Hawaii (122 page)

mystery."

"Are you fooling with me?" Hoxworth asked ominously. "Who would dare?" Schilling replied.

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"What do you want us to do?" Hoxworth asked quietly.

"I want to sprinkle iron, in a different kind of solution, over these plants."

"No! It's totally preposterous. You get back out there and find out what's really wrong."

"It's iron," Schilling said stubbornly.

"How can you be sure?"

"I can taste it."

"Have you run any tests on it?"

"No. I don't have to."

"Well, run some tests. No! Don't! You'd just distill yourself some more alcohol. What kind of iron do you want?"

"Iron sulfate." ^

As a result of this decision, in late 1911 Kamejiro Sakagawa marched through 'the experimental fields of the Hanakai Pineapple Plantation lugging a bucket of spray, which he directed onto the yellow leaves of the perishing plants, and as he passed, the solution of sulfate of iron ran down the narrow leaves and penetrated to the red soil about the roots. As if by magic the sickly plants began to revive, and within four days the yellow leaves were returning to their natural color. The Cayennes were saved, and when it was proved, as Dr. Schilling suspected, that they had been standing in iron yet starving for iron, Wild Whip joyously gathered up an armful' of ripe fruit and tossed it onto the mansion floor.

"Brew yourself some alcohol and stay drunk as long as you like," he commanded.

Sometimes Kamejiro, running to work and running back to tend his hot bath, would not see the tall Englishman for weeks at a time, and then as he cut the lawn he would find Schilling in a basket chair by the side of the cliff, staring down at the play of surf as it struck the opposite rocks.

Schilling was a surprising man, a drunken, besotted individual who could think. One day when, he was driving into Kapaa with Whip in one of the first cars on Kauai, he spotted a junk yard and said, "You ought to buy that, Brother Hoxworth." "That junk? Why?"

"You're paying a lot of money for iron sulfate, and that's what it is. Rusty junk to which sulphuric acid has been applied."

So Whip bought the junk yard and launched an iron sulfate factory, and in later years, when automobiles had become numerous, he bought all the old wrecks on Kauai for four dollars each, piled them up, drenched them with gasoline and burned away the rubber and the horse hair. When what was left had rusted he treated the junk with sulphuric acid and remarked, "Everyone who eats pineapple is eating the handiwork of Henry Ford, God bless him."

But in the growing of pineapple, which brought hundreds of millions of dollars into the territory, when one problem was licked, the next arose, for apparently the Cayenne did not enjoy growing in Hawaii and fell prey to one disaster after another. When the iron

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problem was solved, the mealy-bug arose, and once more the industry seemed doomed.

The ugly, louselilce little bugs were moved from place to place by ants, who tended them like milch cows, living off their sweet, nutritious exudations. Particularly, the mealy-bugs loved pineapple, whose growth they destroyed, and it seemed an act of conscious malevolence when millions of ants hiked several miles to deposit their cows upon the precious pineapples. Dr. Schilling studied the problem for several months, while field after field of Wild Whip's choicest Cayennes wilted and died from the infestation. Then he hit upon a dual solution which halted the mealy-bugs: around each field he planted decoy rows of pineapple, and these intercepted the mealy-bugs and kept them from invading the productive areas; and around the entire field he laid long boards soaked repeatedly in creosote, and these fended off the ants and their ugly cows. After this victory over the little lice he subsided into a year-long lethargy of drunkenness, awaiting the next disaster.

It came when Whip's canning manager reported: "Because the Cayennes are so big we can't fit them into the cans, and waste forty per cent of the fruit trimming them down to can size."

"What in hell do you want me to do?" Whip snarled, wearied by the constant battle to keep his fields productive.

"What we've got to have is smaller Cayennes," the manager

explained.

So Wild Whip stormed back to Hanakai, shook his English expert into reasonable sobriety, and said, "Dr. Schilling, you've got to make the pineapples smaller."

Through a golden haze that had been accumulating for thirteen months the scraggly Englishman said, "The mind of man can accomplish anything. Draw me the pineapple you want."

