A Trip to the Hawaiian Islands with the Press Congress of the World

Letter 42 — On Land Again 259 At Home 266

Delegates and Guests — Press Congress of World 268

ILLUSTRATIONS

Page

Frontispiece — Kamehameha I 4

Grand Canyon, Colorado River 37

Down Bright Angel Trail 41

Indian Woman Weaving Blanket 45

"Peggy" 58

The Matsonia 65

Walter Williams 91

Group on Matsonia 99

A Hilo Beauty 105

Halemaumau 114

On Edge of Halemaumau 119

"Peggy" and "Bill" 126

James Wright Brown 165

Swimming at Waikiki Beach 168

Some Shady Nook 192

A Beautiful Temple 195

Native Hawaiian Boys 211

A Pineapple Field 214

Hula Hula Dancers 217

Gov. Wallace R. Farrington 225

Col. and Mrs. Edward F. Lawson 238

Mr. and Mrs. Goldthwaite 244

"Where the Tall Corn Grows" 246

"After the Ball Was Over" 258

Mr. and Mrs. Frank C. Edgecombe 264

Preface

Three weeks time in Hawaii is not long enough for one to see and know all about Hawaii, but the conditions under which the writer moved while there made it possible for him to see a great deal in a short while. The letters which comprise this little volume were written on train, on boat, in hotel room, or wherever it was possible to find footing for a small portable typewriter and pound off a few lines. They are published in this compact form, not because they are entitled to any great consideration from the reading public, but because I found it impossible to supply the demand for exchange copies, of our paper — The Evening Journal, Washington, Iowa — containing the letters. My product became too voluminous for exchange circulation. I desire in this connection to acknowledge the very great debt which, in common with the many other World's Press Congress delegates, I owe to the various Hawaiian committees who saw to it that there was not a dull moment during our stay on the islands. The newspapers of Hawaii, the various Commercial and Social Organizations; the Chinese Society; the Japanese publications and people; the native Hawaiians; the heads of the leading industries of the islands; the officials of the Hawaiian territory, of the cities of Honolulu, Hilo, Kahului, Waialua, Wailuku, Lahaina and the multitude of other kindly disposed citizens who contributed of their time and their substance to make us have a good time. They are all good fellows; never to be forgotten; always to be remembered with gratitude by the delegates to the Press Congress of the World. Aloha!

ORVILLE ELDER

LETTER I. On the Way to Hawaii

Somewhere in Kansas, September 30, 1921

This is the story of a trip to the World's Press Congress, to be held in Hawaii, Oahu, Hawaii territory, October 16th to 21st. The World's Press Congress is an international association and the program will be international in character. In the seat just ahead of me is a gentleman from Athens, Greece. His English is rather broken, but that does not interfere with his appearing like a very intelligent and highly cultured gentleman.

We left Chicago Thursday evening, the 29th, and we are just now leaving (Kansas City. We are traveling in a special Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe train, all Pullman cars, with diner, buffet and observation cars attached. We could ask for no more luxurious accommodations or more genteel personal service. And the ' ' eats ! ' ' Well, it 's just the same as if Mr. and Mrs. ' l Fred Harvey" were both traveling with us and presiding over the table themselves.

We will not stop for any length of time until we reach the Grand Canon of the Colorado where we will remain for a day, taking in as much of the grandeur of that scenic wonder as a day will permit. We are supposed to reach San Francisco the morning of the 4th of October and sail at about 4 p. m. of the same day. ^

Our ship outgoing will be the Matsonia, an American vessel of the Matson Navigation Co. lines. It will take about six days of water travel to reach Honolulu and a few days will be spent there before the Congress program is presented. The entertainment features of the trip include a tour of the islands with exceptional advantages for seeing the interesting sights of this distant part of the United States.

Yes, along with its other conveniences our train carries barber shop and valet service for men and women. Most of us don't know what valet service is, but we're not confessing our ignorance. I overheard one gentleman say that he and his wife had brought their dress clothes. He thought maybe they would "dress" for dinner on the boat. Clearly some of us are out of our class, but that need not interfere with our fun. On one other boat trip which I took years ago we discovered that in fact, there is not so much dressing for dinner as there is "undressing."

