Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Camp Harold Randolph Erdman

Camping became a cornerstone of YMCA programming in 1885 with the start of Camp Dudley in New York, America’s first known continuously running summer camp program. Since then, generations of kids, teens, young adults, and families have experienced the magic of camp—gaining confidence, building character, and making friends and lifelong memories. (YMCA)

“The YMCA has recently [1926] acquired [a] Mokuleia site on a ten year lease.  It is owned by the Dillinghams who have given the lease practically free of charge. The Association is developing the site into a permanent camp.” It was called Camp Mokuleia (other unrelated camps in the area also used that name).

“For this year, a permanent kitchen was built and equipped, also a shower and washroom and a latrine. Plans for the development of the camp have been worked by Furer and Potter, architects, and call for a screened dining hall, a small headquarters building containing office, doctor’s office and library, 14 small bungalows to house 8 boys each, baseball field and two tennis courts.” (Advertiser, June 27, 1926)

On Christmas morning, 1932, the YMCA received an unexpected gift – the donation of the camp by sisters Marion (Dillingham) Erdman and Mary (Dillingham) Frear – daughters of Benjamin Franklin Dillingham and Emma Louise (Smith) Dillingham. Instead of being leased to by the family, Camp Mokulē‘ia would now belong to the Y.

The gift was made in memory of Mrs. Erdman’s 26-year-old son who had been killed in a polo accident. Their gift included a request that Camp Mokulē‘ia be renamed Camp Harold R. Erdman to ensure “his spirit of contribution to the happiness of others, carries on.” (YMCA)

Harold Randolph Erdman was the son of missionaries John Erdman and Marion (Dillingham) Erdman.  John Erdman had been appointed in 1904 to go with his wife to Japan as a missionary to serve during the Russo-Japanese conflict, a war aggravated by Russian expansionism into the far reaches of Asia.

In the conflict, the Empire of Japan prevailed against the European power to gain control of the Manchurian and Korean territories. It was during the couple’s stay in Kobe, Japan, that the Reverend and Mrs. Erdman had a son, Harold Randolph Erdman. (McGhee) The Erdmans returned to Hawaii in 1907.

On September 11, 1929, Harold (grandson of Benjamin F Dillingham) married Mary Chickering.  “The young couple returned to Honolulu and began construction of their dream home on the slopes of Diamond Head, an area subdivided by Harold Erdman’s uncle, Walter Dillingham, just mauka of Dillingham’s fabled home La Pietra.”

“The following June, the young couple had a daughter [Louise], born at the Kapiolani Maternity Home.  Just over a year later, in July 1931, Harold Erdman, a graduate of Punahou and Princeton, was fatally injured in a polo match at Kapi‘olani Field when his horse fell and rolled over him. He died after remaining in a coma for a month.” (Advertiser, Dec 6, 2022)

“Camp Erdman has made remarkable progress since the Dillingham-Erdman families made a gift of the property Christmas, 1931. It was named in memory of Harold [Randolph] Erdman, well known in Honolulu as a boy and young man.”

“The gift of the land prompted many other gifts, notable among which were the erection of a roomy lodge and dining room as a gift of the Honolulu Rotary club, and a health building and just last year a director’s cabin, both of which were the gift of Mr. and Mrs FC Atherton.” (Star Bulletin, May 20, 1935)

Other gifts from the Rotary Club, the Erdman’s, the Dillingham’s, the Castle’s, the Westervelts’, and many other families and organizations came pouring in to help develop and construct the camp from Army tents with dirt floors to fully-constructed cabins, a dining room and kitchen, activity buildings, a chapel, and a memorial gate and swimming raft. (DLNR)

It wasn’t just a boys’ camp. “A family camp where father and mother, and brother and sister, and even an aunt, uncle or a grandparent, may enjoy camp life in  the sunshine of the Mokuleia coast is being offered to the people of Honolulu by the Honolulu YMCA.”

“This is made more attractive this year through the new equipment which has been erected at the camp site known as Camp Harold [Randolph] Erdman.”