Whip went back to the canning manager, and together they drew on paper the specifications of the perfect pineapple. It had to be sufficiently barrel-shaped to leave a good rim of fruit when the core was cut out. It had to be juicy, acid, sweet, small, without barbs on the leaves, solid and golden in color. With a ruler and French curves the two men constructed the desired fruit, and when Whip thrust the paper at Schilling he said, "That's what we want."

Schilling, glad to have an alternative to drunkenness, replied, "That's what you'll get." He inspected every pineapple field on Kauai, comparing the available fruit against the ideal image, and whenever he found something close to the printed specifications, he marked that plant with a flag, and after four years of this infinitely patient work he announced, "We have built the perfect pineapple." When he delivered the first truckload to the cannery, the manager was ecstatic. "Our problems are over," he said.

"Until the next one," Schilling replied.

In 1911 a woman writer from New York, who had once stayed in Honolulu four weeks, wrote a rather scurrilous book about Hawaii in

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which she kmented three things: the influence of the missionaries who had maliciously killed off the Hawaiians by dressing them in Mother Hubbards; the criminality of companies like Janders & Whipple who had imported Orientals; and the avarice of missionary descendants like those in Hoxworth & Hale who had stolen the lush lands of Hawaii. After her book had created something of a sensation throughout America she returned to the islands and in triumph came to Kauai, where at a splendid polo tournament she was presented to Wild Whip Hoxworth. His team had just defeated Honolulu, and he was flushed with victory and should have been in a gracious mood, but as he was introduced to the lady author he thought he understood who she was and asked coldly, "Are you the good lady who wrote Hawaii's Shame?"

"Yes," she replied proudly, "I am," for she was accustomed to being fawned over. "What do you think of it?"

"Ma'am," Whip said, carefully placing his polo mallet on a rack lest he be tempted to use it in an unorthodox manner, "I thought your book was complete bullshit."

The polo players and their kdies recoiled from Whip's savage comment, and some began to offer the startled lady their apologies, but Whip interrupted. "No, there will be no apologies. Stand where you are, ma'am, and look in every direction. Whatever you see was brought into these islands by men like me. The sugar upon which our economy rests? My Grandfather Whipple, a missionary, brought that in. The pineapples? I'm the grandson of missionaries and I brought them in. The pine trees, the royal palms, the tulip trees, the avocados, the wild plum, the crotons, the house and the horses. We brought them all dn. The Hoxworth mango, best fruit in the world, is named after me. And as for the Orientals. Heh, Kamejiro, you come, eh? This bandy-legged little man has done more work in Hawaii . . . he's built more and he will continue to build more than a dozen of the people you were wailing about. I brought him in here and I'm proud of it. I'm only sorry he doesn't intend to stay. Now, ma'am, if you have any more questions about Hawaii, I'd be gkd to answer 'em. Because I hope you'll go home and write another book, and this time not be such a horse's ass."

He bowed and left her gagging. In Honolulu, of course, his polo-field speech, as it was termed, was a momentary sensation, since, as one of the Hale women expkined, "If one were picking a man to defend the missionaries, he would hardly pick Wild Whip."

He and his drunken English friend lived on at Hanakai, with fairly frequent visits to the brothels at Kapaa. At the cliffside mansion he entertained a good deal, and in his leisurely talks over brandy he began to expound the first coherent theory of Hawaii: "What I visualize is an isknd community that treasures above all else its agricultural lands. On them it grows bulk crops of sugar and pineapples and ships them to the mainknd in H & H ships. With the money we get we buy the manufactured goods our people need, things like iceboxes, automobiles, finished lumber, hardware and

food. Thus the ships go one way loaded and come back loaded. That's the destiny of Hawaii, and anyone who disturbs that fine-balance is an enemy of the islands."

He was willing to identify the enemies of Hawaii: "Anyone who tampers with our shipping ought to be shot. Anyone who tries to talk radical ideas to our field hands ought to be run off the islands. Anyone who interferes with our assured supply of cheap labor from Asia strikes a blow at sugar and pineapple."

Once he confided: "H & H have run the ships cheaply and faithfully. I see no reason why any radical changes are required. And I think you must admit that J & W have run the plantations well. Nobody can lodge a complaint against them. As long as these two firms continue to serve the islands justly, it seems to me the welfare of Hawaii is assured, and for outsiders h'ke that goddamned woman author to go around raising a lot of questions is downright ingratitude."