I have found but two other Iowa people on the train so far. They are Golthwaite of Boone and Medary of Waukon. Mr. Medary was on the trip to Panama with the National Editorial Association a few years ago. At that time lie and I became acquainted. It has been a pleasure to renew that acquaintance. However, there is little formality in evidence here. Erstwhile strangers will soon be long time acquaintances, and there will be a noticeable relaxation of restraint as the delegates draw nearer and nearer together around the deck railings speaking the interesting, explosive language common to most land lubbers on their first voyage away out upon the deep blue sea.

Perhaps a word more about the Press Congress will not be out of place at this time. The ideal of the Congress is "world peace." The great publishers of this country as well as of other countries realize that peace among the newspapers of the country will mean world peace, or a nearer approach to it. They know that the Press, in a large way, is the audience that stands around the possible belligerents and "sicks" them on. The press "stirs" up, or it ' ' quiets down, ' ' pacifies. The members of this Congress feel that the furtherance of international journalistic amity will do much toward making world peace more nearly possible. Our readers will agree with us that the ideal is a good one.

I feel that all such movements as this World Press Congress tend to make our world a better world. We have yet a great deal of our aboriginal savagery to get out of our systems before we will anyways nearly be fit for paradise. These efforts to establish an understanding among the nations of the world is a right direction movement.

I have just taken a moment to speak to our Greek friend in the seat ahead. His name is Coutoupis, and he is the publisher of the "Nea Ewas," (New Greece), Athens. He left Greece in Julv and he goes clear around on his way home, via Japan, China, India, Egypt, etc. He is one of the speakers at the Congress and we look for some "good gravy" from Greece.

LETTER II. Rolling Through Kansas

Still in Kansas, September 30, 1921

Passing through Topeka, Kansas, Gov. Henry Allen was down to the train to see Mrs. Allen off with the delegates to the Congress. Henry, like Andy Gump, will now have the opportunity to do as he pleases for a few days. Governor Allen has too much business on hands to go on the trip. He is a publisher though and as such could easily qualify for the journey. Since he can't go, he's sending the "missus," which is at least the next best thing, if not the best.

Speaking of the governor makes one think of his Industrial Court plan, an honest effort to get justice for both capital and labor without disturbing that more important justice to the general public. This Industrial Court arrangement in Kansas enjoys the distinction of being in ill favor at times with both labor and capital, with some of both industrial divisions always grouchv over the alleged interference of the Industrial Court with their liberties.

At present Alexander Howat, president of the Kansas Miners organization is under sentence to jail for defying the Industrial Court order and calling the miners to strike. He says he is going to go to jail and stay there until the Industrial Court law is taken off the statute books of Kansas. When the power to call strikes is taken away from Alexander there isn't much left for him to do.

Gov. Allen states that there are some $50,- 000,000.00 a year paid out in salaries to such men as Howat, and he is not surprised that they hate to see their jobs jeopardized. But, the tie up of business which causes the great mass of the people to suffer principally, while a small percentage of the people represented by the particular owners and laborers affected are quarreling, is a public menace, unfair in every way to the majority, which should be considered first and so this Industrial Court bars strikes and lockouts and forces the disputants into court for the settlement of their differences.

In theory the Industrial Court idea is certainly right. Such disputes as it seeks to settle are disputes that ought to be settled by peaceable means without a general disturbance of business and without people suffering. That's what courts are for and the courts are our final resort; if they fail, we might just as well shut up shop. Some such system as that devised by Governor Allen must eventually be put into operation in this country if we are to retain any semblance of industrial order permanently.

