NO Ordinary Man" is a fitting title for a book on William Francis Quinn, appointed at age 38, after only 10 years of residence here, as the last governor of the Territory of Hawaii and then elected first governor of the State of Hawaii. A biography of ex-Gov.
First of two articles
William QuinnThe book describes an uncommonly bright young man able to play around and still get good academic grades, able to commit material to memory after a fast scan, talented in oratory, which is important in politics anywhere, and a gut-gripping tenor who enthralled Hawaii audiences.
Brought here by a job offer from one of Hawaii's biggest law firms when he was just out of Harvard Law School after an interruption to serve in the Pacific in World War II (but barely see Hawaii), he more or less stumbled into politics as a Republican, then shot up like a meteor.
I am only two years younger than he is, watched all this happen as a journalist, and find the book by Mary C. Kahulumana Richards, one of his good friends, to be enthralling. It is balanced in telling the good and the bad, often through the eyes of the local newspapers. It leans heavily on Quinn himself for source material but is more critical than an autobiography might be.
President Eisenhower's Department of the Interior persuaded the president to name young Republicans to head the territories of Hawaii, Alaska and American Samoa in the hopes they would build strong future Republican organizations in all of them.
Quinn both succeeded and failed. He was strong enough to win the first statehood election and the patronage bonanza that went with it. He got to make some 550 appointments and oversaw getting the new state government organized. Besides his cabinet, he nominated all judges and hundreds of members of boards and commissions.
He was blind-sided by a lieutenant governor who claimed the right to make half the appointments, an 11-member Democratic minority in the 25-member Senate that claimed a right to control 11/25ths of the appointments and a 14-member Senate majority with two or three members willing to join the Democrats to block Quinn on a number of key appointments and crucial organization issues.
This is democracy at its meatiest -- the kind of government Winston Churchill called the worst form of government in the world except for any other.
The disarray caused by power grabs and Quinn's inability to master them led to his defeat for re-election in 1962. Hawaii never since has had a Republican governor. Perhaps a more experienced politico would have better handled this unprecedented allotment of political goodies.
I wrote a post-defeat commentary for the Star-Bulletin that was headlined "A Good Governor But No Politician." Never has the reaction to a headline fascinated me more. Some readers thought I was praising Quinn. Others thought I was damning him.
It seemed to depend on whether the reader considered "politician" to be a dirty word or a positive one. I lean to the latter. We very much need good and honorable politicians to make our democracy work.
QUINN was more honorable than a lot of the Democrats who concertedly rebuked just about everything he did. Aided by this tactic they took over the state lock, stock and barrel in 1962 and have pretty well held onto it since.
"No Ordinary Man" seems sure to fascinate readers who remember the advent of statehood in 1959. They will recognize the names and numbers of many of the players. For younger readers it should provide insight into the most action-packed years in Hawaii's post-war history.
A lot more happened than politics. A hurricane hit. A volcano wiped out a village. A tsunami devastated the Hilo waterfront. Sugar and dock strikes clouded the labor scene. Monarchs and presidents came to visit. Quinn himself was invited to speak all over America. Democrats used those absences and his necessarily limited VIP invitation lists for regular target practice. It was, well -- WOW!
THURSDAY: Some Quinn insights.