"Beautiful, Singing Land"

From the steps of Honolulu's Court House month ago Joseph Kahahawai Jr., accused with four other young native bucks of raping a Naval officer's wife last September, was lured to his death. His corpse was found in an automobile occupied by Mrs. Granville Roland Fortescue, her son-in-law Lieut. Thomas Hedges Massie, whose wife had been attacked, and a naval enlisted man. Another enlisted man was later implicated. Last week in Honolulu a grand jury sat to ponder the crime. Just as any other panel controlled by white men from Kentucky to the Ubangi River might have done, the grand jurors refused to see any first-degree murder in the Kahahawai killing, reported against such an indictment of Mrs. Fortescue and the three Navy men.

Aware that the eyes of the nation were upon his court, Circuit Judge Albert Moses Cristy refused to accept the findings of "no bill." Sternly he admonished his jurors: "I present to you a question of anarchy in this community. Are you willing to take the responsibility for that situation? . . . We are embarking upon a very necessary tour of duty. It is one I do not relish any more than you do." So saying, he sent them home to think the matter over.

Meantime, one member of the jury was appointed to the new Honolulu police commission. The commission, not he, felt his resignation from the panel was necessary.

Last week Rear Admiral Yates Stirling Jr., commandant of the Hawaiian Naval District, reported to the Navy Department that four days later the jury again (11-to-9) refused to indict, suggesting that the charge be changed to manslaughter; again adjourned. That afternoon, he said, it was allowed to vote (12-to-8) a charge of second-degree murder. Two more jurors resigned.

Instantly defense counsel claimed "judicial coercion," moved to have the indictments quashed, on the ground that Judge Cristy had forced the jurors to act. Their motion refused, counsel indicated that they might carry the matter to the Territorial Supreme Court.

Conviction of second degree murder in Hawaii calls for a maximum penalty of life imprisonment at hard labor. Under a gentleman's agreement all noncapital offenses involving Naval personnel in Hawaii are tried by court martial. Rear Admiral Stirling advised the Navy Department that "undoubtedly" the grand jury's action was taken under the belief that the defendants, including Mrs. Fortescue, would ultimately come to the Navy, not to the civil courts, for justice. Meantime, the prisoners were released from the U. S. S. Alton at Pearl Harbor, put on probation under bail which was set at $5.000 for Mrs. Fortescue, $2,500 for each of the men.

By this time, news of the Kahahawai murder had thoroughly penetrated the U. S., been digested by its hungry Press.

When U. S. Press reports began returning to the islands last week, Hawaiians were aghast to see how their troubles had been treated. To mainland friends and to mainland publications they wrote many an indignant letter protesting that Hawaii's turbulent month had been grossly, sensationally exaggerated. In defense of conditions in their Pacific paradise they pointed out that: 1) crime was no rarity on the mainland; 2) the island of Oahu, on which Honolulu is situated, is not the largest in the archipelago while on Maui and Hawaii, all was serenely peaceful; 3) it was absurd to say that Hawaii had a "race problem," when only a tiny fraction of the mixed population was making trouble. The Hawaii Tourist Bureau cabled that the Kahahawai incident had been played up in a manner "terribly cruel to this self-respecting community and wholly unfair to many races living harmoniously here." White citizens declared recent events were "regrettable"but ridiculed any idea of a serious race uprising in the face of 20,000 soldiers & sailors stationed on the islands. They contended that much of the trouble was caused by Southerners who look on the Hawaiians as Negroes, a racial error which causes native resentment.

Meantime, the Honolulu Chamber of Commerce voted $5,000 to supplement the Territorial prosecution of the Kahahawai case. The Chamber is still pressing the case against the four remaining men whom Mrs. Massie identified as her assailants, but who have been at large (until public sentiment forced them voluntarily back to jail last week) ever since a jury failed to agree on their guilt last November.

The law-&-order element in Honolulu, a leader of which is Walter Francis Dillingham, island-born, polo-playing Harvardman (ex-1902), whose immense wealth comes from sugar & utilities, appointed a new police chief and reorganized the generally inefficient police department. New chief was Charles F. Weeber, formerly of Harrisburg, Pa. Since 1920, when he retired from the Army, Chief Weeber has been Tycoon Dillingham's private secretary.

Having hopped on the murder story and played it for all it was worth the first day or two. Honolulu's Advertiser and Star-Bulletin suddenly sobered, joined the constructive movement.

"Vengeance," deplored the Advertiser, "which takes the form of private execution can not be condoned. No man or woman is justified in taking the law into his own hands and slaying another. . . ,. We must not allow the normal rules of conduct to be nullified. We must keep our heads."

"The situation confronting the islands today," loyally declared the Star-Bulletin, "should stir the patriotism of every son and daughter of Hawaii. The people of the islands must stand together in this crisis. They must stand by the Governor and the members of the Legislature they put in office. . . ."

The Honolulu Citizens Organization for Good Government met last week, urged those present "to help make Hawaii the happy, beautiful, singing land" it was in monarchical days.

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