Thomas P. Gill on Machine Politics
Price of Paradise · Hawaii Public Radio · aired 1993-11-01
Guests: Thomas P. Gill (former U.S. Congressman and Lieutenant Governor; Democratic Party Oahu County Chairman, 1954–1958)
Duration: 0:29:55

[00:00:00] Randall Roth: Paradise Radio Show. My guest, Thomas P. Gill, was county chairman of the Democratic Party from 1954 to 1958, has served in the state legislature, U.S. Congress, and as lieutenant governor of Hawaii, and tells me that besides practicing law, he's a part-time curmudgeon. Welcome, Tom.

[00:00:20] Thomas P. Gill: Nice to be here, Randy.

[00:00:22] Randall Roth: What do you think about the Democratic Party today?

[00:00:25] Thomas P. Gill: What party?

[00:00:27] Randall Roth: Well now, you're a Democrat. There's a Democratic party out there. What do you think?

[00:00:32] Thomas P. Gill: Well, I define party a little differently perhaps than they do today. I don't think we really have a party. We have a label and they put Ds and Rs after people's names, but it doesn't really add up to much because they keep changing the Ds and Rs. People move back and forth, the ideological orientation, if we use some fancy words, is non-existent.

[00:00:55] Randall Roth: When did that happen? Was it that way when you were active asking for people to vote for you?

[00:01:01] Thomas P. Gill: Well, I think it was more a factor before that time because we started working on the, the basis of the party in the early 1950s, and we had to be something different from what was there already and I think we had a fairly good, uh, series of things that we thought were important which you defined as the basis of the new Democratic Party, and they actually got votes. In '54, surprisingly, we won the election without expecting to do so. After that, it was fairly easy.

[00:01:34] Randall Roth: Do you believe in the old adage that power corrupts?

[00:01:38] Thomas P. Gill: Oh, of course. It always does. Uh, once you begin to win elections, then the most important thing is to continue to win elections and not what you do after you get elected and I think that's what's happened to a large extent.

[00:01:50] Randall Roth: Is there such a thing as a Democratic machine and if so, is it different from the Democratic Party?

[00:01:57] Thomas P. Gill: Well, I don't know whether you call it a machine. It sounds like the wheels are falling off of it at the moment, um, but it's certainly not a party as such, not in my definition. What it is is a group of people who are in and have their hands on the various levers that make things happen and can do things for their friends, and that group, which continually shifts and changes, basically is what's in power, and it doesn't matter whether you call them Democrats or anything else.

[00:02:27] Randall Roth: Who are some of the people in that group?

[00:02:30] Thomas P. Gill: Well, I think their names are in the paper all the time. Every now and then they quit, uh, from offices they've been appointed to and so forth. But basically, it is the mass of civil service that's been appointed in the last 20, 30 years, uh, plus the people that run for office and who've been elected over and over and over again.

[00:02:53] Randall Roth: What about fundraising, political fundraising? There have been a lot of, uh, uh, complaints lately from people who are not part of the in-group, uh, feeling that there's some form of abuse with respect to political fundraising. What are your thoughts?

[00:03:09] Thomas P. Gill: Well, I would blame the media, frankly, because they charge too much. Um, I'm not talking about this station of course, which is free, uh, supposedly, even though we're paying for it. We're free anyway. We're free. But in any case, I think this is, this corruption, if that's the right word, started in the late '50s when TV became a factor, and you couldn't do anything without being on TV, which then meant the price went [unintelligible — audio glitch] up. And, uh, that means heavy contributions. It means that people that have the money, then have influence that they would not ordinarily have, and it doesn't take long for that to coalesce into a money equals power equals political achievement.

[00:03:52] Randall Roth: You mentioned the word corruption. Is there corruption with respect to political fundraising or did you mean to use the word to suggest that the system simply has, has not developed very well?

