honolulu. But only a few months passed before the Democrats, desperate for electable candidates, intruded upon his solitude. One day during the summer of 1946, Arthur Trask, now an attorney, got into his car and headed toward Kaimukl along a new extension of Kapi'olani Boulevard to confer with Johnny Wilson on a matter of import to the Democratic party. The errand on which Trask found himself engaged had been prompted by a luncheon attended by Senator Bill Heen, Trask, and other prominent Democrats. These concerned party members had discussed whom they should support as candidate for mayor now that incumbent Democrat Lester Petrie, a good vote getter, had announced that poor health would keep him from running again. Quite a number of unelectable party members were already jockeying for position. Heen turned to Trask and said, "You know Johnny Wilson better than anybody. Go and talk him into running." Trask said later that he drove out to Wai'alai Nui Valley and up bumpy 'O'ili Road to the Wilson manse, where he heard Kini and Johnny arguing heatedly in the kitchen in Hawaiian. They were somewhat embarrassed when Trask poked his head in, he said. He put the proposition to Johnny who said he would run if the " b o y s " wanted him to. 1 Johnny wrote later with considerable satisfaction: " I was practically drafted by the Democratic party to run for mayor at the last minute. Up until the middle of August, I had no [more] idea of running for mayor [than for] President of the United States."

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One factor in Johnny's decision to toss his hat into the ring may have been Kini. She had gotten over her distaste for politics. Her friends said she was tired of being neglected and wanted the attention accorded in her circle to the wife of the mayor.2 But Johnny was still determined to pursue his dream of building affordable houses of adobe brick, a formidable challenge even for his diverse abilities. For one thing, the building code in Honolulu would have to be changed before adobe could be used as a building material. Also, machinery for making bricks was nonexistent in Hawai'i. Once Johnny found machinery on the mainland, he would have to learn how it worked. Would the federal government approve loans to veterans for houses built of adobe? He also needed financing. Meanwhile, the need for affordable homes became more critical. Lots in Palolo that had sold for 8 cents a square foot in 1940 were now priced at 75 cents a square foot. Kaimukl lots selling from 1 2 to 1 5 cents in 1940 were selling for 80 cents. Prices on property in St. Louis Heights had increased from 1 5 cents to 75 cents, Maunalani Heights property had risen from 20 cents to 65 cents, and Coconut Grove lots in Kailua on the other side of the island had soared from 5 cents to 45 cents.3 There was no time to waste. Johnny had a very full plate without worrying about who would be the next mayor. So instead of scouting for a campaign headquarters, he set out for the mainland to learn more about the brick business. On September 1 1 , 1946, Johnny wrote from Washington, D.C., to Takaichi Miyamoto, his prospective financial backer: O n e of the reasons for m y trip to Washington w a s to find out w h e t h e r o r not the federal g o v e r n m e n t w o u l d m a k e a loan on an a d o b e block house. H a v i n g met this assurance, I n o w feel safe in g o i n g ahead with m y plans. I p r o p o s e to build a plant that will m a k e at least 4 0 , 0 0 0 blocks per m o n t h or enough blocks to m a k e forty, t w o - b e d r o o m houses. I can sell no less than forty houses per month a n d . . . I estimate that it will cost a b o u t $ 5 2 , 0 0 0 for the machinery installed [in the f a c tory] and ready to produce. 4

Johnny returned to Honolulu by Pan American Clipper on September 20 to run for mayor. He found a major sugar strike under way. Jack Hall, who had once peddled the Voice of Labor on

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street corners, now headed Hawai'i's newly muscular International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union affiliated with the CIO. The legislature had in the previous year passed the Little Wagner Act granting agricultural as well as industrial workers the right to organize. Now agricultural workers were striking throughout the Islands under the ILWU banner. When the union eventually won this test of strength with the plantation owners, the balance of power changed. The paternalistic era ended. Plantation managers would no longer dictate to employees. The union would look after the economic needs of workers and organize them politically. Harry Bridges, ILWU chief in California, proclaimed that Hawai'i was no longer a feudal economy. Labor also demanded a voice in Hawai'i's first postwar political campaign, a new wrinkle that worried some Democrats and most Republicans. A CIO Political Action Committee sent out questionnaires to candidates requesting them to state their views on issues important to the union. Johnny found that he was in line with union thinking, or ahead of it, and he even offered a bit of advice as a postscript to the questionnaire.5 Most of the candidates' faces were familiar, but there were a few new ones. A former police captain, Jack Burns, was now operating a liquor store in Kailua and running for the board of supervisors. He was active on the O'ahu County Democratic Committee while his brother, Ed, also a former police officer, worked for the Republicans. The GOP had groomed a new candidate for mayor, Herbert M. "Montie" Richards, a member of the board of supervisors and an administrative assistant at Castle and Cooke, a Big Five firm. Neal Blaisdell, a former football coach, was running for the senate on the Republican ticket. As had happened so often before, Johnny had to put his business on hold while he tended to politics. He took the stump on Saturday, September 20, 1946, at Wahiawá and Waialua to tell voters that they must look ahead many years into a future when "many rural areas [such] as Waimanalo will be thriving residential communities."6 Montie Richards, in a red lauhala hat with a blue feather lei, presented himself as "The Man with a Plan." He proposed improvements for the City and County of Honolulu over the next six years that would cost $48,000,000 and provide work

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for thirteen hundred men. Johnny in turn promised housing within four or five months.7 It was a colorful campaign. Star-Bulletin political reporter A. A. "Bud" Smyser reported that popular Joe Farrington, Republican candidate for reelection as delegate to Congress, and Montie Richards had their own hula troupes and that "Montie's entertainers wear especially made holokus [Hawaiian gowns] patterned with Montie's symbolic blue peacock lei hat." Montie's troupe introduced his speeches with his own campaign song.8 The Star-Bulletin predicted that Montie would poll heavily because he was "putting on one of the most powerful and elaborate election campaigns ever staged on Oahu. By election day—if not now— Mr. Richards will be known to just about every voter on Oahu by means of the press, radio and his personal workers." 9 Contrary to this prediction, Monte Richards made a weak showing in the primary while Johnny surprised political pundits by narrowly missing outright election. His 19,248 votes fell less than three hundred votes short of a majority of votes cast including 1 3 , 182 for Monte Richards, 5,948 for defeated Republican candidate W.F.Brooks and 572 for Democrat A.H.Gunderson. The experts tried to explain why Johnny did so well. As the StarBulletin put it: "Mr. Wilson, it is agreed, still has widespread aloha because of his record as mayor during the 1920s and based on his more recent service as Territorial Director of Public Welfare." 10 And so Johnny found himself once again in the mainstream of politics, buoyed by strong union support for his party on the neighbor islands. By this time his political juices were flowing again. The adobe brick factory dropped out of his statements to the press. Back in his old form, he told a reporter who asked him if a seventy-fiveyear-old could handle the mayor's job: "When you want advice, do you go to a child? If you're picking a football team, maybe I won't qualify. But I think I'll do all right as mayor." 11 When the general election campaign began, Montie Richards struck a more serious note on the stump, and the entire Republican party rallied behind him. W. K. Bassett became a speech writer and behind-the-scenes adviser to Johnny. He recommended that Johnny never refer to his opponent as Montie but always as Mr. Richards to make him look like a "high hat." Democrats on the

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stump should call their candidate for mayor just plain Johnny so voters would feel "you belong down where they are." 1 2 Johnny took this advice. It was obvious on general election day that endorsements by the CIO Political Action Committee provided the new element in this election. Fourteen of the fifteen Democrats endorsed by the union got elected. Johnny was one of them. The voting for mayor went down to the wire, and the people's choice could not be determined until 11 A.M. the day after the polls closed. Johnny won unofficially by fifty-five votes. A later official count gave him a margin of only sixteen. Republicans demanded a recount in the mayor's race, and Johnny amiably agreed that it was a good idea. Then, to the dismay of his fellow Democrats, he departed for the mainland to look for brick-making machinery. Walter Trask, who was left in charge of the legal complications, recalled later: " I was raising hell [with Johnny]." 1 3 Johnny did not return to Honolulu until December 24, when he reported that new machinery was not available and that it would be three or four months before secondhand equipment would arrive. He received better news from the Hawaii Supreme Court when the judges rejected Montie Richards' suit and declared Johnny mayor-elect. Kini would once more be first lady of Honolulu, and the Democrats again had a strong leader.

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Mayor Lester Petrie had never engaged in a serious squabble with his Republican boards and had never used his veto power. Nobody was surprised that things became more lively after Johnny Wilson took the oath as mayor of Honolulu on January i , 1947The voters had elected four Republicans to the seven-member board of supervisors. But Milton Beamer, part-Hawaiian, declared himself an "independent" Republican and lined up with the Democrats to make committee appointments. The GOP threatened him with expulsion from the party while Johnny praised his dedication to good government. 1 Yet the new mayor did not insist on an all-Democratic administration. He balanced three new Democratic appointments with three Republican holdovers as department heads. Harriet Magoon, a member of the extensive part-Hawaiian Beamer family, became his secretary, and Willard K. Bassett his administrative assistant. There was one controversial appointment, however: Joseph Y. Esposito as prosecuting attorney. Headlines soon blossomed. A long, typewritten statement in Johnny's papers explains why he appointed Esposito: Houses of prostitution were ordered closed by the joint A r m y a n d N a v y commands and the governor on September zi, 1 9 4 4 In the spring and summer of 1 9 4 6 , the situation had again become so flagrant that demands for investigation of police graft and protection were made f r o m all sides During the spring of 1 9 4 6 , testimony of gamblers, pimps and prostitutes w a s , on several occasions, taken by Public Prosecutor William Z . Fairbanks in the presence of the police commission At the time of the completion of the investigation in August, 1 9 4 6 , the two-year stat-

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ute of limitations for the closing of the houses of prostitution had nearly expired [But] Public Prosecutor Fairbanks, instead of proceeding to present the evidence of these offenses to the grand jury, unexpectedly left Hawaii for a law case in San Francisco and an extended vacation in the States.2 Fairbanks said years later that he did not bring the cases before the grand jury because he did not believe the police graft cases could be w o n . H e said it came d o w n to whether one believed gamblers or the police, and added, "People w o u l d rather believe the police." 3 In Johnny's view, it did not matter w h a t the people might believe. T h e duty of the public prosecutor w a s to bring the evidence before the grand jury and let the jurors decide. H e suspected a cover-up: As this statute of limitations was running out, Attorney General Tavares also left the jurisdiction for a vacation on the mainland, leaving instructions behind him that no steps were to be taken until his return Under the law...the public prosecutor of Honolulu, who is appointed by the mayor of Honolulu, is a deputy of the attorney general and subject to his directions and control One of the issues on which I campaigned [for mayor] was the prosecution and clean up of the police graft I determined not to reappoint Mr. Fairbanks because of his long continued failure to prosecute the police graft cases. Instead, I persuaded Joseph V. Esposito... whose ideals of fighting police graft and cleaning out the police station were akin to my own, [to accept the post]. 4 This put Esposito in a new role. H e w a s k n o w n as a flamboyant trial lawyer with a personality the direct opposite of Republican Tavares, a quiet, conservative person w h o took his authority over Esposito seriously. H e bridled when Esposito did not consult him about the police graft prosecution, as he had bridled over w h a t he considered Johnny's independent w a y s as welfare director. Esposito immediately launched a new investigation. Johnny wrote later: Forty-eight hours after assuming the duties of his new office, [Esposito] obtained a full, written confession from Sergeant William Clark, member of the Honolulu Police Department and attached to the vice squad. Clark confessed to having taken over $180,000 in graft for police protection and that he had shared and divided the money with over eighteen other police officers and officials. 5

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To obtain this confession, Esposito promised Clark immunity from prosecution. The maneuver was executed without consulting Tavares. He was aghast and said immunity had never been considered. Clark was the prime culprit. How could lesser bribe takers be convicted while the kingpin went free? Tavares hurried back to Hawai'i and immediately called Esposito to say that he was taking charge of the police graft cases. But Johnny insisted that Esposito handle the prosecution "because the attorney general had not been diligent in prosecuting these cases, and many escaped prosecution because of the statute of limitations." 6 Esposito took his cases to the grand jury and obtained true bills against a great number of police officers, including the chief. The first trial, before Circuit Judge Albert M . Cristy, ended in an acquittal by the judge. The second trial, before a jury, resulted in conviction of a police captain, Clarence C. Caminos. 7 By summer, Public Prosecutor Esposito's crusade against police graft had begun to falter. A jury acquitted the next defendant after three days of trial. Brought to trial on another charge, he was turned loose in an hour. It appeared that people believed police more than they did gamblers. The judge acquitted other policemen.8 Esposito took the view that the judges were protecting the policemen and cited examples to Johnny, who believed him.9 On October 1 1 , 1 9 4 7 , the new attorney general, Walter Ackerman, with the concurrence of the governor, discharged Esposito without consulting the mayor. Johnny demanded that his appointee stay on the job, but the law placed Esposito's position under the direction of the attorney general with the power to fire the prosecutor with the consent of the governor. The mayor lost this battle. The war wasn't over, however. It would later escalate to a higher level. While the police graft trials made headlines, W. K. Bassett created a few of his own. Bassett, as a private citizen and not the mayor's administrative assistant, accepted an appointment by the ILWU to its bargaining committee during a pineapple strike, causing considerable consternation among pineapple company negotiators, who demanded that Johnny's assistant stick to city hall. Johnny answered: If the pineapple industry objects to Mr. Bassett sitting on the I L W U negotiating committee, I suggest that it name some other official of the

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city and county g o v e r n m e n t on its o w n negotiating committee could name a n y one of the board of supervisors I support

It the

request of the I L W U negotiating committee, as reported to me by M r . Bassett after the meeting yesterday, that the press be admitted to all negotiating meetings. 1 0

The question arises, how close had ILWU leader Jack Hall and Johnny Wilson become? What was the relationship between Johnny and the union? There is little hint in Johnny's correspondence that he and Jack Hall saw each other socially. Union official Bob McElrath, who was close to Hall, said, "Jack [Hall] would send him [Johnny] a Christmas card, things like that. If anything particularly happened, Jack might give him a telephone call. But I never saw Johnny at Jack's house. Jack used to do a lot of entertaining, never saw him up there. Miyamoto was the person we usually talked to." 1 1 Wilfred Oka, an active Democrat at the time, agreed. He said Miyamoto was the contact between Johnny and the union. If a delicate matter had to be negotiated between Jack and Johnny, Miyamoto would arrange a meeting at a teahouse.12 Another Democrat on the scene at this time was Dan Inouye, who later became U.S. senator. Asked his opinion of the relationship between Jack Hall and Johnny Wilson, Inouye said, "From what I saw and from what I heard it was one of mutual respect. Maybe with respect was some fear, too. If Johnny Wilson should have come out against the union, that would have made it very difficult [for Hall]. Johnny Wilson was a good politician [who welcomed Hall's support]." 13 The mayor took a few moments to dictate a letter to Delegate Joe Farrington in Washington giving his opinion about the proposed National Cemetery of the Pacific in Punchbowl Crater. In Johnny's opinion the crater was too small and would be filled up quickly. Why not put the cemetery above Pearl Harbor where there was plenty of room for more graves?14 In November another issue hit the headlines, communism. On the mainland, as relations with the Soviets worsened, Senator Pat McCarran of Nevada raised the specter of a Communist takeover of the United States. In Hawai'i, Governor Ingram Stainback and others took up the crusade. On November n , 1947, Stainback promised to discharge all Communists in government. On November 26, Dr. John E. Reinecke and his wife, Aiko, veteran

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teachers in the public school system, were suspended for their alleged membership in the Communist party, which advocated overthrow of the government by force and violence if necessary. They were to be tried on December 18. The Communist issue intruded upon Hawai'i's long battle to become a state. Senator McCarran warned Hawai'i to "clean her house of communists" if the territory expected statehood. Johnny blasted right back in a letter that appeared on the front page of the Advertiser: M a y I respectfully submit that " c l e a n i n g h o u s e " in H a w a i i is one of the objects of the appeal of the people for the a u t o n o m y of statehood. H a w a i i today, as it has been since 1 8 9 8 , or a period of 5 0 years, is under the control almost completely of the C o n g r e s s of the United States of w h i c h y o u , as a senator f r o m N e v a d a , are a m e m b e r . . . . W e will clean house, not alone of C o m m u n i s t s , but of every other disturbing element and block to g o v e r n m e n t of free people, if y o u will grant us the p o w e r and responsibility w h i c h g o w i t h the status and sovereign rights of A m e r i c a n states. 1 5

Now the police graft scandal began its final scenes. John Wilson, determined to see justice done, made up his mind to block the impending appointments of the judges who had handled the police graft cases, Albert M. Christy and Willson Moore—Christy to the Hawaii Supreme Court and Moore again to the circuit bench. Johnny wrote a long letter to U.S. Attorney General Tom Clark describing the alleged bias of the judges and including copies of trial transcripts to illustrate his argument.16 Johnny's letter lay quietly like a time bomb in a Washington file while the Hawaii Bar Association endorsed Christy and Moore. The mayor had referred to this body in his letter as an extension of the GOP Territorial Central Committee. In February 1948, as the hearings on confirmation of Judges Christy and Moore proceeded smoothly, Johnny's repeated nudging of the U.S. attorney general got some action. Members of the Hawaii Bar Association received a letter from the attorney general informing them of criticism by the mayor to the effect that Christy and Moore were unfit to sit on the bench. The attorney general requested an investigation.17 Headlines erupted once more. On February 1 2 a committee of

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the Hawai'i bar wired the attorney general to state that Johnny's charges were wholly without foundation. The mayor replied that he didn't see how this refutation could be made since the members of the bar hadn't yet seen his letter.18 So the bar association initiated its own probe that, to nobody's surprise, exonerated judges Christy and Moore. They were eventually confirmed, but Johnny wrote to his old pal in Washington, Homer Cummings, that his stand on the police graft cases had received much public support. 19 The planning commission of the city and county finally granted Johnny a variance to build his brick factory. However he had to change his product to fired brick, not adobe, to meet building codes. He and Miyamoto put up $35,000 to get things started. Johnny wrote that about 75 percent of the plant was completed and that a trademark for Wilsonite brick had been registered. As his new engineering project at last got under way, his first one faded into history. Joe Puni, the dynamite expert, died on February 6, 1948. Besides Johnny, he was the last survivor of the building of the Pali Road. Yet, in spite of his age, John Wilson, with his strong support from organized labor, remained the single most important Democrat in Hawai'i.

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An embryonic form of entertainment called television burst upon the American scene in 1948 as did a new phrase coined by presidential adviser Bernard Baruch, "Cold War." The Soviets blockaded Berlin, and the United States responded with the Berlin airlift. The House Committee on Un-American Activities leaped into prominence in Washington, and Representative Richard Milhouse Nixon made a name by pressing an investigation of Alger Hiss as a Soviet spy. In Hawai'i, the Communist issue divided Democrats. On February 1 1 the O'ahu County Democratic Committee rejected a resolution condemning communism to the dismay of more conservative members of the party including Governor Stainback. 1 The ILWU, encouraged by success at the polls in the previous elections, began organizing Democratic precincts. This further alarmed conservatives like Stainback, who considered the union a hotbed of Communist activity.2 Republicans denounced communism at their convention in April and set the stage for the Democrats, who met on May 3, 1948, with the largest number of delegates, five hundred, in the history of the party.3 John Wilson was there. He said later that Bill Heen, the Democratic national committeeman, offered him the post, but he turned it down because he felt a younger man deserved a chance.4 One report of the convention said that "five persons frequently designated as Communists in testimony before congressional committees by former Communists were appointed members of convention committees." Conservatives like Governor Stainback, Chief Justice James L. Coke, and William O. Heen were outraged. But moderates prevented a takeover of the convention by the

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ILWU. Charles Kauhane was elected national committeeman and John Wilson a delegate to the national convention.5 After the territorial convention, Johnny wrote to Jim Farley: T h e Republicans are yelling " C o m m u n i s t s " at us, but this is just a lot of hooey. T h e number of C o m m u n i s t s in H a w a i i y o u can count on y o u r fingers and they aren't doing much shouting a r o u n d . It is m y contention that the Big Interests here are responsible f o r a n y c o m m u n i s m there might be through their continued battle against labor and the money they p o u r into p r o p a g a n d a against it. 6

Governor Stainback took a different view. He wrote to U.S. Attorney General J.Howard McGrath that John Wilson was being run by Communists. Stainback's followers called Bassett a Communist sympathizer and charged that Communists had taken over the Democratic party "lock, stock and barrel." 7 The Communist issue provided convenient ammunition for opponents of Hawaiian statehood, among whom was U.S. senator Hugh Butler. He kept the statehood bill bottled up in committee. In a letter to Butler, Johnny denounced him for using anonymous letters about the Red scare in his arguments against statehood and called his tactics "directly opposed to the fundamental principles of democratic government."8 The Advertiser in an editorial chastised the mayor for his intemperate outburst. Thereupon Johnny fired off a long letter to the Advertiser pointing out various faults and inadequacies of the newspaper in support of statehood. When publisher Lorrin P. Thurston refused to print the letter in full, the mayor bought advertising space in the Star-Bulletin in which he described Thurston as Public Enemy No. z, second only to Hugh Butler.9 Hawai'i's delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia elected Johnny to head their delegation. "Mayor Wilson, who attended his first convention more than 40 years ago, will leave Honolulu by plane today," the Advertiser reported on July 3, 1948. "He was elected to serve on the rules committee." On July 15 Jack Burns, chairman of the county committee in Honolulu, wired Johnny congratulations for the statehood plank in the Democratic platform. The mayor delivered all six of Hawai'i's votes for presidential nominee Harry Truman, who won the nomination. Johnny then traveled on to Washington, where he

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talked to officials about a proposed federal highway in Hawai'i and denied that the territory was run by Reds. He also continued to look for brick-making machinery. Before his return, the mayor wrote to Jack Burns announcing his intention to run for reelection, referring to another term as "my last two years in public office." He arrived in Honolulu in August 3 to be greeted by a hula troupe, Acting Mayor Milton Beamer, and W. K. Bassett, who already had ideas for Johnny's campaign. The Democrats scheduled fifty-three rallies in the three weeks before the primary election. There were a few new Democratic faces including that of attorney Vincent Esposito, son of the former public prosecutor, who set his cap for the house of representatives. Jack Burns offered himself as a candidate in what appeared to be a hopeless effort against incumbent delegate to Congress Joe Farrington. Political innocent Dan Inouye, home from the wars with one arm shot off, had heard about the support Burns had given Japanese Americans during World War II. He called Burns to offer his help as volunteer to lick stamps and answer the telephone. "I was on Jack Burns' campaign committee," Inouye remembered later, laughing at the poverty of the Burns "machine." "I think there were six of us. Can you imagine? I offer my help and the next thing I know I'm a member of the executive committee. We met at the Kahala residence of the director of the FBI." 10 The Advertiser predicted that John Wilson would have a difficult time winning reelection in his second face-off with Montie Richards, "a proven executive in business and politics." Bassett went to work feeding Johnny campaign speech material about work accomplished during his past administration.11 The mayor's assistant, who thrived on political campaigning, went on the radio while Johnny's other advisers cautioned him about being represented by the controversial Bassett. But Bassett knew how to hit the Republicans where it hurt. As one of his scripts pointed out: A candidate for the senate on the Republican party entertained some 7 0 0 to 8 0 0 persons in a night club the other night and it cost him in the neighborhood of four thousand dollars to do it. In the entire campaign,

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I doubt if the D e m o c r a t i c party and all its candidates will spend m o r e than that. I a m informed by a n e w s p a p e r m a n , w h o is o n the inside, that the R e p u b l i c a n party has a budget of $ 1 0 0 , 0 0 0

f o r this c a m -

paign.12

The Star-Bulletin's Bud Smyser, covering the proceedings, noted that one of the big surprises of the political c a m p a i g n so far is Herbert M . [Montie] Richards

H e is an entirely different candidate f r o m the

M o n t i e of 1 9 4 6 — a n d a much more formidable one, his supporters believe. A new, hatless M o n t i e has emerged f r o m behind the song, the feather lei hat, and the elaborate advertising of 1 9 4 6 , a n d . . . h a s served to silence m a n y of his critics

H i s delivery is more forceful, he t h r o w s

punches squarely at his opponent and he fights on local issues in every precinct. 1 3

In spite of Montie's new image, John Wilson won outright election as mayor in the primary by polling a majority of votes cast for the office. He later credited his strong showing to the labor vote: "It was not until 1948 that most of labor, probably 90 per cent, voted Democratic. That was when Governor Stainback started to talk Communism." 14 Yet Johnny's support seemed to come from a broad spectrum including Republicans. He wrote to Jim Farley, "I was really surprised at my total in some of the normally strong Republican precincts."15 So Johnny didn't have to campaign in the general election. He had predicted that President Harry Truman would win in a landslide. Now it appeared that he would be far off the mark. The odds for Republican Thomas E. Dewey of New York were so heavy that the Star-Bulletin sent writer Bill Ewing to cover the powerhouse Dewey campaign while ignoring Truman. This time the Star-Bulletin guessed wrong. Truman won a stunning victory over Dewey in one of the major political upsets in U.S. history. The election gave Johnny a comfortable five-to-two Democratic majority on the board of supervisors. But the legislature remained Republican as always, twenty to ten in the house and nine to six in the senate. Farrington swamped Burns in the delegate race. The mayor basked in his victory and received national publicity for milking three cows every morning before he went down to city

