Presstime in Paradise: The Life and Times of the Honolulu Advertiser, 1856-1995

407 Pages·1998·8.387 MB·English

by  George Chaplin

Presstime in Paradise

Presstime in Paradise
The Life and Times of The Honolulu Advertiser,
1856–1995
George Chaplin
A Latitude 20 Book
University of Hawai‘i Press
Honolulu
© 1998 University of Hawai‘i Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
03 02 01 00 99 98 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Chaplin, George, 1914–
Presstime in paradise : the life and times of
The Honolulu advertiser, 1856–1995 / George Chaplin.
p. cm.
“A latitude 20 book.”
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8248-1963-2 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 0-8248-2032-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Honolulu advertiser. I. Title.
PN4899.H66C43 1998
079'.96931—dc21 97-35954
CIP
University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on
acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and
durability of the Council on Library Resources
Designed by Janette Thompson (Jansom)
Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
Part I. 1856–1880
1 A “Reliable Domestic Newspaper” Is Born 3
2 “New Type, a New Press, a New Building” 12
3 “Going to Sea without a Passport” 23
4 “We Shall Not Flinch from the Issue” 29
5 Amid the Press Battles, a Shocker 35
6 Praise and Presses, Letters and Lava 44
7 “No Opening Offered” for Mark Twain 49
8 “Scheme to Crush the Advertiser” 53
9 “Press Has All the Freedom It Could Desire” 60
Part II. 1880–1898
10 “To Be Invariably Loyal to His Majesty” 81
11 “Laws of U.S. Are Good Enough for Hawaii” 93
Part III. 1898–1931
12 An “Itching for Printer’s Ink” 111
13 From Streetcars to Volcanoes 129
14 Laborers “Cannot Run These Islands” 139
15 “Blood Calls for Blood” 146
16 “Talking through the Air” 155
17 “Where America and Asia Meet” 158
vi Contents
Part IV. 1931–1961
18 A Son Inherits the Publishership 173
19 Race, Murder, and the Press 176
20 Editorial Policy Gets “Help” from the Big Five 186
21 Research Fueled by “Nippin’ and Sippin’” 190
22 “If That’s Anti-Japanese, Make the Most of It” 197
23 “Something’s Going on out at Pearl” 200
24 The Battle to Salvage Circulation 217
25 A Blend of Photographers, Editors, and Managers 220
26 Fighting “Communism” and Farrington 227
27 An About-Face on Statehood 235
28 Sherman to Heloise: Gossip and Hints 240
29 Advertiser’s Dilemma: Hope versus Reality 249
30 From War Service to Family Paper 253
31 Can a Reporter Protect a Source? 265
32 A New Hand on the Editorial Helm 268
33 The Saga of Sammy Amalu 276
34 An All-Out Try to Rescue the Paper 281
Part V. 1961–1995
35 Twigg-Smith Takes Over as Publisher 287
36 Staff Talents Cover a Wide Spectrum 296
37 A Policy Shift from Conservatism 303
38 A Joint “Op,” a Strike, and a Would-be Buyer 306
39 Historic Stamps, Art, and Journalism 312
Contents vii
40 Right-to-Print Hits Official Snag 317
41 Neighbor Islands Make News Too 321
42 Technology Brings a Host of Changes 324
43 Mayor Fasi’s Battle with the Press 327
44 A New Publisher and a New Mood 335
45 Nearly a Century Ends in a Sale 345
Appendix: The Advertiser’s First Editorial 349
Notes 353
Selected Bibliography 373
Index 377
George Chaplin: Journalist and Community Leader 391
by Daniel W. Tuttle, Jr.