[00:04:03] Thomas P. Gill: Oh, I think the system sucks, if that's the right word. The, I think that's the technical term, yes. I think it fits somewhere in here. No, the all these limitations on fundraising and contributions by individuals and corporations and so forth are fairly easily evaded from what little I know about it. They seem to show up with extra money from somebody else that really belongs all in the same pot. But the problem is the need for money.

[00:04:30] Randall Roth: I think there's a perception out there that the people who are asking for, for jobs from the state, the people who are involved in, in the procurement activity, that, um, that the, you know, that they're asked to contribute money under circumstances where they really don't have much choice.

[00:04:47] Thomas P. Gill: Well, that's the basic form of political corruption. They want money out of the government, so they pay somebody in the government. Uh, whether they call it a contribution or a payoff, or just some kind of influence, is sometimes a matter of definition. But political contributions to the appropriate parties or groups becomes one form of payoff.

[00:05:08] Randall Roth: You mentioned the media. They charge too much. Uh, besides that, are they doing a good job?

[00:05:14] Thomas P. Gill: Oh, I can't keep track of them. There are too many stations and my problem is I only listen to public radio and public TV. I'm stuck, a, very limited scope. But I think they do charge an awful lot from what a little I've seen about the bills that people pay when they have to buy time.

[00:05:32] Randall Roth: Uh, is there apathy out there? Somebody once said that we don't have voter apathy, it's it's non-voters that are apathetic. We've got an awful lot of non-voters. Why is that?

[00:06:05] Thomas P. Gill: Well, because they're less important and they know it, or they've become less important because nobody cares. What you've had happen, uh, in fact, we've practically gone full circle. We had a relatively low voter turnout or in terms of eligible voters right after World War II, because many of them had never voted, and it didn't make any difference because the Republican machine was in power, and they took care of everything, and they didn't need the votes that much. But after the war, when things began to crack up and the framework of the society shifted, lots of new people came back, lots of veterans and so forth, and they decided they want to vote. And the big rise of, of, uh, power in the Democratic Party was registering new voters. We used to do it door by door by door. And once you register them, they would vote. Uh, strangely enough, it, uh, it led to certain elections which sort of changed the course of history down here.

[00:06:49] Randall Roth: One of the chapters in the Price of Paradise Volume 2 suggests that the public workers' unions in Hawaii have become an extension of the Democratic Party and are a major explanation as to why the Democrats have had such a a stranglehold over the last 40 years. Do you believe that?

[00:07:07] Thomas P. Gill: Well, to some extent, depends what union you're talking about, but certainly government employment has become a major source of political power, if that's the right word, and that grew very rapidly starting in the early '60s until today. In fact, it's probably grossly overstaffed, if that's the right word. So the net result is that everybody who's in government sort of feels that they're obligated to take care of whoever is calling the shots, and so it becomes a basic machine. Nothing new here, try Boston, Chicago would be my guess.

[00:07:38] Randall Roth: What about ethnicity? Uh, how big of a role does that play? I think there's a perception at least in some quarters that state government in Hawaii is is run mostly by AJA's. Is that accurate and if so, is that good or bad or any thoughts?

[00:07:53] Thomas P. Gill: Well, yes, I think there's been a very definite sea change here. Uh, when I first went into government offices back in the early '40s, and, of course, after the war and late '40s, you look around, you'd see a lot of haoles, part Hawaiians, some Chinese, very few AJAs. You go into that same office today, which of course has expanded three or five times, and look around and you see pretty much the reverse. So I think it's fair to say that that is a factor, however, it got that way is another question, of course.

[00:08:26] Randall Roth: You're listening to the Price of Paradise Radio Show. I'm Randy Roth, and my guest this week is senior statesman and part-time curmudgeon, Thomas P. Gill. I should add that that's his description.

[00:08:38] Thomas P. Gill: Not senior statesman.

[00:08:40] Randall Roth: Oh, I see. Just curmudgeon.

[00:08:42] Thomas P. Gill: Senior but part-time.

