Michener, James

by Hawaii

  Several times Carter interrupted. "I thought it was the Chinese who owned the land," he suggested.

  "They buy it only for the sly Japanese," the driver assured him.

  "It looked to me as if Bkck Jim McLafferty was the head of the Democratic Party here, but you say the Japanese . . ."

  "They're using him for a front man . . . just for a while . . . then they take over."

  "But why doesn't a man like Hoxworth Hale . . . Now surely, he must know everything you've told me. Why hasn't he told me these things?"

  "He's scared to," the driver whispered ominously. "Everybody's scared of what's happening, and that's why we have to depend on good men like you to save us."

  "Do all Hawaiians feel this way?" Carter asked.

  "Every one," Tom Kahuikahela replied. "We dread statehood."

  But Congressman Carter had not stayed on top of Texas politics for twenty-four years by being a fool, and he knew that you often found out what a man was really talking about only when he was done with his main pitch and had relaxed. Then you could sometimes slip in a fast question and dislodge the truth, so that it came tumbling out, and now Carter probed: "Just what kind of government would you like to see in the islands, Tom?"

  "Well I'll tell you, sir!" the big man replied, adding a dimension beyond what his employers, Janders and Hale, had paid for. "What I'm working for is the return of the monarchy."

  "What did you have in mind?" Carter asked in a confidential manner.

  "Well, I'd like to see a king back on the throne, with a Hawaiian senate and the old nobles sort of running things. The big laws could be made in Washington, because we don't really need a legislature with a lot of lawyers arguing all the time. And the king would give big parties and the palace would be restored."

  "Where would the United States come in?" Carter asked, and to his surprise Tom had a good answer.

  "Well, like I said, we'd want you to pass the big laws, and coin

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  our money for us, and you'd control all of our foreign policy. Our secretary of state would be appointed by your President, with approval of your Senate."

  "You say my President. Isn't he yours, too?"

  "To tell the truth, sir, he isn't. My family boycotted the annexation. We keep a Hawaiian flag at home. We pray for the day when the alii come back."

  "Were your family alii?" Carter asked.

  "Yes, sir," Tom replied.

  And Carter muttered, "I think I'm beginning to understand Hawaii."

  The average people of the islands had a pretty shrewd idea of what occurred when congressmen were driven around Oahu, and they called this gambit "government by taxi driver," but they respected the device as the most effective lobby in Hawaii, But on this day a Democratic spy at a filling station phoned Bkck Jim McLafferty and reported: "They've got Congressman Carter going around the island today. Giving him the taxi-driver needle."

  McLafferty slammed down the phone and stared at his partner. "Shig," he confided, "they're giving our boy the old 'government by taxi driver' routine. And that can hurt."

  "What can we do?" Shig asked.

  The two tacticians studied the problem for a long time, and finally the Irishman snapped: "Shig, one way or another I'm going to get hold of our congressman. I'm going to bring him down here, and you're going to take him home with you. Show him an average Japanese family. But, Shig, you run over there right now and see that your dad's service flag is hanging on the wall in the front room. The one with two gold stars. And you get your mother's box, the one with the glass cover and all the medals, and you see that every goddamned medal is polished and lying flat so our boy can read them. Now get going, and be back here, waiting, in half an hour. Because I'm coming back with Congressman Carter, dead or alive."

  It was in this way that Congressman Clyde V. Carter, of Texas, became one of the few Democrats ever to meet a Democratic family during a visit to Hawaii. Black Jiin spotted the tour car returning to Honolulu along Nimitz Highway, and he elbowed it over to the shoulder, expkining, "Congressman, I've just got a damned interesting cable from Democratic Headquarters in Washington. I thought you ought to advise me as to how I should answer it." McLafferty had peeled off the date line, trusting that Carter would fail to notice this, and his luck held, so while Carter was reading the complex message, Black Jim politely eased him out of the taxi and into the old Pontiac. "We'd better answer it at the office," he faid.

  When Carter entered the door of McLafferty and Sakagawa, there stood Shigeo waiting, and the young man said bluntly, "While Mr. McLafferty's answering the cable, I thought you might like to see a Japanese home. Just an average pkce." And although this was the

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  kst wish in Carter's mind, he could find no graceful escape, and a few minutes later he was being hauled into the Sakagawa cottage. "This whole thing's a transparent trick," he decided.

