The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-05-30
HAWAII NOT A
FREAK COUNTRY
But That is What Mainland
Commentators Try to
Make it.

On the mainland poor Hawaii is made
the butt of many jokes, which.s while
innocuous on the whole, display in a
majority of cases a profound paucity of
wit. A joke to contain pith must have
la close application to some reality. The
Mainland funny writers are woefully ig-
norant of Hawaiian customs and affairs,
a dull thud when it reaches these parts.
There is just as much crude material in
Hawaii for the manufacture of jokes as
anywhere else, but the fellows whose
business is to tickle the public'S risibili-
ties are not here to pick it up. The an
tique jests about cannibals, missionar-
les and the Hawaiian army are therefore
rearranged occasionally and served in
the funny columns of the press.
But the joker is not the one who makes
himself really ridiculous. 1t is the cru
qite editor of the influential daily or lit
erary magazine, who, in a patronizing
way, undertakes to direct the course OF
Hawaiian political and commercial af-
fairs. Probably he never saw this coun-
try or met its people but, like Kipling S
armchair warrior, believes his theory SUI
perior to the experience of those in the
field of action. Sometimes this distant
editor is a caustic critic, and then his
ignorance is sure to preponderate over
reason, theory and everything else. Re-
cent utterances of The Argonaut and
San Francisco News Letter wherein all
things that the editors did not know
about Territorial politics We're thorough.
ly aired, are excelent samples of this
class. Hawaii is not embraced IN the
Slope and nothing further than super
1cial comment of matters here is expect
ed OF the California press. After the ed
1torial writer comes the cheerful CORE
spondent, who stops over a steamer or
two in Honolulu and dashes off a couple
of columns about the whole Hawaiian
Islands. He works himself up to high
pitch of aesthetic emotion over native
symphonies, extols the graces of a Ka-
kaako hula and expatiates on the beauty
of the bronze skin of the hawaiian fair
ones. AS this writer Is generally ro-
mantle and would like to have been born
in the eighteenth century, he regrets
that schools, factories, the English Ian.
guage and other elements of civilization
have stepped in to mar this paradise
This same correspondent, during a week s
sojourn at a hotel, acquaints himself
with our political and social necessities
and suggests various reforms
All III all, the majority OF the commit
nifty are shown before the world as
lazy, pleasure-loving people, kept under
the heel of the minority, who are rep
resented as money-grabbing missionaries
There seems to be a disposition among
many writer's to make this a sort of
freak country, a wonderland, as it were,
where Americanism is in the baby stage
of its development while in truth the
Hawaiian Government has been con-
fronted with and had its wisdom exerc:s-
ed on as many judicial problems-civil,
national and international-as come be-
fore most executive bodies Its deci-
sions have been usually upheld by Wash
ington and by European capitals. Erro-
neous statements coming from whatever
source are annoying and injurious; put
perhaps as time wears on and cable
reaches out to these shores the world
VIII grow better acquainted with Hawaii
and the occupation of the romancer the
editorial instructor and the shallow les
ter will be gone.-Paradise of the Pa
cific.