Hawaii - James Michener [465]
When Wild Whip saw the results of the experiment he gave an instant and dramatic order: "Hereafter all pineapple on our plantations will be grown under paper," and he worked diligently with Dr. Schilling and the California wood-pulp people in devising a special paper that resisted water for the first seven months of its life, then slowly disintegrated so that by the tenth month the field was clean. When the project was completed, Wild Whip reminded the pineapple men: "You can always find somebody from Yale who can accomplish anything you want. Treat them well, pay them a little, and call, them Doctor. That's all they expect. But somebody with brains has got to set the problem for them."
And then, in 1927, this nonpareil of planters died at the brawling, bruising age of seventy. He died, as he had often predicted, of no ordinary disease but from an aggravated cancer of the prostate occasioned, the islands felt sure, by his numerous cases of gonorrhea and syphilis, plus cirrhosis of tie liver brought on by endless overdoses of alcohol, all aggravated by the fact that the small airplane in which he was flying back from Hanakai Plantation to Honolulu flew into the mountain that he had pierced with his great tunnel. He had lain exposed in cold rain for nearly twenty-four hours, but even under those conditions the vital old man fought a fairly even contest with death for a period of three weeks, during which he summoned to his hospital bed the leading members of H & H and J & W, including all who might logically aspire to his chairmanship. Raising himself in pain to a sitting position, which appalled the nurses, he grunted, "We're entering a difficult period, and our job is to make half a dozen right decisions." He spoke as if he were to be with the managers for many years to come, and possibly forever. "I'm sure our present prosperity can't continue forever, and when there's a leveling off, sugar and pineapple will be hard hit. Thank God, it doesn't seem likely the Democrats will ever return to Washington, so we don't have to worry about radical communism. But we do have to worry about keeping our share of the market.
"We've got to have somebody heading up our enterprises who is clever enough to anticipate the future and bold enough to fight what's wrong. I've given a good deal of thought as to who that should be, and I've come up with only one solid conclusion. Don't ever, under any conceivable circumstances, allow either of my sons, Jesus Duarte or John, to meddle in this business. Pay them well, pay them regularly, and keep them to hell out of Hawaii. If my other son, Janders, had lived . . . well, that might have been a different story.
"Naturally I've thought a great deal about Mark Whipple. He has his father's brains and would have been my first choice, except that being a West Point man, he thinks he ought to stay with the army, and maybe he's right. But if he ever decides to resign his commission, get him back into the company quick.
"I've also given a good deal of consideration to Hewie Janders," and here the big, rugged, florid man who had starred as guard at Yale blushed, but Wild Whip continued, "and I fear that Hewie's attributes do not include intellectual force, which is what we need now.
"I've passed over, as you can see, all the older fellows, because we need somebody who's going to give our firms a long, continued and strong leadership. So I've chosen as my executor, and the man to vote my shares as long as he remains intellectually and morally capable, this fellow." And he reached out and took the hand of Hoxworth Hale, then twenty-nine years old and aching for authority. The other directors could not protest the decision, nor had they any cause to do so, for Hale was obviously the man to take over at this juncture.
"Three rules, Hoxworth, and the rest of you listen. Don't ever sell sugar short. I went into