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,jack london : my hawaiian aloha, 1916 

Jack London : My Hawaiian Aloha, 1916.
London, Jack : My Hawaiian Aloha
Cosmopolitan Magazine
: Schlicht & Field, Rochester, NewYork

Volume 61 Number 4, September 1916.

Hathi Trust
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/chi.42692362


Introduction
London recalls his first visit to Hawaii, meeting with Alexander Hume Ford and the formation of the Outrigger Canoe Club.

Page 37
My Hawaiian Aloha
By Jack London


Editor's Note-In the Hawaiian language, the word
“aloha" (literally, love) is the universal form of salutation.
From the Islands, Mr. London sends a greeting
to Cosmopolitan readers.
And it contains some
thing of great interest.
In the months he has
spent in the most delightful of our territorial possessions, he has obtained knowledge as to how life is lived there.
He has worn through
the surface-novelty that invariably fascinates the temporary sojourner coming in contact with practically none of the actual problems of existence.
This is the first of a short
series of articles on present-day Hawaii.

Page 170

Oh, what's the use? I was going to make the Hawaii-born talk.
They won't.
They can't.
I shall have to go on and do all the talking myself.
They are poor boosters.
They even try to boost, on occasion; but the latest steamship and railroad publicity agent from the mainland will give them cards and spades and talk all around them when it comes to describing what Hawaii so beautifully and charmingly is.
Take surf-boarding, for instance.
A Californian real-estate agent, with that one asset, could make the burnt, barren heart of Sahara into an oasis for kings.
Not only did the Hawaii-born not talk about it, but they forgot about it.
Just as the sport was at its dying gasp, along came one Alexander Ford from the mainland.
And he talked.
Surf-boarding was the sport of sports.
There was nothing like it anywhere else in the world.
They ought to be ashamed for letting it languish
It was one of the Islands' assets, a drawing card for travelers that would fill their hotels and bring them many permanent residents, etc., etc.
He continued to talk, and the Hawaii-born smiled.
“What are you going to do about it?” they said, when he buttonholed them into corners.
“This is just talk, you know, just a line of talk.”
“I’m not going to do anything except talk,” Ford replied.
“It’s you fellows who’ve got to do the doing.”
And all was as he said.
And all of which I know for myself at first hand, for I lived on Waikiki Beach at the time in a tent where stands the Outrigger Club to-day- twelve hundred members, with hundreds more on the waiting-list, and with what seems like half a mile of surf- board lockers.



Cosmopolitan Magazine
: Schlicht & Field, Rochester, NewYork

Volume 61 Number 4, September 1916.

Hathi Trust
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/chi.42692362

 


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Geoff Cater (2017) : Jack London : My Hawaiian Aloha, 1916.
http://www.surfresearch.com.au/1916_09_London_Hawaii_Cosmopolitan_v61n4.html