“The Rotary dining hall with its splendid kitchen and equipment, the new cottages – eight in all, as well as showers and modem toilet conveniences, together with a new hospital unit soon to be under construction, will be of interest to Honolulu mothers or fathers who would like to spend a few days on the beach with their children.” (Advertiser, July 2, 1932)

In 1941, the bombing of Pearl Harbor and American involvement in World War II had temporarily ended camping at Camp Erdman. The Army Engineers immediately placed 100 workmen at the camp and didn’t leave until 1943. Soon after, the camp was leased to the 14th Naval District as an officers’ rest camp. (DLNR)

The Navy gave up the camp in spring of 1946 and the YMCA was able to buy the improvements that were made at a fraction of the cost. Camping started back up immediately and attendance records were broken that first summer and increased every year since. (DLNR)

Today, Camp Erdman offers a range of programs for kids and teens throughout the summer and year-round for school groups and retreats, as well as healing camps for children of prison inmates, youth with disabilities, and more.  (YMCA)

For some, it’s the first time they’ve ventured beyond their community, eaten three meals a day, or slept in a bed—not to mention, climbed, sang or gone swimming. Through financial aid, the Y ensures life-changing experiences for all children across O‘ahu. (YMCA)

© 2024 Ho‘okuleana LLC

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

“Kidnap and Rape” – “Kidnap and Murder”

On the night of Saturday, September 12, 1931, Navy Lt. Tommie and Thalia Massie went with some of their friends to the Ala Wai Inn, a restaurant overlooking the drainage canal that marked the boundary of the Waikīkī resort area.

“The truth of what transpired on the night of September 12, 1931, at the Ala Wai Inn on the way to Waikīkī or on the Ala Moana Road (which paralleled the shore on the way to downtown Honolulu) will probably never be known.”  (Hunter)

Two dramatic criminal trials, one for rape and one for murder and both involving multiple defendants, called attention to race relations and politics.  No trials ever had a more significant effect on a state’s history than those that shocked and shook Hawaiʻi in 1931 and 1932.  (Linder)

They are:
Territory of Hawaiʻi v. Ben Ahakuelo, Horace Ida, Joseph Kahahawai, Henry Chang and David Takai; 1931 (Rape trial) (also known as the “Ala Moana trial;” the name of the street where the assault allegedly took place)
Territory of Hawaiʻi v. Grace Fortescue, Thomas Massie, Edward Lord and Deacon Jones; 1932 (Murder trial)

“That the wife of Lieutenant Thomas Massie, United States Navy, was beaten, was evident; that she was raped was not clearly shown; that the five Hawaiian youths indicted for rape were not guilty was probable; and that she had asked for trouble the evidence shows.”   (Hunter)

Back to the night of September 12 at Waikīkī … Thalia left her husband behind and walked out of the Ala Wai Inn, and when she returned home early the next morning … “Something terrible has happened.” (She claimed she had been abducted and raped by five young Hawaiian men.)

The case for the prosecution was shaky.  Neither Mrs Massie’s body or her clothes showed that she had been raped.  Likewise, after a thorough physical examination of their bodies and the clothes they were wearing that night when they were arrested, the defendants showed no sign that they had had sexual intercourse.

The jury stayed out from the afternoon of Wednesday, December 2, until the afternoon of Saturday, December 5.  It was a hung jury (seven for not guilty and five for guilty;) the judge declared a mistrial December 6, 1931.  It was the longest jury deliberation in Hawaiʻi’s history.  (Hannon) The defendants were released to await a second trial.

The aftermath of the Ala Moana trial reverberated throughout Honolulu and the mainland. The mistrial outraged Navy personnel, the business community and white citizens in Hawaiʻi and government officials throughout the US.  (Hannon)

Instead of sticking to the facts, the white press in Hawaiʻi and the mainland press played the race card, which only served to further anger whites. Numerous newspapers and magazines added to the misinformation, hysteria and racial atmosphere surrounding the situation in Hawaiʻi.

Time Magazine reported in an article titled ‘Lust in Paradise’ a few weeks after the mistrial:  “Honolulu, paradisaic melting pot of East & West, was tense with trouble last week. Yellow men’s lust for white women had broken bounds. … A tremor of apprehension ran through Hawaiʻi’s motley population…”  (Hannon)

Joseph Kahahawai had been released; while out on bail the defendant was required to report in court every morning about nine o’clock.

