Nation: Big Ben & Young Danny

Like a big (247 Ibs.) bear, Benjamin Franklin Dillingham II sat in a rumpled brown suit, restive under the pink and red leis that draped his neck like a collar, and listened to talks by fellow Republican candidates Peter Chun, Bill Kim, Bob Fukuda and Ted Nobriga. Then came Ben Dillingham’s turn. He arose ponderously, lifted his right arm in salute. “Alooooo-ha!” he roared. “Aloooooooo-ha!”

Hawaii’s political season was in full flower last week. The race that is attracting the most interest: the contest to succeed U.S. Senator Oren E. Long, 73, a Democrat who is retiring. The opponents: Dillingham, 46, the scion of Hawaii’s most prominent haole (white) family, and Democratic Representative Daniel Ken Inouye, 38, the first U.S. Congressman of Japanese descent.

Danny Inouye has a reputation as Hawaii’s best vote getter, and Big Ben started a long way behind. But Inouye has been kept mostly in Washington by the agonizingly long session of Congress, and Dillingham has been working up to 17 hours a day to catch up. His simple conservative appeal: “I am dedicated to the proposition of limited constitutional government, states’ rights, the free enterprise system, individual responsibility.”

A Family Tradition.” Republican Dillingham comes by his conservatism naturally. His family amassed a huge fortune in everything from construction to railroads and docks to shopping centers. Ben Dillingham himself got into politics after World War II service in the Army (he won a Bronze Star in the Saipan invasion) as a member of the Honolulu board of supervisors, has put in eight years (1949-57) as a member of the territorial senate, recently served as Republican county chairman on Oahu.

Last week at a political rally in Papakolea, a Honolulu subdivision, Dillingham explained his feeling of political mission. “My family,” he said, “came to Hawaii and have lived in Hawaii to serve. My grandfather came here as a missionary. He came to serve. My grandmother came as a schoolteacher. She came to serve. My father filled in 5,000 acres of the harbor, 5,000 acres that have given all of you people and your families places to work, things to do. I want to reinvest some of the privileges, some of the advantages that we have had. I want to build and I want to serve. I have a tradition—a family tradition—to uphold.”

Pineapple Juice. Democrat Inouye has another sort of tradition. Born in a Honolulu slum, he enlisted in the famed Nisei 442nd Regimental Combat Team in 1943, won a battlefield commission and later a Distinguished Service Cross in Italy in a bloody action that cost him his right arm. A lawyer and a onetime (1954-58) majority leader of the territorial house of representatives, Inouye became Hawaii’s first and only U.S. Representative in 1959 (the state will have two after this year). In Washington, Inouye has backed the Kennedy Administration all the way, taken enthusiastic care of Hawaii’s interests —he got pineapple juice included in the federal school-lunch menus.

Although Inouye is still favored to win, Dillingham scoffs at the possibility. Says he: “Either I’m getting the biggest snow job in the world or I’m going to win this election.” In any event, he will stick to his standards. “I’m a liberal in a lot of ways. But where the conservatism comes in, both economically and politically, is in my belief that you have to make damn sure how you’re going to come out before you start anything. I object to the promises that are made to people of things that are supposed to help them, but end up increasing their burden and the power of government.”