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     Prince Kuhio was the father of Hawaii's national park system.  He obtained passage of the bill enabling the Interior Departmet to take over Kilauea Park and its surroundings.

     To futher his greatest ambition, the rehabilitation of the Hawaiian people.  Prince Kuhio obtained an amendment to the Organic Act in 1910 which opened public lands in Hawaii to homsteading.  The homsteading act did not protect the Hawaiians, so the Prince began agitating to set up special homesteading lands for Hawaiians only.

     The Prince's greatest achievement, the passage of the Rehabilitation (Hawaiian Homes Commission) Act, was a measure which required years of fighting.  The measure had to be fought out of committees both in the House and Senate, then onto the floor for debate and vote.  The battle was not won until 1921.

     It is ludicrous to look back now and learn that the fight for women's suffrage became mixed up with the fight for the Rehabilitation Act.

     In 1920, the Prince seemed to be near victory.  His rehabilitation bill had passed the House of Representatives.  Then it became bottled up in a senate committee.  The delegate had to come home to face a hot campaign for re-election.

     Link McCandless was Prince Kuhio's Deomcratic opponent and there was considerable sniping at the Prince from within the Republican Party.

     The Territorial Legislature had failed to pass the women's suffrage bill in 1919.  When the delegate began campaigning in 1920, the Islands were flooded with anonymous letters accusing the Prince of having defeated the bill.

     During the campaign, the morning newspaper accused the delegate of having told the people of Kakaako that the Baldwins, Cookes, and others who had taken all the good land from the Hawaiians were to blame for the failure of the rehabilitation bill to pass the U.S. Senate.

     The delegate branded this statement as a lie and clarified the issue by producing a telegram sent to Washington by the Chamber of Commerce as the real cause of blocking the measure in committee.

     The chamber telegram asked that the bill be held up pending a hearing on it!

     The Prince won that election and returned to Congress to win his fight for rehabilitation.

     The origianl Rehabilitation Act as passed by the Hawaii Legislature was amended in 1921.  Prince Kuhio remained in Washington all through the hot summer months to nurse the bill through committees and onto the floor for a vote.

     In arguing his cause, the Prince told congressmen of his anxiety over the dying Hawaiian race.  He explained how the Hawaiians had lost their land to the aggressive races which had settled in the Islands.

     He pled with them to rectify the great wrong which had been done the Hawaiians and argued that a return to the soil would save the Hawaiian race from dying out.  Representative Curry of California, one of the House committeemen, said he had never heard a man speak with more sincerity or greater feeling than the Prince in arguing for his bill.

     The Prince was a sage politician.  He knew that oratory and sound reason could not prevail against prejucdice.  It is said that many of the Prince's most important battles for Hawaii were won over the poker table.

     The Rehabilitation Act did more than set up the Hawaiian Homes Commission.  The Act established the principle that the Hawaiian Homes Commission.  The Act established the principle that the Hawaiians should have first consideration in the disposition of remaining public lands of the territory.  It also compelled the employment of citizen labor on public works in Hawaii.

     The members of the first Hawaiian Homes Commission as appointed by Governor Wallace R. Farrington were:  The Governor, Prince Kuhio, Rudolph M. Duncan, the Rev Akaiko Akana and George P. Cooke.  Governor Farrignton was chairman of the commission.  Mr. Cooke was made executive officer and secretary.  L. Thornton Lyman was employed as superintendent on Molokai and Jorgen Jorgenson, the engineer and surveyor.  The Commission decided to open the first tract in makai Kalamaula, Molokai where slightly brackish to open the first tract in makai Kalamaula, Molokai where slightly brackish water was available for irrigation.  The land was divided into twenty-acre plots of which five could be irrigated.  A well was developed and pumps and flumes installed.  The settlement was named for Prince Kalanianaole.

     The pioneer homsteaders moved to their lots under extreme hardships, water was not available, there were no roads, no houses, the dust was almost intolerable.  With steadfast determination, most of the pioneers stuck to their land and set an example for those who followed after homesteading had become easier.

     When Prince Kuhio returned to the Islands in 1921 after spending the hot summer in Washington, he said he planned to retire.  He was tired and not well.  No one thought for a momentthat he would give up his political career which had covered a span of 20 years.

     He threw himself into the work of organizing the Hawaiian Homes Commission and counseled the Hawaiians in those words: "You must save yourselves by work--hard work.  It rests with those who go upon the land, under the rehabilitation scheme, to prove that they can and will remain upon the soil and get a living from it."  Time and time again, he expressed his confidence in the ability of the Hawaiians to make good use of the thousands of dollars to be advanced to them.  He told skeptics that Hawaiians, under proper conditions, could be good farmers.

     In Congress he preached the doctrine of home rule for Hawaii and fought federal control of local administration.  He repeatedly told Congressmen That Hawaii was fit to govern itself, and, he said, "If you don't believe it, come and see for yourself."

     At home he was outspoken in telling the Hawaiians that work was their only salvation - hard wrok which would enable them to compete with the whites from America and Europe and the orientals from Asia.

     The Prince also forsaw the attack upon the Hawaiian Rehabilitation Act as an unconstitutional measure.  He forestalled this attack by asking the United States Attorney general for an opinion.  He was assured that the Act would pass the test of constitutionality.

     Among the many tributes often paid the Prince were those which spoke of his good sportsmanship.  It was no secret that he aspired to the governorship in 1921.  When President Harding appointed Wallace Farrington, Prince Kuhio was the first to congratulate the new appointee and to speak well of him to the President.

     To his disappointed supporters, Prince Kuhio said, "Let's support him.  Let's play the game well."

     In the few months that remained, the Governor and the Prince worked together and became the best of friends.

     The Prince died of heat disease at his Waikiki home on January 7, 1922.  His body lay in state for nine days in Kawaiahao Church and in Iolani Palace.  He was given the last state funeral for an alii.