Fortescue (Thalia’s mother) had a plan … with help, she would pick up Kahahawai at the courthouse after he had reported in and take him to a cottage, about 2-miles away.  She wanted to get a confession.  She let Tommie in on the plan, as well as a couple Sailors.

Lieutenant Massie, Fortescue and two non-commissioned sailors, Albert ‘Deacon’ Jones and Edward Lord, collaborated on the scheme.   Fortescue faked a subpoena addressed to Kahahawai, commanding him to appear before the high sheriff of the island of Oʻahu.

January 8, 1932, Massie and Lord drove to the Judiciary Building in a rented Buick; Fortescue and Jones followed in Massie’s roadster. When Kahahawai came out of the courthouse, Jones waved the fake summons at him, pushed him into the Buick, and they drove off.

In the back of Mānoa Valley, they threatened Kahahawai if he did not admit to the rape.  The pistol they brought went off and Kahahawai later died with a gunshot through the chest.

The four were put on trial for murder.

The most notorious trial in the history of Hawaiʻi began on April 4, 1932 and was titled Territory of Hawaiʻi vs. Grace Fortescue, et al., Crim. No. 11891. The trial would be presided over by forty-two year old Judge Charles “Skinner” Davis.  (Honnon)

Noted criminal trial lawyer, Clarence Darrow, was hired by the defense.  The defense argued the killing was justified under the “unwritten law” – a defense usually used by a husband who kills a man immediately after catching him having relations with his wife or raping her.  (Hannon)

The courtroom was jammed with anxious listeners, day after day, many waiting outside all night so they would be sure to get in when the case opened in the morning. The Honolulu papers carried a full stenographic report of the case, and the daily press on the mainland gave almost as full an account.

The main interest of the trial was the testimony of Lieutenant Massie and that of his wife; each of these witnesses was on the stand for two days.   No others who were at the cottage testified.

Massie told the jury of his emotions when the man had ravished his wife sat there in front of him, how it called all the anxiety and trouble he and his wife had through for two or three months, and that he proposed to have the matter settled now.  (Darrow)

Darrow gave his closing argument on Wednesday, April 27, 1932. The last major courtroom argument of his career, it was heard live on radio stations across the country. Anxious to hear Darrow speak, many people waited in line the night before and some places in line were bought and sold.  (Hannon)

The jury returned a verdict of manslaughter, leniency recommended.

The guilty verdicts inflamed the already caustic political atmosphere. Mainland politicians saw it as continued miscarriage of justice in the whole sordid case. They were already angry that Hawaiʻi’s justice system had failed to convict in the Thalia Massie case.  The White House was flooded with telegrams protesting the verdict and asking President Hoover to issue immediate pardons. (Hannon)

All four were sentenced to ten years imprisonment. Amid a storm of protest, the Governor of Hawaiʻi, Lawrence Judd, immediately commuted their sentences to one hour in the sheriff’s office.

Thalia and Tommie, along with Mrs. Fortescue, left Hawaiʻi at once and returned to the mainland. (The couple found no peace; they were divorced soon after the trial.)

A couple of years later, Thalia in an unsuccessful attempt at suicide, slashed her wrists during a transatlantic cruise. Tommie left the Navy, took a second wife, and established a career in business. Thalia married a second time, and on July 2, 1963, she died in West Palm Beach from an overdose of barbiturates.  (Riccio)

The surviving four Hawaiians defendants in the Thalia Massie rape case (the Ala Moana trial) were never retried.

“Many times I have been asked why I went to Honolulu. I was not sure then, and am not sure now. I had never been to that part of the Pacific … But the more I thought of those islands in the Pacific that I had so long wanted to see, and the more I investigated the strange and puzzling case, the more I felt that I had better go.”  (Clarence Darrow)

“The old man (Darrow) came down to the Islands believing his personal presence and his known tolerance and understanding of human suffering would help smooth over any racial problems that might exist. When he left the Islands two months later the racial issues were more deeply graven than ever.”  (Theon Wight, Rape in Paradise)  (Lots of information here from Darrow and Hannon.)

© 2024 Hoʻokuleana LLC

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hofgaard Store

Christopher Blom Hofgaard was born in Skien, Norway, on October 5, 1859. His parents were Gerhard Didrik and Didrikka (Blom) Hofgaard. He received his education at high school and at the Christiana Handelsgymnasium.