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hall. But he admitted in a letter to a friend that it was only one cow because "restrictions on the keeping of livestock in the section where I live have compelled me to do away with my herd." 16 At age seventy-six he got up early to look over his still idle brick plant before going to the office at 9 A.M. His work day continued without lunch until 4 P.M. and was frequently followed by a night function to which Kini usually accompanied him. On an application for a bond as mayor, Johnny listed his assets in real estate at $25,000 plus a house and furniture valued at $3,500. 1 7

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The mayor viewed his convincing victory at the polls and his Democratic majority on the board of supervisors as a vindication of his stand on the police graft cases. Before he took office in January, he listed the public improvements on his agenda, to which the Star-Bulletin gave prominent display. Even a Republican mayor could not have been accorded more respect. In this administration, Johnny moved immediately to extend Kuhio Beach for the public by condemning a portion of Waiklkl on the sea side of Kalakaua Avenue. This was the Steiner property, on which a developer wanted to build a hotel. The master plan called for that portion of the beach to be public park. But the Advertiser reported, "It has been estimated... that the land will cost more than $1,000,000 and no effort has been made to provide funds for the purchase.'" If the newspaper seemed lukewarm about keeping hotels off the beach, some of its readers were not. On February 4, 1949, one of them sent in a letter to the editor entitled "Valentine for Johnny Wilson." The letter read: "I think I shall never see/ A building lovely as Waikiki./ Come to think of it, unless a building fall,/ I shall never see Waikiki at all." 2 Then a traffic problem claimed the mayor's attention. Johnny's old Pali Road with its hairpin turns had been widened and repeatedly repaved. The winding, scenic drive had become a bottleneck to a growing population of people who lived on the windward side of the island but worked in Honolulu. The drive over the Pali every day produced miles-long lines of autos, uncounted overheated radiators, and many letters to the editor. Naturally, Johnny

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314 / THE u n b e a t a b l e o l d p o l i t i c i a n had a solution—a tunnel through the Ko'olaus that would connect Honolulu to the windward side of the island via a highway through Kalihi Valley.3 But the 1949 legislature voted down Johnny's request for an increase in the gas tax to pay for construction of the highway. Instead, the state backed a new route over the Pali. This route, Johnny contended, would entail unnecessary expense and would benefit primarily the residents of Kailua, the bedroom community at the end of the road, while his Kalihi Valley route would benefit the entire windward side. Furthermore, the new Pali Road alignment would be in a flood area where rains would wash it out.4 The mayor failed to state that the new route would cut through the estate of Lester Marks, a staunch Democrat who had married Link McCandless' daughter. John Wilson was always loyal to his friends, and we have to conclude that his implacable opposition to the new route of the Pali Road was heavily reinforced by that of Lester Marks. 5 On January 26, 1 9 5 0 , the mayor retained Walter Trask to represent him and the people of the city and county in a suit to prevent condemnation of land for the construction of the new Pali Road. On February 20 Circuit Judge John A. Matthewman, to the dismay of state planners and residents of Kailua, issued a temporary injunction that ordered the governor to halt further land condemnation. The injunction became permanent on April 25, but a protracted court battle continued.6 On the personal side, Johnny's brick factory, in which he had $25,000 of his modest assets invested, produced frustration, not bricks. 7 The plant was about ready to go, but Johnny couldn't find anybody to manage it. On M a y 1 , 1949, stevedores in Hawai'i began the longest and one of the most bitter labor-management contests in the history of the Islands. The strike created food shortages, caused business failures, and aggravated the Communist issue. Housewives formed a Broom Brigade to protest the strike, marching on the waterfront at the foot of Fort Street carrying brooms. The legislature went into special session and passed a dock seizure law, under which the territorial government could take over the stevedoring companies and work the ships. The strike strained the social fabric of Hawai'i. Dan Inouye

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recalled later that another veteran, Frank Fasi, w h o had served in the Marines, asked to meet with veterans of Inouye's Nisei group, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, now famed as one of the most decorated units in the U.S. Army. Inouye said he assumed that Fasi had a plan for raising money for strike victims or getting food for babies. Instead, Fasi proposed that veterans of the 442nd unload the ships because they were heroes and nobody could touch them. Inouye said the men of the 442nd walked out of the meeting and he added, "What the hell is this? You want us to be scabs? We got brothers and cousins in there." 8 Johnny's personal sympathies were all with the strikers. He wrote to a friend on the mainland: The propaganda which has been spread throughout the mainland charging the strike to be Communist-inspired and Communist-led puzzles many of us here because in all negotiations the employers have made no such charges, the United States conciliators sent here to end the strike have publicly declared that Communism is not an issue, the Governor's Fact-Finding Board made a similar public statement, and only last week the Hawaii Statehood Commission also repudiated the Communist charge. 9

When Governor Stainback was quoted in the Advertiser charging that Communists held jobs in the city government, the mayor appeared on the front page of the Star-Bulletin asking the governor the name his Communist employees. 10 Johnny complained to U.S. senator J . H o w a r d McGrath, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, that Stainback's accusations of communism provided the governor an excuse to deny capable Democrats appointments in his administration. 11 About this time Johnny caught a cold while on a trip to the mainland. The cold turned into pneumonia, and he landed in the hospital on his return. He was almost seventy-eight years old. Once more he came near death. For two months he stayed away from city hall; his doctor tried to keep him home even longer, but Johnny wouldn't listen. By early November he was back at his desk. The longshoremen's strike was over, but there were plenty of problems to solve, both civic and personal. His investment in the brick factory had climbed to $46,000, and the company, still not producing bricks, needed a loan of $44,000 to buy a kiln. O n

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December 8, 1949, we find the mayor writing to a Hawaiian friend on Moloka'i asking him to provide a home for a fifty-threeyear-old parolee.12 Johnny soon realized that he had gone back to work too soon. During most of April he was down with a virus. One thing that didn't fail him was optimism. He still hankered to be governor, although he denied it.13 April 6, 1950, found Johnny's public prosecutor, Charles Hite, in Washington booming his boss for governor. The Star-Bulletin reported that Hite had proposed Mayor Wilson's name to Democratic National Committee Chairman William Boyle and to Secretary of Interior Oscar Chapman as a man of unimpeachable character, authentic Hawaiian background, and the political know-how to pull the Democratic party in the Islands together. Hite returned to Hawai'i of the opinion that Johnny had a good chance of being appointed governor.14 Also in April the House Committee on Un-American Activities accepted the legislature's invitation to probe the Communist menace in Hawai'i. Of the witnesses interviewed, thirty-nine were cited for contempt when they refused to answer questions about Communist activity. Of these, more than half paid dues to the ILWU. The committee concluded that about a hundred Communists were active in the Islands.15 The headlines made by these sensational pronouncements provided a backdrop for the Democratic territorial convention at the end of April that would give new form to the party. Governor Stainback feared a takeover of the Democrats by the ILWU at the convention. And there was reason for such apprehension. Matsuo Takabuki, another veteran of the 442nd who was getting interested in politics, said later: T h a t w a s the period w h e n J a c k [Hall] w a s trying to control the D e m o cratic party. H e w a s sending people out to the precincts to get votes. W e k n e w this. W e had to g o out and beat him at various places like M a n o a H o u s i n g . T h e r e w e r e t w o slates of candidates [for the convention in each precinct], the veterans candidate and the I L W U candidate. 1 6

Takabuki said he didn't think the veterans were worried about communism, but "we thought that the party could not be of any significant influence in the community if we were to be labeled as

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the party of the ILWU." He added that in his view Stainback stood on the far right, John Wilson at the radical left, with the veterans in the middle. They were led by Jack Burns, who was organizing them. Dan Inouye disagreed that Johnny Wilson and Jack Burns opposed one another in the campaign to prevent a takeover by the ILWU. He said the results of voting at the convention for seats on the central committee indicated that there "was considerable independent-mindedness among the Democrats." Inouye added: T h i s w a s a crucial period in the history of the D e m o c r a t i c party. F o r a n y event that w o u l d stabilize or give f o r m to a n y organization, there is great chaos. Birth is a chaotic thing. T h i s w a s happening to the D e m ocratic party in H a w a i i . Y o u had all the forces: old timers, the n e w ones, the ambitious ones, the mainlanders. Everything. It w a s an exciting time. I ' m glad I w a s there. 1 7

Johnny wrote later: In 1 9 5 0 [ G o v e r n o r Stainback] c a m e to see me while I w a s in the hospital and asked me to w o r k w i t h him and call the convention o f f . I told him I had no authority to call the convention off. T h e rules called for a convention every t w o years and I could not see w h a t authority a n y o n e had to call it off. T h e excuse for calling o f f the convention w a s that s o m e thirty-nine members of the elected delegates to the convention w e r e C o m m u n i s t s . I told [Stainback] the only legal b o d y to r e m o v e the so-called C o m m u n i s t s w o u l d be the convention itself. 1 8

John Wilson got out of the hospital on April 27, in time to attend the convention on April 30 at Kalakaua Intermediate School, one of the 485 delegates who were represented in person or by proxy. The battle was joined when conservatives moved to amend the credentials committee report to exclude fifteen delegates (because of alleged Communist affiliation) from the convention floor. The motion lost by a two-to-one vote. At this point, Stainback and his forces walked out. They numbered 86 delegates and carried 43 proxies for a total of 1 2 9 votes. But their hopes of closing down the convention failed, because 356 votes remained, 1 1 3 more than required for a quorum. It was then that voting for control of the party began with selection of members to the central committee. Again and again the ILWU fell short, electing only five of the thirty committee members. 19

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It was at this convention that many future leaders of the party made their debuts. It was as this convention that future elements of the party came together. And so the squalling, new Democratic party was born with John Wilson acting more or less as a midwife.

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It appeared at the outset that the new Democratic party of Hawai'i had been born with a congenital deformity. The "walk out" faction, headed by Stainback, held its own convention to elect officers including a national committeeman and committeewoman. Johnny was elected national committeeman and Harriet Magoon national committeewoman by the "stand pat" convention. So the Democratic baby had two heads. The Stainback faction obtained recognition from the national committee in Chicago for their selections, Charles Kauhane and Mrs. Victoria Holt. The group also "dissolved" all Democratic precinct clubs with the intention of starting over. Johnny observed tartly that Kauhane and Holt would "have a hell of a time reorganizing the party....Our precincts are organized and they are not going to reorganize." 1 The Democratic baby stumbled along in this fashion until the walk out faction gradually died of inertia. Johnny could not get his health back. He wrote to his old friend Jim Farley, now chairman of the board of the Coca-Cola Export Corporation: It is taking me some time to convalesce from an attack of pneumonia last summer, but I am n o w spending four or five hours at my office every day and I hope soon to be securely on my feet W e are wondering n o w whether or not President Truman will reappoint Governor Stainback in A u g u s t for another four-year t e r m . " 2

Dan Inouye, secretary of the O'ahu County Democratic Committee, wrote to John Wilson on July 2 1 , 1 9 5 0 , to inform him that the committee had unanimously approved a resolution introduced by the first precinct club of the fourth district endorsing Johnny for governor.

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On July 25 the mayor was still ailing. As he wrote to a friend, "I have been recovering from an illness and have made only variant visits to my office There is now a more concerted effort on the part of the party to prevent the reappointment of Governor Stainback." 3 On August 2 Johnny penned a long letter to Secretary of Interior Oscar Chapman in a effort to block Stainback's reappointment. He wrote: Stainback has used the w i l d and loose charges of C o m m u n i s t control as an excuse for repudiating [the party o r g a n i z a t i o n ] . . . . I gladly and willingly w i t h d r a w m y name as a possible appointee for g o v e r n o r if it will in a n y w a y strengthen this appeal that y o u help us save the D e m o cratic party of H a w a i i . . . b y not reappointing Ingram M . Stainback governor. 4

Through June and July the ailing mayor told reporters a bid for reelection would depend on his health. The approaching election, however, brought about a noticeable increase in the seventy-eight-year-old mayor's energy. By the end of August he insisted he was feeling fine. The doctor gave him a cautious okay to run. Johnny filed on September 6, 1950, stating that he still had unfinished business at city hall, especially, "I would like to make a final effort to solve the trans-island traffic problem. I would like to contribute my engineering knowledge and experience to completion of plans for and, if possible, start of the project for the Kalihi tunnel." 5 There are indications that Bassett, who Johnny maintained was on the wagon when he returned from the mainland, had slipped off again. Bassett further outraged his critics by heaping warm praise on ILWU president Harry Bridges in a Labor Day speech. The Star-Bulletin reported on September 1 2 , "Mounting pressure is being exerted among Democrats to force the ouster of Mayor Wilson's administrative assistant, W. K. Bassett." The mayor said he had no intention of firing his assistant "as long as he does what I ask him to do." 6 Matsuo Takabuki had his own opinion about why the mayor kept putting up with Bassett in spite the continuing barrage of

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criticism his assistant invited from the press and political opponents. "Bassett w a s . . . extremely bright," Takabuki said later. "Johnny was always very loyal to his friends. He would not put [someone] out just because somebody is out there screaming politically, even media attacks. That didn't bother Johnny. He'll do what the heck he wants to do. That's Johnny Wilson. That's why you get to be so extremely fond of him, to see this kind of strength." 7 Veteran Democrat Ernest Heen declared his candidacy for the mayor's office in opposition to Johnny in the primary, an indication that Johnny was now viewed as vulnerable. This development set political reporters to speculating about who would speak for the ailing John Wilson on the stump: Heen, long a W i l s o n supporter, is expected to cite the mayor's age and recent p o o r health as reasons for choosing a y o u n g e r man W . K . Bassett is eager to speak for [Wilson] at the rallies. But other advisers hold that Bassett is a controversial figure w h o could h a r m the m a y o r ' s chances. 8

The primary campaign got under way on September 1 9 , 1 9 5 0 , with Jack Burns working as "field general" for the Democrats while his brother, Ed, managed the campaign for the GOP. Strapped for funds as usual, the Democrats accepted an offer from young party member Frank Fasi, who operated a successful surplus and construction supply business, to use two of his semitrailers as mobile speaking platforms at a considerable saving in lumber. Fasi ran for the house of representatives.9 Herman Lemke, who ran for county treasurer, later recalled how the poverty-stricken Democrats compared with the wellheeled Republicans: They had everything you know, music... and parties. Even my mother was a Republican. They'd draw a big crowd. Then we came along with an old flatbed truck. We always had two or three Hawaiian gals that were born Democrats, I think. They would sing for us, a song followed by a speech, then the next guy has a song followed by his speech. 10

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Lemke remembered Johnny's appearances at the rallies: He could hardly walk. But he was always immaculately dressed. Black suit and white collar with a kinda nice tie that would show off. And he would traipse up the platform with two, three guys helping him, all those steps there. And up to the microphone. They'd line him up to the microphone and he would talk. He would get his points across. You could hardly hear what he said but it didn't mean anything whether they heard him or not because all that mattered was him being there. If Johnny Wilson was there he had the ILWU and everybody out there in the dark clapping and making a lot of noise. The public loved Johnny Wilson because he was a fighter. He was for the poor man. The strongest thing the Democrats had at the time was Johnny Wilson. 11 If Johnny's body was failing him, his mind continued to perk right along. The Star-Bulletin reported on September 28: The mayor himself pronounced his age as an asset. He pointed out that an experienced executive is needed to guide a younger, more inexperienced board of supervisors next year. The mayor singled out Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall and General Douglas MacArthur to prove his point. "Are they there because they are young men?" he asked. " N o . They are there because they have the experience needed." 1 2

Johnny rolled up an impressive 15,608 to 9,867 victory over his opponent, Heen, in the primary. In spite of that, he was not satisfied with the poor showing of the Democrats. "The price of the walk out foolishness is too high," he said.13 A visit by President Harry Truman, on his way to Midway Atoll to confer with General Douglas MacArthur about the Korean War, temporarily distracted politicians in Hawai'i from the upcoming general election. The jovial, tart-talking president invited Johnny and other Islands dignitaries to a luncheon at the commissioned officers' mess at Pearl Harbor on October 13. The mayor was even more pleased to be invited to ride with Truman and Admiral Arthur W. Radford in the back seat of the open presidential touring car on its last leg of an around-theisland trip from rural Waimanalo to urban Honolulu. Johnny

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braved sunshine and wind in his face while waving to the crowd in a demonstration of his boundless energy and good health. The general election campaign got down to business with the departure of the president. Republican James F. Gilliland opposed John Wilson in the mayor's race. He castigated the mayor for harboring a no-account like Bassett and promised to abolish the position of administrative assistant if he were elected. Gilliland maintained that Johnny's advanced age prevented him from adequately governing the city and county. O n November 7 the Star-Bulletin reported the mayor's reply: Practically smothered in leis and greeted by a tremendous ovation, M a y o r John Wilson promptly waded into his opponent James F. Gilliland directly for the first time in the campaign. " M y opponent can't pick on my record so he picks o n . . . M r . Bassett...and my age. But I'll take my opponent on any day in Civic Auditorium for five or six rounds. 1 4

Hawai'i's voters went to the polls on a sunny day, November 7, 1950, and elected their over-age mayor to a sixth term with one of the largest majorities in the history of that political contest. Johnny w o n by 12,000 votes, bucking a Republican trend that installed another Republican legislature, nine to six in the senate and twenty-one to nine in the house. The voters saddled Johnny with a four-to-three Republican majority on the board of supervisors. But he said he wasn't worried. He could get along with Republican Nick Teves.

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John Wilson, the unbeatable old politician, celebrated his seventyninth birthday on December 15, 1950. He still dreamed of being governor of Hawai'i, and quite a few people encouraged him. Fiery apostle Vincent Esposito was in Washington doing his best with youth and energy to offset objections to the mayor's age. Esposito wrote to Johnny on December 18 that he got in to see powerful Senator O'Mahoney. The conversation went like this: "O'Mahoney quite abruptly stated, 'Johnny is seventy-nine years old and the President will not appoint anyone that old to the post of governor.' I told him I'd bet him $5 or a good bottle of whiskey that you could out-wrestle Stainback in ten minutes of catch-ascatch-can. He laughed."1 The mayor was sick in Maluhia County Hospital with the flu during most of December. He recovered in time to be installed for a new term on January 3, 1 9 5 1 , and to deliver his annual address. This time he enumerated a long list of objectives, of which disaster relief, a concern prompted by a recent tidal wave, received prominent mention. His idle brick factory needed another infusion of $10,000, and the directors were looking for a manager. The mayor appointed Jack Burns to head the disaster relief program, drawing criticism about political motivation from the StarBulletin. Several community leaders had favored a disaster relief administrator with a military background. Johnny answered the newspaper in a letter to the editor on March 12, 1 9 5 1 , giving as his reasons for appointing Burns "his long residence on the island of Oahu, his experience in police and FBI work in World War II and his almost unlimited acquaintance not only with the island's people, but with their ancestral habits and customs, as well as his exact knowledge of the geography of the islands."

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It was the first political appointment for Jack Burns, an austere person on first acquaintance, who owned only one suit and lapsed easily into pidgin. Unlike the mayor, he was largely self-educated, yet he read Thomas Aquinas and quoted Thomas Jefferson. From Johnny Wilson, he was learning more about politics. When the mayor returned to Maluhia with a throat infection, the new board of supervisors blocked one of his appointments to the civil service commission,2 which had become a target of criticism about alleged political manipulation by commission chairman Herbert Kum, Johnny's former assistant in the welfare department. Kum was known as one of Johnny's strongest supporters, and there was a lot of talk that he misused civil service to achieve political objectives. It was about this time that the term "kitchen cabinet" came into use, a term people used to describe who might be running the city in Johnny's absences. On this list was Takaichi Miyamoto, financial backer with contacts in the Japanese community, described by acquaintances as a person who enjoyed being close to the seat of power. Another candidate was Herbert Kum, who had a firm grip on civil service and influence among Chinese. People who knew him recalled Kum as an "operator." W.K. Bassett, with strong connections in the ILWU, wrote speeches for Johnny. Walter Trask handled his legal work and said he acted as errand boy. The Trasks had politics in their blood and a strong Hawaiian following. All these people were loyal to Johnny, but each had his own agenda. These agendas were not necessarily those of the mayor, and there is no indication that the mayor rewarded their services unless they met the needs of the city and county. Arthur Trask insisted that, for all his loyalty, Johnny never appointed him to anything. Yet complaints about the "kitchen cabinet" persisted. However, nobody could deny that John Wilson remained Mr. Democrat. Endorsements for his appointment as governor rolled in from the Hawai'i county committee, then the Maui county committee, reflecting strong ILWU support. The Maui News objected that the mayor was too old, and publisher Ezra Crane couldn't abide Bassett.3 Johnny made a last appeal to Interior Secretary Chapman. He explained that he could lead the Democrats in Hawai'i to great-

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ness. "Don't let my age worry you," he added cheerfully. Then he wrote to the president and suggested that, if he were not appointed, good substitutes would be either Lester Marks or Charles Hite, both firmly in the John Wilson camp. 4 It was not enough. On M a y 8, 1 9 5 1 , President Harry Truman appointed Oren Long governor of Hawai'i; the next day Johnny asked Democrats to support the new governor. A personal success balanced his political disappointment. The brick factory finally went into operation on May 28, and on July 26 Johnny proudly invited the public to view his achievement. The first load of roofing tiles headed for a renovation project at McKinley High School. But the manager of the factory didn't work out, and Johnny had to hire a new man in September. By this time the mayor was back on his feet again. On August 29, 1 9 5 1 , the FBI arrested seven alleged Communists, including the ILWU regional director, Jack Hall, under authority of the Smith Act on charges of plotting to overthrow the government of the United States by force and violence. Federal Judge Delbert Metzger stirred up a volley of protest when he reduced bail for the defendants from $75,000 to $5,000 each. The ILWU raised a defense fund of $ 1 2 5 , 0 0 0 for Hall, and Johnny fired off a spirited letter to Interior Secretary Chapman in Washington in defense of Metzger.s Johnny came down with the flu on December 4 but got out of Maluhia Hospital by December 1 5 , 1 9 5 1 , to celebrate his eightieth birthday. Congratulations flooded in. President Truman and Interior Secretary Chapman cabled best wishes from Washington. The Royal Hawaiian Band played "Happy Birthday," Jack Burns acted as toastmaster at the party, and Governor Long read a record of the mayor's public service. But the civil service commission continued to embarrass him. Commission members fired the director, and the board of supervisors ordered a probe of commission chairman Herbert Kum. The mayor investigated and promptly reported, "Instead of finding cause of Mr. Kum's removal, he and the other members of the commission should be complimented for bringing out to the public's attention some of the most flagrant violations of the civil service law." 6

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Shortly thereafter the feisty old mayor created more controversy as attorneys maneuvered at the opening of the Smith Act trials. Johnny signed an affidavit alleging that the jury panel was not representative of the people, being heavily weighted with "silk stocking" residents of affluent communities.7 In better health now, Johnny decided to run for election as Democratic national committeeman at the upcoming territorial convention. The ILWU supported him. However, the normally adroit mayor now committed a political blunder. He wrote to his dentist friend Dr. E. M. Kuwahara in Hilo a confidential letter enlisting his aid in the "draft Wilson for national committeeman" campaign. The letter continued: After I resigned from the national committee in 1 9 4 2 , the policy in Washington regarding patronage was changed from the national committeeman as the chief advisor on Hawaiian affairs to Governor Stainback. Hence the reason you see so many malihinis [newcomers] named to the judiciary, and other appointments such as customs collector and collector of internal revenue. Mostly Jews like himself Frank Fasi, the most active candidate for the national committee, is a fine young man, but he has only been in the territory since 1 9 4 4 and is not acquainted with the history of the local Democratic party, its platforms or its workers. 8

The naive Dr. Kuwahara showed this letter to a friend, who had it copied. Another copy found its way onto the pages of the StarBulletin. The letter not only revealed Johnny's transparent efforts to encourage his "draft" but incensed Stainback and annoyed Fasi, who proclaimed that he was no longer a malihini. He had a wife and three children born in Hawai'i. Stainback retorted, "I am not a Jew racially or religiously, but I would not be ashamed to be a Jew if I were one.'" Miyamoto hustled off to explain things to Governor Long but only made matters worse. Johnny didn't seem to recognize his blunder. Younger Democrats put it down to senility. The convention opened at McKinley High School auditorium. Stainback and his conservatives supported Charles Kauhane for delegate. The ILWU supported John Wilson with Vincent Esposito as a stand-in. Jack Burns, now chairman of the central committee,

