Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1908-05-15
OF WORLD WIDE INTEREST
"A TOURISTS PARADISE
BY FREDERIC J. HAsKlN

national life have their run in Honolulu
just as promptly as they do in Quincy,
ILL.,, or Bangor, Me.
It is interesting to know that wire-
less telegraphy was first used in prac-
teal commercial affairs in Hawaii. The
first commercial system installed by
Marconi was that connecting the
islands of the Hawaiian group, and this
preceded by some time the connection
of the islands with the rest of the
world by submarine cable. The ques-
ton of interisland communication had
always been a perplexing one. Homo
lulu was the capital, both politically
and financially, and the people were
put to great inconvenience by the ne
cessity of waiting upon communication
by slow and irregular steamers from
island to island. Experiments were
made toward an interisland cable, but
as the channels are so very deep the
shore ends were cut off on the sharp
coral reefs almost before the cable was
laid.
Once the people turned to carrier
pigeons as their saviors. Pigeons were
bought, cotes erected and arrange
ments made to forward messages and
letters from one island to another by
means of the homing birds. But the
pigeons failed to become a commercial
success. Then came Marconis discov-
cry of the wireless. Hawaii was first
to see the practicability of the ~discov-
cry. Marconi was induced to set up
stations on the various islands, but as
his system was then in an experimental
stage the service was inadequate and
not reliable. The territorial legislature
had faith enough to grant the Wire
less company a subsidy and it struggled
on with it's experiments. Financial
success finally crowned the efforts of
those interested although not until the
original company had failed. Now one
walks into a telegraph office in Homo
lulu and sends telegram to any point
in the islands in just as matter of-fact
fashion as he would send a wire from
lew York to any other city of the
Union.
In 1903 when the Pacific cable reached
Honolulu there was day of rejoicing.
The newspapers issued special cable
editions, and for the first time in its
history Honolulu knew what was going
on in the world on the same day that
it happened. But the same newspapers
which made so much of the cable news
had been using press specials by wire
less for many months. In fact, Homo
lulu had the first paper in the world to
employ the wireless telegraph as a news
gathering agency.
OF course the cable did much for
Hawaii. Until five years ago when a
steamer came into Honolulu from San
Francisco almost the entire town would
be down at the dock yelling to the pas
sengers on board ship: Whats the
news?" and the passengers would take
delight in surprising the islanders with
their six-day-old San Francisco infor
nation. Now there are few Hawaiians
to meet the boats, and the passengers
are anxiously inquiring: What has
happened in the world during the six
days we have been at .sea?'
The traveller who comes from the
Orient finds Honolulu the beginning of
the Occident. A party of fifty Japanese
merchants and bankers, who had never
been away from their home country be-
fore, recently started on trip around
the world. The first foreign soil they
touched was the American port of
Honolulu. The Alexander Young hotel
was an eye-opening crash which
showed them the difference between
the 'Occident and the Orient. This is
the largest building in Honolulu. 1t is
six stories high, and has large electric
elevators manned by thoroughly reck-
less young Americans