  At the front door he met old and bent Mrs. Sakagawa, who knew little English and who wore funny Japanese sandals with things between the toes. Shig did the interpreting and said, "Mom, this is a famous United States congressman." Mrs. Sakagawa sucked in her breath audibly, and bowed. "And this," Shig said proudly, "is my bow-legged, tough-minded little father, Kamejiro Sakagawa." The old man sucked in his breath and bowed.

  "Is he an American citizen?" Carter asked.

  "Not allowed become citizen," Kamejiro said belligerently.

  "That's right," Shigeo explained. "I am, because I was bom here. But people like my father and mother, they were born in Japan."

  "And they can't become citizens?" Carter asked in surprise. "Mexicans can."

  Little Kamejiro stuck out his jaw and wagged his finger at the congressman: "Mexicans okay. Colored people okay. Anybody okay but not Japanese. How do you like dat?

  Congressman Carter, looking away from the argumentative little man, saw the service flag, with two blue stars and two gold. As a professional politician he automatically grew reverent and asked quietly, "Were you in service, Mr. �" He couldn't recall the name.

  "I and my three brothers," Shig said.

  "And two gave their lives for America?" Carter asked.

  In Japanese Shigeo asked, "Mom, where's that picture of the four of us in football uniforms?" His mother, who prized this picture above all others, found it and jabbed it into Carter's hands.

  "This one is Tadao," Shigeo said of the fleet young halfback. "He died in! Italy. This one is Minoru," he added. "He died in France. This is my brother Goro, a labor-union man . . ." And the spell was broken. That was all Congressman Carter required to hear, and he drew away from the picture of four average American boys. He had voted against the Norris-La Ouardia Act and all of its successors, and he felt that to be a labor-union man was worse, in many respects, than being a Russian communist, because the Russians, God forgive them, didn't know any better, whereas a decent, Godfearing American who . . . The speech was running in his mind, and Shigeo knew it. The two men drew apart.

  And then, by one of those lucky flukes that save some meetings and wreck others, Mrs. Sakagawa thrust into the congressman's hand her glass box of medals, and in Japanese said, "These are Minoru's. These are Tadao's. These are Goro's. And these five are Shigeo's." As she said the latter, she patted her son on his arm, and communion was re-established.

  Carter studied the medals and said, 'Tour family accomplished a great deal."

  "Congressman," Shig began quietly, "each of us boys had to fight his way to get into uniform. We had to be better soldiers

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  than anyone else in the world." He felt words coming into his mouth that he would be ashamed of later, but he could no longer hold them back. "We performed as perhaps no other family of boys did in the last war. We accumulated wounds and glory, and by God, sir, when you refused to shake my hand the other day I almost wept. Because whether you know it or not, Congressman, I'm one of your constituents, and by God I will never again accept such treatment from you."r />
  "Constituent?" Carter gasped.

  "Yes, sir. Congressman, have you heard of the Lost Battalion?"

  Carter had not only heard of it, he had orated about it; and in relief the words came back to him: "It was one of the high water marks of Texas bravery, sir."

  "How many of your men died there, Congressman?" Shigeo pressed.

  "Too many," Carter replied sorrowfully. "The scars upon Texas are great."

  "Do you know why any escaped?" There was a pause, and Shig asked harshly, "Well, do you?"

  "I supposed that the gallant fighters of Texas . . ."

  "Horse manurel" Shig snapped. "Your men of Texas live today, sir, because my dead brother Minoru, one of the finest men who ever touched earth, and Goro and I led a gang of Japanese boys to their rescue. We lost eight hundred men, rescuing three hundred TexansI" He cried bitterly, "I want you to read this." And from his wallet he produced a treasured card, and Carter took it and read it, and he saw that it had been signed by a friend of his, a governor of Texas, and it stated that in gratitude for heroism beyond the call of duty, Shigeo Sakagawa was forever an honorary citizen, of the State of Texas. Said the card: "On our day of desperate need, you succored us."

