The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1903-04-14
RETIREMENT
Of VETERAN
JOURNALIST
Henry N. Whitney
Has Taken Off
Harness.

l
ney has served the public in the honor
able career of journalsm-fifty-fo four
years of hard work, of untiring watch
fulness for the public interest-fifty-
four years of war upon the wrong and
war for the right. Truly that has been
honorable service, But now, in his old
age. his eyes are giving out and he has
been driven from his last hold, the
editorship Of the Planters Monthly. by
his physicians orders. He retires with
the esteem of all those living who have
ever known him, and with the knowl-
edge that his services have been, at all
times, a service for what his conscience
has told him to be right Surely that
is an honorable consciousness for any
man to have who has been SO long in
the service. Men do not live long in
journalism in these later times. The
life is more strenuous, now perhaps
perhaps the men who are living it are
not of the same stern fiber that the
fathers were.
ut Is long time, a long, long time"
Mr. Whitney said, yesterday, his mind
going back over the years that are
gone, the years so full of busy use.
fast. II was boy, little more than
that, in the printing house of Harper
& Bros, in New York, when my
thoughts turned toward this far off
island country. T was the foreman of
Harpers. 1 served them two years. and
served the Bible Society two years.
But was with the Harpers when the
| opportunity came to me to come to
| the Islands. 1t came through the late
| DIR. Judd. He made me an offer, on
behalf of the royal government and
| accepted it. I met DR.. Judd and the
| two Kamehameha Princes, Lot and LII
| holiho, in San Francisco. These two
| were kings, afterwards, you know, as
Kamehameha " and Kamehameha V.
I came from New York to meet them.
They came from the Islands to meet
me. That was in the days of the gold
excitement, in 1S49. 1t was no light job,
making a trip to California in those
times. I came by way of the Isthmus,
and had to wait long time to get
passage to Panama. 1t cost me $500
in gold that far, when I did get It,
'Then they did not have steamers
enough to take the people away from
the Isthmus, and so I had to wait
there three or four weeks to get
passage to San Francisco And that
cost me $500 more. 1t was different
then from what it is now, you see.
came from San Francisco in a brig
to Honolulu, making the run in four
teen days. quick passage. had only
one fellow passenger on that voyage,
Mr.. Gorham D. Gilman. He is still
living in Boston, where he has made
fortune. Everybody was good to me
tn. II al,,1Yt II n q
the government printing Office at once,
the royal family was most kind to me,
and for two or three years I was the
editor of the Polynesian newspaper l
had everything my own way.
Then | started the Pacific CONNER
cial Advertiser in 1856, and ran it for
fifteen years. l gave up the paper,
temporarily, in 1870, at which time
Black & Aud took hold and ran 1t for
some years. / took charge of the
paper again in 1875 and gave 1t up
finally in 1886. For some years before
that date, however, Henry Castle had
been the editor
For seventeen years / have been the
editor of the Planters Monthly That
publication was begun in 1882, and for
two years w. O. Smith was the editor |
Afterwards Lorrin a. Thurston was in |
charge for two years, and then l took
hold and have been in the harness ever
since. Fifty-four years! That proba-
bly, seems a long time, to you. l have
been compelled to let go. My eye-sight
is so bad that / can scarcely see. 1t
is impossible for me to write. oh, /
am willing to quit. l have been at
work long enough" but the old face
saddened as he said 1t. For where was
ever the man who was willing in his
heart to quit?
TT has been long day." Mr.. Whit
ney went on. "A long day. But the
work has been worth while. l have
seen many men come and go. / am
almost the last of the old-timers left,
now-what we call the 'kamaainas.'
"Oh, yes; knew Horace Greeley, in
the old days, in New York. He was the
editor of the Tribune, and WIS making
his name felt. He used to pass every
day under the window of the office
where / was at work. And I used to
meet him in the Tribune Office, too.
I remember his old long tailed white
coat Hopping about his heels as though
IL had been yesterday. But / was
not intimate with him. He was one
of the leaders, and 1 was only begin
ming, then.
Did you know that I brought the
first power press to these Islands. 1t
an Adams, and II was brought across
the Isthmus.
II was in New York two years ago."
Mr. Whitney concluded. II I is a diff
ferent place to what 1t was in my time.
The Tribune office is a different place +
from Greeley's Tribune office. They
do things in a bigger way, now. Times
change, and men,"