TERRITORIES: Something Old, Something New

Honolulu marked her re-emergence as a pleasant and peaceful subtropical crossroads last week. For the first time since the “blitz day” attack on Pearl Harbor, citizens celebrated Aloha Week, the Hawaiian equivalent of “pioneer days” as observed in the continental U.S.

Ditch diggers and bank presidents wore bright-colored Aloha shirts to work; women appeared in gay, ankle-length muu-muus,* modern models of the Mother Hubbards which early missionaries had hung on native Hawaiian girls. A big, bronzed, part-Hawaiian gas company foreman named Charles Kramer acted as Alii, or king of the celebration, attended parades, parties, sports events, suitably attired in scanty trunks, a long yellow cloak and a bright-colored helmet.

The celebration heralded great change as well as the old and welcome feel of peace. Since 1941, Honolulu’s population had grown from 150,000 to 268,000, that of the islands as a whole from 400,000 to 525,000. In the city, housing was short and prices high (eggs, $1.45 a dozen; milk, 25¢ a quart).

Sugar, pineapples and the islands’ huge military institutions were still basic industries. But now there were many new small businesses, and organized labor had become a controversial force—Harry Bridges’ International Longshoremen’s Union controlled the waterfront, represented sugar and pineapple workers throughout the islands, claimed 35,000 members.

The big news in island transport was being written by airlines rather than by the once-dominant Matson Navigation Co. Pan American carried 30,000 people to & from the mainland in the first nine months of 1947; United Airlines, 14,000 in the six months since it began to fly to the islands.

All this change had given Hawaii an increasing hunger for statehood. Last week, as they remembered old kings, the people of the islands were hoping for U.S. Senators.

*Pronounced moo-oo-moo-oo.