The Hawaiian gazette., 1913-12-16
WA|LOA RIVER
RAN WITH BEER
Studs From Two Thousand Bottles
Raced Into Hilo Bay and
Hinged the Breakers.

mail Special to The Advertiser)
HlLO, December l4.-lpst week
Ralph Balding took n step which mas
landed him forever in the class OF
carrie Nation and other great militant
| temperance workers. His name will 20
down in llilo's history as the man who
made the bed of the Wailoa river run
with beer instead Of water so that
WOODY fishes timed themselves drunk
emily upon the sandy beaches and bibu,
Ions crabs staggered and slid about the
rocky shores.
The story began in December of
1911, when shipment of twenty bar
rels of bottled beer arrived in one of
the Matson Company steamers. 1t
was consigned to r. A. Lucas, but
while the beer was perfectly good beer,
as beer goes, Lucas would not accept
it, claiming that the shipment had been
made to him by mistake.
TO send twenty barrels of beer to
me, me Why, the very idea, ;" said
Lucas.
SO the beer remained in the ware
house. and the thought that twenty
barrels of perfectly good beer could
thus lie idly, unclaimed and undrunS
may carry a note of sadness to many
thirsty throat which may have
parched many time for Just such beer.
But the beer remained, and from
being perfectly good beer, it gradually
deteriorated with age until it became
less good beer, and finally it became
very bad beer, entirely unfit for con
sumption, James Ieanan says that
over year ago the beer went to the
bad, ard his word stands undisputed
In the mean time Agent Baldng was
getting very tired of having the beer
around. 1t took up room and il wor.
ried his principles, anyway, so he east
about for a way to get rid of it. At
this time the concern which had sent
the beer to llilo mad gone out of bust
ness or had heen swallowed up by some
larger concern At least, it lost all
interest in the beer, would not pay the
freight for its return to the Coast,
would, as matter of fact, have moth
ing more to do with it. Lucas remain
ed obdurate. There was no hope there,
and the stuff was going from bad to
worse.
In the meantime it was up to Balding
to see to it that enough money was
gotten out of the shipment, anyway, to
pay the amount of freight to be col
lected on it for its passage from San
Francisco to Hilo couple OF years ago.
The beer had long ago gone to the
bad altogether, and Balding finally de
cided to offer the angry water gods
of Waiakca libation of such gigantic
proportions that his name would go
down into history along with those of
Bacchus, Hercules, Gargantua and other
heroes of myth and story.
So Balding gave the order whereby
the contents of. the twenty barrels con
tanning three hundred and sixty quart
bottles and eighteen hundred pint bot,
ties, making a total of twenty.one hun
dred and sixty bottles of beer, were
emptied into the Wailoa river where it
flows gently past the Matson warehouse
to the sea.
Balding was actuated, it must he ad-
mitted, not only by his noble motive
of Kidding mankind of the potential
sin and misery represented by POO
bottles of beer, fol he had also a more
practical purpose, namely that of get
ting the bottles and barrels empty in
order that he might sell them and ap-
ply the proceeds towards paying the
freight bill which was due on the ship
ment.
1t has not been decided as yet Just
what grateful community will do to
commemorate the deed of Balding, but
il remains very clear that something
ought to be done.