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Letters
& Chapters
A
Letter From Doc Cooke to Commander I.S.K. Reeves
"KALAUPAPA
MOLOKAI
JANUARY 14TH
1932
My
dear Skipper:
May I preface this letter by waiving a preliminary hearing
and pleading guilty to the charge of abusing a very much
treasured friendship - - - I have before me your October
15th letter which I have been trying to answer for a long
period of time, however, as you drift along through the
following paragraphs you will perhaps find some excuse for
my customary delinquency."
Home
Country
by
Ernie Pyle
".....The
day was misty, and air currents banged us as we dropped
over the cliff and roared down upon the earth. It was as
though we were suddenly flying over the remote Tibetan monastery
of Lost Horizon. We bounced on the rough runway. Only one
person was in sight when we climbed out - a Hawaiian in
overalls, who stood by the side of an old Ford a hundred
yards away and looked at us. He was a leper - a word that
is in disfavor at Kalaupapa. In the legal phraseology, he
was a 'patient'. He merely stood and watched...."
Ernie
Pyle visited Kalaupapa late in 1937. He was America's best-loved
war correspondent, and was called "America's greatest
frontline war reporter". He remained friends with Doc
and corresponded with him until Doc's death.
He
was killed on April 18, 1945 by a Japanese sniper bullet
while on the frontlines with American marines on an island
four miles west of Okinawa. Other books by Ernie Pyle: "Ernie
Pyle in England", "Here Is Your War", "Brave
Men", and "Last Chapter".
The Lepers of Molokai
by Jack London
"The
First Letter in the Important Series of First-Hand Impressions
for Which the Companion Has Sent Mr. London Around the World
When
the Snark sailed along the windward coast of Molokai, on
her way to Honolulu, I looked at the chart, then pointed
to a low-lying peninsula backed by a tremendous cliff varying
from two to four thousand feet in height, and said, 'The
pit of hell, the most cursed place on earth.' I should have
been shocked, if at that moment I could have caught a vision
of myself a month later, ashore in the most cursed place
on earth, and having a disgracefully good time along with
eight hundred of the lepers who were likewise having a good
time. Their good time was not disgraceful; but mine was,
for in the midst of so much misery it was not meet for me
to have a good time. That is they way I felt about it, and
my only excuse is that I couldn't help having a good time."
Father
Damien ~ An Open Letter To The Reverend Dr. Hyde Of Honolulu
by Robert Louis Stevenson
"To
do this properly, I must begin by quoting you at large:
I shall then proceed to criticise your utterance from several
points of view, divine and human, in the course of which
I shall attempt to draw again, and with more specification,
the character of the dead saint whom it has pleased you
to vilify: so much being done, I shall say farewell to you
for ever."
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