Hawaii - James Michener [429]
He bowed and left her gagging. In Honolulu, of course, his polo-field speech, as it was termed, was a momentary sensation, since, as one of the Hale women explained, "If one were picking a man to defend the missionaries, he would hardly pick Wild Whip."
He and his drunken English friend lived on at Hanakai, with fairly frequent visits to the brothels at Kapaa. At the cliffside mansion he entertained a good deal, and in his leisurely talks over brandy he began to expound the first coherent theory of Hawaii: "What I visualize is an island community that treasures above all else its agricultural lands. On them it grows bulk crops of sugar and pineapples and ships them to the mainland in H & H ships. With the money we get we buy the manufactured goods our people need, things like iceboxes, automobiles, finished lumber, hardware and food. Thus the ships go one way loaded and come back loaded. That's the destiny of Hawaii, and anyone who disturbs that fine-balance is an enemy of the islands."
He was willing to identify the enemies of Hawaii: "Anyone who tampers with our shipping ought to be shot. Anyone who tries to talk radical ideas to our field hands ought to be run off the islands. Anyone who interferes with our assured supply of cheap labor from Asia strikes a blow at sugar and pineapple."
Once he confided: "H & H have run the ships cheaply and faithfully. I see no reason why any radical changes are required. And I think you must admit that J & W have run the plantations well. Nobody can lodge a complaint against them. As long as these two firms continue to serve the islands justly, it seems to me the welfare of Hawaii is assured, and for outsiders like that goddamned woman author to go around raising a lot of questions is downright ingratitude."
In 1912 the campaign for President on the mainland grew rather warm, and for the first time in some years Democrats felt that they had a good chance of sending their man, Woodrow Wilson, to the White House. Of course, citizens of Hawaii could not vote for the national offices, but in the island elections a few pathetic Democrats began to parrot the optimism existing on the mainland, and one misguided liberal even went so far as to appear before a mass meeting of six in the nearby town of Kapaa. Out of sheer curiosity over a human being who dared to be a Democrat in Hawaii, Wild Whip insinuated himself as the seventh listener and stood appalled as the man actually sought votes for his party: "There is a new spirit abroad in America, a clean, sharp wind from the prairies, an insistent voice from the great cities. Therefore I propose to do something that has never before been done in these islands. I, a Democrat and proud of the fact, am going to visit each of the sugar and pineapple plantations to explain in my words what the ideas of Woodrow Wilson and his adherents mean. Tell your friends that I'll be there."
In some agitation Wild Whip rode home and carefully took down all the firearms he kept at Hanakai. Inspecting each, he summoned his lunas and said, "I just heard a Democrat say he was coming here to address our workmen. If he steps six inches onto Hanakai, shoot him."
One of the lunas who had been through high school asked deferentially, "But doesn't he have the right to speak?"
"Right?" Whip thundered. "A Democrat have the right to step onto my plantation and spread his poison? My God! I say who shall come here and who shall not. This is my land and I'll have no alien ideas parading