Although it is persistently asserted that the miners have in almost all instances been the beneficiaries in the Industrial Court decisions yet it is still the fact that they fight the law, encouraged by such leaders as Howat, who can very easily find plenty of ammunition with which to bombard that policy which threatens his job and promises the eventual elimination of the strike as a means of forcing a surrender in favor of the striker. Governor Allen is emphatically of the reasonable opinion that any system of industrial disorder that permits the health, safety and comfort of the maily to be deliberately disturbed by the few is a wrong system and he insists upon court settlement. CTp to date he has been able to get by with it, but he has a fight on his hands.

This is evening of the first day out. All day we have been running through Kansas. Now it is western Kansas with its oceans of great flat fields, from which splendid crops have been raised this year. As an agricultural state, though, Kansas has felt the sting of low prices for farm products even as we have felt them. Talking with a Kansas man this afternoon he led me to believe that the people of Kansas have had just about the same experiences that we have had. They have suffered, but they are not dismayed. As this Kansas man remarked: "We always have to sober up after a drunk," and there is an unfailing reaction as a part of the sobering process. The wonder is that the reaction was not worse.

LETTER III. In New Mexico

All of yesterday, Friday, we traveled thru Kansas. Some time last night we left Kansas, crossed a corner of Colorado and now we are traveling through the mountains of New Mexico. We have just passed through Glorieta, the head of Glorieta pass, at an altitude of 7421. It is Glorieta in name only, unless there are certain specially glorious features, not in visual evidence, that take precedence over the artificial structure of the alleged village.

But, the mountains are interesting; great oceans of mountains, covered with scrubby pines, some high, some low, some thickly wooded, some sparsely wooded. Rocks everywhere; thrown about carelessly. Rocks of all sizes, as small as a pigeon egg, as large as a box car. The grass is dry, the shrubbery brown. Goats are the only domestic animals in large evidence. An occasional cow in sight; a few burros; a scrawny horse, adobe huts here and there, scattered thru the hills; a little patch of corn once in awhile, indicating that some ambitious Mexican had sought to grow a little forage for his family of domestics, but all in all it is pretty barren. A fellow traveler voiced the opinion this morning that "this certainly is God's country— no one else would want it. ' '

Be that as it may, it has its purpose in the world; if none other, it serves to make the individuals who pass this way feel what an insignificant part of creation, from the bulk point of view, man is. There seems no end to the great sweeps of rock-strewn, and pine-decorated space. They must have been brave soldiers indeed who first penetrated these vastnesses.

We have, once in a while found the old Santa Fe trail running along by our side. It is a good tourist road they say, one of the best cross-continent highways. There are a great many points along the way, though, where a shortage of gasoline would leave an autoist in an embarrassing predicament.

Now we are just leaving Apache canyon. This, our little guide book tells us, is the only place on the railroad where it cuts through the oldest strata of the Rockies; and this little pass was the scene of a brave effort on the part of the Mexicans to stop the progress of the American army in its invasion of Mexico in 1846. It is said, too, that one of the most important of the western battles of the Civil war was fought near here.

At Lamy we stopped a few moments; just long enough for our party to make a hasty inspection of the little hotel called the El Ortiz. It is a quaint little structure, Mexican style, the beams in the ceiling taken from an old mission. The floors are carpeted with rare Indian blankets; the walls hung with interesting old time paintings, the subjects being Spanish and Mexican in character. There is a beautiful inner court around which is built the lodging rooms of the hotel. The outer walls are adobe. The structure is artistically squatty and in the whole it functions as something decidedly different. Wandering through and around it, one begins to feel as if he is strangely away from home. One lady remarked: "And yesterday this time we were in Kansas City — it seems a thousand years ago."

At a short distance from the railway track — we are traveling slowly now — we see an adobe honse, a fodder covered barn, all one story, a scanty patch of corn, the fodder shocked, in small tepees, A little Mexican boy is skinning the cat from a hitch rack, a dark skinned woman watches the train roll by without acknowledging the hand wave greetings from the car windows; a prairie dog stands rigid sentinel by the side of his happy home. As far beyond as we can see stretch undulating hills rising higher and higher until they merge into a great range of treeless mountains — the Great Divide.

