Hawaii - James Michener [373]
Then, in late 1892, Wild Whip became galvanized into even wilder action in a completely different arena, for the United States was beginning to show signs of once more discriminating against the importation of Hawaiian sugar. The great planters of cane in Louisiana were determined to end the reciprocity arrangements whereby Hawaii sent sugar to the mainland tax-free while the United States was allowed to send certain goods into Hawaii and also to use Pearl Harbor as a naval base. Cried the Louisiana sugar men: "We don't need their sugar and we don't need Pearl Harbor."
For thirty years the New Orleans sugar tycoons had been waging war against Hawaii, and they had managed to hold the profits of Hawaiian planters like Wild Whip Hoxworth to reasonable limits, but they had failed to kill off the industry. Now a new factor had entered the battle against Hawaii: the huge western states of Colorado and Nebraska were beginning to grow beets and to grind them into sugar, and they, too, wanted to destroy Hawaiian competition. Within a few years it was likely that a coalition of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Colorado and Nebraska, plus such new states as Wyoming and Utah, would form to drive Hawaiian sugar forever out of the market, and when this happened sugar planters like Wild Whip would see their massive fortunes begin to vanish.
"In sugar, there's only one rule," Whip told the sugar planters he had assembled. "Either we sell to the United States, or we don't sell. Our sole aim must be to protect that market."
"We're losing it," John Janders pointed out. "Right now I represent eleven of your major sugar plantations, and with the way those bastards from Louisiana and Colorado are trying to strangle us, I can see nine of your eleven outfits going into bankruptcy. One more serious cut in our American market, and I don't know what we'll do."
"Excuse me, John," Whip interrupted. "You're right in what you say, but I'm afraid you're mincing words. I happen to have the figures, and by God, nobody can listen to these without panic. Since the McKinley Tariff every damned sugar man in Louisiana and Colorado has been getting a subsidy of two cents a pound, whereas sugar imported from Hawaii has been penalized. What's it all mean? During the first twelve months of this McKinley abortion our profits have dropped five million dollars. I don't mean the profits of Hawaii. I mean the profits of the nine men sitting in this room. Now as to the actual invested value of our plantations, they've lost twelve million dollars. And it's going to get worse and worse."
He paused to allow discussion of the peril in which the Hawaiian sugar men found themselves, for up to the moment of this meeting, the great planters had known they were in danger but no one had had the courage to accumulate the depressing figures; now under Whip's lashing they had to face facts. Companies were going to go bankrupt and men were going to lose plantations their fathers had built.
"What do you think we should do?" John Janders asked. He was a year older than Whip and eight centuries more conservative.
Whip parried the question and observed, "Obviously, John, unless we do something we're going to lose Hawaii. It's going to subside into the barren, useless batch of islands it was in 1840." There was a hush, and Whip continued: "Those aren't just words, either. Two more bad years, John, and you'll be bankrupt. Absolutely pau. Dave Hale may be able to hold out a little longer, but Harry Hewlett can't." Then he thumped himself in the chest and added, "I'm good for eighteen months, and then I'm bankrupt. Gentlemen, I don't propose to go bankrupt."
It was a sober group of Hales, Hewletts and Janderses