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"The story of 39 years in Hawaii, and the contributions of W.R. Farrington as editor, publisher and citizen"  By Riley H. Allen Editor of The Star-Bulletin., (Reprinted from the Twenty-fifth Anniversary edition of The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, July 1, 1937.)

 

 

 

     But there were heartaches as well as triumphs.  One Saturday afternoon just as the Duplex started its grind of the "big" (12 pages!) Saturday paper, something went wrong.  The "web" (sheet of rolled newsprint paper) broke, again and again and again.

     The two youths who were our sole pressmen labored vainly to fix it.  Electricians and mechanics were called in.  The afternoon passed.  On into the night the crew toiled.  They'd make repairs, start the press--and the web would snap.  Time after time, scores of times.

     Only newspapermen trying to get their papers to subscribers know what this means. And Farrington was a newspaper man.  He never left the shop till, late that night, all hands gave up exhausted, and went home to snatch a few hours' sleep.

     Next morning early, they started at it again.  Farrington was with them.  Every time the web would break he'd say, "Well, boys, let's try again."  Another try. Another break.  "We'll get this paper out if it takes all summer!"

     By mid-afternoon it seemed hopeless.  The grimed, greasy, sweating men had tried everything...

     They made another adjustment of gear and cylinder, switched on the power....The web moved slowly through the cylinders across the "forms" locked on the flatbed--and slowly but surely began flowing out through the cutter and delivery chute--a printed, whole paper.  We all held our breaths...Glory hallelujah! The press was working.

     It was then mid-Sunday afternoon.  That Saturday paper--the paper of the day before--was run off and delivered!

     Later, in a quiet, tired but triumphant voice, Farrington said: "The newspaper is a contract.  It's a contract with your subscribers and your advertisers.  You've undertaken to get it out...So you get it out..."

     That philosophy he sometimes expressed in another way: "When you start a thing, see it through.  If you don't expect see it through when trouble comes, don't start It!"

 

     Another of his homely aphorisms applied to newspaper work: "A mistake of action is better than one of inaction."

     Nothing galled him more--and he was a man of sanguine temperament who had plenty of temper not far from the surface--than to see slipping by, unused, opportunities for a stroke of newspaper enterprise.

     Even on the slender newspaper budgets of those days, he would spend more for news or for a good newspaper feature than any other publisher in town.

     I remember once a well set-up bronzed young chap came in from the waterfront and offered to sell the story of his experiences on a sailing ship.  Farrington and I listened to the story.  It was a good one, but when he named the figure (and it would be considered small today) I was prepared to say no, for I knew something of the financial struggle the paper was going through.

     But Farrington said, "Well take it," and then remarked to me, "And it's up to us to make it pay for itself.  Give it a real ride!"

     We "give it a real ride"--a three column head, plenty of big type.  It started as a one-day sensation--and the sensation stretched for a couple of weeks, when the young chap, who proved to be the son of a famous American governor and public figure, brought suit against the ship on the grounds that he and certain shipmates had been treated with undue and cruel severity.

Farrington Stood For Independence of the News

     Independence and integrity in the news were ingrained in Wallace R. Farrington's make-up.

     He was not only extremely enterprising in getting news, but determined to print all possible news within the bounds of decency.

     When the World War broke out, The Star-Bulletin immediately set out to print all possible news from both sides.  Particularly, we were able to get and print the official communiques or press releases from the German side.  These were being sent in cable to the then German consul here.

     Immediately, the nationals of the Allies, and Allied sympathizers, took exception to this.  They felt, as was natural, that we were presenting propaganda for the German cause.  As a matter of fact, we learned by careful checking that the German communiques were usually fairly correct.  They were presented, of course, from the German standpoint, but they contained many items of news of battles and of German policy which we could not get otherwise.

     Mr. Farrington backed up his editor consistently in the attitude that so long as we credited these dispatches to German sources we should, as a newspaper, publish them for what they were worth.

     There was a time when The Star-Bulletin was bitterly assailed as pro-German simply because it insisted on publishing all the news it could get of the progress of the war and the statements of German policies.

     This criticism, of course, vanished when America went into the war and The Star-Bulletin loyally supported the cause in which the nation was engaged.  Even before the cause in which the nation was engaged.  Even before that The Star-Bulletin pointed out editorially that the course which Germany was taking toward the United States must inevitably alienate this country and cause a declaration of war.

 

     This sturdy trait of independence in the news and editorial policies of The Star-Bulletin was carried into the political field.

     In 1916, Mr. Farrington wrote: "Great opportunities are before the people of this city, and to make the most of those opportunities, the problems of the hour must be approached from a thoroughly non partisan, broad, business standpoint....The whole scheme of self-government in this city and territory is seriously threatened and that only because our people appear to be united in but one thing, namely, to call each other names and play factional politics, while the really big things, the things worth while, languish for want of attention or lack of community cooperation or await the outcome of a personal wordy war."

     To his community as to his newspaper staff, his counsel was to "Put first things first" and he had a remarkable talent for judging what the "first things"--the really important 'things"--were.