LETTER IV. At Albuquerque, New Mexico

We spent three hours at Albuquerque, Xew Hex. This is one of the oldest of the western cities; one of the oldest cities in the United States. The local authorities insist that civilization here antedates any other civilizations in the United States. We take no issue with them; we are strangers in this country.

Why not be nice and genteel, always, in the presence of benefactors. These Albuquerque people fed us liberally of the best in the land and took us about through their interesting city. It was not for us to deny the longevity which they ascribe to themselves and theirs. We agreed with them complacently, and admitted that all signs indicate that Santa Fe, the Albuquerque rival in enterprising claims for antiquity is undoubtedly a pretender only.

Of course our stay in Albuquerque was enjoyed. Stepping off the train with friend Medary from Waukon we were greeted by a tall, slender gentleman who was passing out Albuquerque Journals, FEEE of charge. We each took one. We have easily acquired the habit of taking every free thing offered us and asking no questions. They are scarce enough without entering into any controversy concerning them.

"Do you know a fellow around here by the name of Carl McGee?" friend Medary asked of the liberal man with the arm full of papers.

"I am he," responded the philanthropist, "and vou are Ed Medarv."

There you have it! We attached ourselves to Ed's friend and he trotted us around all over the city in his Cole eight.

Albuquerque is a "health resort." It is one of the most popular resorts for those who are threatened with tuberculosis that there is in the country. The city lies high and dry. There is little rainfall, only seven inches a year, and that all comes in July and August. The sanitariums are beautifully located, and well patronized. There are several thousand people here for their health all the while. That helps to support the town. Looking over the surrounding country one wonders if the city has any other supports.

The New Mexico state university is here. The buildings are built in typical Mexican style. A new dormitory which is just being completed is constructed in the Pueblo style of architecture. A Methodist school for Indian children is an interesting structure and down in the "old town" we found the adobe houses knit closely together, facing narrow streets that we would call narrow alleys in our Iowa towns. There is not much about the external appearance of these buildings to recommend them to us as desirable homes, but under those squat roofs and within those mud covered walls the romances and tragedies of human life work themselves out just as effectually as they do in the palaces of kings and queens. There is, in all probability, just as much real happiness in a New Mexican Indian home as there is in any other average home in the world. It's all in getting used to it!

At the door of the Indian store, in connection with the depot and eating house at Albuquerque, a dozen or so Indian boys and girls, men and women await the arrival of each train and its brigade of tourists. They have Indian wares to sell, little clay baskets, bows and arrows, moccasins, flint arrow heads, etc., etc. These Indians are attired in native costume. Of course they make an interesting appearance. They add romance and atmosphere to the place.

One of the men in charge of the store pointed out to me several of the Indian girls and boys in this group who were well educated in English, splendid masters of our tongue. They had been sent to high school, some to college. Coming home, they soon went back to their shawls and their blankets, their red ribbons, and their lazy habits. Indian college graduates wrap their blankets about them and sleep every night on the brick platform of the Santa Fe depot at Albuquerque. Well educated Indian girls come every day to the trains to sell their little trinkets. They sit lazily about until the trains come. They never ask if trains are late. They sit down and wait, wait, wait. There is no hurrv. They have all the time there is. Thev take it.

These educated Indian boys and girls are not disposed to be very communicative. They will not talk to strangers, excepting in an effort to sell their wares, and then they speak few words and brokenly. They know THEY are curiosities. Education has taught them that. They resent the tourists' attitude and apparently hold our civilization and its foibles in contempt. They cannot get away from the inheritances of centuries. They believe in, and live, the simple life. To them much of civilization is vanity. In that intuition thev have outwitted the world.

LETTEB V.

More About Albuquerque

From our little guide book we read that Albuquerque was founded in 1701, by Don Pedro Rodriguez y Cubero. It is not probable that there are any people in Washington, Iowa, now, who remember the event or knew Don Pedro, but local authorities in Albuquerque insist that their city as an established center dates back farther than 1701, in fact, back prior to 1605, the year Santa Fe, New Mexico, claims to have been born. But, as we said in our former comment on this controversy, it is none of ours, fight it out Yourselves, boys.

