“I’ll do that for you, Dad,” Noelani said, adding her lipstick to the collection.
Hoxworth studied the victorious senator for a moment and asked wryly, “How is it none of you smart young fellows are Republicans?”
“You never invited us,” Shig replied with a nervous laugh.
In distinct tones that many could overhear, Hoxworth said, “Well, I want it on record this time, Senator Sakagawa. I’m inviting you to join the board of Whipple Oil. I would be proud to work with a man like you.”
The crowd gasped, and Shigeo replied, “On the morning after I introduce my land-reform bill, I’ll join you. That is, supposing you still want me.”
“You’d be foolish to accept before,” Hoxworth said, and with this the proud, lonely man, descendant of the missionaries and owner of the islands, excused himself from a celebration where he was not wholly at ease. When he was gone, Shig’s friends cried, “My God! He asked a Japanese to join his board,” but Noelani said, “That’s not important. Look! He gave Shig a maile lei. Coming from my father that’s better than a crown.”
I can speak with a certain authority about these matters, because I participated in them. I knew these Golden Men: the lyric beachboy Kelly Kanakoa; the crafty Chinese banker Hong Kong Kee; and the dedicated Japanese politician Shigeo Sakagawa. I was there when they became vital parts of the new Hawaii.
It was I who engineered the coalition that defeated Senator Sakagawa’s radical land reform. It was I who warned Noelani Janders against the needless folly of falling in love with a Japanese boy, and I told Shigeo Sakagawa frankly that he would damage his career if he allowed it; for in an age of Golden Men it is not required that their bloodstreams mingle, but only that their ideas clash on equal footing and remain free to cross-fertilize and bear new fruit.
So at the age of fifty-six I, Hoxworth Hale, have discovered that I, too, am one of those Golden Men who see both the West and the East, who cherish the glowing past and who apprehend the obscure future; and the things I have written of in this memoir are very close to my heart.
GENEALOGICAL CHARTS
BY JAMES A. MICHENER
Tales of the South Pacific
The Fires of Spring
Return to Paradise
The Voice of Asia
The Bridges at Toko-Ri
Sayonara
The Floating World
The Bridge at Andau
Hawaii
Report of the Country Chairman
Caravans
The Source
Iberia
Presidential Lottery
The Quality of Life
Kent State: What Happened and Why
The Drifters
A Michener Miscellany: 1950–1970
Centennial
Sports in America
Chesapeake
The Covenant
Space
Poland
Texas
Legacy
Alaska
Journey
Caribbean
The Eagle and the Raven
Pilgrimage
The Novel
James A. Michener’s Writer’s Handbook
Mexico
Creatures of the Kingdom
Recessional
Miracle in Seville
This Noble Land: My Vision for America
The World Is My Home
with A. Grove Day
Rascals in Paradise
with John Kings
Six Days in Havana
About the Author
JAMES A. MICHENER, one of the world’s most popular writers, was the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Tales of the South Pacific, the best-selling novels Hawaii, Texas, Chesapeake, The Covenant, and Alaska, and the memoir The World Is My Home. Michener served on the advisory council to NASA and the International Broadcast Board, which oversees the Voice of America. Among dozens of awards and honors, he received America’s highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 1977, and an award from the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities in 1983 for his commitment to art in America. Michener died in 1997 at the age of ninety.
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