Murder in Paradise, Cont'd

The U. S. S. Alton, high & dry on the mudflats of Hawaii's Pearl Harbor, was the prison home all last week of a nervous and overwrought woman and three calm and comforting men, all held for murder. The prisoners: Mrs. Granville Roland Fortescue, middle-aged Washington socialite; Lieut. Thomas Hedges Massie, U. S. N., her young son-in-law, and E. J. Lord and Albert Orrin Jones, naval enlisted men. The charge: they had kidnapped and murdered a Hawaiian named Joe Kahahawai, accused, with four others of mixed blood, of raping young Mrs. Thalia Fortescue Massie (TIME, Jan. 18). Arrested fortnight ago by the Honolulu police as they were speeding the Kahahawai corpse to Koko Head, all four had been turned over to the Navy for safe keeping.

Their quarters were better than those of most alleged murderers. The Alton (once the old cruiser Chicago) was connected with the shore by a 200 ft. boardwalk, guarded by marines. On her deck had been built a penthouse, bristling with ventilators to cool the neat single cabins within. Each prisoner occupied a room comparable to that on a small liner. The food came from the officers' mess. No third-degree examinations occurred because civilian prosecutors were barred from the Alton. Flowers and messages poured in upon Mrs. Fortescue from the island and the mainland. Her daughter Thalia, staying with friends at the naval base, made her frequent visits.

When arrested. Mrs. Fortescue was a woman of iron. Once on the Alton, however, her nerves went to pieces and she was put under the care of a physician. She sobbed and cried on her bed. Her speech was so broken and incoherent that her attorney, Montgomery Winn, could talk with her only a few minutes at a time. Lieut. Massie sat by her hour after hour, trying to console and assure her. Her hysterical condition was aggravated by her anxiety for her husband, Major Fortescue, ill with pneumonia in far-off Manhattan. She wanted him by her side when she went on trial for murder.

By radiophone from the Alton Mrs. Fortescue spoke to her mother, Mrs. Charles Bell, in Italy. Lieut. Massie rang up his mother at Winchester, Ky., told her: "I think of you all the time. Please don't worry. My wife? She's fine and right here beside me now."

Heartwarming to Mrs. Fortescue were the messages of sympathy and admiration she received from her old friends in Society -- Mrs. Cornelius Bliss, Mrs. Breckinridge Long, Gilbert Grosvenor, Mrs. Edward Beale McLean, Publisher Joseph Medill Patterson. Before leaving to open her Palm Beach season, Mrs. Edward Townsend Stotesbury of Philadelphia wired:

"Dear Gracie: This brings you my love and heartiest sympathy, also my admiration and respect for your magnificent courage in this overwhelming misfortune. I would have done the same in your place and so would any other good mother. If there is anything I can do for you and yours, count upon me."

Alarmed when her message appeared in the Press, Mrs. Stotesbury's lawyers helped her issue a stiff & stilted statement: "I had no idea her [Mrs. Fortescue's] attorneys would make my message public. They evidently believed this publicity would be of some benefit to her. ... If so, I am content to endure the personal notoriety aroused. . . . Unfortunately the Press, without any authority from me, has assumed that I believed Mrs. Fortescue herself killed the Hawaiian Kahahawai to avenge her daughter."*

Meanwhile, with the principals cooped up on the Alton, the Fortescue-Massie case whipped up a great pother of official excitement and activity in Honolulu and Washington. Governor Lawrence M. Judd of Hawaii, island-born son of an island-born father, found himself under sharp, critical attack for Honolulu's lax law enforcement. Businessmen led by Walter Dillingham, railway tycoon, demanded a cleanup. Worthy citizens held mass meetings to protest against being "shushed"' by politicians who fairly screamed that Hawaii's raucous medley of race and sex was all an exaggeration. The Grand Jury met and dawdled while Governor Judd summoned a quick session of the Territorial Legislature, recommended a reorganization of the politics-ridden police force, capital punishment for the crime of rape.

In Washington President Hoover pondered the Hawaiian situation with his Cabinet. Secretary of the Interior Wilbur loyally sustained Governor Judd. Secretary of the Navy Adams continued to complain that he was not satisfied with "justice" on the islands.

At the Capitol the Naval Affairs Committee after a cursory inquiry, discovered that Governor Judd had "pardoned" one Benny Ahakuelo, who had pleaded guilty to attacking a Chinese girl. Free, Ahakuelo traveled to New York, represented the Territory in an amateur boxing contest at Madison Square Garden. Back in Honolulu, he was one of the five natives later charged with attacking Mrs. Massie. Governor Judd retorted that he had simply discharged Ahakuelo "from pa-role," that circumstances appeared extenuating and anyway, the Chinese girl had been "willing."

Attorney General Mitchell ordered Assistant Attorney General Seth Whitley Richardson with five Government sleuths to Honolulu to investigate crime and law enforcement, make a report for the Senate.

Chief blame for race troubles in Hawaii was placed by Admiral William Veazie Pratt on the "beach boys"--half-castes hired to instruct tourists in swimming and surfboard riding. These brown bucks, it was explained, do not understand the easy familiarity between the sexes sanctioned in the Occident. They mistake a white woman's smiling friendliness for an invitation to license. According to Admiral Pratt, the laxity with respect to sex crimes in Hawaii is due "just to the nature of things."

But not every tourist was frightened away from famed Waikiki by the clash of race and sex. From New York last week aboard the Matson liner Mariposa sailed Miss Emily F. Wilson, 91, to spend the rest of the winter in Honolulu.

* The theory was advanced last week that Mrs. Fortescue and party did not plan a cold-blooded murder, that the frightened Hawaiian was dragged to her bathroom to wring a confession from him by forcing him to swallow gallons of water. (Cf. The Leather Funnel by Poe.) His frantic resistance smashed the bathroom door, someone shot him in exasperation.

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