.. By KLAUS MEHNERT

Va mall. k6 fla 0 ka aina i ka pono. (The life of the la~ is preserved by righteousness.) Motto of Hawaii. The beautiful Hawaiian word like this. If, for instance, a person "'Aloha" cannot be translated. It says, "1 am now leaving Germany," means love, friendship, sympathy, it really does not mean very much. He farewell, and much more. The follow­ is perhaps looking at a railway station ing lines are an Aloha in two ways. on the Belgian border, or at the banks They are a friendly farewell to the hos­ of the lower Elbe, or possibly at the pitable islands on which I lived for mountains of the Brenner Pass, and four years, and they are also a good­ each time he sees only an infinitesimal bye to old Hawaii, which toward the fragment of Germany. Germany itself dosure of my sta:Jh-,was undergoing a is much more, ( ...;k nOPQdy has ever rapid transformation. and which, if seen i~ a whole. But here the entire this development shou.ld continue, will island 11e; before me. From the light­ disappear. never to return. house on Barber's Point to the crater Hawaii's transformation from a of Koko Head I can see every ridge of south sea paradise to a naval and the two parallel volcanic mountain military fortress of first magnitude ranges and the broad valley lying be­ 'seems inevitable. The time may soon tween them, filled with sugar cane and come. when people, who no'tl':rassociate pineapple fields. In the fiery sunset the name of Hawaii with rt·1Jt~·girls the mountains and valleys are indescrib­ and palm trees in the moonlignt, will ably green and seem very near as the link the islands with nothing but coast deep shadows accentuate every line. artillery, bombers, and naval battles, as White and pearl-grey clOUds float over if Hawaii were another Gibraltar or the ranges; a pale rainbow stands over SingapOl·e. This is sad. There are Manoa valley, and above evet;Jthing is many-too many-Gibraltars. But the clear blue vault of the skY. there was only one Hawaii. This I I have hiked in Gemnany more wide­ feel more strongly than ever in this ly than the majority of my country­ bour of my departure from Honolulu men, in the Black Forest>- and in the -as the Japanese liner slowly makes its Heide, on the Rhine and in Upper way through the reef. Bavaria, in the Harz Mountains, along the Baltic coast and the river Main, DEPARTURES yet I have only seen part of Germany. ~ny departures have I had in my But on this island I know almost every life of wandering, but never was one square foot. There is no village where 2 THE XXth CENTURY

I do not have some friends, no peak or The farther east they are, the vale that I have not seen from a car, younger are the islands geologically. on foot or from a plane, no beach where Old Kauai has been eroded by wind I have not played with the surf. and rain to such an extent that craters can no longer be found on it. It is When you leave Stuttgart the train slowly disappearing. But at the other takes you through a tunnel, and by the end of the chain, Hawaii still has ac­ time you come out of it you find your­ tive volcanoes and continues to grow. self in Cannstatt. When you depart Its two volcanoes, thirteen and fourteen from Chicago you travel between high thousand feet high, are proof of our walls obstructing the view and past earth's tremendous strength, which has drab and impersonal railway stations. raised their snowy summits 35,000 But here there is nothing between the feet above the bottom of the sea, and radiant and many-colored island and goes on thrusting them ev,er higher. myself-nothing but the slowly wide­ ning blue ribbon of ocean. In another nine days it will be more than three CANYONS AND HARBORS thousand miles wide. The differences in geological age ex­ plain the great variety among the six Since the beginning of the war more islands. It is as if you had to deal with Europeans have passed through Hawaii six people whose ages vary between than ever before. The closing of the ten and seventy.five years. Kauai, Atlantic through blockade and counter­ for instance, can prove its great age blockade has made the route across the by its possession of a canyon of huge Pacific the only reliable one between proportions, which in its beauty rivals the Old and New Worlds. Hundreds the Grand Canyons of the Colorado or of European refugees look at the Yellowstone. The next island, Oahu, Hawaiian Islands from every eastbound is old enough to have two good ports, ship, and from westbound ships re­ Honolulu and Pearl Harbor. Yet any­ turning citizens of the Axis Powers one who sees the volcanic forms of gaze upon them. But if, in transit, Diamond Head, Punch Bowl, Koko you spend