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led the uncommitted veterans, and the election for national committeeman became the chief business of the new Democratic party. Dan Inouye recalled later: At that time [Johnny] was already old. His mind was not as sharp as it used to be when I first met him And there were those who were trying to use him and exploit him, appoint him for high positions.... Every one knew that physically he would not be able to go to national committee meetings. I, as one member of the party, just didn't go for that. 10 Jack Burns and the veterans lined up behind Fasi, although the Nisei veterans were no great fans of the former Marine. "In this case it wasn't because we loved Frank Fasi, it was because we sensed that Johnny would be used," Inouye said. Fasi was elected national committeeman. He recalled later, "I was elected only because 'we don't want you, Charlie [Kauhane]. And we don't want Wilson. So we'll throw our support to this young guy who's coming [up]."" 1 Historian Lawrence Fuchs wrote that the 1 9 5 2 convention marked the first major victory for Jack Burns. 12 Dan Inouye said that Johnny's defeat in the contest for national committeeman signaled the end of his political career.13 And so the elusive, unspoken, mysterious mantle of party leadership passed silently from Johnny Wilson to Jack Burns. But Johnny remained the most formidable candidate among the ranks of the Democrats. As usual, he kept everybody guessing about whether he would run again; meanwhile, he promoted the Kalihi tunnel. In August his brick company needed another $30,000 to keep going. 14 All his assets were now tied up in the venture. On August 28 Johnny announced that he would take another fling at running for mayor. Dan Inouye later remembered attending a luau at Papakolea on the slopes of Punchbowl Crater in honor of John Wilson: It was a festival. It was a celebration It was real, genuine. Music was not commercial or canned. Jennie stood up and danced

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gracefully. Johnny was in his element. He took his jacket off. I never saw him loosen his tie They just embraced him. Most of the conversation was in Hawaiian [People were] joking and laughing and hitting their knees. He got up and gave a speech, all in Hawaiian. The people roared. We will never see that again. It's too bad. 15 Frank Fasi created a cyclone when he filed for mayor at the last minute. Some Democrats were annoyed with him for throwing an obstacle in the beloved, aging mayor's campaign because Fasi appeared to have little chance of winning. Fasi said later that he thought he could win, "mainly because...Johnny was sick. I felt it was time to get someone in who was healthy enough to do the job....I also felt that the people around him were taking advantage of him." 1 6 The Republicans chose Neal Blaisdell, a pineapple company employee, as their candidate. Fasi showed little awe for John Wilson's venerable record or for the power of the ILWU. He addressed a Labor Day audience of union members on Maui and attacked Jack Hall. Johnny told two Labor Day audiences in Honolulu that charges of communism in the ILWU were a new version of the hysteria over socialism and anarchism that had held sway in the 1920s. Fasi maintained that the mayor was too feeble and infirm to run city hall. Arthur Trask took the stump for Johnny and pronounced him fit and vigorous. The comments of Fasi and Trask became so strident that the central committee banned Fasi from the stump, an action he energetically protested. Failing in his protest, Fasi invented a new campaign technique, which was later adopted by other candidates. He went on radio on the eve of the election with a twenty-four-hour talkathon, answering questions from voters and displaying his youthful energy. 17 To nobody's surprise, Johnny beat Fasi handily, 1 5 , 6 8 5 votes to 1 2 , 3 2 1 . But the young contender polled more strongly than anyone had expected, and he was not at all discouraged. The general election campaign began with Democrats trying to bring the mayor and Fasi together. They were disabused of hopes for reconciliation when Fasi demanded that Johnny fire Bassett and Kum as the price of his support. Bassett then resigned again,

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insisting that he was a political detriment to the mayor. Johnny refused to accept his resignation. Bassett refused to accept Johnny's refusal. Voters went to the polls on Tuesday, November 4, 1952. Early returns gave Johnny a slight lead. He held it. With all the heavy GOP precincts counted, Blaisdell sent a gracious telegram to Johnny: "My sincere congratulations to you. You are still the champ." Blaisdell spent $ 1 1 , 8 0 2 . 5 3 in his losing effort; Johnny spent $5,474.85 to win. The Advertiser commented with resignation, "The mayor's faithful following is still with him and apparently will be so long as he lives or so long as he cares to seek the office." 18

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The mayor's new record-breaking term began with a controversy that added considerably to his legend because nothing like it had ever happened at city hall before. Kini appeared at a finance committee hearing to protest her husband's choice for vocalist in the Royal Hawaiian Band. This person was Johnny's protégé, Miulan Naiwi, who had failed to pass the civil service exam. Kini supported soprano Theresa Malani, who had passed. When the chairman of the finance committee would not permit Kini to testify in this matter, she held her own press conference and informed reporters that the mayor was butting in too much in affairs of the band. But she directed her strongest ire at band director Domenico Moro, a nervous and excitable fellow, for permitting Johnny to dictate to him. She shook her cane and demanded that he act like a man. Moro explained that there was nothing he could do because Johnny had taken all his files about the singers and wouldn't give them back. 1 The mayor stalled as long as he could but finally bowed to the inevitable; Theresa Malani became the new vocalist. None of this had any visible effect on Johnny's voter appeal. Dan Inouye chuckled about domestic disputes between Johnny and Jennie and said, "We did not consider that fighting. In fact, there's a saying that that's Hawaiian lovemaking. If you don't feel strongly enough about each other, you don't bother the other party." 2 Inouye was close to the scene because Johnny had given him a job in city hall as assistant prosecutor. N o w Johnny took up a crusade he had begun in the fall of 1 9 5 z to protect Waikïkl Beach from hotel development. At that time, a move was afoot in the board of supervisors to delete the Diamond Head end of Waikîkî Beach from the master plan so that hotels

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could be built there. A delegation of prominent citizens also called for a revision of the master plan so that hotels could be built on Kuhio Beach in the middle of Waikikl. The Advertiser reported, "These figures were Lorrin P. Thurston [Advertiser publisher] who recently concluded service as Hawaii Visitors Bureau chairman; William O. Cogswell, HVB executive director, and Dr. James H. Shoemaker, economist and vice president of the Bank of Hawaii." Thurston argued that visitors wanted to stay on the beach. He asked the board to "remove what is the greatest curse to the tourist industry [the master plan]." Johnny took the opposite view. He argued that lining the beach with hotels would drive tourists away disappointed. Johnny fought to keep the beach open, with hotels built on the mountain side of Kalakaua Avenue. He said, " N o one can tell me that those hotels would not be filled by the... tourists the Advertiser is telling us are standing on the wharfs of San Francisco waiting until we can find room for them. They would have the open beach directly in front of them, with no wall of buildings between it and them." 3 Matsuo Takabuki remembered this battle as it resumed in 1953 because he was in his first elective office as a member of the board of supervisors. He said the board incurred Johnny's wrath when they voted to issue a building permit for a $1,000,000 hotel on the Steiner property at Kuhio Beach. The mayor instructed the building inspector to ignore the ruling. Then the Chamber of Commerce went on record in support of the hotel construction. Johnny wrote a letter of protest to the Advertiser: I consider further encroachment on that beach area to be a definite menace to future tourist trade Construction should never have been permitted adjacent to the beaches. There should have been a boulevard skirting the beach... hotels [should have been built] on the land side of the boulevard. 4

But the city attorney ruled that the city must either buy the disputed beach property or permit hotel construction there. Johnny didn't give up. He appealed to the legislature, where the outlook for funds was dim. At this point the sensational Smith Act trials got under way

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with union leader Jack Hall in the dock. Feeling against Hall had never been more hostile, but Johnny got out of bed to testify on his behalf as a character witness on April 8, 1953. The mayor was sworn in as a witness at 1:30 P.M. He laid his brown felt hat on the railing of the witness box, listed his profession as an engineer, and explained that he had first met Jack Hall "on Richards Street. He had an armful of the [newspaper] Voice of Labor he was trying to get rid of." Asked his opinion of Hall's reputation for honesty, integrity, and loyalty to the U.S. government, Johnny grunted, "Good." Rex A. McKittrick, government attorney, tried for twenty minutes to get the mayor to admit he had come to court to pay off a political debt to the ILWU. Finally he gave up and said, "That's all, your honor." But Johnny wasn't finished. He said he had always been a supporter of labor although he never asked the unions to support him. McKittrick now tried to shut Johnny up with as little success as he had tried to get him to talk. Johnny added that he was a friend of labor "and if they voted for me, that was their business." The government attorney looked relieved when eighty-one-yearold Johnny Wilson picked up his hat and left the stand.5 None of the politicians of that day who were asked said they thought Johnny testified for Hall just to pay off a political debt. Frank Fasi said, "I think he liked Jack Hall. You see, Johnny Wilson was also a practical politician. He took care of his friends. And he punished his enemies. Ipso facto, he [Hall] needs my help in time of need, I'm going to come forward and stand up for him." 6 Johnny was one of the few who did. Hall and other Smith Act trial defendants were convicted, but the convictions were later overturned. On April 14, 1953, the Advertiser reported, "Time is running out for Mayor John Wilson who is playing a waiting game on the Waikiki Beach Master Plan. So far he has ignored legal advice that building permits for master planned property cannot be withheld or delayed unless the city buys or condemns the property." The legislature, in an attempt to circumvent the stubborn mayor, passed a measure that exempted the Steiner beach property from the master plan. But Johnny appealed to Hawai'i's new Republican governor, fellow part-Hawaiian Sam King, to veto the

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bill, which he did. On June 1 7 the mayor won a partial battle when the board reversed itself and voted to condemn the Steiner site on Waiklkl Beach and another parcel near Queen's Surf. But Johnny wasn't satisfied. He wanted to ban hotels on the Diamond Head end of the beach all the way from the Natatorium to Ponimo'I Road. The brick factory wasn't doing very well. Liberty Bank attached payment from brick buyers to the amount of $7,794. The plant manager quit, and, because there was no one else, Johnny took over for five months at $ 1 a year. American Factors demanded payment of $ 4 , 1 7 2 . 9 0 for supplies, which Johnny paid out of his own pocket. 7 By this time, the Waiklkl Beach Master Plan was in tatters because of variances granted by the board of supervisors to builders of apartments on the Diamond Head end of the beach. The mayor fought them at every turn. Takabuki recalled the skirmish over a seven-story high-rise to be built at the Diamond Head end of the Natatorium, a World War I memorial. Takabuki said apartment buildings already existed between the Natatorium and the property in dispute, so it didn't make sense for Johnny to fight so hard against the application. But he did. Takabuki told the story after forty years and laughed about it. He recalled: Johnny asked some of us [supervisors] to come up to Maluhia Hospital, he wanted to talk to us. He said [to me], "Young man, I don't think you know what you're talking about." It's because he was that kind of a person that some of us got to like and respect him. We may not agree with him but we learned to respect him.8 Johnny was never able to clear Waiklkl Beach of hotels, but his determined opposition to such construction was a major factor in preserving the open space that now exists there. The best news for Johnny came at the end of the year. In October 1 9 5 3 , E.E. Black won the bid on digging the Kalihi tunnel, and one of Johnny's dreams came true. As a birthday present for the eighty-two-year-old mayor, the board of supervisors on December 1 5 voted to name it the Wilson Tunnel. He was in bed at Maluhia at the time. The year 1 9 5 4 opened with a blast caused by 250 pounds of powder that blew the first hole in the mountain.

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On the night of January 17, 1954, W. K. Bassett was struck by an auto while walking across Kalakaua Avenue in the dark after leaving the Palm Tree Inn, a Waiklkl bar. He died nine days later at age sixty-six. Harry Stroup, a veteran reporter for the Advertiser, took his place as the mayor's administrative assistant. The brick factory continued to produce bad news. A tax collector attached $5,095.31 of the company funds. Then Liberty Bank attached another $9,000. 9 Johnny sent Jack Burns to Washington in his place to attend a mayor's conference. Burns stayed on to lobby for Hawaiian statehood. He wrote to the mayor from the Willard Hotel saying he had encountered opposition among Washington Democrats to Hawaiian statehood because Hawai'i's voters consistently sent Republicans to political office. 10 Washington politicians predicted that Hawai'i, as a state, would send a Republican delegation to Congress. So Burns put together a prospective slate of Democratic candidates who could win high office if they had a chance to run. The slate produced a flurry of interest in Hawai'i because Johnny was listed as a candidate for governor. The mayor, in bed at Maluhia, recognized Burns' strategy for what it was and didn't get excited. His weight had come down to 1 5 0 from 185 pounds, and his doctor said his health was much improved. When he returned to his desk for the first time in eight months, however; the patient refused to comment on whether he would run again for mayor— although he had the look in his eye. Frank Fasi had been running since the previous election. By August Johnny's entrenched supporters at city hall were organizing another draft. Fifteen thousand voters signed a petition asking the oldest mayor in the United States to run again. Six hundred people attended a nine-course Chinese dinner in Johnny's honor; but the old politician refused to reveal his plans, and thereby received a great deal of free publicity. Opinion varied in the Democratic party about another term for the aging mayor. Takabuki said later he favored letting Johnny have one last term. But Inouye, who ran in that election for the territory house of representatives, felt differently. He said later that he thought Johnny was being used. And there was his age. Inouye said he felt Johnny was too old to run and added, "I think

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with sadness and goodwill, many people voted against him. I voted for him." 1 1 So there was ambivalence among the Democrats when Johnny filed once more for mayor on August 3 1 , 1 9 5 4 , in a rerun of the 1 9 5 2 race. Once more he faced Frank Fasi in the primary, the winner to take on Neal Blaisdell in the general. Blaisdell set up headquarters in the Alexander Young Hotel; Fasi already had his headquarters established; the Wilson headquarters had yet to be opened. This campaign introduced television in Hawai'i as a political tool. The candidates also made more use of radio. Consequently, 1 9 5 4 provided a last look at the old-time political rallies in full bore. Herman Lemke, who was talked into running for the board of supervisors by Johnny's team, said television proved a mixed blessing for politicians: T V had just come in. ...We ran around to collect a few bucks and get on TV. The best we could do was, the night before election, we all went down to some little T V station... [and] walk[ed] in the back end. Nothing fancy. They lined us all up: board of supervisors, house of representatives guys, the senate. And we just walked before the camera, [said] M y name is Herman Lemke," bow[ed] and [went] off. Next guy, " M y name is Mits Kido." That's all we had money for. The Republicans had quite a lot of T V going. They were having T V cameramen come out and shoot their candidates at political rallies. For the first time in twenty years the people at home saw how old Johnny Asing [veteran candidate for supervisor] was. Johnny Asing all those years had been using the same picture with a hat on and that pheasant lei. Nick Teves [also running for the board] was beginning to look old. I think that's what helped kill the Republicans. 12 K A H U radio, the rural broadcasting company on O'ahu, sent John Wilson a price list for radio commercials that is now of historical interest: $25 for five one-minute announcements, $ 5 0 for eleven one-minute announcements, $ 1 0 0 for twenty-four oneminute announcements, and $200 for fifty one-minute announcements. 13

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John Wilson made few appearances on the stump, but Dan Inouye remembers them. He recalled: Whenever I heard him, there was always a great show of respect. Democratic rallies have not changed. They are noisy affairs. It takes an extraordinary, an exceptional person to stand up and almost instantly get the crowd's attention. But he did. He did not yell or anything, and people craned to hear him. He always spoke first in Hawaiian. So don't ask me what he said. Sometimes the folks would just gleefully laugh, or respond with auwe, auwe [alas, alas] in deep tones. Or they might yell out something. And then he would proceed in English and he would close in Hawaiian. But he, when I heard him, sounded almost like a gentle father lecturing his children.14 Fasi incurred the lasting enmity of some Democrats by his biting criticism of Johnny's age. And the campaign grew bitter as it appeared that voters were listening to Fasi's message. He described the Wilson campaign as one of "fear and frenzy." An Advertiser straw poll taken just before the election showed Fasi leading Wilson, but being beaten by Neal Blaisdell in the general. The poll showed that Johnny would beat Blaisdell. On election day Johnny departed from Maluhia Hospital at 1:30 P.M. wearing a brown suit, maroon tie, his hearing aid, and a bright orange lei of kikania berries. He and his driver, Joe Perry, set off across town to pick up Kini. They drove up rutty 'O'ili Road and past the Wilsonite brick factory to the house. Kini came out, leaning on her cane, wearing a flowered blue muumuu. They all drove to Liliuokalani School, where the mayor and his first lady voted. On his way out, Johnny paused to listen in on a radio tuned to the Stanford-Illinois football game. Stanford led 1 2 - 2 with three minutes to go. Outside, Johnny's gang of female musicians struck up a tune. All of them wore blue muumuus and Wilson for Mayor buttons. Kini decided to go along on the tour of the precincts. She got in back while Johnny sat in front with Joe Perry. The musicians followed in their open convertible plastered with campaign stickers. At the first stop, Johnny Fern, the mayor's campaign manager, had a worried look on his face. A rumor had spread that the

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mayor had collapsed. The mayor pondered the rumor for a moment and observed, peering over his pince-nez, " I don't know —they do distort things sometimes." So the afternoon passed. One woman whispered behind her hand, "Poor old duck. Just doesn't know when to lie down." 1 5 The trek dragged on until 5:45 P.M., when the mayor told Joe Perry to take him to Maluhia for a bite to eat and a nap. He said he'd call if he wanted to go downtown again. But he decided against it. He was asleep when the first returns came in showing Frank Fasi ahead. Fasi won by 1 , 1 0 2 votes. He polled heavily in Republican districts, and there was a widespread belief that he had benefited from a Republican crossover vote because the GOP felt he would be easier to beat than John Wilson in the general. Fasi later denied that Republicans elected him. He credited his strong showing to an energetic campaign. 16 Historian Donald Johnson wrote that Johnny reported campaign expenses of $ 3 3 0 while Fasi spent $ 5 , 4 0 1 and the Friends of Frank Fasi another $5,oo9.8o. 1 7 The next day, Johnny's office became a political convention hall. Both Blaisdell and Fasi came to offer sympathy and, they hoped, win some for themselves from voters who revered the mayor. Democrats shuttled in and out during maneuvers for the general election. Political reporters speculated about where John Wilson would throw his considerable support. On November 2, 1 9 5 4 , the night before the general election, Johnny made his last campaign speech. He asked voters to throw the Republicans out and to vote the straight Democratic ticket. The next day a revolution occurred at the polls. For the first time in more than fifty years, the Republicans lost control of the legislature, nine to six in the senate and twenty-two to eight in the house. New Nisei representatives Dan Inouye and Spark Matsunaga began their long tenure in office that would take them to the halls of the U.S. Senate. Democrats elected a five-to-two majority on the board of supervisors. Both Matsuo Takabuki and Herman Lemke got in. Jack Burns narrowly missed beating Betty Farrington for delegate to Congress. He would go on to lead the Democrats in Hawai'i to unprecedented power. The most important Republican victory was that of Neal Blaisdell, who soundly beat Frank Fasi for mayor of Honolulu. Politi-

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cal observers said the GOP strategy to eliminate Johnny in the primary had succeeded. This election established a Democratic ascendancy in Hawai'i that would continue throughout the second half of the century. Only John Wilson missed the parade. He returned to Maluhia Hospital. Even his dream of providing low-cost housing for the people of Honolulu failed, victim to his political efforts for the party. On August 16, 1955, the Wilsonite Brick Company went into receivership, and Johnny lost everything. The board of supervisors helped out by giving him a blank check to stay at Maluhia Hospital as long as he lived at the expense of taxpayers. Some of his old friends came up the hill to see him. Frank Fasi said that he enjoyed sparring with Johnny and that the former mayor loved to talk politics. Labor leaders Art Rutledge and Bob McElrath paid visits as did labor attorney Harriet Bouslog. Kini lived in Wai'alae Nui Valley with her peacocks and commuted to the hospital. But mostly Johnny was alone except on birthdays. At 7:20 P.M. on July 2, 1956, he smiled at his nurse, rolled over on his side, and died. He was eighty-four. Kini learned of her husband's death from friends. When she came into his hospital room, she scolded in anguish, "Johnny, why didn't you call me?" Napua Stevens Poire took her home and held Kini in her arms while Kini wailed her grief through the night in the Hawaiian way. She sat by his side in the rotunda of city hall while he lay in state. A procession seven blocks long took Johnny for burial in the Trask family plot in Nu'uanu Valley because the space beside the Wilson plot in the cemetery behind Kawaiahao Church was filled up. Kini kissed him on the lips before they closed the casket. She called out in Hawaiian, "Go and take your rest now, Johnny. You have earned it. Don't worry about me. It will be all right. Your friends will take care of me.'" 8 Kini was fortunate to have Johnny's friends to depend on. The Star-Bulletin reported that attorneys found 3 2 cents in his pocket —his total assets—when they settled his estate.19

-

8

3

JOHNNY'S

-

PLACE

HAWAIIAN

IN

HISTORY

It is ironic that Johnny Wilson, who was never appointed governor of Hawai'i, assumes in retrospect stature equal to or greater than that of the men who were. Johnny was not appointed primarily because he belonged to the wrong race and the wrong political party and believed in the wrong economic philosophy. So Johnny's place in history stems as much from what he wasn't as from what he was. In a democracy, the majority rules; but minorities need vigorous representation, lest the majority become arrogant and oppressive. John Wilson is important because he spoke for Hawai'i's powerless: Hawaiians, laborers, and Asians. By the time these minority forces converged to forge a political majority, he was too old to be governor. So the long career of John Wilson was one of challenge to the establishment, of fighting to make democracy work for the impotent. It does not matter so much that he failed in his time to achieve his goals. What matters is that he provided a vision and skillful political leadership for the powerless. He was not a revolutionary but an unconventional politician who struggled to lead his followers into the system. He was ahead of his time, and he was right on an uncommon number of issues. Some of Johnny's contemporaries who knew him in the final days of his career have tried to place him in the context of history. Matsuo Takabuki remembered him as a "towering figure," although Takabuki felt that aging Johnny Wilson was out of touch with younger elements of the party. 1 Frank Fasi, one of Johnny's most vociferous critics on the stump, at the time of his death called him "probably the most beloved leader in the history of Hawaiian politics." Years later, 340

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Fasi added that he believed John Wilson was "one of the most capable Democratic politicians in the first half of the century."2 Both Fasi and Dan Inouye said they learned from Johnny, and Inouye said so did Jack Burns, although Burns and Wilson were far apart in personality: Keep in mind that Jack Burns was a policeman. The organization skills that he had, primarily, were those of a military nature, a police structure As a general rule, this is not the best foundation for a political future. I think he learned [from Johnny] how to get along with people, for one thing. And it was through Johnny, I am certain, that he met many of the Hawaiian leaders.3 Inouye said Burns learned from John Wilson to dress well and that he himself always wears a coat and tie because of Johnny's example. "[However,] Johnny Wilson was a much more pragmatic person," Inouye added. Jack Burns was in many ways more of a philosopher. He loved to read, whether it was Thomas Aquinas or Thomas Jefferson. I don't remember Johnny Wilson quoting Jefferson, or Aquinas, or Pope Leo, ever. His was a simple formula of the times. Get jobs for them [Democrats]. Make certain when we dig that hole down there that our people are hired. According to Inouye, the two strong Democratic leaders where alike in many way in spite of their differences: Both of them felt a special obligation... to help the native Hawaiians They also agreed that, politically, the strength of the Democratic party had to have a foundation made up of native Hawaiians and Japanese-Americans. Because in numbers, at that time, these two constituted a majority.... Both were for home rule. That was translated into many different ways. It could have meant statehood. It could have meant greater independence from the rulers of the land or oligarchy. It could have meant for Johnny Wilson greater autonomy for the city and county...who will appoint the police commission, who will appoint this or that.

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Inouye credited Johnny as well as Jack Burns with bringing elements into the party that finally established its overwhelming power: Johnny was the major glue, if I may use the word, that kept the Hawaiians in the Democratic party.... Human beings like to feel comfortable... [so] they don't have to concern themselves with confrontation or adversarial action. They [want to] be assured of some semblance of the good life. You had a situation where one side offered jobs. And if you were good they patted you on the shoulder and you got a little promotion. [The Republicans] were the respected ones. Even at weddings, the Republican leaders always went to the first pew. You must remember those old days. And if Johnny Wilson hadn't been there, I think a lot of Hawaiians would have gravitated toward the better life. If one made a study of the Democratic party at that juncture in our history, you had to agree that Johnny Wilson gave us credibility. Because, in many ways, the territory was run by the powerful of the society. The legislature was Republican from day one. The governors up until then had been picked by the rulers of this place, as Jack Burns would say, by the oligarchy. And one man who stood up, [but] who was not an adversary in let's-man-thebattlements type, [was John Wilson]. He was the one who gave the Democratic party an identity, someone to rally around, and credibility. So he was very important. Millard Purdy, political writer for the Star-Bulletin, wrote his assessment a few days after Johnny died. He credited Johnny with playing a major role in holding the Democratic party together before its rise to power: H i s greatest contribution to the D e m o c r a t s . . . w a s in s h o w i n g the bulld o g stubbornness to build the party and fight for it in the d a y s w h e n D e m o c r a t s w e r e . . . political outcasts and f e w persons w i t h a n y real hope of success w o u l d run on the D e m o c r a t i c ticket. J o h n n y s p o k e the language of the grass roots and he taught the "little f e l l o w s " h o w to use the p o w e r of the vote. H e k n e w h o w to organize them a n d lead them and f e w other political figures have ever held their personal loyalty m o r e strongly than he did. 4

EPILOGUE THE

LEGEND

OF J E N N I E

WILSON

Kini, once banished from polite society to Pelekunu Valley because she danced the hula, became the revered authority of an art form being rediscovered. She assumed the stature of a national treasure as Hawai'i's last link with the days of Kalakaua. The stories of her grand tour in Europe filled newspaper feature sections year after year. But Kini did not lose her sense of identity. She talked about washing clothes on the beach at Kaka'ako as proudly as she did about having the Empress of Germany pull her hair. She charmed a whole new generation with stories about ghosts, hula skirts, and the boathouse of her king. All of Hawai'i took her under its wing. The Bishop Estate waived land rent in Wai'alae Nui Valley, and she was allowed use of the old house. The legislature created a job for her, historian of Kamehameha Day, at $1,800 a year. Nothing of this history was written down. It was all in her head. Unity House, the AFL union complex, voted her a pension of $50 a month. Capital Investment Company paid her $1,000 for her peacocks when she was no longer able to care for them and donated them to the zoo. When anybody tried to take advantage of her, it shook the foundations of Hawai'i. Such an occasion arose when an item appeared in the Advertiser to the effect that Mrs. John H. Wilson would be hosting a political reception for John Burns, running for delegate to Congress, and William Vanatta, running for mayor. Union leader Art Rutledge, Unity House president, received an invitation. He called Walter Trask to ask how Jennie Wilson could host such a reception when she had so little money. Trask in turn called Kini, who hadn't heard about the reception. It turned out that sponsors of the event had used Kini's name for its political value.