Hofgaard arrived in Hawai‘i on January 22, 1882. The first job of the newly-arrived young man in the islands was on the Wailuku sugar plantation where he worked several months, leaving to accept a clerkship in CH Dickey’s store at Haiku. Later, he was promoted to manager of the Dickey store at Paia.

In April 1885, he left Dickey’s employ to enter business for himself. He moved to Kauai and started the firm of CB Hofgaard & Co, in October of 1885.

In addition, from 1885 to 1886 he was a clerk in the post office and served as postmaster at Waimea, Kauai, from 1886 to 1918.  With respect to his postmaster role, Hofgaard wrote,

“Mrs MJ Rowell was postmaster in Waimea when I started the store in 1885, but in May 1886, she wrote to Fred Wunderberg, the postmaster general, that she desired to get rid of the postoffice and proposed to him that he appoint me postmaster.”

“Mrs Rowell turned over the postoffice and handed me the letter from the postmaster general as authority for the act, and I started to act at once.”

“Everything went on all right till some time in 1887, when I was suddenly arrested for accepting money under false pretenses. The women had started a ‘Hui Kuonoono’ and when the first installment came in, the treasurer of the hui deposited the money in the postal savings bank and I receipted for the money signing CB Hofgaard, postmaster.”

“Appeared in court the following morning and had my case postponed one week and wrote to the postmaster general to send me a commission in return mail, and date it back some six months, as I was arrested for impersonating an officer of the government.”

“By return mail I received the commission but the sheriff maintained it was a forgery.” It was an embarrassing moment, but with no apparent consequence. (SB, June 12, 1930)

The CB Hofgaard Store was so successful that he was enabled to retire from active management twelve years later, but retained the presidency of the company, which was incorporated in 1901.

For more than 30 years Mr. Hofgaard was the representative of the Equitable Life Assurance Society in the islands. In addition to the presidency of the Hofgaard firm he also was treasurer of Waimea Stables.

In addition to his business and public offices, welfare and church work drew much of Mr. Hofgaard’s attention. He was a member of the district committee of the Hawaiian Board of Missions, a member of the YMCA committee, president of the board of trustees of the Waimea foreign church society, a trustee of the Mahelona hospital, and a member of the Kauai board of child welfare. (Nellist)

Hofgaard served as auditor for the county of Kauai in 1905 and road supervisor from 1886 to 1898. He was appointed district magistrate in 1904.

Waimea’s Hofgaard Park, that narrow strip of land in Waimea that has the statue of Captain James Cook and other historical plaques is named for Hofgaard.

It seems the Hofgaard Store had a role in Hawai‘i’s banking industry … “Mr and Mrs Wilson P Cannon and little son arrived from Berkley en route to Waimea Kauai, where Mr Cannon, who is a dry goods man, will be associated with the Hofgaard store.”

“Mrs Cannon was born on Kauai and has not been in the islands for 17 years. She is the niece of Mr and Mrs CB Hofgaard of Waimea.” (SB, January 1, 1921)

The son, Wilson P Cannon Jr, was born in Berkely on August 25, 1919 and grew up on Kauai and Maui and was graduated from Maui High School in 1937.  After WWII, he worked his way through the ranks at Bank of Hawai‘i and later became Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the bank.

American Factors (Amfac) bought the store in 1921. (SB, August 18, 1928) During WWII, the store was used by the Army as a quartermaster warehouse.

Businessman HS Kawakami bought and renovated the Hofgaard store in 1947 and moved his retail business into it. In 1966, the Hofgaard building was demolished to make way for a newer building opened by Kawakami in 1967 that would house the Bank of Hawai‘i, HS Kawakami Stores, and Big Save market. (Soboleski)

© 2024 Ho‘okuleana LLC

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

MacDonald Hotel

“Broad spreading trees and wide lawns gave Punahou St an air of quiet and peace and dignity. And not the least dignified of the buildings which line the street is the MacDonald hotel, which for more than 50 years has stood as a landmark in the district.” (Star Bulletin, July 21, 1934)

“The MacDonald Hotel is a stately mansion surrounded by cottages amid sub-tropical foliage. It is located at 1402 Punahou Street in the great residence district of Honolulu.”