a few hours in Honolulu, if Head, and other craters, will recognize you have a swim in Waikiki and then from afar that Oahu is younger than do some sightseeing, you have seen Kauai. about as much of Hawaii as someone who has visited Shanghai has seen of Before the coming of the white man China. Hawaii is more than Honolulu, and his ships, Hawaii had been the and more than Oahu, the island on main island, but. being geologically too which Honolulu is situated. Hawaii is a young to have good harbors, Hawaii complete world in itself. lost its supremacy to Oahu with its convenient port of Honolulu. Like­ wise. the first-rate naval port of Pearl PARADISE ON A FAULT Harbor accounts for the presence of While Eden was lost due to the sin tens of thousands of sailors, soldiers, of our ancestors. the Hawaiian paradise and airmen on Oahu to-day. only exists because of a fault. From a The island of Molokai is famous for fault in the ocean's bed the chain of its leper home, Kalaupapa, where volcanoes that forms the Hawaiian several hundred lepers spend their last archipelago has worked itself up in years on a spot so lovely that it has millions of years. Omitting the smaller few rivals in the world. Kalaupapa and more distant islands such as Niihau seems to have been fashioned by nature or Midway. the Hawaiian archipelago for its tragic purpose. It is a penin­ consists. from west to east, of six main sula situated a few feet above sea level islands: Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Lanai, and can be reached only by a narrow Maui, Hawaii. trail, which leads from the high plateau ALOHA 3 of Molokai almost perpendicularly village children. In a Hawaiian canoe down more than two thousand feet of we sailed to Kealakekua Bay, once a· cliff. At first sight the settlement large settlement. There, a hundred hardly differs from any other: the and sixty years ago, the angry Hawai­ patients live in single or group houses, ians killed their discoverer, Captain they have their cinema, post office, and Cook. when they began to suspect that school, and some even bring their Fords he was not their god 1.ono for whom along to amuse themselves by driving they had taken him. For many days the jaUopies over the few square miles we hiked over the tremendous lava of the peninsula. flow. and through forests of fifteen For a long time Lanai was hardly or twenty foot tree-ferns; in a plane inhabited, until one of the big compa­ we flew over the crater of erupting nies of Honolulu decided to plant pine­ Maunaloa; and we pitched our tent. apple on it. Today Lanai is an ex­ under the palm trees of the City of ample of planned economy. The town, Refuge. Here on the most roma.ntic Lanai City, is built according to a spot on Hawaiian soil, on a tongue of clear plan; on every side extend the lava reaching into the ocean, stands blue-green fields of pineapples; in a the sacred Heiau (temple) which in small cliff·bound port large barges olden days offered refuge and shelter wait to carry their fragrant freight to anyone who was persecuted. to the Honolulu canneries, and from a primitive airport planes fly daily to .-"fOUNT.4INS AND BEACHES the other islands. As a German I love to hike. Shortly LIFE AND DEATH after my arrival in Honolulu I joined Maui boasts of the largest dormant a hiking club, and oft-en on Sundays crater in the world, Haleakala. Never I took to the mountains. Off the have I seen life and death closer to­ broad and excellent motor roads, built gether than when I stood on its 10,000 partly for the sake of the army's quick foot rim: behind me lay the ever­ movements, lies the real Hawaii. You moving blue ocean, its distant surf can set foot with confidence into every encircling the deep-green west-ern part jungle, you need not fear snakes or of Maui with a collar of fine. white poisonous insects. The trails lead lace; and farther west the chain of through tropical valleys with banana the other islands, all green and all with trees and heavily fragrant guava trees, white, shaggy clouds on their moun­ and the slopes, even where perpendi­ tain peaks-a picture alive with charm cular, a~e overgrown with green. The and color. But ahead of me extended trails lead over narrow ridges from the enormous crater. the bottom of it where, thou!