The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1903-04-17
COURTESY AND THE STRANGER.

AltnOugn IL Is III tht tNtt 49,
Hawaii is not alone in the western
United States in attempting to attract
the favorable notice of home seekers
The communities of the mainland west
work harmoniously and more as q
whole toward this end, however, recog-
nizing that with new men come new
methods-and that new methods are
sometimes better for land than the old.
For there are other merits besides age.
Also, the communities of the mainland
west have powerful aids to their up
building in the great transcontinentai
railways and the officers of them, each
recognizing that in bringing new peo-
pie to the country and inducing their
settlement he is building future trade
for his particular line, and so making
his place more secure by making MS
own services more valuable to the COM
pany he represents. One of these rail-
way officials, general passenger agent
of one of the northern railways speak
ing at a dinner in great Oregon city
not very long ago, used these words:
IF the present residents of Oregon
will look after the newcomer a bit ana
give some evidence of desire to nave
him remain, it will go long way to-
ward making the immigrant stay with
u.s. A pleasant word and friendly
greeting to the stranger is worth much
to him and costs the giver little. He
perhaps knows almost no one and Is
lonesome, and If allowed to drift along
without attention from his neighbors
he is very apt to become dissatisfied
and return. Encourage him, however,
until he has established himself and
made new friends and become one OF
us, and he will not be apt to regret the
move"
Now. what is good advice to Oregon
is good advice to people in these ISL
ands Nobody will dispute the open
hospitality of the people of Honolulu
and of the islands generally. The Ha-
waiians, and the white people who
have come after them, have always been
noted for their hospitality. No man
has ever needed to go without food and
a bed, anywhere on the islands, though
there are many places where there are
no hotels and where there never have
been hotels. But more is meant, IN
this, than hospitality to the stranger.
There is tendency on the part of the
people here, quickly perceived by the
stranger, to look upon the newcomer,
not as a man who has lost caste--for
the new conner has no caSte-but as
a man who must prove himself by the
single test of long residence before he
Is accepted at anything like full value.
We all honor the pioneers, of course.
The men who open a country are men
who have stern stuff in them. They
must have, or they would not adven-
ture into strange lands. But for that
very reason they and their descendants
should accord welcome, and some
thing of more honorable status than
is the rule to strangers that adventure
into the land now. For it is possible
that the stranger has ideas. That is
not a monopoly of the old timer, al
though he may have some monopolies.
Any land is the better for the infusion
OF new blood, and If we are to build
up a state here after the American
manner there must be many changes in
conditions that only the stranger in
the land can bring about-the stranger
with new ideas, and the courage to
put them into practice. Perhaps such
a stranger would stay and overcome
his handicap of newness, in time, If he
had the right stuff in him, but he would
be very much more apt to stay, and to
do his best If he were made to feel
that his new neighbors We're glad to
have him and did not sneer at him for
the fact that he had not cared to be
born in the land. No man, however
brave, is less courageous for a friendly
pat on the back-and every man is the
better for 1t in all those qualities in
him which make for good, Let us make
the stranger feel, not only that our
homes are open to him as guest, as
all island homes are to the stranger
who comes well recommended, but that
our land is open to him to make his
home in, that our hearts are open to
him as fellow man, that If he will be-
come one of us we will be glad to let
him, in fact as well as in name. All
honor TO the kamaaina, but honor in
good measure, too, to the man who
has not chosen to come until he can
come equipped with ideas that will
build up the common home of both.
While Shamrock III does not always