Ruddy's Hui

In the Territory of Hawaii, people of Asiatic descent make up almost half the islands' 540,000 population. But in the tight little islands' economy, dominated by the sugar-factoring "Big Five," they have had little chance to get rich--until Ruddy Fah Tongg came along. Ruddy showed them how.

Early in the war, plump, bustling Ruddy Tongg formed a syndicate of small businessmen, called a hid (rhymes with Louie), and bought up properties of Caucasians fleeing to the mainland. At war's end, Ruddy Tongg had $1,000,000 worth of choice assets, including a bottling works, lucrative Waikiki Tavern, an insurance company, a 36,000-acre ranch and other real estate.

Tongg, a crack skeet-shooter, had taken only a few potshots at established island businesses. But in 1946, he aimed deliberately at thriving, island-hopping Hawaiian Airlines (TIME, June 21). With four DC-35 he started unscheduled Trans-Pacific Airlines, which flew regularly enough to haul 10,000 inter-island passengers a month during the first year. By 1947, Ruddy managed to gross $103,000 and net $35,000 in one month. That was too much for Hawaiian Air. It got an injunction to keep Ruddy from flying on schedules; Ruddy's business dropped 90%.

For 18 months Tongg's airline merely went through the motions, like a weary hula dancer. In 1948, it lost $148,427. Then, early this year, CAB gave Ruddy's Trans-Pacific Airlines a five-year certificate. This week, as T.P.A. advertised its first scheduled inter-island flights, to start next week, Tongg invited Hawaiians to "fly the Aloha Way."

Chicken Feed. Ruddy Tongg, 44, has been a scrapper all his life. The son of a plantation laborer, Ruddy earned his way through the University of Hawaii by working as a cannery yardboy and cook, and tending chickens on the university poultry farm.

Out of college in 1925, he started a bilingual Chinese-English weekly in Honolulu that eventually grew into Tongg Publishing Co.*It earned him the venture capital that made him a big operator in the huts. His brother Richard Choy Tongg is his inseparable companion in all his promotions.

Diamond Head. Ruddy, who lives with his wife and seven children in a spacious $125,000 beach home by Diamond Head, expects to gross $1,800,000 during his first year on the new CAB charter. He is convinced there is room for two airlines in the air-minded Territory, where 350,000 passengers flew among the islands last year. His fellow Orientals think so, too. When Ruddy recently floated a stock issue (at $1 a share) to finance his expansion, they eagerly chipped in their dollars. He sold 345,000 shares.

*Which printed TIME'S Pacific edition during part of the war.

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