In 1912 the campaign for President on the mainland grew rather warm, and for the first time in some years Democrats felt that they had a good chance of sending their man, Woodrow Wilson, to the White House. Of course, citizens of Hawaii could not vote for the national offices, but in the island elections a few pathetic Democrats began to parrot the optimism existing on the mainland, and one misguided liberal even went so far as to appear before a mass meeting of six in the nearby town of Kapaa. Out of sheer curiosity over a human being who dared to be a Democrat in Hawaii, Wild Whip insinuated himself as the seventh listener and stood appalled as the man actually sought votes for his party: "There is a new spirit abroad in America, a clean, sharp wind from the prairies, an insistent voice from the great cities. Therefore I propose to do something that has never before been done in these islands. I, a Democrat and proud of the fact, am going to visit each of the sugar and pineapple plantations to explain in my words what the ideas of Woodrow Wilson and his adherents mean. Tell your friends that I'll be there."

In some agitation Wild Whip rode home and carefully took down all the firearms he kept at Hanakai. Inspecting each, he summoned his lunas and said, "I just heard a Democrat say he was coming here to address our workmen. If he steps six inches onto Hanakai, shoot him."

One of the lunas who had been through high school asked deferentially, "But doesn't he have the right to speak?"

"Right?" Whip thundered. "A Democrat have the right to step onto my plantation and spread his poison? My God! I say who shall come here and who shall not. This is my land and I'll have no alien ideas parading across it."

Lunas in 1912 were not apt to be easily frightened, and this one stuck to his guns. "But if this man is a spokesman for one of the political parties . . ."

"Von Schlemml" Whip roared in profound amazement. "I'm

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astonished at such talk from you. Can't you remember what that filthy Democrat, Grover Cleveland, did to Hawaii? Are you old enough to recall how those corrupted Democratic senators voted against us time and time again? What surprises me is that somebody hasn't already shot this dirty little bastard. No Democrat has a place in Hawaii, and if one tries to walk onto my plantation hell crawl home with broken legs."

The aspiring politician did try to invade Hanakai, and Wild Whip, backed up by four heavily armed lunas, met him at the edge of the red-dust road. "You can't come in here, mister," Whip warned.

"I'm a citizen in pursuit of my political rights."

"You're a Democrat, and there's no place for you in these islands."

"Mr. Hoxworth, I'm coming to your plantation to speak to your men about the issues in the election."

"My men don't want to hear the nonsense you talk."

"Mr. Hoxworth, there's a new wind blowing across America. Woodrow Wilson is going to be elected President. And he promises a fair deal for all men. Even your workmen."

"I tell my workmen how to vote," Whip explained. "And they vote for the welfare of these islands. Now you go back to Honolulu and don't give me any more trouble." The four lunas moved in upon the visitor.

"How is it going to sound," the politician asked, "if I report to the press that I was forcibly thrown off Hanakai Plantation?"

Wild Whip, still lean and hard at fifty-five, reached forward, grabbed the offensive radical by the shoulders, and shook him as if he were a child. "No paper would publish such rubbish. Christ, if a rattlesnake tried to crawl onto my plantation and I shot it, I'd be a hero. I feel obligated to treat a Democrat the same way. Get out."

The visitor calmly smoothed his shirt, straightened his sleeves, and announced: "In pursuit of man's inalienable rights, I\am going to come into your plantation."

"If you try it," Whip said, "you'll be thrown out on your inalienable ass."

The politician walked boldly onto the red soil of Hanakai and Started for the lane of royal palms and Norfolk pines. He had gone only a few steps when the four lunas grabbed him, lifted him in the air, and threw him roughly back onto the road, where he fell heavily upon the inalienable portion of his anatomy, as Whip had predicted. While the surprised visitor sat in the red dust Whip advised him: "Go back to Honolulu. No Democrat will ever be allowed on this plantation."

But when the man had gone, Whip began to appreciate the real danger involved, so he summoned his lunas. "You are to tell every man on this plantation entitled to a vote that he is not to bother voting for this man or that. He's to vote the straight Republican ticket. One cross mark is all he needs."