[00:08:43] Randall Roth: Senior curmudgeon. Thank you. What about what's going on in the state Senate? We've had a lot of ups and downs and and changes and uh Senator Matsuura is in the background with his investigation going on. Uh what's happening?

[00:10:00] Thomas P. Gill: Chaos. Uh, I think basically there's nothing really new about this, it's just become more flagrant in the last this last session. We had the same kind of a blowout in 1959 where the Republicans who suddenly discovered they lost three elections in a row and the LW that felt that somehow they were losing a grip on Democrats, so they used to control the labor island and Democrats and still did, made a deal with the Republicans and shifted the control of the house for that particular session. So it's a matter of of power. Now I don't think you've got that much organization. What they're doing is sort of clawing each other to death and it's very unfortunate because it lowers the prestige of the legislature and if that's possible anymore.

[00:10:49] Randall Roth: You mentioned a similar event back in '59. Are there a couple are there noteworthy events from the last 40 years that strike you as as having changed the course of things here in Hawaii?

[00:11:27] Thomas P. Gill: Well, I don't know that I could say that, certainly lots of things have happened. But basically the course of the government has been shifting in its current direction for the last 20 to 30 years and it's still going there, which is no place.

[00:11:47] Randall Roth: Let's pretend for a minute that Governor Waihee called you up, said, Tom, I need some advice. What kind of advice would you give him?

[00:12:06] Thomas P. Gill: Well, in the first place, that's a highly improbable suggestion. The second place, I would tell him to fire his cabinet and get out before he made any more mistakes. But the problem he's got, of course, is being a, what would you call it, a coagulator, pulling this together with that and so forth, which is means by which he became governor and sort of trying to keep everybody happy. Well, the net result will that is that you make some people very happy and some of the others begin to look out for themselves. And his cabinet is a good indication of what's begun to happen. He's got some good people and he's obviously had a few jerks.

[00:13:05] Randall Roth: You say he's made some mistakes. Are there a couple that come to mind?

[00:13:10] Thomas P. Gill: Well, I think John's main problem is that he has no real agenda except to stay in office, and now his term is up. That means he's out.

[00:13:19] Randall Roth: What about the young people in our community? Any advice for them?

[00:13:44] Thomas P. Gill: Well, maybe get their nose out of the TV programs and do a little thinking and perhaps become a little more active themselves. I think we may be getting back into this, things going in circles of course. I think the blowout of the '60s and '70s and then the the meism of the '80s, may conceivably change. I think a lot of people are beginning to think that this wasn't all that good and maybe we should do something different. I hope that many of the younger folks will take an interest and think that they can do something because they can, providing they're organized.

[00:14:00] Randall Roth: Tom, in getting ready for this this show, I talked to a few people, uh, about their impression of you and in some of the adjectives that I heard were that you were bright, sharp-tongued, ethical, not much of a team player, maybe even a loner.

[00:14:18] Thomas P. Gill: Well, I'm sorry that you're only repeating the the pleasant adjectives. There are many others around I've heard over the years. Um, no, I think the matter of being a team player depends what team you're talking about. We had a pretty good team going into the '60s. Um, but the other team took over.

[00:14:35] Randall Roth: What would Hawaii be like or how would it be different if you had been elected governor?

[00:14:41] Thomas P. Gill: Oh, I don't think anybody can have a view of history that is accurate in regard to that. I think there would be probably be a few different changes. I think there'd be more emphasis on getting people housing and, uh, making sure that their basic needs and education, for example, is was properly served. I think there'd be fewer bureaucrats, and there'd be more firing, but uh, that's there's no way that you can be 20/20 on on history, it doesn't work out that way.

[00:15:13] Randall Roth: What about the '94 election? You say Governor Waihee is on the way out. Who do you see on the way in?

[00:15:18] Thomas P. Gill: Chaos.

[00:15:21] Randall Roth: Why chaos?

