February 1911 was a busy month for Elks – and all Honolulu. It was one long party raising money for good causes or one long battle between sin and godliness. Feb was a patriotic triumph or a wasted marketing op. Racism and fear won or lost. It all depended on your viewpoint.
The month started off with a good old fashioned kermes in support of the programs at Palama Settlement. What you’ve never attended a kermes?! Sure you have. Kermes is a now forgotten word for a festival or fair raising money for charity. Ladies of social standing and men of commerce, including a few Elks, gave time and effort to raise money in support of Palama Settlement’s social welfare programs. Individuals in the national costumes of many countries walked among booths that sold food and fun. Among the performers were to be hula dancers and geisha. A minority of Christians decried inclusion of these “questionable entertainments.” “Their songs and dances ... are disreputable past description and the orgies that too often follow are unnamable,” wrote the news magazine The Friend. The writer noted the women themselves were not to blame “more sinned against than sinning.” A tongue in cheek writer got kermes news coverage by warning of the “Tartan Peril” threat to the innocence of youths. Attendees should expect to see “disgusting” kilt wearers “in public.” Under pressure, hula dancers were dropped, but the geisha still performed. Regardless of purported moral slips, all agreed the kermes was a financial success for Palama’s program funding.
Also in Feb, the Opera House hosted singers Madame Calve and Signor Casparri. Their concert included risqué, but socially accepted songs from Carmen. The reviewer used passion, abandon, urging, coquetry, insinuating, and defiant to describe their performance. Later, Madame Calve, partying with the city’s social elite, struck a blow for free expression by transforming the forbidden into art. She asked to see a hula performance - a troop of 40 danced to acclaim.
For free entertainment you could take in the annual Floral Parade on Washington’s Birthday, Feb 22. Advertising pros let the community know they considered the event a wasted opportunity. As a name, Floral Parade was “commonplace” and too bland to draw attention. The name needed to be punched up, branded, kicked up a notch. The event was new & improved, bigger & better, but dismally named. Thankfully one suggestion, “Furious Fuss of Flowers,” wasn’t adopted. The 1911 parade saw the introduction of island princesses and an association of fruits and flowers with each island. Hawaii theme decoration of carriages and autos challenged patriotic ones. Businesses were urged to decorate “as elaborately as possible in the American colors.” The parade included “marching school children” forming “an American flag, composed of appropriately arrayed little folk.” The red, white, and blue clad children were followed by “soldiers, sailors and marines, pau riders, cowboys and firemen.” The Christian press credited “the good effect of the recent public discussion” for the “absence of geisha from every float.” Prizes were given in categories for Autos, Automobile Floats, Horse Floats, Bicycles, and Natural Vegetation. The Outrigger Canoe Club uprooted the grass house from their compound, placed it on a truck bed, and won a prize – given by “malihini judges.” The implication of the writer being that OCC should have worked harder to get a prize! BPOE 616 entered a decorated auto entitled “1776.” Elks and Shriners collaborated on a float celebrating fraternal groups.
To top off the patriotic remembrances of Washington’s Birthday the Japanese American community held a lantern parade the night of Feb 22, 1911. Thousands brought lanterns to Aala Park, joining floats created by the YMCA, Buddhist groups, and churches. The Friend, supporter of racial tolerance if not freedom of dance, noted that from the “stars and stripes and ...references to [George] Washington a stranger would have guessed the morning parade ...arranged by aliens and the evening by American citizens.” This amid a flurry of racist, anti-Japanese speeches, and printed materials spurred by international political events and US labor concerns. The reply of Hawaii Japanese was to show “the deep aloha entertained for their adopted country.”
February also saw a flood of Shriners in Honolulu “on pilgrimage from the mainland.” Properly named the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, the newspapers filled pages and pages with Shriner photos, histories, notable charitable actions, and local events. Shriners partied. They toured the city; they toured the territory. More parties. Special dinner menus at restaurants: grilled fish, and pineapple soufflé at the Union Grill. Key to the city from Mayor Fern; celebratory luau. Even more parties: Elks gladly hosted and hoisted a few for their fraternal brothers.
Plenty of competition for your charitable dollar in Feb 1911: Dr. Carl Louis Perin gave “Readings” all month “For the Benefit of Chinese Famine Relief.” You must call in person at Cottage C, Royal Hawaiian Hotel. $1.00. None of the ads say a reading of what! Unneeded: every informed person knew he was the famous author of Perin’s Science of Palmistry.[1]
If Dr. Perin read the palms of Lodge 616 Elks or Elk wives in Feb 1911, he would have surely predicted a long line of fun. Not only did Elks and their wives participate in the many charitable and social events of the city, they planed and hosted The Elks Carnival, Feb 21 and 22. The Carnival would have something for everyone: young and old, the elite and the not-so-elite. It would please politicians and advertisers. AND It would raise eyebrows.
Inspired by their love of a good time? Sticking it to stuffed shirts? Advice from savvy Elk-Ad Club members? Whatever the motive, Elks 616 used a Hollywood strategy for free publicity - a banned program advertises itself.
Anita Manning, Lodge Historian
References:
Advertiser 1911 Feb 22
BPOE Honolulu Lodge 616, Minutes
Friend March 1911, pg 3-4
Paradise of the Pacific 1911 Feb & Mar
Hawaiian Star 1911 Feb 14, 16, 17
[1] Jan 2006 his 1902 book was for sale on EBay! “A complete and authentic treatise, logically arranged and profusely illustrated, on the science of palmistry”
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