“There are tennis courts on the grounds, and the transient as well as the permanent resident has here all the comforts of home at the reasonable rates of $3 a day or $65 a month. The guests enjoy delicious home-cooked meals, which are also served to outsiders. This hotel is near Central Union Church and Oahu College.  (Mid-Pacific Magazine, July 1927)

“Two prominent island families called this building ‘home’ before it was converted into a hotel. They were the families of Col and Mrs Charles H Judd and Judge and Mrs HA Widemann.”  (Star Bulletin, July 21, 1934)

Charles Hastings Judd, born at Kawaiaha‘o on September 8, 1835 to missionaries Gerrit and Laura Judd, was Chamberlain to King Kalākaua from 1878 until 1886, and an official in various responsible capacities during the reigns of three rulers, Kamehameha V, Lunalilo and Kalākaua.

In 1860, Judd and his brother-in-law, SG Wilder, had purchased the lands of Kualoa and Ka‘a‘awa from Judd’s father and Jacob Fox and started diversified farming with tobacco, cotton and rice were planted and the possibility of vanilla beans was discussed.

He entered into a partnership with his father and Wilder in 1863 for the growing and grinding of sugar cane at Kualoa, and in 1864, the first on the Island of O‘ahu.

In 1866 the Charles and his family settled at “Rosebank,” Nu‘uanu Valley, which had been bought from the estate of Robert C Wyllie, famous in Hawaiian history as a minister of foreign affairs. During these years Judd was engaged in ranching with John Cummins at Waimanalo. Production of sugar at Kualoa having failed for various reasons, the enterprise was abandoned in 1871. (Nellist)

Hermann Adam Widemann was born in Hanover, Germany on December 24, 1822. “After he left school where he received an excellent training he was destined for the army. His ‘pull’ was not sufficient in those days for promotion when ‘birth’ was everything and he went to sea in a merchant vessel.”

“In 1843 he arrived in Honolulu and he liked the place well and made up his mind to return to the Islands. In 1846 he landed again in Honolulu and made his home here and became a leading citizen of this little place. During the ‘gold fever’ in 1848-9 he made a trip to California but struck no ‘ore’ there.”

He later made a great success, through his ambition energy and sterling qualities, he rose to the high position in the community.  He served at one time Sheriff of Kauai, then Circuit Judge, Minister of the Interior, a Privy Councilor, a member of the Board of Health, Minister of Finance and a Noble.

“The main record of Mr Widemann will go down to posterity however as a leading and successful coffee and sugar planter. …  Although Widemann was not a trained lawyer he was a natural born jurist and at the time of his death was the oldest member of the Hawaiian Bar and for a while he occupied the position of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.” (The Independent, Feb 7, 1899)

Back to the MacDonald Hotel property … “It was built in 1880 for Col Judd, then court chamberlain to King Kalakaua and long active in affairs of the monarchy.  Beautlful walnut and other fine woods were used in its construction, and it stands today as substantial as it was 50 years ago. The handsome stairway is of walnut, and so are the five pairs of thick folding doors.”

“The Judd family moved in late in 1880, but Col Judd left his home on January 20, 1881, to accompany King Kalakaua on his famous trip around the world. Unable to go direct from here to Japan, the party went first to San Francisco, then directly across the Pacific and on around the world. Col Judd was away from his home most of the year.”

“In 1886, following his withdrawal from the service of the king, Col Judd moved to his Leilehua ranch home, although keeping his Punahou St home for occasions when he was in the city. …” Later the house was sold.

“The new owners of the house were Judge HA Widemann, also a prominent figure in governmental affairs, and Mrs Widemann. Here the Widemann family, with its household of children lived, and even after the marriage of the younger generatlon the house remained a center of their activities.

Following the death of Widemann … “the house became the property of his daughter, Mrs Henry Macfarlane. She sold it after a few years and it became a hotel, managed by Mrs M MacDonald for many years.”

“It came under the present ownership in 1928 when Mrs Polly Ward was appointed manager. At this time its name was temporarily changed to Kalaniloohia (The Beautiful Attainment), an early name for the district; but the name MacDonald hotel was so firmly ingrained on people’s consciousness that it stuck, and later the Hawaiian name was dropped.”

