History of Reading News. Vol.XXIII No.1 (1999:Fall)
by Sondra Cuban

Presstime in Paradise: The Life and Times of The Honolulu Advertiser, 1856-1995 by George Chaplin. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press, 1998. Pp. 395. Illustrations. $29.95.

To discharge every Jap and put on newly-imported laborers of another race would be a most impressive object lesson to the little brown men on all the plantations. (Advertiser, 1906, Chaplin, p. 140).

Any paradisiacal image readers have of Hawai'i will be shattered by the satiric and sobering documentation of ethnocentrism in one of Hawai'i's main newspapers by its most renowned editor, George Chaplin. In Presstime in Paradise, Chaplin paints a paradoxical picture of The Honolulu Advertiser's operations from 1856-1995, with a

critical perspective that fits within the burgeoning literature on Hawai'i's newspapers and readership.

The Advertiser, begun by a missionary descendant, reflected Hawai'i's powerful white minority, the ascendancy of the English language, and Americanism. The tangled re-lations white businessmen and officials had with newspapers in overthrowing the Hawaiian monarchy, preserving sugar interests and suppressing other cultures are apparent; edit-orials that attacked Hawaiians, "though inferior in every re-spect to their European and American brethren. . . they are destined to be laborers in developing the capital of the coun-try" (p. 20), fueled hostility towards many ethnic groups.

Chaplin details the contradictions of Advertiser publish­ers. Although its founder, Henry Whitney, was pro-business, he was against the Coolie Trade, likening it to slavery, but disdained the Chinese. Like Whitney's succes­sor, Lorrin Thurston, he protested against hula for "licen­tiousness" (p. 19) but was silent about prostitution. To build patriotism prior to the U.S. involvement in World War I, haole (white foreigner) Thurston defended Hawai'i's Germans as "an integral part of the bones. . . and brains of this territory" (p. 147) saving his animosity for those of Asian ancestry, cast as aliens.

Chaplin colorfully describes dogmatic publishers, am­bivalent editors, and drifter reporters, some of whom drank in the Advertiser library and were imprisoned. His themes, buried underneath whimsical vignettes, illustrate Hawai'i's convoluted universe of racism, politics, and business, paral­leling that of the mainland.

Chaplin, a maverick editor from 1958 to 1986, followed his forerunners with high profile community involvement. Chaplin's pro-civil rights, democratic politics introduced the "new Hawai'i" (p. 269) and turned the Advertiser into a mainstream paper mirroring Hawai'i's expansion. While readers may find it "difficult to separate the newspaper from the man" (Hillman, 1972, p.47), Chaplin stakes an even-handed course as he traces the paper's history. This dynamic portrayal, connecting the evolution of a newspaper and a major city, distinguishes the book from the genre of news­paper editor confessions. Moreover, Chaplin's case study of the intricacies of a corporate takeover (Gannet publications) from an insider perspective is fascinating.

Chaplin structures the book into five chronological parts with clever headings embellishing its actors-from cartoon­ists to stockholders. Critical forces, such as free speech laws, shaped the paper's existence. Created in 1852 by the Hawaiian monarchy, they were abolished under American rule in 1894. With political turmoil in government and industrialization, the Advertiser thrived "in an environment of greed and glitter" (p. 81). The Advertiser's editorial policy changed to "Hawai'i for the Hawaiians" (p. 83) under pub­lisher Walter Gibson, whom Chaplin harshly portrays as a false prophet, a "multifaceted dreamer and schemer" (p. 81), in contrast to his impartial representation of a racist editor, Armstrong. "Above all," Armstrong declared about the gov­ernment, "90 percent of the people who live under it know nothing, either by racial instincts or education" (p. 105).

Under the missionary sons, Armstrong and Castle, the Advertiser promoted the 1898 war in the Philippines, touting Hawai'i as "The First Outpost of Greater America"

(p. 107) and shouting, "ANNEXATION! Here to Stay" (p. 106) with the takeover. Hawaiians were encouraged to unite for "Hawai'i of the twentieth century" (p. 108), and Hawai-ian language papers were not to "array the natives against the foreigners" (p. 95).

Publisher Thurston also promoted Americanism through his Citizenship Education Committee role. He canceled his Hawaiian language paper, despite its large but declining circulation, because young Hawaiians "get practically no information and little pleasure from reading Hawaiian" (p. 137) and promoted the destruction of Japanese language schools because, "the alien Japanese are our guests" (p. 138). Yet Japanese and Filipino residents did not feel like "guests," and when they protested, the paper attacked them as enemies. Ironically, Hawai'i was also advertised as a "place where America and Asia meet" (p. 158).

Most Japanese language papers were closed during WW II. With headlines proclaiming "Saboteurs Land Here" (p. 203), martial law, and censorship became commonplace as the Advertiser proudly became a "testtube" (p. 206) under military rule. During the 1950s, anti-Communist sentiment by the Advertiser was linked to labor and race and was a rationale for denying statehood to a majority non-white territory that swayed southern legislators. The Un-American committee was invited by anti-union Thurston to see "Americans under Communist Domination" (p. 233). Editor Chaplin's anti-Communist stance, however, was for promoting statehood (see Chapin, 1996).

Hawai'i readers would feel comfortable with Chaplin's "talk story" style, local terms, dazzling quotes, and first-hand accounts of the struggles of women reporters, multi-ethnic journalists, and tense relationships with Mayor Fasi. Unfortunately, alternative and outer-island newspapers are overlooked, leaving a geo-centric impression that happenings in Honolulu reflected all of Hawai'i. Chaplin offers mainland scholars geographic breadth, revealing con­nections between San Francisco and the south, despite Hawai'i's physical isolation. With more synthesis, a shrewder, stormier picture of an infamous newspaper could surface.

References

Chapin, Helen G. (1996). Shaping history: The role of newspapers in Hawai'i. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press.

Hillman, Serrell. (1972). The fall and rise of the man who edits the Honolulu Advertiser. Honolulu, 6 no. 9 (March 1972), 47.