LAWRENCE M. JUDD & HAWAII [An Autobiography]
Rutland, Vermont & Tokyo, Japan: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1971. First Edition. Hardcover. Octavo: 296 pp. with a frontispiece portrait. Original burgundy cloth binding, with gilt and white-stamped titling. Small bookseller's ticket to the front flyleaf. Faint dust spotting to the top edge. The dust jacket is a bit toned along the spine; otherwise very good.
Son of a chief justice of the Hawai'i Supreme Court, grandson of Gerrit P. Judd, the missionary who became the trusted advisor of Hawaiian kings, Lawrence Judd (1887-1968) came from a distinguished family. Uninterested in college, Judd became a successful business executive both on the mainland and in Hawai'i who was tapped to become territorial governor in 1929, serving until 1934 (territorial governors are appointed, not elected). What makes Judd's autobiography particularly valuable is the first-hand account of the Massie Affair, the sensational rape and murder case that generated headlines across the country and brought famed trial attorney Clarence Darrow to the Islands to handle what would be his last court case.
Thalia Massie was the troubled wife of a young Navy officer stationed at Pearl Harbor who accused five young men of color, including three native Hawaiians, of gang rape. As Judd recounts, "Newspapers across the country, even the most conservative, went into a state of contrived hysteria and demanded military government of Hawaii...At the height of the crisis, American newspapers were reviling Hawaii as a central Pacific sin spot, where bands of 'natives' haunted tropical jungles awaiting the approach of hapless white women. Special writers described the Islands as seething with race hatred, with violence checked only by bayonet rule."
When the weak case against the five defendants ended in a hung jury, Massie's outraged husband and socialite mother arranged the kidnapping and murder of one of the defendants. Darrow went to the Islands to serve as their defense counsel. After they and the two enlisted men they had recruited were convicted of second-degree manslaughter and sentenced to ten years each at hard labor, Judd commuted their sentences "under the heaviest Congressional pressure and against my better judgment. Had I possessed the facts which I learned later, I doubt if I would have commuted the sentences...Had I not acted as I did, I believe that the form of government here might have been changed to some form of government by commission. It might now be a state of the Union."
Judd's autobiography was an important source for David E. Stannard's Honor Killing (2005), a comprehensive account of the case and its impact on Hawai'i. Very good / Very good. Item #80785
ISBN: 0804809100
Price: $40.00