Hawaii's Future
Price of Paradise · Hawaii Public Radio · aired 1994-02-18
Guests: George Chaplin (Editor, The Honolulu Advertiser); Herb Cornuelle (retired Trustee, Campbell Estate)
Duration: 0:26:07

[00:00:00] Randall Roth: Good morning. I'm Randy Roth, host of the Price of Paradise Radio show. My guests this week are George Chaplin, editor at large of the Honolulu Advertiser and Herb Cornell, retired businessman and former Campbell Estate trustee. George and Herb co-chaired a conference 20 years ago in which the best minds in the community tried to anticipate the economic future of Hawaii. Herb in a nutshell, what did the group conclude?
[00:00:42] Herb Cornuelle: In a nutshell, they concluded that without intervention, the future, the economic future of Hawaii was tourism. There was no other alternative that seemed viable.
[00:00:53] Randall Roth: Did it support intervention?
[00:01:03] Herb Cornuelle: It well it implied support of intervention, but we didn't come to that point. We stopped at doing the diagnosis.
[00:01:14] Randall Roth: I see. George.
[00:01:25] George Chaplin: No other business uh uh came anywhere near uh being able to generate the kind of additional jobs each year that were required to sustain uh this economy. For example, there was a lot of talk in those days about aquaculture, we could produce shrimp on on land, all that sort of thing. And uh somebody checked into it and found that if it reached its highest potential, agriculture would uh provide about as many jobs as a small to medium-sized hotel. So uh there've been those kind of dreams that have gone awry too.
[00:02:07] Randall Roth: Well, as it turns out, I guess we are pretty dependent upon tourism. Uh Herb, would you say we're more dependent today than what was projected 20 years ago?
[00:02:18] Herb Cornuelle: At least uh more, probably much more. I can't remember the numbers now, but the the tourist industry exploded about about that time, and I think we underestimated how quickly they they would dominate the economy.
[00:02:29] George Chaplin: Well the jet age, the jet age, uh made the difference there. Uh when I flew back to the mainland from here in World War Two, it was about 10 and a half hours, just to the West Coast. Now they're about four and a half, five, and uh that just brought people in here by large numbers. But we took it for granted that they would always come in increasing numbers and we're being brought up a little short today.
[00:02:50] Randall Roth: Well George, are are we just uh experiencing, you know, a downtime or do you think tourism may have peaked?
[00:03:01] George Chaplin: Well, you know, there's there are no absolute guarantees from anyone that uh that uh tourism would will continue to grow. Uh, it's all in people's minds, their perceptions uh if Hawaii creates a certain picture in people's minds, and if that picture gets changed, people swing away from here. We haven't protected the scenery sufficiently, the environment generally, Waikiki's become increasingly junky. There's been a sort of taking for granted that, you know, tourism's bound to continue to grow. All we have to do is look at Atlantic City and Miami Beach and get some different notions.
[00:03:33] Randall Roth: Um, have we peaked?
[00:03:43] Herb Cornuelle: I don't know. My history of making predictions of this kind are pretty bad. There was an economist named Al Summers who used to say he'd predicted eight out of the last seven recessions. And I I'm afraid to uh to draw that kind of a conclusion. I I think uh that it does need to uh improve the product. Tourism around the world has got to be one of the great growth industries, however, when you think of the long future. So I don't think uh it's time to give up.
[00:04:15] Randall Roth: What about intervention? You mentioned 20 years ago that the group concluded without intervention, it would be nothing but tourism. What about today?
[00:04:37] Herb Cornuelle: I think that's true and the the intervention that everyone talks about and which I was very excited about about uh several times is the knowledge industry. You know, you don't have need a stevedore to get knowledge moved in and out of the out of this state. All kinds of uh the best kind of tourists are scholars and others who come here for knowledge kinds of activities. So I think uh I think there's still hope there, but it requires investment spending in the educational system, requires uh all kinds of uh activities that make us attractive.
[00:05:19] Randall Roth: Do you see that happening?
[00:05:30] Herb Cornuelle: No, I don't.
[00:05:40] George Chaplin: I agree with Herb about uh how good it would be to have people come out and combine uh sun, sand, surf with a learning experience. You know, classes, uh informal seminars, uh that type of thing with some uh uh top figures around as attractions, you know, Jim Mishna on the beach talking for an hour each day or conducting a bowl session for an hour, uh on writing or literature or whatever.
[00:06:02] Herb Cornuelle: He'd run over one hour.