The Albuquerque patriot claims that the Pueblo Indians have lived in Albuquerque as a village for many centuries. The Pueblo Indians they explain have always been a peaceably inclined, industrious people, cultivating the soil diligently for many, many hundreds of years. Their deadly enemies were the Apache and Navajo Indians who didn't believe in work in their tribes if they could profit off the labors of other tribes. So, they generally waited until fall, when the crops were all harvested, then they went foraging in the vicinity of the Pueblos." That is, they fell upon the Pueblos and smote them hip and thigh and gathered in all the spoils they could.

Naturally the Pueblos disliked the Apache* Navajo system. The fall visits annoyed them; perturbed them, kept them nervous both night and day. There came a time when the Spaniards moved northward from old Mexico and with them the Pueblos made terms. They traded their favor to the Spaniards for Spanish help in fighting- off the Apaches and Navajos. That helped some. After that combination the Pueblos lived more contentedly and the Apaches- Xavajos found foraging more difficult. On the theory that Albuquerque was founded by the Pueblos, long before our friend above named arrived, the local old timer of Albuquerque bases his claim of greater organized antiquity for Albuquerque than for Santa Fe. But, as we have previously observed, what is that to you and me with the price of egg sandwiches the same in both cities?

And talking about old age! In that wonderful museum at Albuquerque, among the multitude of relics, modern and otherwise, there are specimens of sections from the petrified trees found in a number of places in Arizona. The trees are, many of them, "agatized." Geologists state that it has been millions of years since those trees were growing trees. They fell millions of years ago, were under the oceans many thousands of centuries before Adam was born. The waters moved away from the face of the earth and there grew over these long inundated trees a soil which covered them for many more thousands of years and then there came another change in the great scheme of things and the covering from these trees of so long, long ago was gradually washed and scraped away by the elements. When they came to the light of day again, after millions of years in darkness, they were petrified to the very heart, and the polished face of these tree relics shows it as a most beautiful agate. Here is age, that is age!

There is an old Spanish mission church that was erected in 1735 that we visited, too, but we didn't go iii— it wasn't Sunday. From the outside, though, the antiquity of the structure was apparent in spots. In other spots it looked as if it had been modernized some. The adobe homes and stores give out an unmistakable atmosphere of age, down in the "old town," but up in the heart of the city the buildings are modern and there is an air of prosperity about the town, the basis of which is, however, the constant inflow of money from health seekers and tourists.

In Albuquerque, too, we gained some interesting information about our only woman "congressman," Miss Alice Eobertson. Mr. McGee lived for several years in Oklahoma and knew the lady. She originally went to Oklahoma as a Presbyterian missionary to work among the Indians. In that capacity she made a wide friendly acquaintance. During the Roosevelt administration Miss Robertson was on the side of the Indians in a spirited movement led by President Roosevelt to see that the Indian gets fair play. President Roosevelt became well acquainted with her and when the opportunity came appointed her postmistress of Muskogee, disregarding all political urgings.

As postmistress she became more widely known and was as widely liked. The congressional district in which she lived was Democratic, but in the late campaign Miss Robertson wen because of her wide favorable acquaintance. She never ceased her missionary work, had raised a number of girls from girlhood, putting them through school and the story of her usefulness spread over the district, resulting in her election. Her unfailing friendship for the Indians and her uncompromising efforts in their behalf always endeared her to the whole people. As a member of congress she evidences those same common sense traits of character that distinguished her in her less spectacular earlier career.

LETTER VI. At the Grand Canyon

This is Monday, Oct. the 3rd. We passed through Needles, California, early this morning, crossing the Colorado river, the divide between Arizona and California, a little while earlier. Now we are crossing one of our deserts; it is a stretch of some 160 miles, covered with sage brush, where there is any covering excepting sand. The auto road, the Santa Fe trail, still follows us and tourists can be seen every few moments gliding merrily along. The road is well marked. Just a little while ago I noticed a big sign "2 Miles to Robert's Garage." Soon we were there, and another sign said "Oasis Garage."