\ands of feet below, you more than two thousand feet below. can see the Pacific on all sides. They The entire picture was one of deadly lead through canyons and to foaming emptiness--one might have been star­ waterfalls gnawing their way through ing at a landscape on the moon or into the rock. To swim naked in a cool the end of all things. mountain pool under a waterfall sur­ Finally there i Hawaii, which, rounded by tropical growth: this to me though the youngest of the islands, will always be the quintessence of my has paradoxically retained the most of wanderings on Oahu. ancient Hawaiian life. There, living I developed in Hawaii an entirely in tents, we spent an entire summer new relationship to water. The much­ with a group of students. In a praised beach of Waikiki is, of course, Hawaiian village we led for a while the as is everything of which advertise. life of the natives, existing on fish, ment has taken a hold, a disappoint­ and fruit which dropped into our laps, ment. But elsewhere swimming on playing in the surf for hours with the Hawaiian beaches with their perfec THE XXth CfNTURY water temperature is an unforgettable house on your left just after the second experience. If you wish to have the shower." full enjoyment of it, you must live for some time right on the beach where There is a Hawaiian word for only you do not have to make up your mind, one type of weather. In "Kona"-weather "Now I shall go swimming," or lllBke (Kona--south) the refreshing trade any other effort such as getting a car winds from the northeast cease to blow out of the garage. I remember Moku­ and the warm and moist equatorial leia where I frequently participated in wind brings high humidity and fati­ student camps. The camp site is on a gue. Fortunately the Kona is an ex­ lonely part of the island, with no good ception. This last year the trade winds roads leading to it. There you live all blew with hardly an interruption from dRY in your bathing trunks, and be­ November to June. Apart from the tween every game or meeting you run Kona the weather is practically the into the ocean with a sensation of jump­ same all year round, a warm spring ing into champagne. The coral reef lasting twelve months, with the aver­ i some 200 yards from the beach. age temperature in August only six de­ There the waves break, and hurl them­ grees above that in January. When selves with foaming crowns thunder­ I took my house near the university ingly against the sand. There is no a few years ago the first thing I did happier animal sensation than, with was to remove the glass windows your '"kin aglow from the rays of the which ran all around the house. Since sun, to run into the surf, to be seized then my walls have consisted mainly by the mighty yet friendly giant arms of mosquito screens. Day in, day out, of the waves and to be thrown in somer· Hawaii falls asleep under the stars and aults through the breakers. And to a wakes in sunshine. those who with diving-glasses explore the depth near the reef a new world MELTING-POT OF RACES of forms and fish is revealed. As to the people? Nowhere in the NO WORD FOR WEATHER world can you study race problems better than in Hawaii, where you have The old Ha waiians had no word for not only Hawaiians, whites of all na­ "weather." For them it was as small tionalities (called haoles>. Chinese, a problem as his liver is for a healthy Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, and ne­ person. They simply knew that it groes, but also their increasingly mix­ rains in the mountains where the high ed descendants, all of them living altitude condenses the moisture of the peacefully side by side. Even between trade winds to clouds and rain, and the older Chinese and Japanese-not that on the beaches the sun shines. to mention the young ones-the pre· From the ranges to the coast the an­ sent bitter conflict in the Orient has nual rainfall gradually decreases, and had no more serious consequences than you can have a house with any amount a fight in an old men's home. of rainfall you may desire. Hence the i lands possess the second wettest Apart from the races, the population spot in the world, Mt. Waialeale on of the islands consists of three groups. Kauai with more than 400 inches of First there are the inhabitants of the rain a year; yet at the same time you city of Honolulu, 150,000, a third of might think you were in the deserts the archipelago's entire population. of Arizona when you pass through This group includes, as in every town coastal areas where only cactus grows. in the world, rich and poor, big mer­ On the whole, the weather is so reliable chants and little shopkeepers, work­ that a man in our valley used to direct men, officials, shoeshiners, and a hun­ guests who came to him for the first dred other professions. Surprisingly time by saying, "You will find the white many people are, in one way or another, ALOHA 5 part of the enormous educational sys­ KAPU tem. The islands are full of public and private schools in which 110,000 Honolulu and the plantations might pupils