[00:15:23] Thomas P. Gill: Well, you're having all kinds of rifts showing up in the political spectrum. You have a Republican psyche who is obviously aiming or would aim without saying so, at uh part of the power block, the AJA vote if that's the right word for it. And you have uh Mr. Cayetano who has trouble with that portion and has trouble with a number of other things, not because of anything he had done or his orientation, but perhaps because he doesn't come across like a smooth, calming politician. Not much of a team player, loner maybe?

[00:16:00] Thomas P. Gill: Well, I like the guy for that. I think he calls the shot the way he sees it, but he may not call it with the greatest eloquence. Uh, I think he's got to work on that a bit. Then of course, you got Fearless Frank, who will do anything necessary to get his name into the picture and he always has, long as he's been in in politics, which I recall going back to the '50s.

[00:16:18] Randall Roth: And let me get this straight. You're not a supporter of Frank Fasi?

[00:16:21] Thomas P. Gill: Well, let's say I'm as big a supporter of him as he is of me.

[00:16:26] Randall Roth: Uh, what about, um, uh, Senator Inouye? He's been criticized the last few months for a variety of things. You think he's doing a good job or is it time for him to step aside?

[00:16:40] Thomas P. Gill: No, I not agreed with Dan on everything he's done. In fact, he pretty much supported my opposition at times, um, but I think if you understand the working of Congress, if that isn't an oxymoron, um, he's in a position where he can pull cranks and levers and things which help the state, and, um, it's a position that many other states would like to be in.

[00:17:03] Randall Roth: Does, does he know what brought him to power is, or is he lost his ideology, uh, as you've suggested a lot of Democrats have?

[00:17:12] Thomas P. Gill: Well, I'm never sure that Dan had an ideology. He was interested in elections and he got elected, and he stayed that way, and he's done a, I think basically a positive job.

[00:17:23] Randall Roth: What about, uh, Senator Akaka?

[00:17:26] Thomas P. Gill: Well, uh, I've always liked him as a person, and I don't know too much about what he's doing at the present time, except what I read in the paper, which isn't that much. I think he's probably a, a good senator. Uh, he's way down the seniority ladder, so it'll take him a while to get to where he can pull a lever that means something, but I think he's helpful.

[00:17:46] Randall Roth: If, if he came back to town and said he wanted to be governor, you think you'd do a good job? Do you think you could get elected?

[00:17:53] Thomas P. Gill: I don't know. Uh, I think what you've got here is going to be a, shifting of, uh, vote basis, and he may wind up with a minority governor, just like we have a minority president.

[00:18:05] Randall Roth: What about this this young politician, uh, last name, I think is Gill? Interested in maybe being mayor?

[00:18:12] Thomas P. Gill: I've heard about him some place.

[00:18:14] Randall Roth: What do you think?

[00:18:16] Thomas P. Gill: I know it's a little bit hard to be uh totally objective. Oh, I wouldn't uh attempt to be objective. I think he has a political sense, which uh maybe genetic, it may also be the fact that he's been involved in political campaigns since age two. But uh, I think he basically is going in the right direction, and he has to put up with an awful lot of stuff that I couldn't put up with uh without saying something uh unkind, and uh, we'll see.

[00:18:46] Randall Roth: What about the Bishop Estate? Uh, it's a big important institution here in Hawaii. Any thoughts generally?

[00:18:53] Thomas P. Gill: Well, it's now the uh the ultimate political appointments, and it started that way back in the early '70s, when uh the Supreme Court first appointed Mr. Takabuki and I got in trouble by opposing it on the basis that they really shouldn't be appointing political people to it. They should be appointing people that the the beneficiaries of the estate uh thought would be helpful. At least their opinion should be taken into account. Well, of course, he turns out to have been one of the better trustees, I think in many respects, but nevertheless that was the first step. Now it is completely controlled by the in-machine, not completely, because there's a couple of spare parts in there.

