Hawaii - James Michener [446]
"I beg your pardon," the German professor spluttered.
"I mean that whereas your facts on Tahiti may be correct, those on Hawaii are definitely in error."
"Don't you stand when you address remarks to your professor?" the Leipzig-trained scholar demanded, growing red. When Hoxworth got to his feet, Albers referred to his notes and began quoting an impressive list of sources: "The journals of Ellis, Jarves, Bird, the researches of Amsterfield, de Golier, Whipple. They all tell the same story."
"If they do," Hoxworth said, "they're all wrong."
Professor Albers flushed and asked, "What is your name, young man?"
"Hoxworth Hale, sir."
"Well!” Albers laughed. 'Tour testimony on this matter is hardly unimpeachable."
This contempt goaded Hale into making a reply that infuriated the professor: "You cited Jarves. Have you ever read Jarves?"
"I do not cite sources I have not read," Albers fumed.
"Jarves happened to be a friend of some of my ancestors, and they held him in keen regard because he was the first impartial observer to defend the missionaries, and I've read what he wrote, in the original papers in which he wrote it, and what he wrote, sir, simply doesn't support your thesis."
The class broke up in something of a scandal and for some weeks the word missionary had a curious force of its own at Yale. Professor Albers, goaded by his young tormentor, marshaled an impressive battery of anti-clerical critics whose gibes at all churches and their nefarious skill in capturing the land of backward countries pleased the young iconoclasts of that day, and for several biting weeks the professor carried the day, and the dormitories rang with the famous gibes against the Hawaiian missionaries: "They came to the island to do good, and they did right well." "No wonder the islands were lighter when they left; they stole everything in sight." "They taught the natives to wear dresses and sign leases." And most cutting of all: "Before the missionaries came to Hawaii, there were four hundred thousand happy, naked natives in the mountains killing each other, practicing incest, and eating well. After the missionaries had been there awhile, there were thirty thousand fully clothed, miserable natives, huddled along the shore, paying lip service to Christianity and owning nothing." In Professor Albers' classes such lines of reasoning became increasingly popular, and for the first time Yale, the source of missionaries, took a serious look at what they had really accomplished. In those exciting days it was downright unpleasant to be a Whipple or a Hewlett, for the fact was often cited that Dr. John Whipple had abandoned the church to become a millionaire, and that Hewlett had left to steal land from the defenseless natives.
In the fifth week of the intellectual investigation, Hoxworth Hale, then a junior, nineteen years old, asked for time to read to the class the results of some work he had been doing on his account, and in cold, dispassionate phrases he developed this thesis: "In the third decade of the last century a series of little ships brought missionaries to Hawaii. There were twelve ships in all, bearing a total of fifty-two ordained missionaries, brought to the islands at a cost of $1,220,000. At the end of nearly thirty years of religious and social service in the islands, the missionaries controlled practically no land, except in the case of one Abraham Hewlett who had married a Hawaiian lady and whose family lands have always been kept in her name for the welfare of her people. The Whipples owned no land whatever. Nor did the Hales except, in later days, a few building lots on which their homes have been built. In fact, in 1854 the Hawaiian government took cognizance of the unfortunate position of the mission families and passed a special law allowing those who had served the islands well to buy small parcels of land at favorable prices. And the government did this, Professor Albers, because they were afraid not that the missionaries would take over the islands, but that they would go back to America