are taught by 4,000 teachers. have continued to live in their old style The university alone has 2,600 stu­ for a considerable time to come. It is dents. the third population group which is responsible for the rapid transforma­ THE "BIG FIVE" tion of the islands' character. To this group belongs everyone having to do The second group of the population with defense. Already Hawaii is by lives in the country and consists main­ far the most heavily fortified place un­ ly of the employees and laborers on the der the American flag. If this develop­ large sugar cane and pineapple plan­ ment continues at the speed of the last tations. Capitalism in Hawaii is de­ few months the changes will be e­ cidedly monopolistic. Five large firms normous. One part of Oahu after (liThe Big Five") control almost the another--..:and lately even of the other entire economic life of the islands, islands-is being taken over for mili­ from plantations to department stores, tary reasons. The number of beaches hotels and shipping lines. Yet the available for swimming is shrinking standard of living of the largely Ori­ steadily. ental laboring class compares favor­ ably with the standard of living not For years there was a standing joke only in the countries from which most for newcomers. They were shown the of these laborers came, but also with innumerable "PRIVATE KAPU" signs that of plantations on the American all over the islands, particularly in mainland. front of beautiful estates, and they The laborers, to be sure, as long as were told that Kapu was the name of they remain in the islands, are depend­ a wealthy doughboy who owned huge ent on their employers and have little properties in Hawaii. Of course, Kapu say. But in return they are, it seems is the Hawaiian word for the better to me, well provided for with living known Tabu (forbidden) and the signs quarters, cheap stores, free hospitals, simply mean "PRIVATE PROPERTY. and with movies. sports grounds, and KEEP OUT." Now it seems that the dance halls. Because Hawaii is in the joke might become a bitter truth. More hands of a few closely interrelated fami­ and more land is being closed to civi­ lies and firms, and because it is a small lians. and the military might put a and easily controllable group of isola­ "GENERAL KAPU" in place of the ted islands, it is an example of a well­ Private. organized planned economy. It may Every ship is bringing more troops, offer little freedom to the individual; tanks, engineers, and laborers for mili·· but it holds itself responsible for him tary construction. An entire new city and looks after him. The planning of has grown. almost overnight, around employment (particularly important in Pearl Harbor, to house part of these periods of economic crises), the con­ ever-arriving masses, and the shelves servation of the water resources of the of the new department store of Sears entire archipelago, the development of Roebuck are half-empty due to the new types of sugar and pineapple. the difficulty of obtaining shipping space systematic combat of insect pests or for non-military purposes. A few similar dangers on an islandwide scale. years ago there was nothing in Pearl the very serious problem of feeding Harbor but a few submarines and de­ the islands in case of war and block­ stroyers which looked as if they were ade, these and many other tasks the on vacation. Today you can see there, large firms, in close co-operation with p~lcked in close ranks, the gray bodies the Government and the armed forces, of the main portion of the U.S. fleet. are trying to accomplish. And if in the evenings you walk through I

6 THE XXth CENTURY

the streets of downtown Honolulu you PARADISE LOST? might think that a snowstorm had hit the city, so numerous are the white HawaH has succeeded in conquering uniforms of the sailors. and assimilating with its charm those people from outside who have :nade BLACKOUTS IN PARADISE the i lauds their home duriI:g the last century and a half. On the whole the The spirit of Old Hawaii is despe­ influx was so slow that usually one rately trying not to be overrun and group had been "Hawaiianized" tefore crushed by this new development. The the next arrived_ Even with regl'rd to people pretend that all this does not the Orientals this was the case to a concern them, that a clear line can be surprising extent. But at the present drawn between the civilian and mili­ pace this will hardly be possible in the tary worlds, that these t~o can live future. Larger and larger masses of peaceably side by side. But how much people are being brought to H:nvaii IOl1ger will this be possible? Is Old from the American mainland. These lIawaii