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By nightfall, the top candidates were counting the early returns, like sharp-eyed pineapple sorters in a canning factory. Well past midnight, the results began to show. Ahead in the gubernatorial race was a malihini (newcomer)—a handsome, smiling Republican named William Francis Quinn, only a dozen years in the islands, and for only 23 months territorial Governor, by appointment of President Eisenhower. Leading in the race for one of the U.S. Senate seats was former (1951-53) Democratic Territorial Governor Oren E. Long. 70. Way out in front for the other two congressional posts were two Hawaiians of Oriental ancestry: Democratic House Candidate Daniel K. Inouye, 34, World War II Nisei hero, and Republican Senatorial Candidate Hiram Fong, 52, a Chinese-American and a self-made millionaire (see box). Elected Lieutenant Governor: Big Island Republican Politico James Kealoha, 51. who is half Hawaiian, half Chinese.
Pinwheel Aurora. Now the volcano roared: one-armed Danny Inouye. victor with more than 111,000 votes—the most ever accorded any Hawaiian—rushed joyously into the Honolulu streets, kicked off his shoes and danced, and lit up a chain of firecrackers in the traditional Chinese celebration of good luck. At Bill Quinn's headquarters on Kapiolani Boulevard, campaign workers broke out the soda pop and Primo beer, as a four-piece, aloha-shirted band hammered out Latin tunes with a fierce beat. With each bulletin feeding new totals into Quinn's narrow plurality, came still more excitement. A stocky Portuguese-Hawaiian booster gaily swung the crowd into a chorus of When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, and the band broke out into Roll Out the Barrel. And then it was official: Quinn was elected (by 4,000 votes) over the favorite. Democrat John A. (for Anthony) Burns, 50. territorial delegate to Congress, onetime Honolulu cop. one of the architects of Hawaii's Democratic Party, a leader in the long battle for statehood, and just about the most sinewy politician in the islands.
Even as Quinn and his fellow victors were singing, they were celebrating another kind of victory, one that far transcended the glory of any one candidate or political badge. It was symbolized in the fact that 93.6% of Hawaii's 183,000 registered voters—more than 170,000 of them—had voted in the elections (v. an alltime mainland-U.S. high of 77.4%), and elected to office 42 candidates of Oriental descent. It was a victory for Hawaii itself, and its meaning rent the Pacific skies like an aurora of blazing pinwheels. United in monarchy, nourished in benevolent feudalism, resurgent in the growing pains that shadowed its 59-year-long territorial status, Hawaii now pro claimed itself a dynamic entity—cross-matched by blood strains that converge from every corner of the earth, bound by the vastness of the sea, unified by democracy, strengthened by aloha and hope.
Benign Paternalism. Long ago the seeds were planted. Once, Hawaii was an island paradise of flowers and trees, of tawny Polynesian women and warrior chiefs, jungle fastnesses and snow-capped mountains. In 1778 Captain Cook discovered the islands, and was followed by lusty traders and, in the 18203, by the New England missionaries with their modest Mother Hubbards and their Protestant churches and teachers.