The town was Ludlow and after a longstretch of sage and sand scenery, with the low mountains in the distance, it was a relief to see the pretty little "oasis." Date palms were in profusion, as were other semi-tropical foliage and shrubbery with which I am not familiar. A number of tourist cars were "gassing" up preparatory to the continuation of their respective trips, east or west. Auto cross-continent travel is assuming immense proportions.

At Grand Canyon yesterday they gave out the information that during the year ending Oct. 1st, 1921, 64,000 tourists had visited the canyon, at least half of them auto tourists. It seems more comfortable on the train, but, auto touring is increasing, so some must like it; in fact many must like it. We expect to be in San Francisco tomorrow morning, stopping at Bakersville this evening for a couple of hours. Bakersville is an oil town.

We spent yesterday at the Grand Canyon. We arrived there some time during the preceding night. I awoke early and got up. Only the gentleman from Greece preceded me. He, too, is trying to see all he can see. We asked the porter about the location of the canyon and he told us to step up over the hill and look. That we did. What we saw there is no use of trying to describe. The Grand Canyon is one of those indescribable things. It was never intended to be described. Attempted descriptions are hollow things at best, even when the subjects are small, but when the subject is such a thing as the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, then words lose their usefulness. The gentleman from Greece remarked after looking a little while: "It's a miracle.''

We started walking and walked to the left until we came to the head of Bright Angel trail, down which those of us who dare were later to make the journey to the bottom of the canyon. Then we turned to the right and traveled on and on around the rim stepping out at the various points of observation to get the "view." We followed the narrow trail farther and farther and farther, forgetful of breakfast, forgetful of everything excepting the desire to see from still another point, and still another.

We came to "Point Grandeur" — later we learned that this was one of the most splendid vantage points from which to view the varied beauties of the canyon. Clean white clouds were deep below us drifting about between the walls of the canyon like vagabond balloons. The sun slowly rising tipped the distant peaks with its magic colorings; rising higher it glorified the clouds and slowly invaded the deeper chasms of the canyon.

In the presence of this huge, unspeakably beautiful spectacle one can do little more than breathe quickly and think strange thoughts. This is a canyon, tributaried by hundreds of other canyons, each one of the smaller canyons world wonders in themselves. This is a canyon into which you can throw all the other canyons in the world and still have room for more and more. This is a canyon in which many of the big mountains of the world might be forgetfully buried.

"Nothing like it anywhere else in the world/' said the gentleman from Greece. We turned back and arrived at the hotel just in time to join the party that was preparing for the descent into the canyon. We had had no breakfast, but they wouldn't wait for us to eat. Only twenty-one of our party of nearly a hundred cared to "take the chance" as some expressed it of making the trip down. We were of the twenty-one, and to be perfectly fair we should state that a fit person can go down into the Grand Canyon without any particular danger. But, there is some danger, of course, as our party discovered. One lady of our party, Mrs. B. C. Dow/, of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, fell from her mule, when about 600 feet down the trail and was so badly hurt that help had to be summoned from the summit to carry her back to the hotel.

Fortunately the accident happened at one of the comparatively safe places. There are thousands of places on the trail, where, had she fallen, she would have tumbled, and tumbled on down and down, perhaps a hundred, possibly a thousand, two thousand feet. The ten people of which our group was composed were ahead of the party in which the accident occurred so we knew nothing of it until we were safely back. Accidents here are extremely rare. As a friend remarked, though, one should know ones self before attempting such a trip — a seven mile ride, down a trail so narrow as three feet at some points, and to a depth of 4500 feet below the starting point. There are two places on the trail where the travelers dismount and lead their mules, hugging the walls particularly close in an effort to go down deliberately. The precipitate descent is not recommended by those familiar with the geological formation hereabouts.