  Gravely Carter handed back the card, but as he did so, he kept his hand extended, saying, "In all humility, Mr. Sakanawa, I should like to shake your hand."

  "I should like to shake yours," Shig said, and the moment could have been extremely fruitful for Hawaii statehood, except that Mr. Ishii chose this instant to break into his father-in-law's house with momentous news.

  The skinny little man with eyes like bowls of frightened tapioca saw the tall stranger, hesitated and started to back out, but his wife Reiko-chan blocked the doorway, and Carter, always careful to catch the eye of a pretty girl, bowed in a courtly manner and said, "Have you come with your father?"

  "He is my husband," Reiko-chan said in perfect English.

  "This is a congressman, from Texas!" Shig announced proudly, and at this news Reiko-chan, who knew what her husband was up to, tried to edge him out of the house, but he had heard the word congressman, and now asked with compassion, "You come to arrange the surrender?"

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  "What surrender?" Carter asked.

  In desperate embarrassment, Reiko-chan tugged at Mr. Ishii's sleeve, but she could not silence him. "The surrender of Hawaii to Japan," Mr. Ishii explained.

  "How's that?" Carter asked.

  "See what the paper says!" Mr. Ishii cried joyously, flashing the Honolulu Mail, which headlined: "Japanese Fleet to Make Courtesy Visit to Islands." When the paper had passed from hand to hand the excited little man cackled, "Long time, sir, I tell them, 'Japan won the war.' But nobody listen, so I ask you. 'If Japan lose, how their fleet come to Hawaii?'"

  "Is he saying what I think he's saying?" Carter asked.

  "He is a poor old man," Reiko-chan said softly. "Don't listen to him, Congressman."

  But now Mr. Ishii produced a worn photograph of the Japanese surrendering on board the Missouri. "You can see who won," he explained. "The Americans had to go to Tokyo. And see how all the American admirals are without neckties, while the Japanese have their swords. Of course Japan won."

  "And what will happen when your fleet gets here?" Carter asked.

  "Japanese very honorable men, sir. You see tonight when they come ashore. They behave good." He went to the door, threw it open and pointed down to the blue waters of the Pacific, where a squadron of five warships steamed under the bold red flag of the new Japan. Mr. Ishii's heart expanded, and he forgave his wife for her years of arguing against him. From his coat he whipped out a Japanese flag, long hidden, and waved encouragement to the conquerors as they came to take control of Pearl Harbor.

  "I guess we'd better be going," Carter said. "I have to catch the plane." But as he was not fooled by crazy old Mr. Ishii; he knew that in the Sakanawas, as he called them, he had seen a tremendous American family, and he was impressed, so that when he got Mc-Lafferty's message that the Hales would pick him up at the corner of Fort and Hotel on the way to the airport, he said, "I'd just like to stand outside and watch the people for a few minutes."

  And as he stood there in the late afternoon, in the heart of Honolulu, watching the varied people of the island go past, he had a faint glimmer of the ultimate brotherhood in which the world must one day live: Koreans went by in amity with Japanese whom in. their homeland they hated, while Japanese accepted Chinese, and Filipinos accepted both, a thing unheard of in the Philippines. A Negro passed by, and many handsome Hawaiians whose blood was mixed with that of China or Portugal or Puerto Rico. It was a strange, new breed of men Congressmen Carter saw, and grudgingly an idea came to him: "Maybe they've got something. Maybe I wasted my time here in Hawaii, living in the big houses of the white people. Maybe this is the pattern of the future. That Japa-

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  nese boy today, he's as good . . . Look at that couple. I wonder who they are. I wonder if they would mind . . ." But before he could speak to them, a long black car driven not by a chauffeur but Hewlett Janders drove up, and Hoxworth Hale jumped out to whisk the congressman back into reality. Icy John Whipple Hoxworth shared the front seat, and as the car slowly crept away from the turmoil of Hotel Street, the three senior citizens of Hawaii provided their guest with the second climax of any official visit to the islands.

  Coldly, and with no inflection in his voice, Hoxworth Hale laid it on the line. He spoke rapidly and looked the congressman right in the eye. "Carter," he said, "you've seen the islands, and you've heard each man in this car make public speeches in favor of statehood. Now we've got to get down to cases. If you're insane enough to give us statehood, you'll wreck Hawaii and do irreparable damage to the United States. Save us from ourselves, sir."

