What happens
This episode of The Pacific Story, broadcast on March 31, 1946 by the National Broadcasting Company, makes the case for Hawaii becoming the 49th state of the Union. Joseph R. Farrington, Hawaii's delegate to Congress and publisher of the Honolulu Star Bulletin, presents the arguments. Voices from residents of Hawaii of several backgrounds describe their loyalty to the United States and the territory's ethnic mix, while Farrington answers objections about that mix. He also covers wartime service, labor organization, education, the territory's taxes and lack of voting representation, its population and area, and its military and Pacific importance. The program ends with an account of the congressional bill and earlier studies of statehood.
Hawaii and Washington, D.C., in the period after World War II
Characters: Joseph R. Farrington, Franklin Pierce, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Robert L. Shivers, Hugh Peterson
Listen for: Farrington's answers to the objections against statehood, including the arguments about Japanese residents during the war and the territory's taxes without representation.
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.