fighting a losing battle'? For dn not come to stay and to abandon instance, two years ago, for the first thEmseh·es to the Hawaiian a+.mosphere. time in America, an entire area, the They come for a short term of military Hawaiian blands, had a blackout. duty or to build airports and subter­ The spirit of Hawaii won the first rnnean oil tanks. Old Hawaii puts up round and turned the evening into a a spirited fight, Well-meaning people gay celebration. All over Honolulu hnve started a movement of inviting "blackout parties" were given. r sailors and soldiers to local Domes to too was invited to one of them. We> acquaint them with the ideals of played various blackout games: the Hawaii. This will be a difficult task. person who could guess most accurate­ Iv the exact moment at which the r have particular reason to wish for blackout began (the authoriti% had not the preservation of the spirit and charm divulged it before) received a prize; of Hawaii. Its hospitality and broad­ during the blackout every guest was mindedness are unique in the world given a dish with ten different things today and I have enjoyed them to a and a set of five drinks all of which he special degree. While the attitude of had to identify in the dark. Some the United States towards Germany young girls used blackout parties as an from month to month became more opportunity to announce their engage­ hostile and bitter, Hawaii allowed me, mc-nts - these were the "blackout the only German citizen on the islands, brides." So many thousands of people peacefully to continue my work at the had driven to the hills, the better to university. Among more th9.n two view the blackout spectacle, that it thousand students who have taken my took hOllrs to solve the unexpected courses during the four terms since traffic p,roblem. outbreak of the war, there was not one who ever showed any sign of hos­ The second blackout a year ago was tility. After my last lecture, in which.r celebrated much less gaily, and the explained my resignation from the urn­ third. before my departure, had almost versity by my loyalty to the Ger~an completely lost the glamour of the first. people and by the unfortunate, growmg There were not even any "blackout German-American tension. the students brides," for the women of Honolulu put a flower lei around m.y neck ~n~ had been organized into Red Cross heartily applauded. Such IS the SpIrIt units and were mobilized for the dura­ and the Aloha of Hawaii. tion of the blackout. And while they were dres iog imaginary wounds, Uley discussed the number of cans they THE MESSAGE OF HAWAII h:.td stored or the vegetables they had So it is with a sad heart that r watch planted against a po sible blockade. the mountains of Oahu disappear into ALOHA 7 I' the dusk. Will the steadily mounting nomic differences between the nations waves of fear, suspicion, and hatred have grown to terrifying height. It be­ eventually inundate even this island comes daily more urgent that an in­ paradise, forcing it to abandon its mis­ creasing number of people should be sion as the meeting-ground of nations bold enough to penetrate these walls and races, as the cross-roads of civili­ of hatred and su picion, wise enough zations and cultures? to know that our world is formed by I sincerely hope this will not happen. djvergent forces and not by one-sided decisions of any single group, and Today more than ever the world keen enough to see not only the urgent needs a symbol of peace and fairness, today but also the great yesterda.y and of the will to understand other people the still greater tomorrow. For one and of the ability to get along with day this war will end. and what will them-the symbol of Aloha. follow must be based on knowledge In Hawaii I have found it. I will which the war has obscured and on treasure it as the most valuable gain thoughts which in the present over­ of my stay in the islands. I will try emphasis on action have not yet been to carry its message abroad by making voiced. It is to such knowledge and it a part of The XXth Century, the new thought that The XXth Century will magazine I plan to publish in Shang­ be dedicated. hai. The ship's gong calls for supper. Will it not be an experiment to pub. Into the sea I throw dozens of leis lish-on the second anniversary of the given to me by friends. on the pier greatest of all wars-a magazine de­ according to the island custom. If I voted to genuine understanding rather may believe the promise of Hawaiian than hatred, to fair and sane discussion legend, this means that I shall see the rather than one-sided argument? The islands again. walls of political, ideological, and econ- Aloha, Hawaii.