LAXITY OF LAW.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 365, 5 March 1932, Page 22 (Supplement)

LAXITY OF LAW.

VICE IN HONOLULU. WHITE WOMEN BLAMED. ABSURD “SHEIK CULT.” The Hawaiian murder sensation which stirred to their depths the racial hatreds of the Pacific Islands and shocked the whole United States, reached a climax when Mrs. Fortescue, the central figure, and three naval men, faced a grand jury, accused of killing a native who was recently acquitted of an attack on Mrs. F ortescue’s twenty-year-old daughter. The following is a frank statement of the mixed race evils of this supposed Pacific Paradise which comes in the form of a letter written to a friend by Mrs. Fortescue: — “All I ask from my many friends in Britain and Europe is patience and fair play. 1 am shocked to learn the versions of this affair that have reached Europe. At the proper time I will say all we have to * say, and I am confident wc have nothing to fear. We have expressed our readiness to go before any tribunal they care to name, so convinced are wc that we have justice on our side. All that has happened is due to laxity of the law. “There has been far too much leniency shown to natives obviously guilty in sex offences, and in consequence the natives, particularly the half-castes, think they cun attack white women with impunity. Impudent Boasts. “It lias become something to boast about among their friends, and in some parts of the town a native who has pne or more of such crimes to his discredit is looked upon as a hero and envied by his fellows. I cannot acquit my own race and sex of a heavy share in bringing about the terrible state of affairs that made possible the outrage of which piy daughter was the victim. The curse of Honolulu • to-day is the half-caste ‘beach boys,’ those pampered pets of the neurotic women who demean -themselves and let down their race by chasing after ‘sheiks’ and gigolos because of the absurd Sheik Cult created by melodramatic movie producers. “To the lasting shame of our race, be it said, one secs these women running after the half-caste openly and shamelessly, petting them, pampering them, and lavishing presents on them. Is it any wonder that after this the half-caste type should lose all sense of proportion and think that every white woman is fair game for the lustful scum of society? I ask those who are mothers to put themselves in my place when I learned of the diabolical outrage to which my child had been subjected. My mother’s heart was wrung, as that of any normal woman would be. My blood seethed when I found the natives laughing at the legal proceedings taken against the fiends suspected of the attack on my daughter.

“Whatever my fate and the fate of those associated with me, we shall think it of little account if it serves to bring before the public the iniquities that flourish, in these islands and lead to the law being enforced. The natives of the type I mention laugh at the law. In the native quarters white women are jeered at as the playthings of the commonest half-caste types. Indignant as we may feel at this, we cannot get away from the terrible fact that our own race and sex have contributed to creating this rc-