Preface
AS WE near the twenty-first century fourteen decades have passed since the
founding of the Pacific Commercial Advertiser,now The Honolulu Advertiser,
one of the oldest newspapers still publishing west of the Rockies.
More often than not it has been a tumultuous time, as the paper bridged
the events from monarchy into statehood. It has reported on whaling vessels
and nuclear submarines, on horse-drawn carts and satellites flashing by, on
wars near and far and peace in between, on Honolulu’s growth from sleepy
town to fast-paced metropolis.
History is an untidy business. Institutions, like individuals, can have peri-
ods both of notable service and of flawed performance. Newspapers are no
exception. As it moves toward its sesquicentennial, the Advertiserhas had sev-
eral owners and editors who have stood out as near-giants, others who have
been able journalists, and a few who were either incompetent or outright
scoundrels concerned less with the public welfare than their own opportunism.
Walter Lippmann in the 1920s said “newspapers do not try to keep an eye
on all mankind.” Covering news of Hawaii was and is in itself a unique chal-
lenge. This island state is the only one with a majority of people having roots
in Asia and the Pacific. It is the only state with its integral parts separated by
stretches of ocean. It is the only state to have been bombed from the air by a
foreign power.
Technology has greatly extended the paper’s reach, but it remains essen-
tially a local chronicle, as it has been from its inception. Like the Islands, it
has had its good times and its bad. For most of its existence to date, with
striking exceptions, it largely mirrored the views and policies of the establish-
ment. In that sense, its behavior calls for evaluation in the context of the
times. In the years when Oriental ascendancy was feared, it was racist. When
workers strived for higher wages and better conditions, it was stridently anti-
labor and, in one period, engaged in “Red Scare” hysteria. But as the commu-
nity mellowed, so did the Advertiser.
Economically, it has had its ups and downs. In the 1950s, under an inept
publisher and an aged editor, both frozen in the past, the paper was in rapid
decline and would have died had not Thurston Twigg-Smith, a missionary
descendant with fifteen years on the Advertiser,staged a palace revolution to
gain control from his uncle, Lorrin P. Thurston, and then negotiated a joint
ix
x Preface
operating agreement with the rival Star-Bulletin. A fresh management team
of publisher and editors brought the Advertiser into modern-day Hawaii.
Today it flourishes as the largest and leading daily in the Islands.
A veteran Connecticut editor, Herbert Brucker, said, “Like other business-
es that get the world’s work done, journalism must be a profitable enterprise.
But unlike all the others, it performs a public service without which self-gov-
ernment ceases to exist.” Put another way, a newspaper is both business and
public trust, with an obligation to “serve the governed, not the governors.”
If a paper is forthright, it will from time to time irritate public officials,
who would prefer that it be their mouthpiece, and they will strike back with
their own brand of vituperation. But this is an ongoing occupational hazard
that has to be accepted in stride.
The only way for a newspaper to avoid criticism is to serve up pabulum
and that is not what the founding fathers had in mind when they adopted the
First Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing a free press. That assures
not only the right to print but, perhaps more importantly, the right to read.
Fortunately, a free press was affirmed for Hawaii as far back as the
Constitution of 1852, a tribute to the monarchy of the time; two lapses
occurred later, during the provisional government and during martial law in
World War II. (While press freedom does not mandate responsibility, any
decent newspaper accepts the need for it.)
THIS BOOK seeks to record both the internal operations of the Advertiser,at
times arcane, and its relationship with the community on which it impacted
and which, in turn, impacted on it.
On a personal note, I tried to seek whatever detachment I could. Since I
spent twenty-eight years in the editor’s chair, in a period of considerable fer-
ment at the paper, I worried about “I” popping up all too often. One day, chat-
ting with political scientist Dan Tuttle, a longtime friend and erstwhile con-
tributing columnist, I expressed my concern. He volunteered to write an
appendix “About the Author.” The result is overly generous, but better, I
believe, than subjecting the reader to a barrage of “Is.”
I wanted to write about the life and times of the Advertiser simply
because I felt that needed to be put down. It was not an easy task and there
were moments when I doubted that it would ever be finished. But it is—and I
hope that it adds a useful bit to the colorful cavalcade of Hawaii’s history.