[00:19:00] Thomas P. Gill: getting Hawaiian part Hawaiian, uh children in this state are young people. And this is an area where education is is a deficit. Uh many of them are not doing very well. There's a tremendous uh problem with the Hawaiian part of Hawaiian students in the sense that uh maybe lack of motivation, lack of family pushing, whatever the reason is, this is the bottom of the pile. And here's the biggest uh land owner in the state with tremendous amounts of income, they should be in there pitching this thing uh in a way that they perhaps haven't succeeded in doing up to this point. They should be doing far more, I think.

[00:19:33] Randall Roth: You're listening to the Price of Paradise Radio Show. I'm Randy Roth and my guest this week is former lieutenant governor, former legislator and former congressman, Thomas P. Gill. Tom, we were talking about the Bishop Estate and you said they in terms of these appointments, uh the appointments are made by the Supreme Court of Hawaii. Is that uh good or is that uh something that should be changed? The the state has been giving a smaller and smaller percentage of its budget to the public schools in Hawaii. Uh how does that factor into your last comment?

[00:19:49] Thomas P. Gill: Well, it's the same problem. Uh education used to be the top of the pile, and now everybody says it's the top, but it's not really. And we've had uh other types of erosion.

[00:19:55] Thomas P. Gill: That's leftover from the uh from the will, uh which I think at this point should be re-examined. And I think the obvious step was first to get a majority on the Supreme Court, which occurred in the '60s, late '60s, then they appoint the in people to become the Bishop Estate trustees and uh from there on, it's another fine patronage job, regardless of the fact that some of them have done, I think probably good jobs in terms of making money for the estate, not to mention the fees they get. But I think it's time to shift that one around a bit. There should be some other way of appointing people to a board of directors that in effect, they control the largest lump of private land in the state and that land is our wealth.

[00:20:01] Thomas P. Gill: The many people are taking their kids out of public school and putting them in the private schools, including school teachers. They've been doing this for quite a while. And this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. You say the public school isn't good, therefore I'm going to the private school, which means then the public school becomes less good. And I think this is uh unfortunate. Uh how you reverse it, it's not our problem necessarily, it's California, every place else is going through the same kind of mess. But I do think that public schools should be the base of our educational system, and they should be improved as far as you can in the best possible fashion.

[00:20:35] Randall Roth: And you think Bishop estate should be more active in making sure that Hawaiians are given an opportunity for an excellent education?

[00:20:42] Thomas P. Gill: Absolutely. Why shouldn't they? That's their job. What are they sitting around doing? Looking at stock options or something, or what?

[00:20:45] Randall Roth: Now you say they've they've done a good job of of making money, have they done a good job of carrying out the mission of that charitable organization? What about sovereignty?

[00:20:51] Thomas P. Gill: Sovereignty for whom? Well, I'm not up on their bookkeeping, but I would suspect that they could have done a far better job. What you're dealing with is supposedly ed

[00:20:53] Randall Roth: What what comes to mind when I say the word? Because I think a lot of people in the community just don't have a mental picture as to what a sovereignty would be like. What does it mean to you?

[00:21:03] Thomas P. Gill: Well, I know that it means all things to all people. And that's one of the reasons that people that use it all the time are being very careful not to define it. Because if they get right down to it, they're going to have to say, we want this chunk of land, we want this chunk of money, we want you to pay this and we won't pay that. and various other political implications, which some of which are horrific. And I think that the the people who are pushing Hawaiian sovereignty, whatever that's supposed to mean, should now come out and be honest. Say, this is what we want to do, and let people evaluate it.

[00:21:37] Thomas P. Gill: If they do that, some of them are going to go down the shoot real fast.

[00:21:42] Randall Roth: Uh have you had a chance to read The Price of Paradise, volume two?

[00:21:46] Thomas P. Gill: I have skimmed through it and read parts of it, yes.

[00:21:48] Randall Roth: Are there some things in it that you'd like to take issue with, that you disagree with?

[00:21:53] Thomas P. Gill: Oh, I'm sure there are. I I normally don't disagree with anything. But what I'm suggesting is, I think it was a fairly good volume. It covered a lot of interesting points that aren't often raised in the public media or not discussed publicly, and I think that's good. And that's the kind of thing it's supposed to do, I think.

