HAWAIIAN WORD OF THE DAY
Kopa’a: Sugar
HAWAIIAN PROVERB OF THE DAY
“Nothing can sweeten it.”  (Nothing can change a bad situation into a good one.)

September 23, 1878: Two hundred men work furiously to complete the A&B ditch before the close of the month. Earlier in the year, the San Francisco sugar baron Claus Spreckels made a request to King Kalakaua, that he be allowed to dig a ditch to feed sugar cane. Kalakaua had a governing cabinet, and at the time, this cabinet rejected Spreckels’ request. (Rumor had it that A&B fed them well.) Kalakaua didn’t like this decision, fired the cabinet, created a new one, and that cabinet gave Spreckels the rights he wanted. The agreement shows a loan from Spreckels to Kalakaua of $4,000 (about $80,000 in todays money).

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