In February 1911 Elks 616 needed to raise money to pay off the Lodge mortgage. The community’s wallet had been drained for Chinese Famine Relief, the Palama Settlement, visiting opera singers Madame Calve and Signor Casparri, and Washington’s Birthday Floral Parade floats. How could Elks compete in the marketplace? 616 employed the old 1, 2, 3 strategy!
1: get everybody who’s anybody signed up to work. 2: for plenty of free publicity - be denounced as evil. 3: offer something for every age and each social class.
Elks 616 planned a Carnival for all with a glitzy masked ball for the social elite. The Elks Carnival fundraiser was a proven success in Elkdom across the US. In 1910, 616 had tested the concept with a Bishop Square Carnival and an Alexander Young Hotel Masked Ball.
In 1911, 616 expanded, renting all Alakea Wharf and warehouse, forcing passenger liners to dock across the harbor. Weeks of work created booths, erected tents, cleaned and converted a freight shed to a ballroom.
Part 1: The Carnival labor was accomplished by a web of committees, National Guard Col. J. W. Jones, Chairman. The 50 Elk committee plus business and social friends provided plenty of workers. Henry Berger, Albert Cunha, McCandless, King, Irwin, and many others had jobs on the Publicity, Parade, Music, and Masked Ball committees. A. E. Murphy chaired Side Shows. Walter L. Emory, renowned architect of the Hawaii Theater and Advertiser Building, chaired the “Grounds & Quarters” Committee. Admitting the source of much labor, Dentist Dr. C. B. High chaired the “Ladies Committee.” The US Marines were enlisted as labor. Completing the network, 22 socially powerful women became Patrons: Princesses Kalanianaole and Kawananakoa, wives of Govs. Frear, Carter and Dole, and ladies whose husbands became street names – Dillingham, Lewers, Renton, Wilder.
Part 2, being declared sinful, was easy. A 1909 attempted carnival during the Floral Parade already had been condemned: “why any one should seek to encourage the rude street license and senseless noise, which is its only excuse for being, is hard to conceive.” A good start. 
The imagined evil in the Palama Settlement hula-geisha performances gave the Elks a publicity platform. Rev. O. H. Gulick denounced hula as “the grossest and most bestial elements of heathenism,” and geisha as fallen women “posturing for the gaze of curious throngs.” No change of costume or choice of dance could reduce the sin. Gulick saw right through the Elks’ plan: a “drove of Elks...cannot be outdone. They will add these features to their unwonted attractions,” he wrote.
The Advertiser hosted serious dueling pro and con letters as the upset Hawaiian public reacted and geisha threatened a walkout. The geisha performed, but the hula dancers refused the main stage. Extra seating was planned for Carnival geisha and hula performances in anticipation of crowds drummed up by the condemnation. The dancing ought to provide, on writer noted, “enough excitement to keep the anti-amusement element writing letters for months.” Get banned, get free publicity!
The rival Hawaiian Star ran lighter stories daily – even if the news was made up. Did you know?: enroute to Hawaii, the wild man broke from his cage on the SS Wilhelmina, biting several passengers before recapture! Purporting to interview the Sheriff, a Star reporter asked if he would serve an anti-hula warrant against the Elks sworn out by the Antiquated Order of Discombobulated Plymouth Rocks? No, the Sheriff said, “It’s all I can do to guard the City Supervisors against the Garbage Department!” The Evening Bulletin ran an article telling of a cloud formation “a perfect elk’s head, antlers, and all” proving a headline claimed “Heavens Smile on Elks’ Doings.” When tooting your own horn, blow loudly: Full page ads detailed booths and events. “The most elaborately prepared entertainment ever gotten up in Honolulu,” “Biggest Scheme on Record Here.” Stories detailed plans assuring readers the event would be fun, hot, cool, the place to be. Paper streamers and confetti would open the masked ball, “social event of the year.”
A pre-event popularity contest challenged girls to get the most 10¢ ‘votes’ to win a free trip to San Francisco with 2 weeks at the Hotel Stewart. Could a girl afford the social shame of getting NO votes!? A sure drain on the bank account on any Elk with a teenage daughter. This contest and an auto raffle were also denounced as leading to moral decay. Part 2 completed.
Anita Manning, Lodge Historian
Next: Something for Everyone
References:
Thank you to Japanese Cultural Center for advice on Geisha
Advertiser 1911 Feb 7, 8, 10, 15, 16, 22
BPOE Honolulu Lodge 616, Minutes 1910, 1911
Mid-Pac. Mag, “Hawaiian Floral Carnival”, 1(2):185-9
Hawaiian Annual for 1910. Honolulu, p 170
Hawaiian Annual for 1911. Honolulu, p 171-2
Hawaiian Star 1911 Feb 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 20
seattletimes.nwsource.com/pacificnw/ 2005/0417/nowthen [site no longer active]
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