The Washington herald., 1914-05-17
ICoTright, md
HAWAII is a queer place. Every
H thing socially is what l may call

topsy-turvy. Not but that tning:
are correct They are almost too much
so. But still things are sort of upside
down. The most ultraexclusive Sc
there is the Missionary Crowd" II
comes with rather shock 10 learn that
in Hawaii the obscure, martyrdom-s seek
ing missionary sits at the head of the
table of the moneyed aristocracy. But
II is true. The humble New Enelander:
who came out in the third decade of the
nineteenth century, came for the lofty
purpose of teaching the Kanakas the
true religion, the worship of the only
one genuine and undeniable God. Sc
well did they succeed in this, and also
in civilizing the Kanaka, that by the sec
ond or third generation he was prac-
tically extinct This being the fruit of
the seed of the Gospel, the fruit of the
seed of the missionaries (the sons of
the grandsons) was the possession of
the islands themselves, of the land, the
ports, the town sites, and the sugar plan
tations. The missionary who came to
give the Bread of Life remained to COB
bic up the whole heather feast.
But that is not the Hawaiian queer
ness | started out to tell Only one can
not speak of things Hawaiian without
mentioning the missionaries. There is
Jack Kersdale, the man | wanted to tell
about: he came of missionary stock.
That is. on his grandfather's side. His
grandfather was old Isaac Kersda1e, a
Yankee trader, who got his start for a
million in the old days by selling cheap
whisky and square-face gin. There's
another queer thing. The old mission
aries and old traders were mortal enc
mics. You see, their interests conf1icted.
But their children made it up by inter
marrying and dividing the islands be-
tween them.
Life in Hawaii is song That's the
way Stoddard puts it in his Hawaii
Mel"
Thy life is muSo-FSts the notes prolons!
Each isle a stanza. and the whole a song.
And he was right Flesh is golden
there. The native women are sun-ripe
Junos. the native men bronzed Apollos.
They sing, and dance and all are flower
bejeweled and flower crowned. And,
outside the rigid Missionary Crowd"
the white men yield to the climate and
the sun, and no matter how busy they
may be. are prone to dance and sing and
wear flowers behind their ears and in
their hair. Jack Kersdale was one of
these fellows. He was one of the bust
est men | ever met He was several
times millionaire He was sugar king,
a coffee planter, rubber pioneer, cat
tie rancher, and promoter of three out
of every four new enterprises launched
in the islands He was a society man,
a clubman, yachtsman, bachelor, and
withal as handsome man as was ever
dotted upon by mamnlas with marriage
able daughters. Incidentally, he had
finished his education at Yale, and his
head was crammed fuller with vital sta
tistics and scholarly information con-
corning Hawaii Mel than any other
islander / ever encountered He turned
off an immense amount of work, and he
sang and danced and put flowers in his
hair as immensely as any of the idlers.
He had grit, and had fought two duels
both political-when he was no more
than a raw youth esssying his first ad-
ventures in politics, In fact, he played
a most creditable and courageous part
in the last revolution, when the native
dynasty was overthrown; and he could
not have been over sixteen at the time.
am pointing out that he was no cow
ard in order that you may appreciate
what happens later on. I've seen him
IN the breaking yard at the Haieakala
ranch, conquering four-year-old brute
that for two years had deied the pick
of Won Tempsky's cowboys. And l
must tell of one other thing. 1t was
down in Kona-or up, rather, for the
Kona people scorn to live at less than a
thousand feet elevation. We were on
the lanai of DR.. Goodnueis bungalow /
was talking with Dottie Fairchild when
lA,6a4G