John Howard Midkiff, son of James Jesse and Bertha (Wilson) Midkiff, was born January 16, 1893, in Stonington, Christian County, Illinois. His mother died when he was only 3-½ years old. His father was a Baptist preacher, who never made more than $62 a month and raised the 5 boys and 2 girls himself and sent every one through college.
In the summers between 7th grade and high school, John worked on a farm in the corn belt on the mainland. They got up at 3:30 am to milk cows, feed pigs and harness horses; then worked in the fields from daylight to sunset; came back and fed the livestock again. (UH Ethnic Studies Oral History Project)
“I came out here [to Hawai‘i] during the Food Administration. I was at the First Officer’s Training School in the first World War. And I was taken out of there and sent over here. They had the Food Administration, really, it’s mostly food production. In case we should be shut off from the Mainland. On the island of Hawaii [in West Hawaii].” (Midkiff, UH Ethnic Studies Oral History Project)
Then, “John H Midkiff, former county food agent in West Hawaii, is now assistant professor of agriculture at the College of Hawaii [forerunner to University of Hawai‘i], devoting part of his time to instruction and lectures and hog raising, at a part of his time, also, to experimental and investigation work.” (HTH, May 21, 1919)
After that, “John H Midkiff now with Koloa Plantation, Kauai, was selected late yesterday afternoon by the trustees of Kamehameha Schools as principal of the Kamehameha School for Boys.”
“Midkiff is well known in the islands and his combination of thorough vocational training with experience in Hawaiian industries was a strong factor … in his selection for Kamehameha.” (SB, Aug 7, 1923)
John’s brother, Frank Elbert Midkiff, was president of Kamehameha Schools [1923 – 1934] and a trustee of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate [1939-1983]. (KSBE) “I was principal of the (Kamehameha) school [1923-1924] and I decided the school life simply wasn’t for me.”
“I just naturally preferred the agricultural work. Before that time, I had taught botany, genetics, agriculture at the University and I had been principal of the Kamehameha Boys’ School for one year. But my heart was always on the plantations.” (Midkiff, UH Ethnic Studies Oral History Project)
“And then, Mr. Frank Atherton who was a head of Castle and Cook at that time knew that I had been offered a job as Division Supervisor at Pioneer on Maui.”
“And he said, ‘Well, why don’t you go out and try our plantations on this island?’ I went to Ewa first and told them very frankly that I was shooting for the assistant manager’s job. If there was a chance to work up to that, fine. Otherwise I didn’t want to go there. And he simply laughed at me. He said, ‘You better go someplace else.’”
“So, then, I went over to Waialua. Buck Thompson was the manager. I frankly told him the same thing. He said well, if I proved that I could handle it, someday I might get it. It took me eight years to get it”. (Midkiff, UH Ethnic Studies Oral History Project)
“[A]ny plantation work I’ve ever seen in Hawaii is a picnic and always was, compared to the farm days back in Illinois. We had short seasons and we had to work every daylight hour.”
“We got up long before daylight, did all our chores around the farm, had breakfast, and then went to the fields. Took our lunch with us and stayed there till dark”. (Midkiff, UH Ethnic Studies Oral History Project)
“[I]n the plantations of course, we had a number of different communities. They pretty well segregated according to their racial background. Japanese lived in certain village, Chinese in others, and the Portuguese’d live mostly in one place although they were scattered all over, too.”
“We had what was known as the haole camp. That was the supervisors mostly, too. They were a little better class of houses. Well, considerably better class of houses than the ordinary workmen had.”
“At the time I first went to Waialua, very few of the workers’ houses had any running water or toilets in them. … before I left, I saw that every one of them did have.” (Midkiff, UH Ethnic Studies Oral History Project)
“One of the first regulations I sent out to the supervisors when I was appointed manager was that there was to be absolutely no abuse of any kind of any laborer. No verbal or other abuse. They certainly should never touch em.”
“And first, a good many of them’d said, ‘Well, how are you gonna run a gang, if you can’t cuss em out?’ I said, ‘Well, lead them.’ We had really good labor relations. We paid 10 cents an hour more than any plantation in Hawaii. And had the lowest labor cost in Hawaii. Cause we could get good men who were willing to work.”
“During the War, to encourage turnout, because the government wanted all the sugar it could get and we lost many of our men to the services, I gave a $25 bond every month to a person who had a perfect turnout or within one day of it. Well, no other plantation did that.”
“But then when they finally got union contract, that was frozen into my contract. Not the bond, but the 10 cents an hour extra. Which suited me fine because I could always get almost anybody I wanted.”
“We were not unionized until after every other plantation had been. Maybe I was wrong, but I thought I could have kept them out as long as I was manager if I wanted to.”
“But then I knew everybody’d be concentrating on us all the time, the whole ILWU would be. So finally I decided, oh heck, better let them get in so I can see what they’re doing and work things out.” (Midkiff, UH Ethnic Studies Oral History Project)
“Under his management, Waialua was among the first plantations to introduce training programs, improved community facilities and a funded pension plan. He emphasized the importance of the work done by his employees and the contributions they made to the company’s success.”
“His work in the fields brought him close to the men in the sugar industry and helped him understand their problems. When the opportunity came, he used his position to help to make life better for his employees.”
“Few men hold as distinguished a place in Hawaii’s industrial and community life because few men possess John Midkiff’s understanding that good human relations are essential to any success.” (SB, Jan 5, 1951)
“My brother Frank and I started the Waialua Community Association. It was his idea. I got the plantation to donate land, the building and that was the start of that movement all over Hawaii. There are many of them now where you could get together. Everyone in the whole community, plantation or non-plantation, was invited and included in.”
“In fact, I always refused to take any office in it, or to be on any board of directors in it because I thought it or to be too overpowering for the plantation manager. If he said something when you’re furnishing the payroll for a big part of the community, people might be inclined to give it too much weight. So I never was.” (Midkiff, UH Ethnic Studies Oral History Project)
“The broad aim of this Waialua association is the desire to improve the social and economic life of the people of Waialua and the feeling that with cooperative effort … rural life can be made as attractive as urban life. … The district is agricultural, characteristic of the territory at large; it has adequate soils and water; and it has an industrious and ambitious population.”
“Through the cooperation of all Waialua people, the Waialua district may become a model for Hawaii and an example for other sections of the United States as well – in showing what a rural community can do in the way of social and economic betterment when it sets about to do it.” (SB, Feb 15, 1935)
“John was very concerned to keep competent employees on the plantation. So [he and his brother] organized the first rural community association in Hawai’i at Waialua and then the second one along the Windward O‘ahu Coast, (Ko‘olau Poko, Ko‘olau Loa).” (Robert Midkiff Oral History)
John H Midkiff Sr began working for the Waialua Agricultural Co. in 1924 as a supervisor. He was manager from 1932 to 1951 and retired because of bad health. He died on May 28, 1984 (at the age of 91).
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