Honolulu Record, August 19, 1948, vol. 1 no. 3, p. 8
Honolulu's Bubonic Plague
On December 11, 1899 there occurred the mysterious death of a young Chinese in Honolulu's Chinatown. Dr. C. B. Wood, at that time president of the board of health, conducted an autopsy. At its completion he looked up from the cadaver and said two words that froze those around him. "Bubonic plague!" The history of the plague is a story in itself. A story of the revolting misery of more than 4,000 Chinese, Japanese, Hawaiians and others who were forced by rigid, although unwritten, rules of racial segregation and by extreme poverty to live in this overcrowded, rat infested, sewage strewn area of Honolulu. It was here that the plague was bred.
Advertiser Places Blame
In an editorial of the December 28 issue of the Pacific Commerical Advertiser the blame was placed in this way: "We have heard it said that the trustees of the Bishop Estate are more to blame for the filth of Chinatown than any other persons in this place . . . Indeed, by a species of rack rent they have discouraged improvements, sanitary or otherwise . . .
Have these comfortable gentlemen no other thought than the selfish one of dividends?" This opinion of the Advertiser was born but in fact by a statement of the sanitary investigators made to the board of health. "The evil (of Chinatown's filth) is largely due to the negligence, indifference or greed of the property-owners themselves."
The spokesman for the Bishop Estate smoothly replied, as reported in the Advertiser, that no one was, forcing the inhabitants of Chinatown to live there if they didn’t like it. However, even as this "comfortable gentleman" spoke, he must have been aware of the regid [sic] segregation practices of the time.
Ignores Racial Problem
Although the Advertiser had the insight to clarify the economic issues underlying the plague, throughout the gastly [sic] 40 days in which the plague ran its course it was curiously blind and blandly cruel in its attitude toward the racial problem involved. On January 1, 1900 the Advertiser ran this statement at the head of its editorial columns. "Memorandum for early risers: Do not read the report of the Board of Health’s investigating committee until after breakfast." Three days later, on January 3, some of the Japanese rebelled against the board of health's quarantine [sic] which confined the inhabitants and, it was hoped, the plague in the Chinatown quarter. The next day the Advertiser commented on the affair in an editorial. "The lower class Japanese are getting pretty ugly over the quarentine [sic]. It may be well to remind them as was done in the case of the Chinese that the white inhabitants here will stand no nonsense. We are strong enough, with or without the aid of the Federal garrison, to enforce the laws of the Board of Health no matter who opposes. The sooner the coolies are taught by their intelligent fellow-countrymen to appreciate this fact the better for them and for all concerned."
The Advertiser's Solution
Throughout this "historical period” it was the custom to burn each tenement in which a plague death was discovered. But on January 18, as the death list rapidly lengthened, the authorities decided to burn an entire block of these filthy hovels. However, in the course of the burning a stiff wind began to rush down from the Pali. In a matter of minutes the whole of Chinatown was in flames and 4,000 homeless Orientals were madly seeking escape. The following Monday, while the ruins still smouldered, the Advertiser spoke thus. "The ruins of Chinatown are a melancholy sight from one point of view but a cheerful one from another. Doctors agree that the fife has given the plague a thorough set-back. That is the main advantage to which may be added the chance to build up a new Chinatown of stone, brick and concrete with a park separating it from the white quarter." But the hopes of the Advertiser — and those who supported its views — were never realized, as the most casual eye can plainly see.