The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1908-12-29


, day met with, by simply closing up his
| beautiful mansion on Punahou street
and refusing to either sell or lease it.
The house has been opened since that
time, however, once on the occasion of
visit here of his son, John d.
! Spreckels, and later, few years ago,
when the Sugar King and his wife
returned to pay a. visit to Honolulu
The mansion, erected on tract of
Punahou property purchased from
Oahu College, was for many years the
! finest private residence in the city, be-
| ing only second to that of the King 8
| palace. For years, until the hundreds
of palms and~other trees set out by
| the owner grew so as to practically
| hide the residence, the white three
story house of the Sugar King was
| one of the things pointed out to tour
! lists as a Honolulu landmark. During
| the period of excitement referred to
above, in 1898, a placard was discov-
| cred hanging on one of the now pad
locked gates of the property, the warn
ing consisting of a skull and cross
| bones, across which, written in red
ink, were the words: "Gold and sill
yer can not stop lead.' This, added
| to the chagrin of being thwarted po-
litically, resulted in the departure on
| the next. Oceanic liner to leave for
| San Francisco of the whole Spreckels
family.
Last Visit to Honolulu.
Twice since then has Mr.. Spreckels
visited this city, both visits being
paid in 1905. These visits were paid
partly in connection with the renewals
of the contracts the sugar planters of
Hawaii had entered into for the sale
of their entire product to the Spreck-
els refinery. In the winter of 1904 an
attempt was made to secure better
terms, the former agreements having
been based on New York prices less
3-S of cent pound. No terms
could be arranged to satisfy both par
ties, however, and the result was the
establishing by the Hawaiian planters
of their own refinery at Crockett.
spreckels' sugar War.
In the meanwhile, during the time
that Mr.. Spreckels dominated the
sugar circles of the Hawaiian Islands
and was the center about which ragged
much of the political agitations of the
reigns of Kalakaua and Liliuokalani,
his interests on the mainland had grown
immensely.
Soon after the organization of the
Sugar Trust, its promoters looked over
the Rocky Mountains into the rich pre-
serves on the Pacific Coast and thought,
they would like to annex them. They
invited Spreckels to sell out. He de.
clined. Then the trust subsidized the
American Sugar Refinery of San Fran
cisco to drive him out of business. The
| American Refinery could sell at a loss
and have it's deficits made up by the
Eastern profits of the trust. Spreckels,
having no such resource, would have
| to go under. 1t was the usual trust
program, and was supposed to be in
fallible. But Spreckels was not the
usually helpless opponent. Perhaps he
| had read the story of Agathocles, the
tyrant of Syracuse, who, when he was
besieged by the Carthaginians in his
capital, sailed away by night and car
ried havoc to the gates of Cathage.
Perhaps, not being a classical scholar,
he just acted according to the light of
nature. AT any rate, instead of lying
down and asking the trust to dictate
| its terms, he jumped across the contl-
nent to Philadelphia with fve million
dollars in his pocket and there built
the largest refinery in the world. He
was now in position to fix prices in
the trusts own market. He could sell
his sugar produce by the most improved
methods at better profit than the trust
could at the points upon which it de-
! pended for its chief returns, and the
profits so obtained would allow him to
mark time in California while his COM
petitors were going ahead there at a
loss. The trust studied the proposition
for time and then capitulated. 1t
bought out the Philadelphia refinery
and left Spreckels in control of the
business of the Pacific Coast.
Beet Sugar Interests.
And now the time had come for the
new advance of which he had dreamed
when he put on the overalls of work
man at Magdeburg in 1857. The condi-
tions in California had become such
that the beetsugar industry might be
established there with success. Expert.
ments in a small way with imperfect
machinery had proved that the scheme
was practicable. Mr.. Spreckels built at
Watsonville the largest beet-sugar fac
tory in the United States. 1t was open.
ed in 1888, and paid dividend the
first year. By 1897, its aggregate
dividends had amounted to one hundred
and seventeen dollars per one hundred
dollar share. In that year. Mr.. Spreck-
els bought out the minority stockhold-
ers, paying them three hundred dollars
per share for stock that had cost one
hundred dollars.
This was only the beginning. In
1896, another visit to Europe in search
of the very latest German methods was
followed by the construction at Salinas
j - -