  Carter gasped. "Is that your honest opinion, Hale?"

  "It's the opinion of almost every person you met in Hawaii."

  "But why don't you . . ."

  "We're afraid to. Reprisals ... I don't know."

  "Give me the facts straight," Carter said. "What's wrong with statehood?"

  "This is in confidence?" Hale asked.

  "You understand," Janders threw back over his shoulder, "that if you were to betray us, we'd suffer."

  "I understand," Carter said. "That's often the case in governing a democracy."

  "Here are the facts," Hale said simply. "The white man in Hawaii is being submerged. He has some financial power left, a good deal, I suppose. He has the courts to defend him, and an appointed governor upon whom he can rely. Sir, if you change any one of those factors, Hawaii will become a toy in the hands of Japanese. They'll control the courts and start bringing in decisions against us. They'll upset our system of land holding. They'll elect their own governor and send Japanese to Congress. Do you want to serve with a Jap?"

  There was a long silence in the car, and more in the way of eliciting further information than in disclosing his own conclusions Carter replied, "This afternoon I met a Japanese, a young man! named Shig Sakanawa, and for a while I thought that maybe . . ."

  Janders spoke. "Did he tell you that his brother, Goro, was the leading communist in Hawaii? A proved, cird-carrying, subversive, filthy communist. That's the brother of the man who's running for senator from this district. That's a picture of Hawaii under Japanese rule."

  "I must admit," Carter said, "that nobody told me about this brother."

  "The leader of the communist movement in Hawaii," Janders reiterated.

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  Carter was somewhat shalcen to think how nearly he had been taken in by the plausible young Japanese lawyer, so he decided to check additional items of information. "By the way," he asked casually, "what's the sentiment out here for a return of monarchy?"

  Up front Hewie Janders and John Whipple Hoxworth stared at each other in amazement and muttered, "Monarchy?" while in the back Hoxworth Hale gasped. Then he said forcefully, "C
ongressman . . ." but Hewie was now recovered and blurted out, "Jesus Christ, nobody in his right mind pays any attention to those monarchy crackpots."

  "What were you about to say, Hale?" Carter pressed.

  "As you may know, I'm descended from the royal alii of Hawaii, and my great-great-great-grandmother was one of the noblest women I've ever heard of. Her daughter was quite a girl, too. Magnificent. But if one of those pathetic, incompetent alii ever tried to get back on the throne of Hawaii, I personally would take down my musket and shoot him through the head."

  "I'd do it first," Hewie Janders interrupted. "You know, sir, that Hale's great-grandfather brought Hawaii into the Union?"

  "He did?" Carter asked.

  "Yes," Hale said simply. "Practically by force of his own character. But I'd like to add this, sir. I'm also descended from the missionaries. And if one of them tried to come back and govern in. the harsh, bigoted old way, I'd shoot him through the head, too."

  "Let me get it straight then, what is it you want?"

  "We don't want royalty, we don't want missionaries, and we don't want Japanese," Hale summarized. "We want things to go along just as they are."

  It was a very somber carload of men that finally pulled up at the airport, and Black Jim McLafferty, as he watched them disembark, thought: "I'll bet they've been pumping that one with a load of poison." He started to join the congressman, but when Carter saw him coming, he retreated to the safety of Hewlett Janders, for he did not want to be photographed with a man, even though he was leader of the Democratic Party, who had as his partner a Japanese whose brother headed the Communist Party in the islands. "In fact," he mused as he checked his tickets, "Hawaii's a lot like most parts of the north. You can travel from state to state and never find a Democrat you really like. They're all either tarred with labor or communism or atheism or Catholicism. I'll be glad to get back to Texas."

  And as he climbed aboard the Stratoclipper and sank into his comfortable seat he thought: "Basically, it's the same everywhere. A handful of substantial honest men govern and try to hold back the mobs. If you can get along with those men, you can usually find out what the facts of the case are." He stared out the window glumly as Japanese airport mechanics wheeled away the steps while other Japanese waved wands directing the big airplane on its way. He closed his eyes and thought: "Well, I found out what I wanted. These