[00:22:10] Randall Roth: You probably enjoyed the uh chapters by the economists quite a bit?

[00:22:14] Thomas P. Gill: Oh, I have a thing on economists, so I shouldn't uh let my prejudices run loose. I think uh

[00:22:20] Randall Roth: Tell me, why is it that that I've I was told that you have a thing about economists. Why is that?

[00:22:26] Thomas P. Gill: Well, I took Economics 101, I think that's uh really took took me off. We used to have one uh an economist at the University of Hawaii before the war. Fortunately, I didn't take his course. I had something else to do. But he uh he preached all the basic factors uh which are supposed to be the ultimate truth. And uh over and over again, so the fact that his class notes were the same every year, and nothing much changed, and I always thought, well, that's very interesting. But is this the holy scripture or what?

[00:22:58] Thomas P. Gill: And then of course, he couldn't explain why we're in the middle of a hell of a depression and lots of people were out of work. All this was had nothing to do with it. He was just talking what the great principles were. Mhm.

[00:23:08] Randall Roth: What about pet peeves? Anything going on here in Hawaii that just really upsets you?

[00:23:16] Thomas P. Gill: Oh, you don't get upset after a while because then you'd be upset all the time. And I think that basically what we're looking at is um a period in Hawaiian history where we're going through some kind of shifts in the realignment and so forth. I think the most disturbing thing is not seeing any basic rationale to what's going on. Who's trying to do what? Are they just trying to get power, or are they trying to do something for the state? What is what is their role? They don't seem to want to say.

[00:23:42] Randall Roth: When you say they, who ever is running for office. How can we hold their feet to the fire? How can we make them tell us what they're all about? Make them share their vision for the future of Hawaii?

[00:23:54] Thomas P. Gill: Well, first place, it has to be important that they do so, and if people are apathetic and they don't give a damn and they don't even register to vote, it doesn't make any difference.

[00:24:04] Randall Roth: There's a nasty rumor that I heard that you were against the establishment of a law school at the University of Hawaii. Surely, that's not true.

[00:24:12] Thomas P. Gill: Well, being a lawyer, I think very obviously, like many of them do, there are too damn many lawyers. But the the problem that we're we're faced with back in those days was uh maybe there were some things that should have been done at the university which were more important than a law school, and that people could be given scholarships to go to schools on the mainland and that would be adequate to replenish the supply of these these bandits, if you pardon the expression.

[00:24:42] Thomas P. Gill: I went to school on the mainland, I had the GI Bill and I went through Bolt Hall in Berkeley. Um I think it probably was a good thing to have happened, but uh nevertheless, I didn't think we needed as much money being put into that particular type of education as maybe some of the others. We should be training people to do, uh, pardon the expression, useful things.

[00:25:06] Randall Roth: We've got just a few seconds left. Tom, if there's something that you could change, something that would really make a difference, a difference for us but especially for our children and for their children, what would you change here in Hawaii?

[00:25:20] Thomas P. Gill: I would change the outlook toward the political system, which is very hard to do given the current headlines. And that is that public office is not a gold for self-enhancement but a trust. And people should get into it to do good as best they can for a limited period of time and then get out. And I think people should look on it as that, not just as a self-serving person trying to pad their own pocket, but something is somebody who's trying to do something that's good for everybody. And then of course, they should be thinking about what that is, and they haven't done that recently.

[00:25:57] Randall Roth: Wise words indeed. Wise words indeed. My guest this week was senior statesman Thomas P. Gill. This week's show was produced by Jill Center with technical assistance from Rick Stanley. My guest this week was Senior Statesman Thomas P. Gill. This week's show was produced by Jill Center with technical assistance from Rick Stanley. You've been listening to the Price of Paradise Radio Show. I'm Randy Roth, Aloha. You've been listening to The Price of Paradise Radio Show. I'm Randy Roth. Aloha.