“Although improvements have been made in the interior of the building it still retains the atmosphere of the hospitable old home. The Manoa breeze sweeps through its high ceilinged rooms just as it did a half century ago.”

“The exterior remains without change, and so do most of the four and a half acres of spacious grounds.  Five cottages are now in the yard, two of them dating back to the Widemann’s occupancy.”

“Another of these cottages known as ‘Little Arcadia’ has an interesting history of its own.  It was built about 1893 or 1894 by Mr and Mrs. John G Rothwell and stood, not where it is now, but on the adjoining lot mauka, just a trifle makai and Waikiki of Arcadia, the present home of Judge and Mrs. Walter F Frear.”  (It was moved to make room for the driveway to Arcadia.) (Star Bulletin, July 21, 1934)

Things changed again … “MacDonald Hotel Sold to Church for School Use .., The MacDonald hotel and property [about 3.6 acres] at 1402-1406 Punahou Street will be converted to use as an addition to the Maryknoll School.” (Star Bulletin, Dec 16, 1947)

Maryknoll was founded by a young priest and six Maryknoll Sisters. When it was blessed in 1927, there were only 93 boys and 77 girls who made up the student body. The school was a one-story, wooden-frame building containing four classrooms on Dole Street.

Within four years, the Sisters knew that expansion was necessary. In 1931, the first freshman class was enrolled and, in 1935, the first 13 graduates of the only Catholic co-educational high school in Hawaii received diplomas.

The high school division continued to operate at Dole Street until 1948, when it was moved to the former MacDonald Hotel on Punahou Street. In August 1953, the present high school facility was dedicated.  Today, Maryknoll is Hawai‘i’s largest co-ed Catholic school serving grades K-12. Fifty percent of the students are non-Catholics. (Maryknoll)

© 2024 Ho‘okuleana LLC

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

$25,000 Annuity

“In an interview, ex-Queen Liliuokalani said of the proposed treaty between the United States and Hawaii: ‘Fifteen hundred people are giving away my country.’”

“‘The people of my country do not want to be annexed to the United States. Nor do the people of the United States wants annexation. It is the work of 1,500 people, mostly Americans, who have settled in Hawaii. Of this number those who are not native born Americans are of American parentage.’”

“‘None of my people want the island annexed. The population of the islands is 109,000. Of this number 40,000 are native Hawaiians. The rest are Americans, Germans, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese, English and a small proportion from other countries. The 1,500 Americans who are responsible for what was done to-day are running the affairs of the islands.’”

“‘There is no provision made in this treaty for me. In the Harrison treaty I was allowed $20,000 a year, but that treaty never went into effect. I have never received one dollar from the United States.’”

“‘No one looked after my interests in the preparation of this treaty. Yet my people, who form so large a part of the population of the islands, would want justice done me.’” (Los Angeles Herald, June 18, 1897)

Then, a couple American newspapermen (Charles L MacArthur, a former New York state senator and then editor of the local newspaper in Troy NY and William Shaw Bowen, a journalist with the New York World newspaper) independently supported an effort to arrange a $25,000 annuity to Liliʻuokalani.

In responding to questions noted in the Morgan Report, MacArthur stated, “I went to Mr. Dole. I had trouble in my own mind as to whether the Queen had not some personal rights in the crown lands, for the reason that the treasury department had never asked her to make a return on the income …”

“… which was about $75,000 a year, from these lands and which she had received, and as the treasury had never asked her for a return I thought she had an individual right in the lands.”

“I said to the people, ‘She has individual rights, and you have not asked her to make a return to the treasury of what she has received and what she did not receive.’ The President explained it all to me, the grounds of it. “

“When Mr. Neuman indicated that they were willing – I had made the suggestion and others had – that they ought to buy her out, pay her a definite sum, $25,000 or some other sum per year for her rights.”

“Her rights had been shattered, but I thought they ought to pay for them, and so I went, in accordance with Mr. Neuman’s suggestion, or by his consent, to see President Dole.”

