Slurs elicit memo at Capitol
By Derrick DePledge
Advertiser Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — The architect of the U.S. Capitol will send a memo to tour guides giving background on a King Kamehameha statue, after complaints that some guides have disparaged it to visitors.
Advertiser library photo
The bronze likeness, tucked into a corner of Statuary Hall, was mocked during a tour in July led by a congressional aide who said the statue was placed in an out-of- the-way corner as punishment for not being dressed decently.
A bronze likeness is draped in lei for King Kamehameha Day at the U.S. Capitol. Among the comments overheard on Capitol tours was that the flowers served to cover the scantily clad statue.
"They stuck him back here in this corner where nobody would notice him," the guide said.
A vacationing KITV reporter videotaped the incident. The news coverage and anecdotal reports about other guides making derogatory comments about the statue prompted Democratic Reps. Ed Case and Neil Abercrombie of Hawai'i to complain to the architect.
"It is indeed regrettable that visitors to the Capitol are sometimes provided with incorrect or misleading information," architect Alan Hantman wrote in a July 30 letter to the Hawai'i lawmakers.
Many Capitol tours are led by congressional staff who have access to background information about the buildings but are under no formal guidelines. Along with the planned memo on the Kamehameha statue, Hantman said he had asked the Capitol Guide Service, which conducts official tours, to provide fact sheets for congressional staff.
New guides are taught that tours should be factual, and are urged to avoid repeating myths or stories they may have overheard, according to the service. After news reports about the Kamehameha flap, the service started using the statue as an example "about which many fanciful stories are told."
The guide service concedes that only a small number of congressional staffers take guide training, and some have not spent much time in the Capitol. Thomas Stevens of the guide service has recommended that training be mandatory for everyone who gives tours.
A few days after the tour was caught on videotape, Martha Ross, Washington bureau chief for the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs, and two OHA interns heard guides make similar remarks about the Kamehameha statue. Ross recalled that one guide said the statue had been draped in flowers a few weeks before, presumably to cover it up, neglecting to mention that the flowers were left for Kamehameha Day.
Appalled, Ross said she questioned where the guide had gotten her information. The guide was embarrassed enough to let Ross explain the history of the statue to the group. "We could take no more," she said. "I was really disturbed."
The statue, a copy of the statue outside the Hawai'i Supreme Court, was a gift to Congress from the state in 1969. It was placed in Statuary Hall with other works from the states. Kamehameha the Great was a warrior who unified the islands into the Kingdom of Hawai'i.
The Capitol architect has said the statue was housed in a corner because of structural concerns about its weight, estimated at six tons with its granite base.
Case and Abercrombie have asked the architect to evaluate the statue's location, and Hantman said he would have structural engineers re-examine its placement.
"It's an encouraging response that the architect of the Capitol is taking our concerns seriously and is demonstrating sensitivity to the issue," Case said in a statement while traveling in Israel.
Abercrombie said tour comments about the statue were "disturbing and insulting."
"It's going to require follow-up to make sure the word gets out to the people who conduct the tours," he said.