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This caused reverberations throughout the Democratic party as interested citizens expressed their outrage at such shabby exploitation. Profuse apologies poured out in all directions. But Kini attended the party anyway and forgave Burns and Vanatta. She liked parties.1 Members of the Aloha Week committee quavered when Kini criticized the festivities as lacking in authenticity, particularly the hip-swiveling hula, the imitation feather capes of the Aloha Week king and queen, and the helmets worn by the spear carriers.2 Firemen rescued Kini, alone in her valley, when flood waters threatened to carry her off. They charged up bumpy 'O'ili Road in the nick of time. To her delight and the approval of everyone in Honolulu, she rode to town in the fire truck. She did the sitting hula in her wheelchair on important occasions and took a ride through the Wilson Tunnel when it opened on November 20, i960. "If only John were here," she said.3 Kini was alone in her cluttered house when the great news broke on March i z , 1959, that the U.S. Congress had at last granted Hawai'i statehood. The bell at Kawaiahao Church began to toll. Downtown, financier Chinn Ho at Capital Investment Company passed out bottles of Scotch. Amid the noise and excitement, an Advertiser columnist drove up dusty 'O'ili Road to consult Auntie Jennie, as she was called then, about the big event. He found her sitting in a rocking chair on the lanai. She greeted him with a wide smile and asked flirtatiously if he had come for the chocolates she had promised him. Auntie Jennie liked personable young men. He said, no, he had come to ask her about Hawai'i's becoming a state. She answered that she hadn't heard about it because the radio was turned off. And she began to reminisce: "I remember the day the Hawaiian flag came down. It was in 1899. My mother and I were sitting on the veranda of our house on Queen Street. You could see Iolani Palace from there then. It was very quiet. No yelling or anything. But there was a big crowd at the Palace." "Did annexation change Hawaii much?" Auntie Jennie shrugged. "No, just more houses, more taxes, more crowded." She thought statehood would be a lot the same. A couple of chickens came clucking up the front steps. Auntie Jennie picked up her cane and shooed them away.

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"But Hawaii has changed since the days of King Kalakaua?" She nodded sadly. " I used to know every people on this island. N o w I look and I can't find them. There are so many houses. This is not Hawaii anymore, only the name. It is America. The people are living in the United States." " H o w about the hula? Has that changed?" Auntie Jennie's eyes flashed. "The songs are the same. But they changed the steps to satisfy the tourist. Too much movement of the hip. The hula is in the eyes and the hands. The hips keep time but in an easy way. Today the okoles [buttocks] go twisting anywhere." "Has the spirit of Hawaii changed?" "Yes, it has changed. Poor old Waikiki. Sometimes I go down to the beach in front of the new stores and just look. When I was a little girl there were no houses at a l l . . . " She paused and her voice drifted off on the wings of memory. "Once a month King Kalakaua call the people to come for hukilau [fishing party]. Plenty fish at Waikiki then. Oh, the people come in families from all over. The King ask each one, 'How many children?' Give them so many fish." " D o you have any advice to give to the state of Hawaii?" She lifted her wrinkled hands in benediction with a motion as graceful as a soaring gull and answered with the wisdom of many years, "It will be all right." 4

Kini died on July 2 4 , 1 9 6 2 , at the Queen's Hospital after a mild stroke. She w a s buried beside her husband in N u ' u a n u Valley. A n d so she sleeps again with her man.

Acknowle dgments

I am indebted to Carol Silva, records management chief of the State Records Center and Morris Fox, who had worked as welfare director under Mayor John Wilson, for calling my attention to Johnny Wilson as a long overdue subject for biography. While at the University of Hawaii, Carol had written a paper about John Wilson and had become fascinated by him. Morrie Fox, long one of Johnny's admirers, was compiling his own collection of anecdotes about the John Wilson legend. The two of them came to my office early in 1987 and persuasively argued that I should write a biography of Johnny Wilson. I didn't need much persuasion, and not only because Mayor John H. Wilson was a colorful public figure when I joined the Advertiser in 19 51 or because I later became acquainted with Jennie Wilson. During the Save Kaho'olawe movement of the 1970s, a number of important part-Hawaiians in Honolulu discovered the Hawaiian part of themselves. Some of these people were my friends. Johnny Wilson had been a very important part-Hawaiian. Had something similar happened to him? So it was not the politician in Johnny that originally stimulated my interest in him as a subject for biography but the challenge of learning how he related to himself as a part-Hawaiian. This challenge led to five years of exciting research. Johnny was unique, a many-faceted person who defied pigeonholing as a part-Hawaiian, a politician, or anything else. I soon forgot why I started his biography in the first place in the discovery of his many dimensions. To document his place in Hawaiian history was for me a marvelous adventure that now fills six feet of floor space in looseleaf binders. The major sources are three: (1) Four large filing drawers of Wilson Papers at the State Archives. (2) Honolulu newspapers from 1 8 7 1 to 1929, which I had to read through because they are

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not indexed, plus indexed news stories about Johnny from 1929 to 1 9 5 6 , when he died. (3) Taped interviews with about twenty people who knew Johnny or Jenny. I also did some research at the Library of Congress and in the Washington Room of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Public Library in Washington, D.C. I am grateful to the State Archives for accepting my notes on Johnny Wilson because the workbooks provide far more information than the notes at the end of this biography. M y material on John Wilson is arranged chronologically with each workbook numbered and dated. A researcher need only provide a date, and the archivists can bring out a workbook containing a broad spectrum of information about Johnny for that period, including the sources used in this book. I owe an enormous debt to the people who shared with me their recollections of and feelings about Johnny Wilson. Harriet Ne, of Moloka'i, his oldest living relative, deserves special thanks as does Napua Stevens Poire, Jenny's long-time friend, for supplying information no one else could have given. Both have died since I interviewed them. Morris Fox has also passed away. Others who spoke with informative candor are Nona Beamer, George Houghtailing, Bob McElrath, Walter Trask, Wilfred Oda, Herman Lemke, Dan Inouye, Matsuo Takabuki, Frank Fasi, Mary Waihee, Antone Cravalho, and Mildred Sikkema. Many other people provided bits and pieces. The book could not have been written without the cheerful assistance of the librarians at the State Archives and the Hawaii Newspaper Agency. I also want to thank Iris Wiley, editor of the University of Hawaii Press, for her encouragement, and the readers she assigned for providing valuable critiques of the manuscript.

Notes

Abbreviations Adv. BR

JHW HST PC A Pol. S-B Star WP WT

Honolulu Advertiser Blount Report of the Commissioner to the Hawaiian Islands. U.S. Congress. House. Hawaiian Islands, Executive Document No. 47. 53 Cong. 2 Sess. Washington 1893 John Henry Wilson Hawaii State Archives Pacific Commercial Advertiser Polynesian Honolulu Star-Bulletin Hawaiian Star Wilson papers, Hawaii State Archives Wilson tapes of interviews taped by the author, transcribed in author's work notes Prologue

1 .S-B, Aug. 1 3 , 1 9 1 8 . Chapter 1 1 . WT. Information about Koloa comes from Harriet Ne, her oldest living relative, a resident of Moloka'i. 2. WT, Harriet Ne. 3. Conflicting dates are given for the birth of Eveline Blanchard. This date is reported from her tombstone in Kawaiahao Cemetery. See "The Rev. Charles Wilson of T a h i t i " — 1 7 7 0 - 1 8 5 7 , a Wilson family history, in HST, WP. 4. Helena G. Allen, The Betrayal of Liliuokalani, Last Queen of Hawaii, 18)8-191-/ (Glendale, Calif.: A.H.Clark, 1982), 1 2 2 - 1 2 3 . 5. WP, "The Rev. Charles Wilson." 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. Melville's whaleship was the Lucy Ann. In Omoo he calls it the Julia. 8. Melville's account of his arrest and imprisonment at Papeete appear in Omoo, chaps. 20-39. 9. WP, "The Rev. Charles Wilson." 10. Ibid. 11. BR, 9 1 .

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12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

TO

PAGES

I I - 2. I

WP, "The Rev. Charles Wilson." BR, 90. WP, "The Rev. Charles Wilson." Adv., Sept. 13, 192.6. BR, 90. Chapter 2

1. S-B, Sept. 17, 1926. 2. WP, Alfred N. Tripp letter, Nov. 22, 1949, describing John Wilson's boyhood home on Emma Street behind Washington Place. 3. George Bowser, The Hawaiian Kingdom Statistical and Commercial Directory, 1880-1881, (Honolulu and San Francisco: George Bowser, 1880). The blacksmith shop was at 26 Fort St. 4. WP, "The Rev. Charles Wilson." 5. PCA, Sept. 13, 1926, C.B.Wilson obituary. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. WT, Harriet Ne. 9. WP, brief handwritten autobiography of JHW. 10. WT, Harriet Ne. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid. 13. WT, Napua Stevens Poire. Chapter 3 1. WP, J H W speech, Dec. 12, 1943. 2. Adv., Dec. 14, 1952. 3. WP, undated family history. 4. George S. Kanahele, Hawaiian Music and Musicians (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1979), xxv. 5. Ibid., 34-44. 6. Ibid., 209. 7. Ibid., 11-13. 8. PCA, July 20, 1885, gives the first mention of a Hawaiian musical group other than the Royal Hawaiian Band or church glee clubs. 9. WP, J H W letter to Lena Machado, Dec. 30, 1933. 10. S-B, Dec. 4, 1920, magazine section. 11. S-B, Clarice B. Taylor, "Tales about Hawaii," Mar. 25, 1952. 12. Ibid., Mar. 26, 1952. 13. Ibid., Mar. 27, 1952. 14. Ibid., April 9, 10, 1952. 15. WP, Memories of Jennie Wilson/2. 16. WT, Napua Stevens Piore. 17. Ibid. 18. WP, Memories of Jennie Wilson/7. 19. WT, Napua Stevens Poire.

NOTES

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

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3 5 1

Ibid. PCA, Aug. 30, Sept. 1 1 , 1884. WP, undated speech by JHW. WP, from undated campaign leaflet circa 1920s. Adv., July 3, 1956. WP, undated, Memories of Jennie Wilson. WP, statement made by JHW on OCT. 6, 1947.

Chapter 4 1 . PCA, July 14, 1882. 2. Ibid., Feb. 22, 1883. 3. Ibid., Aug. 20, 1884; Ralph S. Kuykendall, The Hawaiian Kingdom, 1874-1893 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1957), 99. 4. Thrum's Hawaiian Annual, 1885, (Honolulu: Thos. G. Thrum), 90. 5. PCA, July 19, 1886. 6. Ibid., July 1 , 1886. 7. Ibid., Jan. 1 1 , 1886. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid., Feb. 6, 1886. 10. Ibid., Feb. 3, 1887. 1 1 . Ibid. 1 2 . Ibid., June 7, 1887. 1 3 . Ibid., July 7, 1887. 14. Ibid., Aug. 4, 1887. 1 5 . Ibid., July 1 , 1887. 16. Liliuokalani, Queen of Hawaii, Hawaii's Story (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1898), 1 8 1 - 1 8 2 . 17. Adv., Sept. 1 3 , 1926. 18. PCA, June 2 1 , 1889. 19. Ibid., July 16, 1887. 20. Adv., Sept. 1 3 , 1926, CB.Wilson obituary. 2 1 . Shepard B. Clough and Salvatore Saladino, A History of Modern Italy: Documents, Readings, and Commentary (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), chaps. 5-7. 22. Adv., Sept. 1 3 , 1926. 23. PCA, Jan. 3 1 , 1890. 24. Adv., Sept. 1 3 , 1926.

Chapter 5 1. WT, Harriet Ne. 2. City Directory, 1890, listing for JHW. 3. PCA, Feb. 6, 1890. 4. Adv., Dec. 14, 1952. 5. Ibid. 6. WP, unfinished, handwritten autobiography of JHW. 7. Allen, Betrayal of Liliuokalani, 246.

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8. WP, unfinished handwritten autobiography of JHW. 9. WP, speech by JHW to Hawaiian Civic Club, Dec. 1 2 , 1943. xo. WT, Harriet Ne; WP, speech by JHW at sixtieth anniversary of Kamehameha School, Dec. 19, 1947. 1 1 . John Hamill, The Strange Career of Mr. Hoover under Two Flags (New York: W.Faro, 1 9 3 1 ) , 1 8 - 1 9 . 12. The Friend, Oct. 1 8 9 1 . Chapter 6 1. T.H.Watkins, California: An Illustrated History (Palo Alto, Calif.: American West, 1973), 209-222. 2. WP, letter from Archie Rice to JHW, Aug. 8, 1947. 3. David Jacobs and Anthony E. Neville, Bridges, Canals And Tunnels (New York: American Heritage, 1968), 9. 4. BR, 1 3 4 2 . 5. PCA, Dec. 5, 1 8 9 1 . 6. BR, 90-91. 7. Ibid., 9 1 . 8. Ibid., 1342. 9. PCA, Jan. 19, 1892. 10. Ibid., Mar. 9, 1892. 1 1 . Ibid., Mar. 3 1 , 1892. 12. Ibid., May 19, 1892. 1 3 . Ibid., May 20, 1892. 14. Ibid., June 28, 1892. 15. San Francisco Chronicle, Aug. 28, 1892. 16. WP, brochure, "John H. Wilson for Governor," 1933. 17. WP, letter from JHW to Robert W. Pharr, June 20, 1937. 18. BR, 564. 19. A Capt. E.Hopkins was dismissed from the police department on Dec. 30 at the request of the cabinet. McStocker and Larsen were probably also policemen. 20. WP, small notebook, handwritten entry, Jan. 1 7 , 1893. 2 1 . PCA, Feb. 2, 1893. 22. Reid Badger, The Great American Fair: The World's Columbian Exposition and American Culture (Chicago: N.Hall, 1979), 1 0 8 - 1 0 9 . 23. PCA, June 3, 1893. 24. Ibid., May 23, 1893. 25. Ibid., May 25, 1893; Bulletin, May 23, 1893; WP, a typewritten biography, on newsprint, of Jennie Wilson, chap. 6, gives the names of the hula girls as Jennie, Pauahi, Ane, and Nakai. 26. PCA, July 3 1 , 1893. 27. WT, Napua Stevens Poire. 28. Ibid. 29. WP, letter from JHW to Bill Holt, Nov. 18, 1938; letter from JHW to James Farley, Sept. 6, 1938.

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353

30. WP, undated notes for speech given by JHW at Kawananakoa School anniversary. 3 1 . WP, undated JHW speech notes on file cards. Chapter 7 1. WP, campaign brochure, "The Dope on John H. Wilson," 1934. 2. WP, "The Rev. Charles Wilson," 143; S-B, Nov. 1 5 , 192.0. 3. WT, Harriet Ne. 4. PCA, Nov. 25, 1893. 5. Kini's charm bracelet, when viewed by the author, was in the possession of Donald Medcalf, owner of Hawaiian Islands Stamp and Coin in Honolulu. 6. WT, Harriet Ne. 7. WT, Bob McElrath. 8. George Townsend's participation in the revolt of 1895 is told in PCA, Jan. 9, 1 1 , 16, and 22, 1895. 9. WT, Walter Trask. 10. WT, Bob McElrath. 1 1 . PCA, Mar. 29, 1895. 12. Ibid., May 9, 1895. 1 3 . Ibid., June 14, 1895. 14. The most detailed account of the tour is in "A Royal Hawaiian Love Story—A Man and His Band," Ha'ilono Mele (newsletter of the Hawaiian Music Foundation) 5.10 (Oct. 1979). 15. PCA, Dec. 26, 1895. 1 6 . S-B, Nov. 1 1 , 1922. 17. WP, campaign leaflet, "The John H. Wilson Story," 1954. 18. WP, notebooks. 19. WT, Napua Stevens Poire. 20. WP, Memories of Jennie Wilson, 8-9. 2 1 . WP, brochure, "John H. Wilson for Governor," 1933. Chapter 8 1. PCA, Aug. 5, 1896. 2. Ibid., Aug. 1 , 1896. 3. WP, unidentified memorandum and news clipping dated Aug. 23, 1947; PCA, Feb. 4, 1897. 4. PCA, Jan. 2, 1897. 5. WP, unfinished handwritten autobiography of JHW. 6. Hawaiian Annual, 1898, 1 4 1 - 1 4 2 . 7. Adv., July 10, 1947. 8. PCA, Feb. 1 , 1920, sec. 4. 9. Hawaiian Annual, 1898, 142; WT, George Houghtailing. 10. WP, undated speech by JHW at Stanford alumnae party. 1 1 . WP, letter from Walter F. Dillingham to JHW, Sept. 23, 1948; Star, Jan. 16, 1 9 1 2 .

3 5 4 ! N O T E S TO P A G E S

57-68

1 2 . Hawaiian Annual, 1898, 143. 1 3 . Adv., Dec. 19, 1954. 14. PCA, July 1 5 , 1897. 1 5 . Ibid., July 23, 1897. 16. WT, Walter Trask. 17. Mifflin Thomas, Schooner from Windward: Two Centuries of Hawaiian Interisland Shipping (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983), 2 1 3 ; WP, unfinished handwritten autobiography of JHW. 18. WP, speech by Jack Burns, Sept. 29, 1948. 19. PCA, Oct. 1 9 , 1 8 9 7 . 20. Ibid., Jan. 1 5 , 1 8 9 8 . 2 1 . Ibid., Nov. 18, 1897. 22. Ibid., Dec. 3 , 1 8 9 7 . 23. Ibid., Dec. 29, 1897. Chapter 9 1 . WT, Harriet Ne. 2. WT, Arthur Trask. 3. WT, Napua Stevens Poire. 4. PCA, May 6, 1898. 5. Ibid., June 1 8 , 1 8 9 8 . 6. Ibid., May 2 3 , 1 8 9 8 . 7. WT, Harriet Ne. 8. PCA, May 1 3 , 1 4 , 1 9 , 20, 23, 1898. 9. Ibid., May 25, 1898. 10. Ibid., June 3, 1898. 1 1 . Ibid., June 3, 4 , 1 8 9 8 . 12. Ibid., Aug. 16, 1898. 1 3 . WP, JHW notebook. 14. PCA, July 1 2 , 2 2 , 1 8 9 8 . 1 5 . Ibid., Oct. 18, 1898. 16. WP, JHW notebook. 1 7 . WP, paper "Taro and Poi" by JHW dated Dec. 1933. 18. WP, JHW notebook, 1900 entry. 19. S-B, Aug. 1 3 , 14, 1952. 20. PCA, Nov. 1 , 1 8 9 8 ; Oct. 18, 1 9 1 1 ; Dec. 1 , 1 8 9 8 . 2 1 . Ibid., Oct. 18, 1 9 1 1 . 22. WP, JHW 1899 notebook; PCA, Oct. 18, 1 9 1 1 ; Jan. 24, 1899; S-B, Sept. 23, 1 9 1 3 . 23. WT, Walter Trask. 24. WT, Napua Stevens Poire. 25. WT, Walter Trask. 26. Divorce record, JHW and Olyve Griffin. 27. WP, JHW 1899 notebook; PCA, April 2 4 , 1 8 9 9 . 28. WP, JHW 1899 notebook. 29. PCA, May 26, 1899; May 29, 1899.

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I

355

30. Ibid., J U L Y 8, 1899. 3 1 . Ibid., June 23, 1899. 32. WP, letter from JHW to Bill Holt, Mar. 20, 1938; letter from JHW to H.D. Rey, Mar. 19, 1938; letter from JHW to James Farley, Sept. 6, 1938. 33. WP, letter from JHW to E.W. McConnell, Mar. 3 1 , 1938. 34. PCA, June 10, 1899. 35. WT, George Houghtailing. Chapter 1 0 1. Robert W. Rydell, All the World's a Fair: Visions of Empire at American International Expositions, 1876-1916 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 1 0 5 - 1 2 5 . 2. PCA, Aug. 14, 1899. 3. Ibid., Aug. 1 5 , 1899. 4. Rydell, All the World's a Fair, 1 0 5 - 1 2 5 . 5. WP, letter from JHW to Bill Holt, Nov. 18, 1938. 6. As reported in PCA, Aug. 1 1 , 1899. 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid., Sept. 2, 1899. 9. Ibid., Sept. 1 2 , 1899. 10. Ibid., Aug. 2, 3, 1899. 1 1 . Ibid., Sept. 1 2 , 1899. 12. Ibid., Oct. 7, 1899. 1 3 . Ibid., Oct. 24, 1899. 14. Ibid., Dec. 2 1 , 1899. 15. Ibid., Dec. 28, 1899. 16. Ibid., Dec. 29, 1899; Jan. 1 3 , 1900. 1 7 . Ibid., Jan. 22, 1900. 18. Ibid., Jan. 23, 1900. 19. Ibid., April 18, 1900. 20. S-B, April 1 7 , 1 9 1 3 . 2 1 . PCA, May 16, 1900. 22. WP, letter from Delbert Metzger to JHW, Jan. 10, 1937. 23. WP, JHW speech to Hawaiian Civic Club, Dec. 1 2 , 1943. 24. PCA, May 1 , 1900. 25. Ibid., May 5, 1900. 26. Ibid., May 1 7 , 1900. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid., May 29, 3 1 ; Sept. 27, 1900. 29. WT, Walter Trask. 30. PCA, Jan. 3 1 , 1900. 3 1 . WP, testimony of JHW before Statehood Committee, 1939. 32. Star, July 1 , 1904. 33. Ibid., June 1 1 , 20, 2 1 , 25; Sept. 1 2 , 2 1 , 22, 1900. 34. WP, speech given by JHW before 1 9 3 2 Democratic territorial convention, April 28.

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35. S-B, Dec. 1 7 , 1929; PCA, Dec. 3, 1900. 36. PCA, Dec. 15, 1900; Jan. 25, 1 9 0 1 . 37. Ibid., Dec. 18, 1900. 38. Ibid., Dec. 25, 1900. 39. Star, Jan. 1 7 , 1 9 1 2 . 40. PCA, Mar. 6, 8; May 10, 1 9 0 1 . 4 1 . Ibid., June 4, 1 9 0 1 , reprinted from the Salt Lake Tribune. 42. Ibid., May 27, 1 9 0 1 , reprinted from the Buffalo Sunday News. 43. Ibid., June 22, 1 9 0 1 . 44. Ibid., June 25, 1 9 0 1 . 45. Ibid., June 27, 1 9 0 1 . 46. WP, JHW notebooks for 1 9 0 1 and 1902. 47. WP, letter from JHW to Edward G. Cooke, July 4, 1937.

Morning

Chapter 1 1 1. WP, JHW diary, April 1902. 2. PCA, May 2, 1902. 3. WT, Harriet Ne. 4. WT, Napua Stevens Poire. 5. WT, Harriet Ne. 6. Photos by Stokes, 1909, in Bishop Museum Photo Collection. 7. WT, Harriet Ne. 8. PCA, Oct. 28, 1 9 1 1 . 9. Ibid., Dec. 7, 1 9 0 1 . 10. WP, JHW small notebook. 1 1 . WP, JHW letter to Bill Holt, Nov. 18, 1938. 12. WP, JHW speech to 1 9 3 2 Democratic territorial convention (April 28) refers to 1903 campaign. 1 3 . Bulletin, Oct. 24, 1903. 14. WP, letter from F. S. Benevedes to Pres. Woodrow Wilson, June 18, 1913. 15. Letter from Morris Fox to Doak Cox, July 9, 1982, in author's work notes. 16. PCA, Oct. 28, 1 9 1 1 . 17. Marion Kelly, personal communication, 1990. 18. Star, April 19; May 4, 14, 1904; WP, statement by JHW in 1 9 1 2 . 19. WP, letter from JHW to T. W. Ferguson, July 8, 1937. 20. Star, Sept. 2 1 , 22; Nov. 9, 1904. 2 1 . WP, letter from JHW to Rusty Holt, May 1 3 , 1937. 22. Maui News, Nov. 1 2 , 1904; Star, Nov. 10, 1904. 23. Star, Feb. 27, 1905. 24. Ibid., Mar. 25, 27, 28, 1905; PCA, Mar. 30, 1905. 25. Star, Mar. 29, 30; April 8, 1905; PCA, Mar. 30, 1905. 26. Star, April 1 0 , 1 9 0 5 . 27. PCA, Jan. 7, 1906.