[00:06:12] George Chaplin: Well, I just used Jim as an example, there are others. But uh uh the the assumption I think has been that you get some land and you throw up a building and try to keep the ceilings low because you get more rooms that way within the height limit, and people automatically going to come. I don't give up on tourism. I just say that it can no longer be taken for granted that uh there there have to be protections built in and uh and and pay attention to the things that brought people here in the first place.
[00:06:34] Randall Roth: You know George, uh there are people who say tourism has has thrived too much and in the quality of life in Hawaii has suffered. What do you say to them?
[00:06:44] George Chaplin: Well, I think you as you get I I think if uh this industry could settle for about where it is now, it may be uh too overbuilt to go along with that idea. Uh that might be about as as much of a load uh as these islands can handle. You know, the more people you get coming in, I think the figure used to be about 150,000 to 200,000 on a given day. Uh that crowds the beaches, that crowds the streets. Uh and there's a there's a fair amount of local resentment uh about that sort of thing.
[00:07:06] Randall Roth: George, is is the community going to uh uh encourage more tourism development or discourage it? Or where's the community?
[00:07:16] George Chaplin: Well, I think the community unless there's an educational program is is going to assume that we constantly need more people uh to make things go around.
[00:07:27] Randall Roth: You're listening to the Price of Paradise Radio show. I'm Randy Roth and my guests this week are a couple of long time civic leaders, George Chaplin of the Honolulu Advertiser and Herb Cornell, a retired businessman and former trustee of the Campbell Estate. Well, Herb, what about leadership in Hawaii? Uh, do we have the kind of leadership that a community needs to have?
[00:07:48] Herb Cornuelle: Well, I I don't think we do. I think we need the we have a sense of purposelessness that uh needs very able kinds of leaders. Leaders with character and moral fiber and all those kinds of things. And I just don't see any such leadership here right now.
[00:07:59] Randall Roth: Are you looking just to political leaders or leaders from other directions?
[00:08:10] Herb Cornuelle: I guess the answer's yes. I mean the what about the business community? Well, uh let me try to answer a little better your first question. I I think government has been the leadership, but it hasn't realized government people haven't realized they do have that mantle. So there has been a uh a feeling that it's government that's in the driver's seat. Businessmen, um I think there are lots of leaders in business. Some of the best ones are absolutely preoccupied with making a living and making their companies or their institutions effective. Also, they're not really trained very much uh or or the the skills businessmen have aren't often accompanied by the skills to do a public leadership kind of a task.
[00:09:03] George Chaplin: But wasn't that uh that's changed though, it seems to me over the years, when you've got absentee ownership now. So, a manager uh is focusing on uh what he's going to produce for Boston or Chicago or New York. In the old days, which Herb remembers even better than, Not as long as that than I do. Uh he had local leadership. Now there was a there was a lot of criticism about the uh the concentration of uh economic power and so on. But there was a community a sense of community in that leadership. You could call it paternalism if you wanted to. But if a neighborhood needed a playground, these guys made sure that they got a playground, the symphony needed support, it got support.
[00:09:35] Randall Roth: We don't have that now, George?
[00:09:45] George Chaplin: Well, you you have you have some of that, but uh if the ownership is not in Hawaii, uh there's a difference in priorities uh it seems to me. Uh, before a local manager can I think decide how much uh he can give to the Aloha United Way, uh Herb might know more about this than I, but he's got to check with headquarters. In the old days, the headquarters were here. And I think that's the difference, and as you've gotten more absentee ownership, I think, apropos of what Herb said, power moves increasingly to government.
[00:10:17] Randall Roth: Herb, has government done a good job of of exercising that power?
[00:10:28] Herb Cornuelle: I don't think so. I think the the dependence that we now have on government is uh is misplaced. We now have more government employees, uh the only place where we have growth and employment is in government. In the last few years, there've been less private jobs, more government jobs and I think that's wrongheaded and should be reversed. But getting there is is tough. You've probably heard me say before that I think very little will happen until we hit about 16 and 2/3% unemployment. And by that time people will be ready to turn their attention to how to make it better.
[00:11:32] Randall Roth: George, do you agree with that?
[00:11:43] George Chaplin: Well, I want to maybe come at it a little bit differently. Around the time of statehood, there was a sense of euphoria here. Uh the feeling that like the man of Lamancha, you could dream the impossible dream. The fact that we were small in terms of population, land size, uh that wasn't seen as an inhibiting factor. Uh, that sort of idealism, uh I think is drained away. The spirit I think is uh is is increasingly eroded. And uh the idealism that one saw in many public servants thinking about the welfare of the public, whether there was land reform or uh other programs dealing with people. Uh, I think the feeling now, which uh can't be said of all, of course, that we have some excellent public servants, but I think there's a feeling that the focus is on what's in it for me rather than what's in it for the general public.