“Mr. Neuman said he wanted to talk with President Dole about this matter, but he had not been there officially, and he could not go there publicly to his official place. I talked with Mr. Dole, and Mr Dole said he could not officially do anything without consulting his executive committee …”

“… but he said he would be very happy to meet Mr. Neuman and see what they wanted – see if they could come to any terms about this thing by which the Queen would abdicate and surrender her rights.”

“Mr. Neuman and his daughter called, nominally for the daughter to see Mrs. Dole, so that it could not get out, if they made a call, they could say it was merely a social call, not an official call.”

“Of course, I do not know what their conversation was; but Mr. Neuman, acting on that, called on the Queen. Mr. Dole and Mr. Neuman both impressed on me the importance of not having this thing get out, or the whole thing would go up in smoke. Mr. Neuman said he could bring this thing about if he could keep it from the Queen’s retainers – her people.”

“He said, ‘That is the difficulty about this thing.’ This matter went on for three or four days. Mr. Neuman saw the Queen and she agreed not to say anything about it, so Mr. Neuman tells me, and I got it from other sources there which I think are reliable. They came to some sort of understanding; I do not know what it was.”

“They went so far as to say this woman would not live over three or four years; that she had some heart trouble; and if they gave her $25,000 a year it would not be for a long time. … Mr. Neuman said she assented to it, if she could satisfy one or two of her people.”

Bowen noted in testimony in the Morgan Report, “One day while dining with Paul Neuman I said: ‘I think it would be a good thing if the Queen could be pensioned by the Provisional Government; it would make matters harmonious, relieve business, and make matters much simpler.’”

“I also said that I was aware that certain gentlemen in Washington were opposed to pensioning the Queen; that certain Senators raised that objection to the treaty that was brought from the islands because it recognized the principle of the right of a queen to a pension.”

“There was one Senator, especially, from the South, who said, without discussing the treaty, that that was objectionable to him; that his people would object to it. I said, “If there is no annexation it is a serious question; if there is, the Queen should be taken care of.”

“Neuman agreed with me. He was a strong friend of the Queen, disinterested and devoted. But he said it could not be done. I told him that I had become acquainted with the members of the Provisional Government who were high in authority, and I thought I would try to have it done.”

“Mr. Dole said he would not make any propositions himself and asked me what I thought the pension ought to be. On the spur of the moment, not having considered the matter, I said I thought the Queen ought to get a very handsome pension out of the crown lands.”

“I asked if there was any question about raising the money, and he said none whatever. He finally asked me to name the figures. He had the idea that the figures had been suggested. I said, ‘You ought to give $20,000 a year to furnish her followers with poi. That is the native dish.’ Mr. Dole said he would consider that question.”

“The result was that Mr. Dole told Mr. Neuman that if the Queen would make such a proposition to him it would receive respectful attention and intimated that he thought it would be accepted. Mr. Seaman saw the Queen and told me that he thought it would be done; that the more he thought of it the more convinced he was that it would be better all around.”

“In the meantime he (Blount) had been to the Queen, to Mr. Dole, and had done what he could to prevent the carrying out of the plan. Mr. Neuman had an interview with the Queen.”

“She told him that she would do nothing more in the matter, and asked him to give back her power of attorney, and he tore it up in her presence. This was the 22d, that he tore up his power of attorney.”

“On the 21st instant Mr. Claus Spreckels called to see me. He said that he suspected there was an effort at negotiation between the Queen and the Provisional Government, and that he had urged the Queen to withdraw her power of attorney from Paul Neumann.”

“How much or how little Mr. Spreckels knows about this matter I am unable to say, as I do not know how to estimate him, never having met him before. He promised to see me again before the mail leaves for the United States on next Wednesday, and give me such information as he could acquire in the meantime.”

“I have no doubt whatever that if Mr. Blount had not prevented, and secondarily Mr. Claus Speckels, the agent for the sugar trust, that plan would have been carried out. I have no doubt of it in my own mind.” (Bowen; Morgan Report)

“Thus Blount intervened to scuttle negotiations between the Queen and President Dole that were strongly on track toward a mutually agreeable settlement whereby the Queen would give up all claims to the throne in return for an annuity.” (MorganReport)

© 2024 Hoʻokuleana LLC

Liliuokalani_in_1917
Liliuokalani_in_1917