 

*  *  *

Another characteristic was his talent for incisively plain writing.  As he himself expressed it, "Don't beat around Robin Hood's barn" (a down east expression, I believe).  "If you have a thing to say in print, say it."

     His short editorials were largely one and two sentence epigrams. They might be on any subject from politics to weather to street improvements.  They were brief, pithy, and with unmistakable point.

 

     His early newspaper career in Hawaii had been somewhat of a personal battle.  The details do not matter now.  The era of personal journalism, here as in the states, was just drawing toward its close.  The Honolulu field was a highly competitive field, and some of its writers such as the late Walter G. Smith were masters of invective.

     This atmosphere of bitter criticism of competitors was never one that Farrington liked to encourage.  In my early association with him, in 1905 and again in 1910, 1911 and following years, I never knew him to "start a row" with a competitor.  But if the competitor fired an arrow, he did not hesitate, if he felt so moved, to fire a volley in return, and it was direct, pointed and effective.  Yet he did not believe in "newspaper rows" and one of the reasons he heartily welcomed the merger of The Hawaiian Star and The Evening Bulletin in 1912 was that it removed one source of competitive repartee.

     He realized that news papers which spent their time and used their space to quarrel with each other inevitably failed to win respect in their communities.

     To his news staff he said: "Let the other fellow call names.  It doesn't hurt you any unless they're true."

     To his advertising and circulation staff he said, "Sell your own product--don't waste your customer's time talking about the other fellow.  We're getting out a good newspaper--if you tell all its good points, you won't have any time left to talk about your competitor."

     "Newspapers in this day and age and this country have a lot more important things to do than quarrel with each other," he frequently said.

 

     Those "more important things" were legion.  Even on the struggling Evening Bulletin in 1907 he had started the school garden contest that in later years grew to its present huge proportions.  As The Star Bulletin got into its stride, it began its numerous and varied community events which today are continuously in progress.  There is not a day in the year now when some community event, undertaking or organization is not sponsored by The Star-Bulletin.

 

* * *

     A fundamental in Wallace R. Farrington's newspaper philosophy was the importance of news to a newspaper.

     That may seem an entirely obvious thing to the average newspaper reader.  The newspaperman or newspaperwoman knows what I mean.  The interest and importance of "features" has in the past quarter century tended to thrust the place of news into the background.

     Mr. Farrington always insisted that the backbone of a newspaper is news.  And while his paper published the first comic strip and the first comic section in Hawaii, and pioneered many another newspaper feature, he never wavered in his conviction that the first duty of a newspaper it to publish the news and all the news.

     In following this conviction he steadily and willingly, as general manager and later as publisher of The Star-Bulletin, spent more for news than did any other publisher in Hawaii.

     He did this not only for "spot news" such as earthquakes, wars, disasters, championship fights or world championship baseball games, but for the day-by-day news.  He was quick to realize the opportunity to get cable news--when the Commercial Pacific Cable company opened operations here 34 years ago.  (Typical of his enterprise, too, was the fact that the first message that came by the new-laid cable was to the Evening Bulletin.  For many years that message, framed, hung on the wall of his office.)

     "Today's News Today," which he early adopted for The Evening Bulletin, was more than a catchy and effective newspaper slogan.  It was an expression of newspaper philosophy.  It was his gospel of newspaper production.

     He himself had always been an apt gatherer of news.  He was keen for the small item--the personal mention.  We used, for many years, to carry a column headed "Local and Personal" and every day he'd add item to it, busy as he was with other things.

     In my early days on the Bulletin he would quote, with approval, the example of one Jim Howe.  Jim was a stripling Kansan who drifted out to Honolulu and got a job on the Bulletin.

     "That chap Jim, " Farringtion would comment, "used to walk up and down Fort street and come in with a pocketful of personals.  This paper isn't too important to print the news of little things." And Jim Howe later became a star reporter and foreign correspondent for The Associated Press.

     Once, when Farrington came back from a trip to the mainland, he showed us what he meant.  The waterfront reporter who went out to meet his steamer was back in the office with unusual speed.  "Have you covered the ship?" the city editor asked him with suspicion.

     "I didn't need to," he replied.  "Look at this," and he pulled out a pocketful of yellow sheets with familiar writing on them.  "The Old Man covered it for me."

     And he had.  On the down trip from San Francisco, Farrington had written literally scores of "personals" about the passengers, had gotten interviews with notables and interesting persons.  I believe there was in that sheaf a reference to every passenger aboard.  It was 100 percent coverage.

     (Speaking of the term "Old Man." We never called him that to his face.  But even when he was a young editor and manager, he was referred to as "The Old Man."  It was no reference to age or slowness afoot--he played baseball with the staff when he was in his forties!  It was a term of affection, a recognition of leadership.  The Old Man was at the helm, the captain of the ship.  To his friends he was "Wallace" or often "W.R." but most of those who around the office referred to him informally as the Old Man, addressed him directly as "Mr. Farrington.")