[00:12:57] George Chaplin: And I think that accounts for the disenchantment, the fact that people, well, and [unintelligible — audio glitch] confined just to the islands. I think uh people feel that way about uh government and Washington and so on, you know.
[00:13:19] Herb Cornuelle: I think the euphoria though, that you mentioned still exists. You know, it's very hard to get people to look critically at problems in the community if they're listening to your speech in a hotel room looking overlooking the sands and the water at Waikiki. There's something about this place that saps the enthusiasm of people to do something about it. Just inherently in our beautiful landscapes and the climate and the and the people themselves.
[00:13:51] George Chaplin: Well, we may have a different definition of euphoria. I mean it was a it was a sense that things were going beautifully and would continue that way, we could have an impact on the rest of the world, we could export the spirit, and all of that. And and I think that that now there's a sense of powerlessness, a feeling that people no longer have no one ever had complete control of their destiny, but a feeling that there's less control.
[00:14:22] Herb Cornuelle: But anyway, Excuse me, go ahead Herb. I was going to say that what we're talking about is that we crave leadership. We we really want someone or some group of people to come along and help us find the way to have the community better represent what we think it should.
[00:14:44] George Chaplin: Right. I agree.
[00:14:54] Herb Cornuelle: And how to identify and and provide that leadership support is a very hard problem. Running businesses now, I think, is a two or three times as hard as it was years ago for for a complex of reasons, not excluding government regulations and rules and all kinds of community groups that are optimizing a single variable and making it harder and harder to make a business work. So if you couple that fact, and I think it is a fact, uh with the other fact and that is that very few businessmen I mentioned this before, are really good at polemics and all that stuff.
[00:15:26] George Chaplin: Only lawyers are good at that. We're talking in a sense about a national problem, but of course our focus is on the islands because this is where we are and uh hope to continue to be. But uh every national poll in recent years is shown uh a declining confidence in the uh institutions of society, government, uh mayors, legislature, media, doctors, lawyers, the courts. And I think that's a very dangerous situation when people lose respect for the pillars of society. Uh it it it's corrosive, it works on them and it and it's reflected in how they react, and most of the time the reaction is to to write it off. Well, that's politics, you know.
[00:16:30] Randall Roth: You're listening to the Price of Paradise Radio show. I'm Randy Roth and my guests this week are a couple of long time civic leaders, George Chaplin of the Honolulu Advertiser and Herb Cornell, a retired businessman and former Campbell Estate trustee. Well George, how do you personally feel about the future of Hawaii? Are you optimistic, pessimistic, or some place in between?
[00:16:52] George Chaplin: Well, I think the future depends on whether people decide, whether it's by others urging them or self motivation, uh to show more leadership themselves. You know, you get 10 women on the phone each calling 10 others, there's a lot of power there. Uh it it uh we we people I think have to take on more individual responsibilities and demand or ask or urge responsibility on the part of the other institutions of society, whether it's the media or city government or state government or business.
[00:17:24] Herb Cornuelle: Well, I think maybe I'm a little bit optimistic because I think there are lots and lots and lots of young people who are worried and are trying to find the handles on doing on the way to do something about it. And I so I think it's too early to give up. I think we George and I and others of our vintage have had our chance and and it didn't work out all that well. I'm I'm kind of what shall I say, optimistic that that a new group will emerge who will do something about it. And I think maybe the economic realities may provide the coalescing kind of factor that that's needed.
[00:18:17] George Chaplin: But there has to be, I think there has to be some catalytic action. I think this and there needs to be something [unintelligible — audio glitch] uh prod is too strong a word, but to goose the people into saying, hey, I count. I I think the potential is there. I agree with Herb. I'm not uh I'm not writing things off. I'm just I've always tried to be pragmatic and realistic and look at things as they are, and I see an awful lot of things that are wrong. But every now and then you come across some young guy and he restores your faith because he believes it can be a better world and a better place and he's going to try to do his best.
[00:19:00] Randall Roth: What's your Herb?
[00:19:09] Herb Cornuelle: I was going to say one other thing, probably that doesn't make any difference, but I think that we have to learn that good intentions don't count. There's so many well-intended, uh, proposals that have really no no place in the in the discussion that don't really matter. We're we're working on the edge of many things, and and I think it's important to try to be more realistic and have reality and and solid achievements rewarded rather than trying hard. Trying hard just doesn't doesn't mean anything.