NOTES

28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

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PCA, Aug. 10, 1906. Ibid., Sept. 5, 1906. WP, JHW speech to 1 9 3 2 Democratic territorial convention, April 28. Star, Nov. 7, 1906. S-B, May 18, 1 9 2 1 . Maui News, Aug. 3 1 , 1907; PCA, Nov. 9. 1 9 1 1 ; Star, Jan. 16,1912. Raymond X. Aki, personal communication, Oct. 1988. Chapter 1 2

1. S-B, Sept. 23, 1 9 1 3 . 2. Maui News, Jan. 2 , 1 9 0 8 . 3. Ibid., Jan. 1 1 , 1908. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid., Feb. 1 5 , 1908. 6. Donald D. Johnson, The City and County of Honolulu: A Governmental Chronicle (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press; City Council of the City and County of Honolulu, 1991), 58. 7. WT, Walter Trask. 8. WP, letter from Daniel Tweedy to Jim Barry, April 1 2 , 1 9 1 2 ; letter from T.H.Ryan to JHW, Feb. 1 5 , 1 9 1 3 . 9. WT, Walter Trask. 10. WP, letter from JHW to Emil [Hurja], Dec. 1 , 1934. 1 1 . WP, letter from F. S. Benevedes to Pres. Woodrow Wilson, June 16, 1913. 12. Star, Oct. 1 2 , 1908. 1 3 . Johnson, City and County of Honolulu, 66. 14. Star, Dec. 3 1 , 1908. 15. PCA, Jan. 3, 1909. 1 6 . Star, Jan. 4, 1909. 17. Ibid., Jan. 5, 1909; S-B, Jan. 5, 1924; PCA, Jan. 5, 1909. 18. PCA, Jan. 1 2 , 1909. 19. Star, Mar. 1 , 1909. 20. PCA, Mar. 4, 5, 1909; Star, Mar. 4, 1909. 2 1 . Marriage certificate for JHW and Jennie Kapahu dated May 8, 1909; WT, Harriet Ne, Napua Stevens Poire. 22. WP, letter from JHW to Enriched Taxpayer, June 27, 1952. 23. PCA, April 3, 1909. 24. PCA, Aug. 2, 1909. 25. Ibid., Jan. 6, 1 9 1 0 . 26. WP, "The John H. Wilson Story," campaign brochure, Sept. 1954; PCA, Mar. 22, 25, 1 9 1 0 ; Star, May 27, June 22, 1 9 1 0 . 27. PCA, Jan. 8, 9, 1 1 , 20, 1 9 1 0 . 28. S-B, May 18, 1922; WP, campaign speech by JHW in Hilo, 1934. 29. Star, Sept. 22, 1 9 1 0 ; WP, letter from JHW to Pres. Woodrow Wilson, June 10, 1 9 1 3 . 30. S-B, May 18, 1922.

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IO6-IIO

3 1 . Star, Oct. 1 , 1 9 1 0 . 32. Ibid., Oct. 10, 1910. 33. PCA, Jan. 6, Feb. i , 3, 1 9 1 1 ; Star, Jan. 3 1 , 1 9 1 1 . 3 4 . PCA, Feb. 1 5 , 1 9 1 1 . 35. Ibid., Feb. 16, 1 9 1 1 . Chapter 1 3 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Star, July 22, 1 9 1 1 . PCA, Sept. 30, 1 9 1 1 . Ibid., Oct. z, 3, 4, 12, 13, 1 9 1 1 . Star, Oct. 16, 1 9 1 1 . Ibid., Aug. 4, 8, 1910. 6. PCA, Oct. 1 7 , 1 8 , 1 9 1 1 . 7. Star, Nov. 5, 1 9 1 1 . 8. Ibid., Nov. 7, 1 9 1 1 . 9. Ibid., Nov. 9, 1 9 1 1 . 1 0 . PCA, Jan. 1 6 , 1 9 1 2 . 1 1 . Star, Jan. 16, 1 9 1 2 . 1 2 . PCA, Jan. 1 7 , 1 9 1 2 . 13. Star, Jan. 17, 18, 1 9 1 2 . 14. Ibid., Jan. 3 1 , 1 9 1 2 . 15. PCA, Sept. 7, 1 9 1 1 . 16. Ibid., Mar. 2, 1 1 , 1 9 1 2 . 17. Ibid., Mar. 4 , 1 9 1 2 . 18. WP, small notebook. 19. WP, letter from J H W to John E. Reinecke, July 16, 1954. 20. Ibid. 21. Bulletin, April 6, 1 9 1 2 . 22. PCA, April 13, 1 9 1 2 . 23. Bulletin, April 16, 1 9 1 2 . 24. WP, letter from J H W to John E. Reinecke, July 1 6 , 1954. 25.Ibid.

26. Bulletin, May 18, 1 9 1 2 ; PCA, May 19, 1 9 1 2 . 27. Bulletin, June 10, 1 9 1 2 . 28. PCA, June 1 1 , 1 9 1 2 . 29. WP, speech by J H W to 1 9 3 2 Democratic territorial convention, April 28; letter from JHW to Jim Farley, Mar. 1 5 , 1 9 3 3 . 30. WP, yellow legal tablet, dated 1936, political file. 31. S-B, July 1 1 , 1 9 1 3 . 32. Ibid., Nov. 5, 1 9 1 2 . 33. WP, letter from J H W to T.J.Ryan, June 5, 1 9 1 3 . 3 4 . S-B, Nov. 1 5 , 1 9 1 2 . Chapter 1 4 1 . S-B, Nov. 1 3 , 1 9 1 2 . 2. Ibid.

NOTES TO PAGES H O - 1 3 1

/ 359

3. Ibid., Nov. 18, 1912. 4. Ibid., Nov. 24, 1912. 5. Ibid., Nov. 26, 1912. 6. Ibid., Nov. 17, 19, 1912. 7. Ibid., Jan. 19, 1 9 1 3 . 8. WP, letter from J. F. Stutesman to J. Effinger, Feb. 13, 1 9 1 3 . 9. WP, notes from J. Effinger to JHW, Feb. 18, 1 9 1 3 . 10. Washington Star, Dec. 8, 1963. 1 1 . Washington Post, Mar. 14, 1 9 1 3 . 12. WP, letter from J. Effinger to JHW, Mar. 8, 1 9 1 3 . 13. WP, letter from JHW to L.L. McCandless, Mar. 17, 1 9 1 3 . 14. WP, letter from T.J. Ryan to JHW, Mar. 12, 1 9 1 3 . 15. WP, letter from JHW to L.L. McCandless, Mar. 17, 1 9 1 3 . 16. WP, letter from J.Effinger to JHW, Mar. 18, 1 9 1 3 . 17. S-B, Mar. 17, 1 9 1 3 ; WP, letter from W. R. King to JHW, May 1 3 , 1 9 1 3 . 18. WP, letter from JHW to L.L. McCandless, Mar. 20, 1 9 1 3 . 19. WP, letter from C. McCarthy to JHW, Mar. 20, 1 9 1 3 . 20. WP, letter from JHW to C. McCarthy, April 3, 1 9 1 3 . 21. WP, letter from J. Effinger to JHW, Mar. 3 1 , 1 9 1 3 . 22. WP, letter from JHW to J. Effinger, April 3, 1 9 1 3 . 23..WP, letter from JHW to T.J. Ryan, April 4, 1 9 1 3 . 24. WP, letter from M. Pacheco to F. Lane, April 4, 1 9 1 3 . 25. WP, letter from M. Pacheco to JHW, April 5, 1 9 1 3 . 26. S-B, April 5, 1 9 1 3 . 27. Ibid., April 4, 1 9 1 3 . 28. Ibid., April 7, 1 9 1 3 , reprinted from the Washington Post. 29. Ibid., April 5, 9, 1 9 1 3 . 30. WP, letter from JHW to J. Effinger, April 14, 1 9 1 3 . 3 1 . S-B, April 14, 1 9 1 3 . 32. WP, letter from JHW to E. S. Howell, April 2 1 , 1 9 1 3 . 33. WP, letter from J . J . Smiddy to JHW, May 8, 1 9 1 3 . 34. WP, speech by JHW before Democratic central committee in Hawai'i, Aug. 7, 1937. 35. WP, letter from JHW to T.J. Ryan, May 16, 1 9 1 3 . 36. WP, letter from JHW to W. R. King, June 1 , 1 9 1 3 . 37. WP, letter from JHW to L.L. McCandless, July 1 0 , 1 9 1 3 . 38. WP, letter from JHW to T.J. Ryan, July 14, 1 9 1 3 . 39. WP, letter from JHW to L.L. McCandless, June 6, 1 9 1 3 . 40. WP, letter from JHW to Pres. Wilson, June 10, 1 9 1 3 . 41. WP, letter from JHW to L.L. McCandless, June 16, 1 9 1 3 . 42. WP, letter from JHW to J.Tumulty, July 17, 1 9 1 3 . 43. S-B, July 1 1 , 1 9 1 3 . 44. Ibid., July 24, 1 9 1 3 . 45. WP, letter from JHW to T.J. Ryan, July 3 1 , 1 9 1 3 . 46. WP, letter from JHW to J. W. Kern, Aug. 1 3 , 1 9 1 3 . 47. WP, letter from JHW to H. Stewart, June 6, 1933.

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Chapter 1 5 1 . S-B, Sept. 2, 1 9 1 3 . 2. I b i d . , J u n e 3 0 , J u l y 1 , 1 9 1 3 . 3. W P , letter f r o m J H W t o C h a r l i e [ W i l s o n ] , O c t . 2, 1 9 3 4 . 4. W T , W a l t e r T r a s k . 5. W P , letter f r o m J H W t o L . L . M c C a n d l e s s , O c t . i o , 1 9 1 3 . 6. Adv.,

Feb. 1 1 , 1 9 2 3 .

7 . S-B, J a n . 3, 5, 1 9 1 4 . 8. I b i d . , J a n . 8, 1 9 1 4 . 9. I b i d . , J a n . 2, 6, 1 9 1 4 . 10. Ibid., Jan. 12, 1 9 1 4 . 1 1 . W P , letter f r o m W . R . K i n g t o S . J . G r a h a m , F e b . 1 8 , 1 9 1 4 . 1 2 . S-B, F e b . 28, M a r . 2, 1 9 1 4 . 1 3 . I b i d . , M a r . 30; A p r i l 4 , 8, 16; M a y 6; J u n e 2 4 , 1 9 1 4 . 1 4 . I b i d . , A p r i l 1 0 , 1 9 1 4 ; W P , J H W n o t e re S t a i n b a c k , M a y 4 , 1 9 5 2 . 1 5 . W P , H a w a i i D e m o c r a t i c p o s i t i o n p a p e r re Pres. W i l s o n ' s a d m i n i s t r a tion, July 1 9 1 4 . 16. S-B, A u g . 1 3 , 1 9 5 2 . 1 7 . I b i d . , M a y 3, 1 9 1 6 . 1 8 . W P , letter f r o m J H W t o C h a r l i e [last n a m e n o t g i v e n ] , O c t . 1 , 1 9 3 4 . 1 9 . W P , e x c e r p t f r o m J H W diary, J a n . 2, 1 9 1 5 . 20. W P , c o n t r a c t w i t h K . K a g i m u r a , F e b . 8, 1 9 1 5 . 2 1 . S-B, D e c . 28, 1 9 1 5 . 2 2 . I b i d . , M a r . 1 1 , A p r i l 5, 1 9 1 6 . 23. Ibid., April 1 7 , 1 9 1 6 . 24. Ibid., M a y 29, 1 9 1 6 . 25. Ibid., M a y 1 9 , 1 9 1 6 . 2 6. W P , letter f r o m J H W t o O . A . P e a r s o n , M a y 20, 1 9 5 2 . 27. WP, under heading Politics, 1 9 1 6 c o n v e n t i o n planks. 2 8 . S-B, J u l y i , 1 9 1 6 . 29. Ibid., July 4, 1 9 1 6 . 30. I b i d . , J u l y 1 1 , 1 9 1 6 . 3 1 . Ibid., July 12, 1 9 1 6 . 3 2 . I b i d . , A u g . i , 2, 3 , 1 9 1 6 . 3 3 . I b i d . , N o v . 30, 1 9 1 5 ; F e b . 3, 1 9 1 6 . 34. Ibid., A u g . 29, 30, 1 9 1 6 . 3 5 . I b i d . , Sept. 7 , 1 9 1 6 . 3 6 . I b i d . , N o v . 8, 1 9 1 6 . 3 7 . W P , letter f r o m J H W t o J i m Farley, M a r . 2 2 , 1 9 3 7 . 38. S-B, M a r . 3 1 , 1 9 1 7 . Chapter 1 6 1 . S-B, M a y 3, 1 9 1 7 . 2. I b i d . , M a y 3 1 , 1 9 1 7 . 3. I b i d . , J u n e 6, 1 6 , 1 9 1 7 .

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4. Ibid., Aug. 8, 1 9 1 7 . 5. Ibid., Dec. 2 1 , 27, 28, 3 1 , 1 9 1 7 . 6. Ibid., Jan. 30, 1 9 1 8 . 7. Ibid., Feb. 1 8 , 20, 1 9 1 8 . 8. WP, letter from Kim Ye Song to JHW, May 3, 1 9 1 7 ; S-B, May 1 5 , 1 7 ; Sept. 24, 1920; Oct. 29, 1 9 2 1 . 9. Ibid., Nov. 1 2 , 1 9 1 7 . 10. S-B, Oct. 7, 1 9 1 8 . 1 1 . Davianna Pomaikai McGregor, "Aina Hoopulapula: Hawaiian Homesteading," Hawaiian Journal of History 24 ( i 9 9 o ) : i - 3 8 . 1 2 . S-B, May 4, 1 1 , 1 4 , 1 6 ; Aug. 20; Sept. 3, 5, 7; Nov. 1 , 1 9 1 8 . 1 3 . HST, Organic Act of May 27, 1 9 1 0 , Sec. 23. 14. S-B, May 1 7 , 2 1 , 23, 28, 1 9 1 8 . 1 5 . WP, letter from J H W to Jim Farley, Mar. 22, 1 9 3 7 . 1 6 . S-B, June 2 1 , 1 9 1 8 . 1 7 . Ibid., June 22, 1 9 1 8 . 18. Ibid., June 29, 1 9 1 8 . 1 9 . Ibid. 20. Ibid., Sept. 23, 1 9 1 8 . 2 1 . Ibid., Nov. 5, 1 9 1 8 . 22. Ibid., Nov. 6, 1 9 1 8 . 23. Ibid., Mar. 4, 1 9 1 9 . 24. Ibid., Mar.7, 1 9 1 9 . 25. Ibid., Mar. 6, 1 9 1 9 . 26. Ibid., Mar. 1 5 , 1 9 1 9 . 27. Adv., Dec. 1 9 , 1 9 5 4 . 28. S-B, April 1 4 , 24, 1 9 1 9 . 29. Ibid., May 1 0 , 1 9 1 9 . 30. Ibid., June 3, 1 9 1 9 . 3 1 . Ibid., June 4, 1 9 1 9 . 32. PGA, Sept. 5, 1 9 1 9 . 33. Ibid., Sept. 1 0 , 1 9 1 9 . 34. S-B, Feb. 26, 1920. Chapter 1 7 1 . City Directory of Honolulu, 1920 (Honolulu: Polk-Husted). 2. S-B, Sept. 1 1 , 1920. 3. State Data Book. 4. S-B, April 6, 1 7 , 1920. 5. Lawrence H. Fuchs, Hawaii Pono: A Social History (New York: Harcourt, 1 9 6 1 ) , 1 5 4 . 6. S-B, Feb. 26, 1920. 7. Ibid., Mar. 1 9 , 1920. 8. WP, J H W talk to League of Women Voters, Oct. 1 8 , 1950. 9. S-B, May 1 5 , 1920. 1 0 . Ibid., Dec. 29, 1 9 2 3 .

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1 1 . Ibid., Mar. 10, 1920. 1 2 . Ibid., Oct. 3 1 , 192.3. 1 3 . Ibid., May 24, 1920. 14. WP, Politics, 1927 file. 1 5 . S-B, Aug. 3, 1920. 16. WP, JHW diary, July 18, 1920. 1 7 . Ibid. 18. S-B, Aug. 28, 1920. 19. Ibid., Aug. 30, 1920. 20. Ibid., Oct. 1 , 1920. 2 1 . McGregor, "Aina Hoopulapula." 22. S-B, Sept. 24, 1920. 23. Ibid. 24. Ibid., Oct. 29, 1 9 2 1 . 25. WP, JHW speech to National Association of Cost Accountants, Dec. 18, 1923. 26. S-B, Dec. 4, 1920. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid., Jan. 20, 25; Aug. 26, 3 1 ; Sept. 8; Nov. 2, 1 9 2 1 . 29. Ibid., Sept. 5, 1 9 2 1 . 30. Fuchs, Hawaii Pono, 188. 3 1 . Ibid., Oct. 24, 192,1. 32. Ibid., Nov. 9, 14, 1 9 2 1 . 33. Ibid., Jan. 7, 1922. Chapter 18 1. WP, JHW memorandum book, flyleaf. 2. S-B, June 1 1 , 1 9 2 1 ; June 1 5 , 1 7 , 1922. 3. WP, letter from Sisabel G. Cryer to JHW, Nov. 7, 1922. 4. WT, Harriet Ne. 5. WT, Arthur Trask. 6. WT, Herman Lemke. 7. S-B, July 9, 1924. 8. Ibid., July 1 2 , 1924. Chapter 19 1. S-B, Feb. 1 3 , 1922. 2. Ibid., Jan. 28, 30, 3 1 ; Feb. 1 , 1922. 3. Ibid., July 1 7 , 1922. 4. Ibid., Oct. 25; Nov. 3, 7, 1922. 5. Ibid., Jan. 1 2 , 27; Feb. 18, 20, 22; Mar. 18, 22, 28; April 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 1 2 , 14; May 6, 1 1 , 1922. 6. Ibid., April 29; May 2, 4, 6, 9; June 29; July 14, 1 5 , 1922. 7. S-B, Aug. 26, 1922. 8. Ibid., July 6, 1922. 9. Ibid., Aug. 26-Sept. 9, 1922.

NOTES

10. 11. iz. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

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Ibid., Feb. 6, 16, 1923. Ibid., Mar. 1 7 , 2 1 , 24, 1923. Ibid., Mar. 28, April 4 , 1 9 2 3 . Ibid., May-July 1923. Ibid., July 22, 1923. Ibid., June 22, 1923. Ibid., Aug. 29, 30; Sept. 5, 1923. Ibid., Sept. 1 1 , 1 3 , 25; Oct. 6, 1923. Chapter 20

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

S-B, Jan. 2 , 1 9 2 4 ; Feb. 1 , 1 9 2 6 . Ibid., Jan. 3, 1924. Ibid., Jan. 7, 1 1 , 1924. Ibid., Feb. 1 , 1926. Ibid., Feb. 26, 27, 1924. Ibid., May 2, 1924. Ibid., May 6, 7, 1924. Ibid., May 27, 1924. Ibid., June 1 7 , 18, 19, 1924. Ibid., Aug. 6, 1924. Ibid. Ibid., Aug. 1 3 , 1924. Ibid., Aug. 1 5 , 1924. Ibid., Aug. 19, 1924. Ibid., Aug. 27, 1924. Ibid., Sept. 1 7 , 1924. Ibid., Mar. 4, 1925. Ibid., May 6, 1925. Ibid., May 1 1 , 1925. Ibid., Mar. 1 7 , April 17, May 14, 1925. Ibid., Jan. 1 2 , 1926. Ibid., Jan. 28, 1926. Ibid., Feb. 1 , 8, 1 3 , 16, 1926. Ibid., June 16, 1 7 , 1926. Ibid., Nov. 4, 1926. Chapter 2 1

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

WP, letter from JHW to Enriched Taxpayer, June 27, 1952. WP, letter from JHW to Harry Stewart, Dec. 2 1 , 1933. WP, JHW diary entry in 1927. Interview with Nona Beamer, July 14, 1989. WP, JHW diary, Aug.-Sept. 1927. WP, letter from T.J. Ryan to JHW, Feb. 14, 1927. 7 . S-B, Aug. 2 8 , 1 9 2 8 . 8. Ibid., April 27, 1928. 9. Ibid., July 9, 10, 1 2 , 1928.

364 / NOTES

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.,

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Sept. 20, 1928. Sept. 1 1 , 1 9 2 8 . Sept. 20, Oct. 4, 1928. Oct. 6, 1928. Oct. 3, 1928. Oct. 3 1 , 1928. Chapter 2 2

1 . S-B, Feb. 28, Mar. 1 , 1929. 2. Ibid., Dec. 1 2 , 1928. 3. WP, letter from Curtis Iaukea to JHW, Nov. 27, 1928; petition to JHW, Jan. 4, 1929. 4. WP, letter from Julius Asch to JHW, Feb. 26, 1929. 5. S-B, Jan. 3, 1929. 6. Ibid., Dec. 3 1 , 1928; Jan. 2, 7, 1929. 7. WT, Harriet Ne. 8. WP, letter from J H W to K.T. Ho, Feb. 4, 1 9 3 5 . 9. S-B, Mar. 2, 5, 1 1 , 1929. 1 0 . Ibid., Jan. 1 0 , 1929. 1 1 . Ibid., Jan. 25, 1929. 1 2 . Ibid., April 3, 1929. 1 3 . Ibid., July 25, 26; Aug. 9, 1 6 , 20, 2 1 , 23, 24, 27, 29; Sept. 1 , 4, 5, 7, 1 1 , 1 6 , 1929. 14. Ibid., Sept 1 0 , 1 9 2 9 . 1 5 . Ibid., July 3 1 ; Aug. 2; Sept. 1 0 , 1 3 , 1 7 , 1 8 , 20, 23, 26; Oct. 2, 8, 9, 1929. 16. Ibid., Dec. 1 7 , 1929. 1 7 . Ibid., Jan. 20, 1 9 3 0 . 18. Ibid., Jan. 1 5 , 22, 1 9 3 0 . 19. Ibid., Dec. 3, 4, 1929. 20. Ibid., Dec. 5, 1929. 2 1 . Ibid., Mar. 1 1 , 1 9 3 0 . 22. Ibid., Mar. 1 3 , 1 7 , 1 9 , 20, 2 1 , 24, 25, 28, 1930. 23. Ibid., May 2 1 ; June 5, 6, 1 4 , 1 9 , 26, 27; Aug. 1 , 6, 7, 1 2 , 1 4 , 16, 20, 30, 1930. 24. Ibid., Oct. 8, 1 1 , 1 3 , 1 6 , 1 7 , 20, 2 1 , 22, 23, 1 9 3 0 . 25. WP, J H W letter to J . S. Cullinan, Nov. 25, 1 9 3 0 . Chapter 2 3 1 . WP, notes by J H W with communication between Chang Chau and Sun Fo, Nov. 1 9 , 1 9 3 0 . 2. Ibid. 3. WP, letter from J H W to Cullinan, Nov. 25, 1930. 4. WP, letter from Whitehouse to Calhoun, Jan. 1 5 , 1 9 3 1 . 5. Ibid. 6. WP, letter from J H W to Bassett, May 1 2 , 1 9 3 2 .

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7. WP, letters from and to JHW, Salvation Army, May 1 5 , 30; June 4; Nov. 2 1 , 1932. 8. WP, biography of JHW by Archie Rice, Mar. 8 , 1 0 , 1 9 3 3 . 9. Gavan Daws, Shoal of Time: A History of the Hawaiian Islands (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1968), 3 1 9 - 3 2 7 . 10. Richardson Report, Law Enforcement in the Territory of Hawaii: Letter from the Attorney General to the Senate, April 4, 1 8 3 2 , 72nd Congress, 1st Session. Document 78: (Washington, D.C.: Gov't Printing Office), 1 1 3 . 1 1 . Peter Van Slingerland, Something Terrible Has Happened (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), 327-328. 12. WP, letters to and from Costello-Farley-JHW, Dec. 14, 2 1 , 22, 1 9 3 1 ; Jan. 2, 1 9 3 2 . 13. WP, JHW letter to Farley, Mar. 16, 1932. 14. WP, correspondence among Roosevelt-Farley-Cummings-Mack-JHW, April 5, 1 2 , 1 3 , 1 7 , 1932. 15. WP, letter from Metzger to JHW, May 5, 1932; JHW to Metzger, May 25, 1932. 16. WP, telegrams from Farley to JHW, June 23, 25, 1932. 17. WP, letter from JHW to Farley, July 1 , 1938. 18. WP, telegram from Farley to JHW, July 2, 1932; letter from JHW to Farley, Aug. 1 , 1932. 19. WP, JHW speech notes, July 7, 1932. 20. S-B, Oct. 26, 1932. 2 1 . WP, leaflet, "Why American Citizens of Japanese Ancestry Should Vote for John Wilson for Mayor," 1932. 22. WP, letter from JHW to Farley, Jan. 14, 1935. Chapter 24 1. WP, letter from Hilo Ryan to JHW, Nov. 2 1 , 1932. 2. WP, letter from JHW to Ryan, Nov. 28, 1932. 3. WT, Walter Trask. 4. WP, letter from Metzger to Farley, Sept. 1 , 1933. 5. WP, letter from JHW to Ryan, Nov. 28, 1932. 6. Ibid. 7. WP, letter from Ryan to JHW, Nov. 2 1 , 1932. 8. WP, letter from JHW to Emil [Hurja], Dec. 1 , 1934. 9. WP, letter from JHW to H. S. Hicks, Jan. 5, 1 9 3 3 ; letter from Sam Halstead to JHW, Jan. 7, 1 9 3 3 . 10. WP, letter from JHW to C.T. Grayson, Jan. 24, 1 9 3 3 . 1 1 . WP, letter from Farley to JHW, Feb. 3, 1 9 3 3 . 1 2 . WP, letter from Metzger to McCandless, Feb. 1 3 , 1 9 3 3 . 1 3 . WP, letter from JHW to Farley, Mar. 1 5 , 1 9 3 3 . 14. Ted Morgan, FDR: A Biography (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985), 5 1 7 . 15. WP, letters from JHW to Cain and Miles, Mar. 23, 29, 1933. 16. Ibid.

