The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1902-01-01
BY ii. p. CayIor.

- VOLUTION in the conduct of a
L. postal system inaugurated by an
Hawaiian monarch, fostered by the
President of the subsequent Republic
and but recently developed into an i'm
portant integral factor of the wonder
full, clock-like system of the United
States, has made of Honolulu the most
important postal base in the Pacific
Ocean. The change from the old to
the new system, the transfer from the
protection guaranteed under the Ha-
waiian flag to that of Old Glory, the
revolutioniZing of methods to accord
with those in vogue in every city, town,
village, hamlet and crossroads of the
Mainland, has been accomplished since
June H. 1900, when Hawaii passed
from the solitary state of an independ-
ent Republic to the fellowship of a
Territory of the United States.
The men who have wrought this evo-
luton are mainly those who We're in
the postal service of the Hawaiian Re
public, whose acquaintanceship with
the peculiar names of Hawaiian post
offices and the manner of reaching the
scores of little out-of-the-way places or
localities where a half dozen natives
lived, were invaluable to those repre-
sentatives of the Postoffice Department
at Washington, who We're sent out to
Hawaii to make the service American.
In one night the Hawaiian postoffice
department lost it's identity, and in it's
place was substituted the far reaching
system of Uncle Sam. From the dig
nifty of department which boosted of
a Postmaster General for the Hawaiian
Islands alone. the postal service under
went a remodelling and became a
classified pcstoffice of the United
States, one among thousands of 9TH
erS.
Although formerly considered a de-
partment complete in itself, capable of
meeting all the requirements of des-
patch and delivery of the mails which
drifted into the main office at Homo
lulu, yet when the American system
was substituted there were innumera-
BILE features found to be contrary to
the government and spirit of the Unit
ed States postal service, which had to
be replaced. Many of these changes
We're not considered conducive to the
development of despatch and delivery
of mail in the Islands, and protests
We're frequent. But. as in all sudden
and sweeping changes the supposed
fuultiness of the system has proven
beneficial, and today there is no State
or Territory in the Union which has
a more perfect system of postal ad-
miniStration.
Concessions of an important charac-
ter have been granted by the authori-
ties at Washington to the Hawaiian
poStofIices. which are seldom given to
offices in any other part of the United
States. The peculiar insular position
of the Hawaiian Islands, the lack of
cable facilities. irregularity of the des-
patch and delivery of mails between
the Coast and Honolulu, have called
for special privileges, indicating that
the postal department has found time
to consider the needs of the Islands
and favored them to a large extent.
The postal officials sent here from
the United States to supervise the
changes. have been men equal to the
task, but even their efforts would have
been beset with the most trying diff
cultieS had it not been for the person