[00:19:48] Randall Roth: Herb, what's your greatest concern as you look to the future of Hawaii?
[00:19:58] Herb Cornuelle: Well, I think maybe that if my grandchildren move away, I would be That's about the most devastating thing I can think of.
[00:20:07] Randall Roth: I I think there are others who have that particular concern. George, is there anyone thing that you are particularly concerned about?
[00:20:17] George Chaplin: Well, I I'm concerned that we not have a what I would call a further loss of the sense of community. As I drive around and I see, uh, all these electronic garage doors of which we have one, you know, they're very neat and so on, but they're they're really a sense of people's fears. Those doors are there to keep people from stealing your car, uh, they're there to uh, help uh, you zip up when you go in the house. Uh, that's stretching it a little, but there's nothing very aesthetic about those doors. They're they're there, I think because, uh, Hawaii has changed from uh, I was here in the war and then came back 13 years later.
[00:21:06] Randall Roth: Which war was it?
[00:21:15] George Chaplin: Well, Civil war between the states actually. People around World War II simply didn't lock their doors. They go to the mainland. Leave the house open, nothing was going to happen. Well, that's long ago, you know, but, uh, I think we've got to, uh, I think with the right kind of leadership with stuff, Herb was saying, you you got a you got a governor, a mayor, members of the legislature, I'm talking locally now, city councilmen whom you can respect. Uh, guys at that level can have an enormous impact on on getting people's spirits to to rise, but it it does it it comes down to leadership.
[00:21:45] Randall Roth: Herb, if you could change one thing, what would you change?
[00:21:54] Herb Cornuelle: Just a single thing, the school system.
[00:22:04] Randall Roth: Amen. Why is that so important?
[00:22:14] Herb Cornuelle: Well, young people have to be prepared to cope with the kind of world that they're going to going to live in and when, uh, uh, and I've always been a galtarian, I've always felt that the that the public school system was sort of the basis of our democracy. But I gathered a lot of kids who graduate from high school and go up, let's say to UH, at that first year a lot of time is spent on remedial English.
[00:22:33] Randall Roth: Herb, what's the one thing you would do to change the public schools to improve them?
[00:22:43] Herb Cornuelle: I think if you could get the principals out of the union, that would be a major first step. It's not as profound as many other things, but I think if you want to look for one single thing, one button to push, that's the one I'd push.
[00:23:02] Randall Roth: We've just got a minute or so left. George, if you could give some advice to the young people in the community, what advice would you give them?
[00:23:12] George Chaplin: Well, my dad came in 1906 from Poland as an immigrant and, uh, went to night school for a few years and so on. Uh, but, uh, his credo as it developed over the years, I put into four little points. What he said in effect was love this country. I don't think you ever heard of the golden rule, but he said, treat other people the way you'd like to be treated, work hard, try to amount to something. And, uh, I guess that could be improved on, but it doesn't occur to me at the moment.
[00:23:51] Randall Roth: Sounds pretty good to me. Herb, advice for the young people in the community?
[00:24:00] Herb Cornuelle: Well, I think they have to look critically at what they find here and decide what they're going to do to change it. That's I I think that's what they should be up to.
[00:24:20] Randall Roth: George, I I'm assuming that there aren't any burglars listening to Hawaii Public Radio. I just want to say that every time I've been to your house, your garage door's been open.
[00:24:30] George Chaplin: That's between the hours of 11 and 12.
[00:24:39] Randall Roth: Oh, okay. Thank you, gentlemen. My guest this week were George Chaplin, editor at large of the Honolulu Advertiser, and Herb Cornell, retired businessman and former state Cambo estate trustee. This week's show was produced by Jill Center with technical assistance from Mark Wagner. We hope that you'll join us next week when our guests will be Frank Delima and Corky Trinidad talking about humor in Hawaii. You've been listening to the Price of Paradise Radio Show. I'm Randy Roth, Aloha. This program is produced by the consortium of 72 Price of Paradise authors in cooperation with Hawaii Public Radio. The Price of Paradise is a best-selling two volume book series that has become a must read for every concerned citizen of Hawaii.
[00:25:47] Randall Roth: Please tune in next week when Randall Roth and his guests will take on another question of importance to listeners in Hawaii. Cassette copies of this program are available from Hawaii Public Radio for $10 by calling 955-8821.