During the first half of the 20th century, Hawaii experienced a remarkable surge of interest in international and intercultural relations that gave rise to the creation of a number of related organizations and activities which in turn generated considerable attention abroad and periodic reference to the Islands as the “New Geneva.” The pioneer among these organizations was the Pan Pacific Union (PPU). The PPU was dedicated to establishing connections among the Pacific Rim nations leading to the formation of a regional international organization akin to the Pan-American Union.1
The principal figure in the creation of the PPU was Alexander Hume Ford, an imaginative and energetic, if somewhat haphazardly organized individual who believed that multi-ethnic Hawaii was a compelling model for improving relations in an increasingly interconnected world. Ford was determined to find a way to promote his belief. Buoyed by the successful launch of Mid-Pacific Magazine in 1910 as a platform for his ideas and the positive reception of a number of his inter-ethnic activities by Hawaii’s social and business leaders, he founded the PPU in 1917. With the fortuitous support of a member of President Woodrow Wilson’s cabinet, enough publicity was generated that presidents, prime ministers and governors from throughout the region were willing to serve as the new group’s honorary officers, and a loose regional network of Pan-Pacific Clubs was organized. Aided by appropriations from Hawaii’s territorial legislature and from the U.S. Congress, in 1920 Ford initiated the first in a series of international conferences concerned with a variety of regional issues. As Pan-Pacific clubs began to function in various areas and as conferences brought regional leaders together on matters ranging from science to women’s rights, Ford and his colleagues foresaw the realization of their internationalist dreams.
This did not occur. A combination of Ford’s lack of attention to administrative detail, inadequate long-term funding arrangements, declining governmental support (compounded within a few years by the global economic depression), and, perhaps above all, a shift in support on the part of Hawaii’s socio-economic leaders from the PPU to the new Institute of Pacific Relations, resulted in the group’s slow decline. By the advent of WW II, PPU had withered into insignificance and, with Ford himself in rapidly declining health, it simply disappeared. This does not mean the PPU and Ford were at last irrelevant. As a local newspaper editorialized at the time of Ford’s death in 1946, he “did more than any other man to acquaint the whole wide world with the importance of Hawaii in the Pacific theater.”2
1. For details, see Valerie Noble, Hawaiian Prophet: Alexander Hume Ford (Smithtown, NY: Exposition Press, 1980) and Paul F. Hooper, Elusive Destiny: The Internationalist Movement in Modern Hawaii (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1980), pp. 65-104. 2. Honolulu Advertiser, 18 October 1946.
(Note by Paul Hooper)