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17. WP, undated petition and papers, Feb., Mar. 1933. 18. WP, letter from JHW to Wm. Heen, Mar. 24, 1933. 19. WP, letters from JHW to Farley and Miles, Mar. 29, 30, 1933. 20. S-B, Mar. 24, 1933. 21. WP, telegram from E. Heen to JHW, Mar. 28, 1933. 22. WP, letters to and from JHW and Hawaiian Pineapple Co., Miyamoto, Dillingham, Atherton, Roth, Feb. 27; April 18, 24; May 6, 1933. 23. WP, letter from JHW to Harry Stewart, April 16, 1933. 24. Ibid., April 27, 1933. 25. WP, letter from JHW to Sam Halstead, April 5, 1933. 26. WP, letter from Ella Whitehouse to JHW, June 2, 1933. 27. WP, letter from Wm. Achi to JHW, June 23, 1933. 28. WP, letter from JHW to Louis Cain, June 8, 1933. 29. WP, letter from Metzger to JHW, July 4, 1933. 30. WP, letter from Lou Whitehouse to JHW, July 10, 1933. 3 1 . WP, letter from JHW to Louis Cain, June 20, 1933. 32. WP, letter from JHW to Harry Stewart, Aug. 1, 1933. 33. WP, letter from JHW to Louis Cain, Aug. 2, 1933. 34. WP, letter from JHW to Will King, Oct. 16, 1933. 35. WP, letter from JHW to Harry Stewart, Nov. 1, 1933; JHW memorandum notes on Hawaii's Home Rule Commission visit with President Roosevelt, Nov. 2, 1933. 36. WP, letters from JHW to Harry Stewart, Dec. 8, 10, 1933. 37. WP, letters from JHW to Miyamoto, Dec. 15, 2 1 , 1933. 38. WP, letter from JHW to Harry Stewart, Dec. 15, 1933. 39. WP, letter from JHW to Louis Cain, Jan. 8, 1934. 40. Ibid. 41. WP, letter from JHW to Farley, Jan. 15, 1934. 42. WP, letter from JHW to Harry Stewart, Jan. 29, 1933. 43. WP, letter from JHW to Harry Stewart, Jan. 3 1 , 1933. 44. WP, letter from JHW to Harry Stewart, Feb. 1 1 , 1934. 45. WP, letter from JHW to Bassett, Feb. 14, 1934. Chapter 25 1. WP, letter from JHW to Will King, Mar. 23, 1934. 2. Ibid., April 2, 1934. 3. Ibid., May 5, 1934. 4. Ibid., April 2, 1934. 5. Ibid., May 5, 1934. 6. WP, letter from JHW to McCandless, May 2, 1934. 7. WP, Ibid. 8. WP, letter from McCandless to JHW, May 19, 1934. 9. WP, letter from JHW to Cummings, May 3 1 , 1934. 10. WP, letter from JHW to W. W. Hawes, June 30, 1934. 1 1 . WP, letter from Achi to JHW, July 3, 1934; letter from J. Fernandez to JHW, July 6, 1934; from N. K. Henry to JHW, July 10, 1934.

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12. WP, letters from Thompson and Mossman to JHW, July 19, 24, 1934. 1 3 . WP, letter from JHW to Marvin H. Mcintyre, April 2 1 , 1934. 14. WP, letter from JHW to A.D.Furtado, July 22, 1934. 15. Adv., July 27, 1934. 16. WP, letter from JHW to Mack, Aug. 1 , 1934. 17. WP, letter from JHW to A.S.Carvalho, Aug. 1 1 , 1934. 18. WP, letter from JHW to Metzger, Aug. 14, 1934. 19. WP, ibid. 20. WP, letter from Miyamoto to JHW, Sept. 1 1 , 1934. 2 1 . WP, handwritten, undated letter from Bill Holt to JHW, circa Sept. 10, 193422. WP, letter from JHW to Bert [Riverburgh], Aug. 28, 1934. 23. WP, letter from Aluli to JHW, Sept. 1 1 , 1934. 24. S-B, Sept. 19, 1934. 25. Ibid., Sept. 20, 1934. 26. WP, letter from JHW to Charlie [Wilson], Oct. 1 , 1934. 27. Adv., Oct. 7, 1934. 28. WP, letter from Thompson to JHW, Oct. 7, 1934. 29. WP, letter from Otani to JHW, Oct. 8, 1934. 30. WP, letter from Achi to JHW, Oct. 8, 1934. 3 1 . WP, letter from Supe to JHW, Oct. 10, 1934. 32. WP, letter from JHW to Metzger, Dec. 1 , 1934. Chapter 26 1. WP, letter from Edward J. Ross to Fred L. Siegling, Feb. 7, 1935. 2. WP, letter from JHW to Rivenburgh, Dec. 8, 1934. 3. WP, letter from JHW to Metzger, Dec. 1 , 1934. 4. WP, letter from Metzger to JHW, Dec. 5, 1934. 5. WP, letter from K.T. Ho to JHW, Dec. 1 5 , 1934. 6. WP, subscription list dated Jan. [?], 193 5[?]. 7. WP, letter from Kini to JHW, Dec. 1 7 , 1934. 8. Napua Stevens Poire, personal communication. 9. WT, Arthur Trask. 10. WP, letter from Kini to JHW, Dec. 30, 1934. 1 1 . Ibid., Jan. 1 1 , 1935. 12. WP, letter from JHW to Kini, Jan. 26, 1935. 1 3 . WP, letter from JHW to Louis Cain, Jan. 23, 1935. 14. WP, letter from JHW to Farley, Jan. 1 4 , 1935. 15. WP, letter from JHW to K.T. Ho, Jan. 25, 193 5. 16. WP, letter from JHW to Kini, Feb. 2, 1935. 17. WP, letter from JHW to K.T. Ho, Feb. 4, 193 5. 18. WP, letters from K.T. Ho to JHW, Feb. 2 1 , 23, 1935. 19. WP, letter from JHW to Kini, Mar. 5, 1935. 20. WP, letter from JHW to Emil Hurja, Mar. 18, 1935. 2 1 . Adv., Mar. 14, 1935.

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Chapter 2 7 1. Fuchs, Hawaii Pono, 197. 2. S-B, April 1 7 , 1935. 3. U.S. Official Postal Guide, 193J, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Postal Service), 6 7 1 - 6 7 2 . 4. WP, letter from Metzger to Farley, April 1 3 , 1935. 5. WP, letter from Metzger to JHW, April 18, 1935. 6. WP, letter from JHW to Bert Rivenburgh, June 2, 1935. 7. WP, letter from JHW to Metzger, July 19, 1935. 8. Ibid., Dec. 1 3 , 1935. 9. WP, letter from JHW to Isabelle and Charlie [Thompson], Feb. 20, 1936. 10. Adv., May 1 , 1936. 1 1 . S-B, May 1 , 1936. 12. WP, letter from JHW to Decker, Aug. [no day given] 1936. 1 3 . Ibid., Aug. 25, 1936. 14. WP, letter from JHW to Frank Serrao, Sept. 2, 1936. 15. WP, letter from JHW to Bert Rivenburgh, Sept. 7, 1936. 16. S-B, Sept. 5, 1936. 17. WP, 1936 campaign plans. 18. WP, letter from JHW to Morgan, April 1 1 , 1935; letter from Abbott to JHW, Mar. 19, 1935; letter from Raven to JHW, Mar. 25, 1935. Chapter 28 1. Daws, Shoal of Time, 3 66. 2. WP, letter from JHW to Isaac Iaea, July 30, 1937. 3. WP, letter from JHW to Wm. Enoka, Aug. 6, 1937; letter from Isaac Iaea to JHW, Aug. 23, Dec. 24, 1937. 4. WP, letter from Antone Silva to JHW, Aug. 20, 1937; letter from Kaku Sakai to JHW, Dec. 7, 1937. 5. WP, letter from JHW to Henshaw, April 4, 1939. 6. Adv., June 30, 1986. 7. Ibid., Mar. 1 3 , 1990. 8. Sanford Zalburg, A Spark Is Struck, Jack Hall and the ILWU in Hawaii (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1979), 10. 9. Adv. April 8, 1953. 10. WP, handwritten speech notes dated Tues., Dec. [no day given] 1 9 3 5 . 1 1 . WP, draft of JHW comments on Democratic 1950 "walk out" convention. 1 2 . WP, letter from JHW to Spain, Nov. 18, 1936. 1 3 . WP, undated typewritten statement "The Facts Regarding Food Ship Project of 1936 Strike," by John H. Wilson. 14. WP, letters and cables among JHW, Vanderveer, Zion, Dec. 1 1 , 18, 2 1 , 23, 1936.

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15. WP, letter from JHW to Miyamoto, Jan. i , 1937. 16. WP, letter from Miyamoto to JHW, Jan. 5, 1937. 17. WP, letter from JHW to Miyamoto, Jan. 6, 1937. 18. WP, letter from Kini to JHW, Jan. 23, 1937. 19. Voice of Labor, Dec. 2, 1937 (clipping in WP). 20. WP, letter from JHW to Craft, Jan. 5, 1938. 2 1 . WP, letter from JHW to W. H. King, Feb. 1 , 1 9 3 8 . 22. WP, letter from W. H. King to JHW, Feb. 8, 1938. 23. WP, letter from JHW to James Farley, July 1 , 1938. 24. WP, letter from Farley to JHW, Mar. 23, 1939. Chapter 29 1. Hawaiian Annual, 1940, 101. 2. WP, statement of JHW before the senate-house holdover committee of the 1943 legislature, 1. 3. WP, minutes of the Board of Public Welfare, Feb. 3, April 28, June 28, July 27, 1939. 4. WP, letter from JHW to Farley, June 30, 1939. 5. WP, statement of JHW before the senate-house holdover committee of the 1943 legislature, 12. 6. WT, Mildred Sikkema. 7. WP, letter from Metzger to JHW, July 6, 1939. 8. S-B, Aug. 4 , 2 3 , 1 9 3 9 . 9. WP, letter from Lucas to JHW, Aug. 10, 1939. 10. WP, statement of JHW before the senate-house holdover committee of the 1943 legislature, 3-4. 1 1 . Ibid., 2-3. 12. Ibid., 5. 13. WP, correspondence between Matoda and JHW, Jan. 12, 14, 25, 27; April 30, 1940. 14. WP, untitled, unsigned document dated 1942 describing JHW philosophy of social work; Women's Wear Daily, Aug. 6, 1940 (clipping in WP). 15. WP, letter from JHW to Edward Watson, April 15, 1 9 4 1 . 16. WP, letter from JHW to Farley, Feb. 9, 1940. 17. WP, letter from Lucas to JHW, June 28, 1940. 18. WP, letter from JHW to Lucas, July 1 , 1940. 19. WP, correspondence among Lucas, JHW, and Sandelin, July 1 1 , 12, 17, 27; Aug. [no day given] 1940. 20. WP, letter from JHW to Sandelin, July 28, 1940. 21. WP, undated typewritten statement by JHW regarding social workers. 22. WP, letter from JHW to Gov. Stainback, Dec. 4, 1945. 23. WP, statement by JHW before the senate-house holdover committee of the 1943 legislature, 1 1 - 1 2 ; letter from JHW to Gov. Stainback, Dec. 4, 1945; letter from Honolulu Council of Social Agencies to Rep. Arthur Akina, OCT. 7, 1941.

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24. WP, letter from JHW to Gov. Stainback, Dec. 4, 1945. 25. WP, letter exchange between O'Connell and JHW, Oct. 29, Nov. 1 2 , 1941. 26. S-B, Oct. 7, 1940. Chapter 30 1. WP, typewritten "Statement of Facts Chronologically," by Chester Matoda, June 2 1 , 1944. 2. WP, letter from O'Connell to JHW, Mar. 25, 1942. 3. WP, letters from Mrs. Matoda to JHW, April 18, 2 1 , 1942. 4. WP, letter from JHW to Alfred Horner, Mar. 18, 1942. 5. WP, letter from JHW to E.J. Flynn, Mar. 3, 1942. 6. S-B, June 29, 1942. 7. WP, letter from JHW to Sakai, Sept. 7, 1942; letter from JHW to O'Connell, Nov. 18, 1942. 8. WP, typewritten unheaded text of JHW resignation from national committee, Sept. 1 , 1942; letter from JHW to Democratic national committee, Sept. 5, 1942; letter from JHW to David Trask, Sept. 24, 1942. 9. WP, handwritten letter from JHW to Dear Senator, Sept. 1942. 10. Ibid. 1 1 . WP, letter from K.P. Aldrich to JHW, Mar. 4, 1943; letter from JHW to Aldrich, Aug. 5, 1943; letter from Matoda to Assistant Postmaster General, Sept. 20, 1945; letter from Aldrich to Matoda, Oct. 8, 1943; letter from Matoda to U.S. Civil Service Commissiion, Mar. 2 1 , 1945; letter from Matoda to the commission, Mar. 29, 1945; letter from John Edwards to Matoda, June 18, 1945. 12. WP, handwritten letter from JHW to Ira Latimer, undated. 1 3 . WP, letter from McCorriston to JHW, Oct. 6, 1942. 14. WP, letter from JHW to W.F.Dillingham, Nov. 18, 1942. See also four-page typewritten JHW statement on "Fish Ponds," Nov. 14, 1942. 15. WP, letter from F. H. West to W.F.Dillingham, Nov. 28, 1942. 16. WP, letter from Shimamura to JHW, July 1 2 , 1943; letter from Barnes, Chopard, and Hoad to JHW, Nov. 9, 1943; JHW in reply, Nov. 16, 1943. 1 7 . Clorinda Lucas papers, HST, letter from Fox to JHW, June 22, 1943; letter from JHW to Lucas, July 30, 1943; letter from Fox to JHW, July 19, 1943. 18. WP, letters from JHW to Ottman, Jan. 1 7 , 1944; Ottman to JHW, Jan. 19, 1944; JHW to Ottman, Jan. 3 1 , 1944. 19. WP, letter from JHW to the International Clay Machinery Co., May 23, 1946. 20. WP, JHW handwritten "Estimated Cost of 2 Bedroom House, Area 935 squ. ft.," undated, circa summer 1946. 2 1 . WP, letter from JHW to Sam Halstead, June 25, 1946. 22. Adv., July 26, 1946. 23. Ibid., June 6, 1946.

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Chapter 3 1 1. WT, Arthur Trask. 2. WT, Napua Stevens Poire. 3. Thrum's Hawaiian Annual, 1946-4-/ (Honolulu: S-B Printers, 1947), 58. 4. WP, letter from JHW to Miyamoto, Sept. 1 1 , 1946. 5. WP, letter from JHW to O'ahu CIO Political Action Committee, Sept. 22, 1946. 6. Adv., Sept. 22, 1946. 7. S-B, Sept. 2 1 , Oct. 4, 1946. 8. Ibid., Sept. 27, 1946. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid., Oct. 7, 1946. 1 1 . Ibid., Oct. 1 5 , 1946. 12. WP, typewritten page headed "Johnny" and signed " W C , " undated, circa Oct. 1946. 1 3 . WT, Walter Trask. Chapter 3 2 1. S-B, Jan. 2, 3, 4, 1947. 2. WP, undated typewritten twenty-one-page "Statement of Mayor John H. Wilson of Honolulu Concerning Facts Implicating Willson C. Moore and Albert M. Cristy in the Protection of Gambling and Prostitution in Honolulu and Objections to Their Confirmation as Judges," 3. 3. John Jardine, Detective Jardine: Crimes in Honolulu (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984), ed. Bob Krauss, 204. 4. WP, "Statement" (see n. 2), 4. 5. Ibid., 6, 7. 6. Ibid., 8. 7. Jardine, Detective Jardine, 209-210. 8. Ibid., 2 1 1 - 2 1 2 . 9. WP, undated typewritten "Statement of Joseph V. Esposito to Mayor John H. Wilson." 10. WP, two-page typewritten "Mayor's Statement on Pineapple Industry's Labor Issues," May 7, 1947. 1 1 . WT, Bob McElrath. 12. Wilfred Oka, personal communication. 1 3 . WT, Dan Inouye. 14. WP, letter from JHW to Joe Farrington, June 25, 1947. 1 5 . Adv., Nov. 29, 1947. 16. WP, letter from JHW to Tom Clark, Nov. 28, 1947. 17. Adv., Feb. 1 , 1948. 18. Ibid., Feb. 1 2 , 1948. 19. WP, letter from JHW to Cummings, Feb. 1 7 , 1948.

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Chapter 33 1. Adv., Feb. 1 1 , 1948. 2. Honolulu Star-Bulletin, All About Hawaii (Hawaiian annual) (1949), 227. 3. Ibid. 4. WP, JHW speech to the 1950 territorial convention. 5. Fuchs, Hawaii Pono, 3 1 1 - 3 1 2 . 6. WP, letter from JHW to Farley, May 5, 1948. 7. Fuchs, Hawaii Pono, 3 1 2 . 8. S-B, May 3 1 , 1948. 9. S-B, June 14, 1948. 10. WT, Dan Inouye. 1 1 . WP, note from W. K. Bassett to JHW, Sept. 1 1 , 1948. 12. WP, typewritten radio script, undated, entitled "Three Strikes! Montie Richards Strikes Out." 1 3 . S-B, Sept. 22, 1948. 14. WP, JHW speech to 1950 territorial convention. 15. WP, letter from JHW to Farley, Oct. 1 2 , 1948. 16. Engineering News-Record, Aug. 26, 1948; WP, letter from JHW to Widdowson, Nov. 24, 1948. 17. WP, bond application to Pacific Insurance Company, Ltd., Dec. 1 1 , 1948. Chapter 34 1. Adv., Jan. 27, 1949. 2. Ibid., Feb. 4, 1949. 3. Ibid., Mar. 10, 24, 1949. 4. WP, typewritten JHW letter to the S-B, Jan. 5, 1950. 5. WT, Frank Fasi. 6. WP, letter from JHW to Godbold, Jan. 26, 1950; Adv., Feb. 2, 1950; Decree of Injunction in First Circuit Court, April 25, 1950. 7. WP, statement of Wilsonite Brick Company, Jan. 3 1 , 1949. 8. WT, Dan Inouye. 9. WP, letter from JHW to Letterman, July 1 1 , 1949. 10. S-B, Aug. 1 2 , 1949. 1 1 . WP, letter from JHW to Sen. McGrath, Aug. 1 5 , 1949. 12. WP, Financial Statement of John H. Wilson, Dec. 1 , 1949; letter from JHW to Kekahuna, Dec. 8, 1949. 1 3 . WP, letter from JHW to Cummings, Mar. 23, 1950. 14. S-B, April 1 7 , 19, 24, 1950. 15. All About Hawaii (1950), 56. 16. WT, Matsuo Takabuki. 17. WT, Dan Inouye. 18. WP, typewritten reply by JHW to Stainback, May 4, 1953. 19. Fuchs, Hawaii Pono, 3 1 3 .

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Chapter 3 5 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

Adv., May 14, 1950. WP, letter from JHW to Farley, May 26, 1950. WP, letter from JHW to Frank [no last name given], July 25, 1950. WP, letter from JHW to Chapman, Aug. 2, 1950. S-B, Sept. 7, 1950. Ibid., Sept. 1 2 , 1950; Adv., Sept. 1 3 , 1950. WT, Matsuo Takabuki. Adv., Sept. 10, 1950. S-B, Sept. 22, 1950. WT, Herman Lemke. Ibid. S-B, Sept. 2 8 , 1 9 5 0 . Adv., Oct. 5, 1950. Ibid., Nov. 7, 1950. Chapter 36

1. WP, letter from Esposito to JHW, Dec. 18, 1950. 2. Adv., Jan. 4, 1 9 5 1 . 3. Maui News, Jan. 10, 1 9 5 1 . 4. WP, letters from JHW to Chapman, Feb. 3; JHW to Truman, April 1951. 5. WP, letter from JHW to Chapman, Aug. 3 1 , 1 9 5 1 . 6. WP, letter from JHW to Board of Supervisors, Dec. 26, 1 9 5 1 . 7. WP, typewritten seven-page Affidavit of John H. Wilson, Feb. 1 1952. 8. WP, letter from JHW to Kuwahara, April 7, 1952. 9. Adv., May 1 , 1952. 10. WT, Dan Inouye. 1 1 . WT, Dan Inouye; Frank Fasi. 1 2 . Fuchs, Hawaii Pono, 3 1 5 . 1 3 . WT, Dan Inouye. 14. WP, Resolution to Borrow Money, Aug. 8, 1952. 15. WT, Dan Inouye. 16. WT, Frank Fasi. 17. Adv., Oct. 4, 1952. 18. Ibid., Nov. 6, 1952. Chapter 3 7 1. Adv., Nov. 22, 1952. 2. WT, Dan Inouye. 3. WP, JHW typewritten statement penciled KPOA 6 P.M., Oct. 20, 195 4. WP, Statement by Mayor John H. Wilson, Mar. 1 7 , 1 9 5 3 . 5. Adv., April 8, 1953. 6. WT, Frank Fasi.

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7. WP, Assignment, April 1 6 , 1 9 5 3 ; letter from Short to JHW, June 2, 19538. WT, Matsuo Takabuki. 9. WP, Know All Men By These Presents, April 7, 1 9 5 4 ; Assignment, April 1 0 , 1954. 1 0 . WP, Jack to Dear Mayor, Mar. 9, 1954. 1 1 . WT, Dan Inouye. 1 2 . WT, Herman Lemke. 1 3 . WP, letter from K A H U to JHW, Sept. 8, 1 9 5 4 . 14. WT, Dan Inouye. 1 5 . Adv., Oct. 3, 1 9 5 4 . 16. WT, Frank Fasi. 1 7 . Johnson, City and County of Honolulu, 2 2 1 . 18. S-B, July 9, 1956. 19. Ibid., July 1 2 , 1956. Chapter 38 1 . WT, Matsuo Takabuki. 2. WT, Frank Fasi; Adv., July 3, 1956. 3. WT, Dan Inouye. All subsequent quotes from Inouye are from this source. 4. S-B, July 4, 1954. Epilogue 1. 2. 3. 4.

Adv., Oct. 28; Nov. 1 , 2, 1956. S-B, Oct. 2 1 , 22, 1958. Ibid., Nov. 20, i960. Adv., Mar. 1 3 , 1959.

Index

'A'ala Park, 1-2, 117, 158, 1 6 0 , 1 8 3 , 196,210,280 Abshire, Lewis, 190-192 Achi, Charles, 114 Achi, W. C., 159, 231, 239, 242, 248, 255, 275 Ackerman, Walter, 304 Adams, Romanzo, 185 adobe bricks, 291-292, 298, 300, 307. See also brick factory; Wilsonite brick Advertiser, The Honolulu, 246, 248, 257, 264, 266, 293, 306, 309-310, 313, 315, 330-333, 335, 337, 343, 344. See also Pacific Commercial Advertiser Ah Chun Rice Mill, 64 Ahia, Bill, 189-190, 192, 195-196 Ah Kana Rice Plantation, 64 Ah Leong, 255 Ahlo, L., 70, 74 airplanes, 4, 246-247, 261, 272 Akana, F. Lang, 209 Aki, Raymond, 94 Alaska, 31, 230 Alaska Packers, 272 Alexander and Baldwin, 204 Alexander Young Hotel, 205, 264, 271 Allen, Riley, 2 0 6 - 2 0 7 , 211, 251 Aloha Aina, 138 Aloha Week, 344 Aluli, Noa W., 243, 246, 253, 255 Alves, Tom, 268 American Factors, 334 American Federation of Labor, 273-274, 243 American Legion, 186-187, 280 Andrade, Frank, 34—35, 63 annexation, 3 8 - 3 9 , 41, 46, 63, 66-67, 75-76, 344 Apana, Chang, 7 6 - 7 7 Aquinas, Thomas, 325, 341 Arnold, Charles, 195-196, 202

Asche, Julius, 117, 204 Asians, 126-127, 219, 221, 233, 268, 340 Asing, Johnny, 336 Associated Press, 185 Atcherly, Mrs. Mary, 173, 182 Atherton, Frank C., 160, 195, 231 Atkinson, A.L.C., 91, 162 Austin, J. D., 186 automobiles, 4, 9 7 , 1 6 0 , 184, 187, 2 0 5 206, 245 Awana, James P., 194 Aylett, Billy, 47, 50 Aylett, Robert, 104 Axtell, Mrs. Faith W., 208 Bailey, Thomas A., 2 0 0 - 2 0 1 Baldwin, Harry, 182-183 Baltimore, 116 Bank of Hawaii, 254, 332 Banks, J. J., 241 Bassett, W. K., 161, 177, 185-190, 193, 216, 236-237, 291, 300, 302, 3 0 4 305, 309-310, 320-321, 323, 325, 329-330, 335 Bayonet Constitution, 2 7 - 2 9 , 38 Beamer, Milton, 302, 310 Beamer, Nona, 198-199 Berger, Henri, 18, 40, 72 Berman, Ed, 271, 274 Bigelow, Lyman, 207 Big Five, 114, 273, 244 Bishop, Bernice Pauahi, 197 Bishop Estate, 197, 254, 343 Bishop Museum, 63 Bishop National Bank, 208 Black, E.E., 334 blacksmithing, 10-12, 23 Blaisdell, Neal, 299, 329-330, 3 3 6 - 3 3 8 Blanchard, Harriet (Mrs. John Townsend), 7 - 8 Blanchard, Captain Henry, 7 - 8

375

376 / INDEX Blount, James, 3 5 - 3 6 board of supervisors, 93, 97-99, 1 0 1 1 0 4 , 1 0 7 , 111, 1 1 7 - 1 1 8 , 1 3 8 , 1 5 8 1 6 0 , 1 6 2 , 1 6 9 , 171, 176, 1 7 8 , 1 8 4 , 186-196, 202, 205-211, 223, 241, 249, 302, 311, 323, 325, 331, 332, 334, 336, 338 Board of Water Supply, 194 boat day, 63 Bodge, E.E., 193 Borthwick, J. Harold, 241, 249 Borthwick, William, 288 Boston Bloomers, 50 Bouslog, Harriet, 339 Boyle, William, 316 brick factory, 307, 314-315, 324, 326, 328, 334-335. See also adobe bricks; Wilsonite brick Bridges, Harry, 272, 299, 320 Brooks, Francis, 255 Brooks, W.F., 300 Brown, A . M . , 92, 160 Brown, Cecil, 111 Bruner, W.W., 56 Bryan, W. A., 141, 157 Bryan, William Jennings, 2, 52, 100, 115-116 bubonic plague, 7 4 - 7 5 Buffalo, 80-81 Bulletin, 115 Burns, Ed, 299, 321 Burns, John A. "Jack," 1 , 2 9 9 , 309-311, 317, 321, 3 2 4 - 3 2 8 , 335, 338, 3 4 1 344 Bush, John E., 76 Bush, Mary, 8 Butler, Hugh, 309 Byrd, Harry F., 220 Cain, Louis, 190-193, 205, 225, 227, 231-232, 235, 240, 241, 264, 285 Caminos, Clarence, 304 Campbell, Marston, 110-111 Cannon, Joe, 122 canoes, 69, 71 Capital Investment Company, 343 Capone, Al, 221 Carter; George Robert, 86, 162 Carvalho, A. S., 244 Castle, A.L., 177, 195 Castle, W.R., 24, 87 Castle and Cooke, 299

Cathcart, Robert W., 103, 107 Catholic church, 24, 181 Chan, Charlie, 77 Chang, Dai Yen, 196, 205, 208 Chapman, Oscar, 316, 320, 3 2 5 - 3 2 6 Char, Yew, 196 Chau, Chang, 215 Chicago, 41, 5 0 - 5 2 , 7 3 , 1 1 6 , 2 1 9 - 2 2 1 Chillingworth, Ned, 205 China, 67, 2 1 5 - 2 1 6 , 2 5 6 - 2 5 7 , 2 6 7 Chinatown, 70, 74, 271 Chinese, 34-35, 58, 64, 70, 74, 77, 89, 1 5 4 , 1 7 7 , 2 1 5 , 268-269, 325 Ching, Isame, 265 CIO Political Action Committee, 299, 301. See also Council of Industrial Organizations city and county government, 3, 99, 1 0 1 1 0 5 , 1 1 2 , 150-163, 168-172, 1 7 6 1 7 9 , 1 8 4 - 1 9 6 , 204-211, 299, 302. See also county government city hall, 168, 171, 178, 204, 208, 335, 339 civil service, 276, 282, 289, 3 2 5 - 3 2 6 , 331 Clark, Albion F., 158 Clark, William, 303-304 Clemons, Charles F., 141 Cleveland, Grover, 37-38, 75 Cogswell, William O., 332 Coke, James, 9 0 - 9 1 , 1 1 7 - 1 1 8 , 1 2 0 , 1 2 3 , 1 2 6 , 1 3 1 , 1 4 2 , 1 5 3 , 222, 281, 308 Committee of Safety, 38-39 communism, 271, 305-309, 311, 3 1 4 317, 326, 329 Congress, 1 2 2 , 1 6 8 , 173, 217, 226, 276, 344 Conkling, David L., 194 Cooke, Clarence, 226 Cooper, George, 4 7 Costello, John, 116, 218 cost of living, 170-171 Council of Industrial Organizations (CIO), 2 7 3 - 2 7 4 , 299. See also CIO Political Action Committee county Democratic committees, 1 2 0 121, 201, 226, 230, 234, 262, 308, 309, 319, 325 county government, 79-80, 86-87, 9 2 94, 97-99. See also city and county government Cox, James A., 172

INDEX

Crane, Ezra, 325 Crane, Henry, 70 Cravalho, Antone, 270 Cristy, Albert M., 159, 304, 306-307 Crowningberg, David, 104 Cryer, Edward, 180 cultural conflict, 8 - 9 , 1 2 - 1 3 , 68 Cummings, Homer, 116, 218, 227, 241, 243, 256, 289, 307 Cummings, T. M., 239 Cummins, T.P., 101-103 Cunha, Sunny, 189-190, 193-196 Cunningham, Sarah, 242, 252, 262 Daily Hawaiian, 21 Damon, Sam, 130 Darrow, Clarence, 217, 221 Darwin, Charles, 9 Davies, Théo. H., 208 Davis, E.A., 188 Davison, Rose, 80-81, 83 Decker, Ben, 268 Delegate to Congress, 77-79, 85, 93, 100-101,105,108, 112-113,1171 1 8 , 1 2 2 , 1 7 9 , 182-184, 219, 222, 224, 226, 230, 238, 2 4 1 - 2 4 2 , 2 4 4 249, 261, 288, 300, 305, 310, 343 Democratic Territorial Central Committee, 120-121, 1 3 5 , 1 8 2 , 211, 225, 227, 240, 252, 327 Democrats, 1, 3, 37-38, 51-52; formation of party in Hawai'i, 75-79; 1900-1910, 85-87, 89-93, 99-100, 102-103; 1910-1920 (Woodrow Wilson administration), 105-108, 1 1 1 112, 115-132, 134-135, 138, 153, 157-160; 1920-1930, 162, 169, 171, 1 8 2 - 1 8 3 , 1 8 8 , 190-196, 199-203, 205-208; 1930-1940 (Roosevelt administration), 209-211, 218-236, 238, 249, 2 5 0 - 2 5 7 , 261-266, 2 6 8 270, 275; 1940-1948, 2 8 2 - 2 8 3 , 287, 293, 297, 299-302; 1948-1950 (formation of new Democratic party), 308-311, 313-318; 1950-1954, 321, 325, 327-330, 335-339, 341-342, 344 Denison, George, 67 Dewey, Thomas, 311 Diamond Head, 4 5 - 4 6 , 1 0 3 , 1 9 7 , 238, 333-334 Dillingham, Benjamin F., 31-32, 57, 59, 111

/

377

Dillingham, Walter F., 6 0 , 1 6 2 , 1 7 7 , 2 0 1 , 215,218, 231,290 Divine, D. A., 262 Dole, James, 109 Dole, Sanford B., 23, 59, 75 Dowsett Company, 138 Doyle, J.Walter, 1, 184, 201, 227, 234, 274, 285 Dreier, Martin, 2 8 1 , 2 8 9 Duggan, John, 88-89 Duke of Edinburgh, 8 Dunn, Arthur, 126 Effingei; John, 120-121, 123-125 Emerson, Nathaniel B., 99 Emma, Queen, 14, 243 Emmeluth, John, 105 engineering, 33-35 47, 55, 66, 97, 108, 160, 265, 333 English, Captain Henry, 10 Esposito, Joseph V., 266, 3 0 2 - 3 0 4 Esposito, Vincent, 310, 324, 327 Ewing, Bill, 311 Fairbanks, William Z., 302-303 Fanning Island, 10 Farley, James E., 2 1 8 - 2 2 0 , 2 2 8 - 2 2 9 , 232, 2 3 4 - 2 3 6 , 250, 252, 254-255, 2 6 3 - 2 6 5 , 2 7 4 - 2 7 6 , 278, 2 8 2 - 2 8 3 , 287,289,311,319 Farrington, Betty, 338 Farrington, Joseph Rider; 139-140, 300, 305,310-311 Farrington, Wallace R., 132, 163, 178 Fasi, Frank, 3, 315, 321, 328-329, 333, 335-341 Federal Bureau of Investigation, 286, 289, 310, 324, 326 Federal Housing Administration, 255 Federal Surplus Commodities Administration, 284 Fern, Joe, 101-107, 109-110, 112-113, 1 1 5 , 1 1 7 , 120, 1 3 8 , 1 3 9 , 1 5 3 - 1 5 4 , 158-162, 169 Fern, Johnny, 337 Fernandez, Eddie " E . K . , " 141 Fernandez, John, 242, 275 Ferry, J. S., 227 Filipinos, 199, 226, 247, 268 Fire Department. See Honolulu Fire Department; Honolulu Volunteer Fire Department

378 / INDEX

fishing, 1 3 , 1 6 , 19, 22, 5 6 , 1 9 9 , 287 fish ponds, 230, 2 8 9 - 2 9 0 Flying Jordans, 49 Flynn, Edward J., 287 Fo, Sun, 215 Fortescue, Mrs. Grace Hubbard, 217 Fort Street, 12 Fort Street Cathedral, 181 Fort Street School, 22 442nd Regimental Combat Team, 315 Fox, Morris, 87, 290 Freai; Walter Francis, 93, 125, 127-128, 142 Freitas, Henry, 227 Fuchs, Lawrence, 328 Gallatin, Albert, 34 gambling, 3 5 - 3 6 Garner, John Nance, 220 Germans, 153, 286 Geronimo, 72 Gibson, Walter Murray, 2 3 - 2 4 , 27 Gilliland, James F., 323 Gilman, Joseph, 104 Gleason, Pat, 202, 209 governor, 77-79, 86, 93, 119-132, 1 3 4 1 4 2 , 1 5 5 - 1 5 6 , 168, 178, 219, 2 2 4 236, 261, 265, 274, 287, 316, 319, 324-326, 333, 335, 340 graft, 186-187 Greater America Exposition, 68, 7 1 - 7 4 Greene, Arthur, 2 6 2 - 2 6 3 Griffin, Olyve, 62, 6 6 - 6 9 , 74-76, 83 Gummers School, 7 Gumper, Cornelious, 204 Gunderson, A. H., 300 Hackfeld, H.H., & Co., 55 Halawa Valley, 90-91 Hall, Jack, 270-271, 276, 298-299, 305, 326, 329, 333 Halstead, Sam, 226, 292 Hammon, Grace, 291 Hana, 66, 88-89 hanai, 19-20 Hanalei, 73 Hana Road, 119, 124, 133 haoles, 11, 18, 59, 62, 77, 99, 155, 174, 205, 233, 268-269, 286 Harding, Warren, 172, 178 Harrison, Benjamin, 3 7 - 3 8

Harvey, Frank, 86, 90 Hatch Act, 276, 278 Hawai'i (island), 239, 242, 244, 246, 248, 264, 269, 290 Hawaiian Carriage Manufacturing Company, 62 Hawaiian Cavalry, 13 Hawaiian Civic Club, 154, 169, 226 Hawaiian Electric Company, 208 Hawaiian Homes Commission, 230, 245 Hawaiian Homestead Act, 154, 157, 170, 173-176 Hawaiian monarchy, 12-13 Hawaiian music, 2 , 4 , 1 8 , 2 5 , 4 6 , 4 8 ^ t 9 , 67, 69, 72, 8 0 - 8 2 , 1 7 6 , 199, 253, 265 Hawaiian Pineapple Company, 109, 231 Hawaiian rehabilitation plan. See Hawaiian Homestead Act Hawaiian Rifle Association, 23 Hawaiians, 9, 24, 27, 30, 45, 55, 59, 63-65, 67, 72, 74-77, 79, 88, 91, 115, 127, 154, 158, 173-176, 185, 199, 205, 207, 221, 251, 268-269, 279, 287, 325, 329, 337, 339-342 Hawaiian Star, 78 Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association, 178 Hawaii Bar Association, 120, 306 Hawaii Democrat, 265, 2 7 5 - 2 7 6 Hawaii Meat Company, 205 Hawaii National Bank, 40, 4 6 - 5 0 Hawaii Statehood Commission, 315 Hawaii Visitors Bureau, 332 Hawes-Cutting Bill, 2 2 6 - 2 4 7 Hearst, William Randolph, 100 He'eia, 109, 111, 114, 129 Heen, Ernest, 227, 230, 321 Heen, William, 142, 159-160, 184, 186, 193-194, 2 0 1 - 2 0 2 , 227, 230, 234, 2 5 0 , 2 8 9 , 297, 308 Henry, William, 125 Hilo, 66, 113, 224, 242, 246, 248, 252, 262 Hind, Robert, 60 Hite, Charles, 316, 326 Ho, Chinn, 344 Ho, T. K., 227, 251-252, 2 5 6 - 2 5 7 Hollinger, Ben, 138, 153, 189-196 Holmes, Walter, 49 Holt, Victoria, 319 Holt, William, 245

INDEX

Home Owners Loan Corporation, 234, 237, 255 Home Rule Commission, 234 H o m e Rule party, 77-80, 85-87 homesteading, 87, 106, 119, 127, 140, 1 5 5 - 1 5 7 , 1 6 2 , 170, 172-176, 199 Honolulu, 7, 12, 55, 74, 8 3 , 1 1 3 , 1 3 8 , 167-168, 197 Honolulu Chamber of Commerce, 68, 7 1 , 1 7 8 - 1 7 9 , 206, 209, 277, 332 Honolulu Council of Social Agencies, 284-285, 2 9 0 - 2 9 1 Honolulu Fire Department, 74, 344. See also Honolulu Volunteer Fire Department Honolulu Harbor, 22, 63, 271 Honolulu Iron Works, 13 Honolulu Rapid Transit, 177 Honolulu Realty Board, 207 Honolulu Rifles, 11, 13, 2 7 Honolulu Volunteer Fire Department, 11,23,25-27 Honomanu, 88-89 Hoover, Herbert, 33, 67, 203, 222 Hotel Street, 271 Houghtailing, George, 76 House Committee on Un-American Activities, 308, 316 Housewives' League, 170 housing, 158, 184, 2 8 4 - 2 8 5 , 291-292, 298, 300 Houston, Texas, 2 0 0 - 2 0 1 Houston, Victor, 203, 222, 226 Howell, Edward E., 128 Howell, Hugh, 111 Howes, Bill, 219 Hughes, Charles Evans, 140-141 Hughes, John A., 205 Hui Kalaiaina, 35, 38 Hui Poola, 113 hula, 2, 4, 8 - 9 , 2 0 - 2 1 , 25, 41-42, 44, 46, 51, 67, 69, 72-73, 80-81, 83-85, 99, 198-199, 246, 265, 300, 343-345 Hull, Cordell, 256 Hurja, Emil, 254, 257 Hutch, Clinton J., 120 hydroelectric power, 28 Iaukea, Curtis, 93, 117, 142, 154, 162, 173, 204

/

379

Ickes, Harold L., 2 2 7 - 2 2 8 , 231, 2 3 3 236,289 Indians, American, 7 1 - 7 2 Inouye, Dan, 305, 310, 314, 317, 319, 328, 331, 335-338, 3 4 1 - 3 4 2 Inter-Island Airways, 2 4 5 - 2 4 6 Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company, 86, 9 0 , 1 0 1 International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU), 299, 3 0 8 309, 320, 322, 325, 327, 329, 333 International Longshoremen's Association, 112-115, 271, 3 0 4 - 3 0 5 , 3 1 6 317 Iolani Palace, 21, 3 9 , 1 6 2 , 1 7 8 , 206, 344 Jackson, Andrew, 100, 162, 244 Japanese/Japanese Americans, 58, 6 0 61, 74, 77, 89, 9 1 - 9 2 , 1 7 7 - 1 7 8 , 1 8 5 , 198, 222, 251, 2 6 8 - 2 6 9 , 270, 281, 286, 289, 310, 315, 325, 328, 341 Jarrett, William, 112, 117, 139, 162, 183, 200 Jefferson, Thomas, 2, 38, 76, 86, 162, 325, 341 Jefferson Club, 262 Jews, 327 jobs, 204-205, 212 John Rogers Airport, 2 4 7 Johnson, Donald, 338 Jones, P. C., 126 Judd, Albert F., 37 Judd, Lawrence, 2 0 5 - 2 0 7 , 209, 217, 233 judges, 120, 168 Kaahumanu Society, 253 Ka'ena Point, 59-61, 89 Kagimura, K., 138 Kâhala, 1 7 6 , 1 9 7 , 2 0 1 - 2 0 2 , 310 Kahanâmoku, Duke, 118 Kahana Valley, 64, 105 Kahuku Plantation, 277 Kahului, 98, 113 KAHU radio, 336 Kailua, 2 9 8 , 3 1 4 Kaimukl, 103, 112, 160, 180, 197-198, 206, 298 Kaka'ako, 19-20, 45, 69, 76, 110, 118, 158, 167, 169, 174, 183, 209, 343 Kalaiolele, 18-19

380

/ INDEX

Kalakaua, King David, 11, 1 4 , 1 7 - 1 8 , 2 0 - 2 1 , 2 3 - 2 5 , 2 7 - 2 8 , 32, 75, 81, 343, 345 Kalakaua Avenue, 313, 332, 335 Kalana, Joseph, 154 Kalanianaole, Prince Kuhio, 17, 33, 63, 85, 90, 100-101,107, 117-118,122, 124,154, 173-175, 179 Kalaupapa Leper Settlement, 15, 87 Kalekaua, M.K., 154 Kalihi, 74, 167, 270, 280, 314, 320 Kalihi Boys Home, 193 Kalihi Tunnel, 328, 334. See also Wilson Tunnel Kalupa, Annie, 42 Kamakau, Sam, 63 Kamehameha Day, 113, 180, 343 Kamehameha Glee Club, 81 Kamehameha Highway. See roads Kamehameha Schools, 197 Kamehameha the Great, 58 Kansas City, 4 8 ^ 9 , 78 Kapahu, 19-20, 41, 84, 103 Kapahu, Kini "Jennie," 2, 55, 63, 66, 99; Buffalo world's fail; 80-82; Chicago world's fair, 40—42; girlhood, 1822, 25; love affair with Johnny, 51, 67-70, 76-77, 82-83; Omaha world's fail; 69-74; Pelekunu Valley, 84-87, 91, 99, 114, 137-138. See also Wilson, Mrs. John H. Kapakanui, S. M., 154 Kapiolani, Queen, 17, 20, 63 Kapiolani Building, 168, 171, 178, 204 Kapiolani Home, 281 Kapi'olani Park, 21, 180, 206 Kaua'i, 64, 92-94, 238-239, 242, 244, 248,251,264 Kauhane, Charles, 309, 319, 327-328 Kaukaohu, 253 Kaula, J. W., 24 Kaulia, J. K., 76 Kaulukou, John L., 24 Kawaiahao Church, 8, 181, 339, 344 Kawananakoa, Abigail, 226 Kawananakoa, Prince David, 17,22, 33, 43, 63, 75, 78-79, 99-100 Kawananakoa, Prince Edward, 17 Kealakai, Mekia, 18, 22, 25, 40, 46, 48, 69, 80, 82, 176, 292 Ke Alakai O Hawaii, 265

Kealoha, Harry, 271 Ke'anae, 88-89, 119 Kemp, Samuel, 255 Keohokalole, Morris, 113-114 Kepoikai, David, 210 Kern, John W., 131 Kiakahi, Ioela, 174,210 Kido, Mits, 336 Kini. See Kapahu, Kini; Wilson, Mrs. John H. King, Samuel Wilder, 207, 234, 245, 248-252, 255, 266, 333 King, Senator Will, 269, 274 King, William R., 124, 128-129, 233, 238-240 Kinney, W. A., 120, 124, 126-127 kitchen cabinet, 324-330 Kohala, 157, 242, 246, 269 Koloa (Mrs. Henry Blanchard), 7 - 8 Kong, Ben, 255 Ko'olau Mountains, 56, 64, 314 Koreans, 268 Kramer, Bruce, 116 Kramer, Mrs. Emila, 208 Kuegel, Mr. (engineer), 32 Kuhio Beach, 312, 332 Kum, Herbert, 291, 325-326, 329 Kumalae, Joseph, 162, 171, 174, 182183, 188, 265 Kunewa, Joe, 63 Kuwahara, E. M., 327 laboi; 32, 58, 60-61, 65, 74, 89, 105, 1 6 2 , 1 7 7 - 1 7 8 , 1 9 9 , 219, 226, 268, 270-271, 307, 309, 311, 333, 340 Lâna'i, 8 6 , 1 3 5 Lane, Franklin, 122-129, 156-158 Lane, John C., 90, 101, 138, 153-154, 160 Laune, Ferris, 284 Le Baron, Louis, 255 legislature, 78-80, 90, 92, 103, 115, 1 1 8 , 1 5 8 , 1 6 8 - 1 6 9 , 1 7 7 , 194, 196, 228, 230, 257, 263, 266, 276, 279, 285, 321, 323, 332, 338, 343 Lemke, Herman, 181, 321, 336, 338 Liberty Bank, 334-335 Libornio, Jose, 40, 48, 50 Llhu'e, 93, 281, 286 Liliuokalani, Queen, 1, 3, 8-9, 11-12, 17-18, 22, 26-29, 32-33, 35-41,

INDEX

43, 46, 51, 73-75, 80,103, 154, 251,292 Lindsay, Ben, 229 Logan, Dan, 71, 101 Long, Oren, 235, 292, 326-327 Lord, Ed, 158 Lord and Young, 109, 114 Love's Bakery, 280 Low, Eben, 170, 184 Lowrey, Fred, 216 Lucas, Mrs. Clorinda, 277-280, 282284, 290 Lunalilo, King, 13-14 Luning, Fred, 184 Luukia, 15-16 Lyman, Norman K., 182 MacArthur, Douglas, 322 Mack, Norman E., 116, 218 Magoon, Harriet, 302, 319 Magoon, Helene, 202 Magoon, Marmion, 195 Malani, Theresa, 331 Maluhia County Hospital, 324-326, 334, 337-339 Manoa, 170,193, 316 Marks, Lester, 314, 326 Marshall, George C., 322 martial law, 286 Massie case, 216-218, 221, 233 Matoda, Chester, 281, 286, 277, 289 Matson Navigation Company, 199, 231 Matsunaga, Spark, 338 Matthewman, John A., 314 Maui, 14-15, 33, 45, 64, 68, 89-90, 238-239, 242, 244, 246, 248, 264265, 268, 329 Maui Agricultural Company, 204, 277 Maui News, 88-90, 97-98, 325 mayor: Arnold, 195, 201-202; Fern, 99105,107, 112,117-118, 138, 159161; Lane, 138, 153, 159; Wilson, 161-163, 168-169, 176-179, 184196, 201-202, 204-211, 297, 299302, 305-307, 311-313, 315, 323, 328-330, 331-338; Wright, 210-211, 222-223 McAdoo, William Gibbs, 116, 123 McBryde Sugar Company, 277 McCandless, Lincoln L., 93, 100-101, 106-112,113-115,117-118, 120,

/

381

133,135, 138-141, 154-155,158159,162, 171, 173-174, 177,179, 182-184, 187, 200, 210, 215, 219220, 222-223, 240-242, 244-249, 250-254, 256, 261-264, 266, 275, 285,293, 314; candidate for governor 108-115, 117-118 McCandless Building, 262 McCarn, Jefferson Davis, 131, 137 McCarran, Pat, 305-306 McCarthy, Charles J., 75, 86, 106, 112113,117, 123, 125, 139, 141, 156, 161, 177-178, 194-195 McClanahan, E. P., 76, 93 McClellan, George, 105, 117 McClellan, W.H., 172, 189 McColgan, John H., 18 McConnell, Emmet W., 43, 68, 72, 80, 85 McCorriston, Ed, 289 McDuffie, Arthur 186 McEldowney, John E., 275 McElrath, Bob, 45, 305, 339 McGrath, J. Howard, 309, 315 McGregor, Mrs. Louise, 172 McGrew, John S., 75 Mclnerny, William, 191, 194 Mclntyre Building, 102, 168 McKinley, William, 63 McKinley Tariff Bill, 39 McKittrick, Rex A., 333 McReynolds, James C., 136 Mellen, Arthur, 116 Melville, Herman, 10, 14 Merrill, Rev., 81 Metropolitan Meat Market, 121 Metzger, Delbert, 75, 107, 118, 128130,153, 178, 219-220, 224-225, 227-230, 232, 235, 242, 245, 249, 252, 262, 279, 281, 285, 326 Mid-Pacific Navigation Company, 6970 Miles, William, 184, 201,211,225,227, 230 Miller, Dudie, 153 Mills, Harry, 245 missionaries, 7, 9, 20, 41, 126 Mitchell, Mike, 185, 193 Miyamoto, Takaichi, 222, 227, 231, 234, 245, 250-251, 253, 272-273, 298, 305, 325, 327

382 /

Mo'ili'ili, 138, 197 Moloka'i, 7, 14-15, 64, 86-87, 90, 137, 174-176, 230, 246, 289 Moore, Wilson, 3 0 6 - 3 0 7 Moro, Dominico, 331 Mossman, William, 242 municipal market, 170-172, 184, 211 Murray, E. P., 227 Murphy, Charles F., 116, 122 Nahiku, 66, 68, 88, 1 1 9 , 1 2 9 , 1 3 4 - 1 3 5 , 242 Naiwi, Miulan, 331 Nakai (dancer), 42 Nakamura, K., 261 Nape, David, 18, 40, 46, 80, 82 National Cemetery of the Pacific, 305 National Industrial Recovery Act, 323 National Labor Relations Act, 270 Navy, 217-218, 302 Navy League, 2 3 2 - 2 3 3 Ne, Auntie Harriet, 8 , 1 4 - 1 7 , 2 2 , 3 0 , 4 1 , 45, 62-63, 69, 84, 99, 103, 180-181, 205 New Deal, 205, 233, 287 New Freedom, 187, 193 New York, 73, 81 New Zealand, 9 - 1 0 Nippu Jiji, 185 Nowlein, Sam, 45 Nu'uanu, 138, 168, 339, 345 Nuuhiva, Rev., 92 O'ahu, 7, 49, 57, 64, 87, 92, 104, 118, 174, 225, 230, 244, 248, 264, 289, 319 Oahu Plantation, 55 O'Connell, Ambrose, 2 8 6 - 2 8 7 O'Conner, John E., 186 Ohrt, Fred, 169, 190, 192, 194 Oka, Wilfred, 305 'okolehao, 186, 2 3 1 , 2 5 4 Omaha, 68-71 Omaha World Herald, 73 opium, 35, 274 Order of Kamehameha, 243 Organic Act, 155, 168, 173-174 Otani, Charles, 248 Ottman, Mrs. Margaret, 2 9 0 - 2 9 1 Outdoor Circle, 207

INDEX

Pacheco, Manuel C., 1 1 6 - 1 1 7 , 1 2 3 , 1 2 6 , 137, 140, 184-185, 205, 227, 241, 249, 266 Pacific Commercial Advertiser, 25, 33, 35-37, 4 1 - 4 2 , 50, 58-61, 64, 6 7 - 6 9 , 74, 76, 79-80, 83, 85-86, 9 1 - 9 2 , 1 0 1 , 104-105, 107, 109, 112, 161-162. See also Advertiser, The Honolulu Pahu, Dan, 190 Pali, 1 9 , 3 1 4 Pali Road, 5 6 - 5 9 , 61, 88-89, 91, 157, 161,307,313-314 Palmer, A. Mitchell, 172 Pâlolo Valley, 1 0 3 , 2 9 8 Pan American Clipper, 261, 298 Pan-American Exposition, 80 Papakôlea, 167, 328 Papeete, 9 Parish, Mrs. Helen, 208 Parker, Sam, 78 Parker Ranch, 270 parks, 176-177 part-Hawaiians, 7, 59, 76, 80, 86, 142, 1 8 6 , 1 9 8 , 225, 239, 244, 252, 278, 302, 333 Pauahi, Pinao, 42 Pearl Harbor 261, 272, 2 8 4 - 2 8 5 , 305 Pease, Tom, 128 Pelekunu Valley, 15-16, 25, 6 4 - 6 6 , 8 3 84, 86-87, 91, 99, 1 0 3 , 1 1 4 , 116, 137-138, 154, 343 Perry, Joe, 3 3 7 - 3 3 8 Peters, Mrs. Mapuana, 208 Peterson, Arthur P., 39 Petrie, Lester, 189, 297, 302 pigs, 58, 84, 8 6 , 1 0 3 , 114, 160, 180, 1 9 7 - 1 9 8 , 2 1 6 , 246 Piikoi (chief), 19 pineapples, 93, 109, 111, 130, 133, 251, 304 Pinkerton Report, 233 Pinkham, L. E., 1 3 0 - 1 3 2 , 1 3 4 - 1 4 2 , 1 5 5 , 218 Pittman, William B., 211, 2 2 7 , 2 3 0 , 2 3 9 , 241 Poepoe, J . M . , 117 poi, 65, 67, 69, 73, 137, 280 Poindexter, J. B., 227, 230, 236, 2 3 9 241, 244, 248, 250, 256, 263, 265, 274, 278, 283, 287 Poire, Napua Stevens, 2 0 - 2 1 , 3 1 , 4 1 ^ 4 2 ,

INDEX

51, 62, 67, 84, 103, 162, 181, 253, 339, 348 Police Department, 186-187, 194, 210, 217, 302-303, 3 0 6 - 3 0 7 politics: conventions, 78, 100, 105, 113, 115-117, 139-140, 171-172, 181, 200-201, 2 1 8 - 2 2 1 , 239, 263-264, 282-283, 288, 308, 316-319; elections, 1, 78-79, 85-86, 90-93, 100101, 1 0 5 - 1 0 7 , 1 1 2 , 117-118, 138, 141, 153, 158-160, 195-196, 2 0 1 203, 2 1 0 - 2 1 1 , 2 2 2 - 2 2 3 , 244-249, 266, 276, 289, 3 0 0 - 3 0 1 , 310-311, 320-323, 3 2 8 - 3 3 0 , 336-338; formation of Republican and Democratic parties, 75-77; H o m e Rule party, 7 7 80; monarchy period, 13-14, 24-30, 32, 35-40; territorial period, 85, 87, 90-94, 98-107, 112-113, 117-118, 135-142, 153, 157-160, 168-179, 183-196, 2 0 4 - 2 1 1 , 2 2 2 - 2 2 7 , 2 3 0 232, 236, 2 3 8 - 2 4 9 , 2 5 1 - 2 5 2 , 2 6 1 270, 2 7 5 - 2 7 6 , 2 8 1 - 2 8 2 , 287-288, 297-338 Polynesian, 1 Portuguese, 77, 116, 205, 268-269 post office/postmasters, 99, 120, 137, 168, 242, 2 6 1 - 2 6 2 , 2 6 8 - 2 6 9 , 271, 2 8 1 , 2 8 3 , 2 8 6 , 2 8 8 - 2 8 9 , 293 Prohibition, 182, 185-188, 231 Prosser, M.F., 111 prostitution, 269, 302 Puko'o, 9 0 - 9 1 Punalu'u, 68, 92 Punchbowl Crater, 305, 328 Puni, Joe, 58, 61, 64, 74, 307 Purdy, Millard, 342 Putsau, Mr. (assistant to Jim Farley), 232-233 Quai, Wong, 70 Queen's Hospital, 188, 345 Queen's Surf, 334 Quinn, E.W., 189-190 Quinn, Jim, 104, 111 Radford, Arthur W., 322 radio, 266, 310, 329, 336 railroads, 4, 23, 31-32, 44, 48, 55, 5 9 6 1 , 6 7 , 8 9 , 92, 9 3 , 1 1 1 , 1 2 2 Raleigh Hotel, 122, 227, 229, 232, 251

/ 383

Rankin Bill, 232, 234, 236, 247 Rathburn, William K., 154 Rowles, John F., I l l Raymond, Dr. J . H . , 106, 139 real estate, 6 6 , 2 9 8 , 3 1 2 Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 230 Reinecke, Aiko, 305 Reinecke, John E., 305 Republicans, 1, 37-38; formation of party in Hawai'i, 75-76; 1900-1910, 78-79, 85-87, 89-90, 92-93, 99, 101-105; 1910-1920, 106-108, 112, 114-115, 117-118, 120, 127, 131, 134-135, 1 3 7 , 1 5 3 , 158; 1920-1930, 169, 171, 178, 182-183, 189-196, 2 0 1 - 2 0 3 , 205-208; 1930-1940, 2 0 9 211, 218, 222-223, 226, 230, 2 3 9 241, 246, 248-249, 251, 263, 2 6 5 266, 268-269; 1940-1950, 281, 2 9 2 293, 2 9 9 - 3 0 2 , 308-311; 1950-1954, 321, 323, 328-330, 335-336, 3 3 8 339, 342 Restarick, Harry P., 124-126 revolts: January 1892, 36; May 1892, 36; January 1893, 38-40; 1895, 4 5 46, 77 Reynolds, Stephen, 7 - 8 rice/rice mills, 6 4 - 6 5 , 73, 154 Rice, Archie, 34 Rice, Charles, 230-231, 248 Rice, Harold, 248, 285 Richards, Herbert M . "Montie," 2 9 9 301,310-311 Richardson, Seth, 217, 219 Richardson Report, 233 Rivenburgh, Bertram, 107, 112, 1 2 0 1 2 1 , 1 2 3 , 139, 141, 200, 203, 246, 252, 262, 266 roads, 4, 34-35, 66, 69, 88-89, 9 2 - 9 4 , 9 7 - 9 8 , 102-107, 112, 172; Hàna Road, 119, 124, 133; Kamehameha Highway, 108-115, 117, 121, 130, 133, 157-160, 184, 2 1 5 - 2 1 6 , 2 5 6 257, 267, 310; Pali Road, 5 6 - 5 9 , 61, 157, 161; paving, 97, 104-105, 138, 142 Robertson, A. E. G., 135, 234 Rogers, Nat D., 221 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 3, 116, 130, 172, 201, 218-222, 2 2 6 - 2 3 6 , 238,

384

/

243, 250, 256, 261, 265, 270, 272, 283,288 Roosevelt, Theodore, 86, 136 Rose, Charles, 138, 183, 187, 222, 243, 266, 274 Ross, Eddie, 252 Ross, George C., 190-191 Roth, William, 231 Rowell, W.E., 111 Royal Hawaiian Band, 18, 40, 170,176, 292, 326, 331 Royal Hawaiian Hotel, 199, 206 Rutledge, Art, 339, 343 Ryan, T.J. "Hilo," 113, 124, 126,128, 130-131, 199, 224-226 Saint Alban's College, 22, 29 Saint Louis, 85, 139-140 Saint Louis College, 59, 215 Saint Louis Heights, 298 Salisberry, Pearl, 277, 279 Salt Lake Tribune, 80 Salvation Army Boys Home, 216, 254 San Francisco, 29-32, 34,42-46, 62,66, 69, 81-82,124,171-172, 272 Satt Francisco Chronicle, 34, 37-38 saxophone, 48 schools, 184; Japanese language, 185 Schuman, Gus, 62 Schuman Carriage, 62 Scott, Leslie, 63 Seattle, 272 Serrao, Frank, 265 Shanghai, 215 sheriff, 93, 112,117-118, 187-188, 202, 209, 223 Shipman, Ollie T., 132 ships, 4, 56, 60, 88,137, 199, 245, 271275; Alameda, 42; America Maru, 69; Australia, 29, 31, 37, 39, 46, 67, 74; Claudine, 135; Emma, 14—15; Gaelic, 66; HMS Beagle, 9; Ida Mae, 116, 134-135, 138, 142,154,159; Iwa, 60, 64-66, 68-69; James Makee, 22; Kianu, 45; La Ninfa, 68, 73; Lehua, 86-87; Lucy Ann, 9; Lurline, 121, 272-273; Malolo, 238; Marama, 114; Mariposa, 51, 69, 270; Peking, 66; Rob Roy, 68; S. C. Allen, 30; Tacoma, 42; Thaddeus, 7; Triton, 31; USS Boston, 38; USS Charleston, 32, 63; USS

INDEX

Houston, 432; USS Maine, 62; Waimanalo, 45; Waioli, 25; Wallaby, 10; Wilhelmina, 133; Zealandia, 33, 62 Shoemaker James, 332 Sikkema, Mildred, 279 Silva, M.U., 154 Silva, Rev. William E., 103 Smiddy, J.J., 116, 121,128, 133 Smith, Al, 200, 202 Smith, Captain and Mrs., 10 Smith, Thomas, 154 Smith, W.O., 39,120 Smith Act, 326-327, 332-333 Smyser, A. A. "Bud," 300, 311 Sniffen, Mrs. Helen K., 173 Soares, O.P., 186 social work, 277-285, 290-291 Song, Kim Ye, 154 Soper, John H., 160 Soper, Will, 63 Sorenson, Olaf, 63 Sousa, John Philip, 48-49 Spain, Herbert L., 255 Spanish American War, 62-63 Spell, John, 185 sports, 11, 42 Spreckels, Claus, 23-24, 47 Spreckels, John D., 31 Stainback, Ingram, 137, 220, 288-289, 292, 305, 308-309, 311, 315, 317, 319-320, 324, 327 stamps, 43, 51 Stanford, Leland, 33 Stanford University, 2, 33-35, 37-38, 42, 63, 205, 337 Star, 106,109 Star-Bulletin, 116-118, 120, 126-127, 131-132, 136, 139, 141, 156-158, 160-161, 163, 170,175, 181-183, 185, 191, 193-194, 196, 200, 202, 204, 206, 209-210, 222, 230, 238, 247, 251, 256, 264, 266, 288, 300, 309, 311, 315-316, 320-321, 323324, 327, 339 statehood, 306, 309, 315, 335, 344-345 Steadman, A. E., 211 Steinei; Harry, 192 stevedoring, 30,101,112-113, 162 Stevens, John L., 35 Stewart, Harry, 200, 231, 233, 236, 255 stock market, 204, 208

INDEX

streetcars, 49, 63, 197 strikes, 185, 2 7 1 - 2 7 3 , 2 9 8 - 2 9 9 , 304, 314-315 Stroup, Harry, 335 Stuart, T. B., 140 Stutesman, James F., 121 sugar industry, 12, 20, 65, 67, 91, 9 3 94, 1 0 1 , 1 0 5 , 1 1 9 , 1 2 9 , 131, 1 3 5 137, 155-157, 173-175, 177-179, 199,270, 277,299 Sun Yat-sen, 215 Supe, Gus, 248 supreme court, 87, 92-93, 114, 141, 191,241,281,301,306 surveying, 32, 56, 87, 91 Sutro's Tropic Baths, 34, 4 7 Tacoma, 114-115 Taft, William Howard, 136 Tagawa, Kaichi, 269 Tahiti, 9 - 1 0 , 1 5 9 , 216, 254 Takabuki, Matsuo, 316, 320, 332, 3 3 4 335, 338, 340 taro, 1 2 , 1 5 - 1 6 , 64-65, 84, 86, 88, 91, 1 0 3 , 1 1 6 , 1 3 8 , 1 5 4 , 1 6 2 , 265 Tavares, Nils, 291, 3 0 3 - 3 0 4 taxes, 119, 137, 195, 207, 254, 277, 280, 314 television, 308, 336 Territorial Board of Public Welfare, 2 7 7 Territorial Building, 278 Territory of Hawaii, 7 7 - 7 8 , 92, 110, 114 Testa, F.J., 86 Tetaria, 10 Teves, Nick, 323, 336 Thayer, Wade Warren, 142 Thielman Gardens, 50 Thompson, Charles, 263 Thompson, Isabelle K., 242, 248, 263 Thurston, Lorrin A., 11, 13, 24, 28-29, 3 6 , 3 8 - 4 1 , 4 3 , 161, 168 Thurston, Lorrin P., 309, 332 tidal wave, 87, 324 Tobin, W., 73 Tom, Aki, 268 tourism, 161 Townsend, George, 8 , 1 4 - 1 5 , 4 5 ^ 6 , 60, 69, 73 Townsend, John, 8 traffic, 205, 320

/ 385

Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition, 7 1 - 7 2 Trask, Arthur 329 Trask, Barney, 234 Trask, David, 1 8 6 , 1 8 7 - 1 8 8 , 227, 2 4 5 246, 250, 262, 264, 266 Trask, Walter, 60, 62, 6 7 - 6 8 , 7 6 - 7 7 , 9 9 1 0 0 , 1 3 4 , 181, 205, 224, 234, 251, 2 5 3 - 2 5 4 , 297, 301, 314, 325, 343 Truman, Harry, 309, 311, 319, 322, 326 Tumulty, Joseph, 130-132, 136 Tung, Aileen Chan, 255 tunnels, 91, 314, 320, 328. See also Kalihi Tunnel; Wilson Tunnel typhoid, 91 Uluihi, Jesse, 193-194 unemployment, 171, 204, 207, 209 unions, 112-114, 270, 2 7 1 - 2 7 3 , 249, 300, 333 Unity House, 343 University of Hawaii, 195, 200 United Hawaiian Association, 154 United States, 13, 34, 39-40, 46, 65 Unwritten Literature of Hawaii, The Sacred Songs of the Hula, 99 Vanatta, William, 3 4 2 - 3 4 4 Vancouver, B.C., 114 Vanderveer, G. F., 272 vaudeville, 81-82, 86 Vitousek, Roy A., 172, 176 Voice of Labor, 2 7 0 - 2 7 1 , 273, 276, 333 Vollmer, August, 187 Wahiawa, 186 Wai'alae, 197 Waialae Land Company, 198, 234 Wai'alae Nui Valley, 198, 216, 242, 251, 253, 272, 291, 297, 339, 343 Wai'alae Road, 197 Waialua, 22, 59, 64, 177, 299 Wai'anae, 14, 59, 2 8 7 Waiau Valley, 91 Waihe'e, 64, 91 Waihee, Mary Purdy, 270, 348 Wahiawa, 299 Waiklkl, 8, 45, 8 0 , 1 0 3 , 1 9 9 , 217, 286, 312, 331, 333-334, 345 Waikiki Beach Master Plan, 3 3 3 - 3 3 4 Waikiki Lau Yee Chai, 262

386

/

Waikiki Social Club, 187 Wailuku, 90, 98, 2 6 8 - 2 6 9 Wailuku Plantation, 91, 270 Waimänalo, 177, 299, 322 Waldron, " M o t h e r " Margaret, 209 Walker, Frank, 236 Wallace, Henry, 283 Waller, C.J., 120-122, 126 Washington, D.C., 73, 1 2 2 - 1 2 3 Washington Place, 12, 17, 243 Washington Post, 122, 127 Washington Star, 122 waterworks water department, 23, 28, 35, 8 5 , 1 7 6 , 1 8 4 , 1 9 0 - 1 9 5 , 211 .See also Board of Water Supply Watson, Edward, 106, 120-121, 126127, 135-136, 141-142 Weisbarth, Maxie, 2 7 0 - 2 7 1 , 273 welfare department, 277, 279, 285, 2 9 0 291,293 White, J. C., 34 White House, 122 Whitehouse, Ella, 231 Whitehouse, L. M . "Lou," 42—43, 46, 48, 50, 5 7 - 5 8 , 66, 74, 88, 9 1 , 1 0 9 110, 2 0 8 , 2 1 6 , 2 3 1 - 2 3 2 Wilcox, Robert W., 2 8 - 3 0 , 32, 35-37, 39, 4 5 - 4 6 , 77, 78-79, 85-86 Wilder, Arthur A., 111, 130, 135-136 Wilson, Charles "Charlie Boy" (half brother), 2 7 3 - 2 7 4 Wilson, Rev. Charles (great-grandfather), 9 Wilson, Charles Burnett (grandfather), 9 Wilson, Charles Burnett "C. B." (father), 10-11, 13-14, 16, 2 3 - 2 9 , 31-33, 3 5 40, 46, 55, 59, 74, 75, 79, 9 2 , 1 1 2 , 121, 133, 192, 195 Wilson, Eveline "Kitty" (Eveline Townsend) (mother), 8 - 9 , 11, 15-17, 2 1 - 2 3 , 32-33, 46, 62, 67 Wilson, John Henry "Johnny," l ^ t , 11, 41,63,66-67,91,197-200,215218, 2 2 4 - 2 2 6 , 2 3 8 - 2 4 1 , 286, 293, 339, 340-342, 347-348; band tour, 4 6 - 5 0 ; boyhood, 12-29; as candidate for delegate, 244—249; as candidate for governor, 244-249; as Democratic national committeeman, 113, 115119, 121-132, 171-172, 200-201, 218-221, 226-229, 241-243, 250256, 2 6 2 - 2 6 7 , 274-276, 281-283,

INDEX

2 8 6 - 2 8 8 ; as an early Democrat, 7 5 76, 77-80, 85-87, 89-91, 93, 97-107; as house builder, 198, 2 9 1 - 2 9 3 , 301, 307; as labor leader, 4, 112-114; marriage to Kini, 103, 117, 180-181; marriage to Olyve Griffin, 6 2 - 6 3 , 6 7 69, 74-75; as mayor, 162-171, 1 7 6 179,182-196, 201-212, 222-223, 2 9 7 - 3 3 8 ; as Oahu railway brush cutter 31-33; part in 1895 revolt, 45-46; in Pelekunu Valley, 15-16, 6 5 - 6 6 , 8 3 87, 91, 99, 103, 1 1 6 , 1 3 7 - 1 3 8 , 154; political activity, 1, 3 - 4 , 2 5 - 2 9 , 38, 51; as political ally of Link McCandless, 1 0 8 - 1 1 5 , 1 1 7 - 1 1 8 , 124-133, 135, 153-162; as postmaster, 2 5 6 262, 2 6 8 - 2 6 9 , 2 7 1 - 2 7 4 , 276, 278; as railroad builder, 59-61, 92-93; as rice and taro planter, 6 4 - 6 6 , 154; as road builder, 4, 55-59, 66, 88-89, 9 2 - 9 4 , 97-99, 101-112, 1 1 4 , 1 1 7 , 1 1 9 , 1 2 4 , 1 3 0 , 1 3 3 , 135, 138, 142, 157, 161, 2 1 5 - 2 1 6 , 256-257, 267; romance with Kini, 51-55, 63, 67-74, 76-77, 80-83; as ship owner, 60, 6 4 - 6 5 , 6 9 70, 73, 1 1 6 , 1 3 4 - 1 3 5 , 1 3 8 , 1 4 2 , 1 5 4 , 159; at Stanford, 34-35, 3 7 - 4 0 , 4 2 44; as welfare director, 2 7 8 - 2 8 5 , 2 9 0 293; whaling voyage, 30-31; world's fair engagements, 68-74, 80-82, 219, 2 2 1 , 2 2 6 , 231 Wilson, Mrs. John H . "Jennie," 103, 114, 117, 128-129, 134, 137, 160, 162, 180-181, 197-200, 202, 216, 225, 231, 239, 2 4 3 - 2 4 4 , 2 4 6 - 2 4 7 , 2 5 3 - 2 5 7 , 276, 282, 297-298, 301, 312, 328, 331, 337, 339, 343-345, 347; as women's suffrage leader, 115, 172. See also Kapahu, Kini Wilson, Richard (uncle), 10 Wilson, Woodrow, 3, 116-120, 127, 129, 131, 136-137, 140-142, 236 Wilsonite brick, 307, 337, 339. See also adobe bricks; brick factory Wilson Tunnel, 334, 344. See also Kalihi Tunnel Wing Hing Lung Rice Mill, 64 Wirtz, A. J., 118 Wise, John 76, 78-79, 86, 154, 158, 169, 1 7 4 , 1 8 2 - 1 8 3 Women's Wear Daily, 283

INDEX women's suffrage, 1 1 5 , 1 1 7 , 1 2 2 , 1 5 8 , 172-173 Women's Suffrage League, 1 1 5 Wong, Andrew, H . , 2 7 5 Woodford, Charlie, 4 7 Woodin, William H., 2 2 8 Woods, Palmer, 1 2 3 , 1 5 7 , 1 6 1 , 1 8 6 Works Progress Administration, 2 7 8 , 284 World War I, 1 4 2 , 1 5 3 - 1 5 4 , 1 5 7 , 1 7 0 , 286 World War II, 2 8 5 - 2 9 0 , 3 2 4

/ 387 World's Columbian Exposition, 4 1 - 4 3 world's fairs, 4 1 ^ 2 , 6 8 - 7 0 , 7 1 - 7 4 , 8 0 81, 8 5 - 8 6 Wright, Fred G., 2 0 0 , 2 0 5 , 2 1 0 , 2 2 2 223,241, 249 Wundenberg, Fred, 10, 3 5 - 3 6 Yap, Tuck Yee, 2 0 5 Yokohama Beach, 6 0 Young Men's Republican Club, 76 zoo, 1 5 3 , 1 8 9 , 3 4 3

About the Author

Bob Krauss has covered events for the Honolulu Advertiser for more than forty years. He has reported the activities and decisions of six governors of Hawai'i, four mayors of Honolulu, and hundreds of territorial and state legislators. His column featuring unsung heroes and ordinary citizens provides a true picture about what life is like in the islands. One of the most prolific authors in Hawai'i, Krauss has written fourteen books. Among them are Keneti: South Sea Adventures of Kenneth Emory, Detective Jardine, Grove Farm Plantation, Historic Waianae, and The Island Way. In 1992 he was named a Distinguished Historian by the Hawaiian Historical Society.

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