COMMENTARY
Tom Gill: A key figure in social revolution of '50s, early '60s
By John Griffin
Who is Tom Gill?
Advertiser library photo • 1974
The question is fair enough as a Nov. 2 testimonial approaches for the 81-year old Democrat who was one of Hawai'i's most important and inspirational political figures in the decades before and after statehood.
Tom Gill speaks to reporters after filing papers in his second bid for governor, which he lost to George Ariyoshi.
Those in today's younger generations may have no memory that tells them he once served in the Legislature, in Congress and as lieutenant governor.
Aging baby boomers who lived through the turmoil of the 1960s and '70s may have mixed memories. Gill inspired many of them with his liberal ideas and independence. He was the bright and often acerbic young leader who challenged the emerging status quo as his Democratic Party, which had ousted the long-ruling Republican oligarchy starting in 1954, itself turned into a ruling and increasingly self-serving establishment.
Yet he is also the guy who lost key elections to sitting governors Jack Burns and George Ariyoshi. Indeed, some might label Gill the Adlai Stevenson of Hawai'i. But then again, most people today have never heard of that inspirational Democrat who lost two presidential elections to Republican Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s.
Advertiser library photo • 1966
For those behind the upcoming testimonial (and I am a nominal member of the committee), there is more to say about Tom Gill. They point out that the young lawyer with liberal political zeal was a key figure in the social revolution that Democrats brought to Hawai'i in the 1950s and early '60s.
Tom Gill is surrounded by supporters at campaign headquarters on King Street in a successful run for lieutenant governor. Gov. John Burns did not welcome the move, and the election was followed by four years of cold war that culminated in an unsuccessful bid to unseat Burns.
Not only was Gill the Democrats' O'ahu county chairman during the crucial 1954 election, he is credited with writing most of that year's state party platform. It drew voter support and provided eloquent arguments for the young Democratic candidates.
Of the dynamics back then, social historian Lawrence Fuchs wrote in his important 1961 book "Hawaii Pono": "The Burns faction could not take all the credit for the revival of the Democratic Party. There were other haoles, in some cases distrustful of Burns and his organization, among them Thomas P. Gill, O. Vincent Esposito, and malihini Frank Fasi, who threw themselves in(to) the Democratic cause."
Walter Heen, the former judge and legislator who sparked the Gill testimonial, ticks off other early accomplishments that should not be forgotten in any Hawai'i political history.
Heen and others credit Gill as the moving force behind late-territorial and early-statehood landmark legislation that includes Hawai'i's antitrust and administrative procedures acts, the land-use or green-belt law and other far-reaching programs.
Perhaps Thomas Ponce Gill's life is best reviewed in stages that begin and eventually will end in Hawai'i.
The Island-born son of an architect and newspaperwoman, he attended public schools and the University of Hawai'i before serving as a decorated (Bronze Star and Purple Heart) infantryman in the South Pacific in World War II (a fact he seldom mentioned).
He returned to Hawai'i from law school at the University of California-Berkeley in 1951, worked as a labor lawyer and plunged into the feuding and factional battles of Hawai'i's Democratic Party. After working as a lawyer and top aide in the territorial Legislature, he was elected to its House of Representatives in 1958.
Advertiser library photo
In 1962, Gill was elected to the U.S. House, where he made a name for himself as a highly promising freshman who helped write civil-rights legislation. In 1964, he lost a premature bid to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Hiram Fong.
In 1967, Lt. Gov. Gill led questioning at the Governor's Good Price Committee, which looked into the high cost of shipping products into the Islands.
Gov. Burns gave fellow Democrat Gill the job of heading Hawai'i's new Office of Economic Opportunity, a federal war-on-poverty program. But for personal and political reasons, Burns did not welcome Gill's 1966 decision to run for lieutenant governor. Gill won handily anyway, outdrawing Burns in the primary.
That set up four years of cold war on the State Capitol's top floor, climaxing in an epic 1970 battle in which Gill unsuccessfully challenged Burns' bid for a third term. Gill lost again in 1974 in a five-way race won in the primary by George Ariyoshi, the lieutenant governor who had succeeded to the governorship after Burns was stricken with cancer and resigned in 1973.
Since then, Gill has been practicing law, active in civil rights, commenting sometimes on politics, and for a time seeming to flirt with another bid for office.
More than a quarter-century after Gill's political peak, amid what seems like a milder transition in state government — not a dramatic revolution so much as needed change — we might ask what Hawai'i might have been like today if Gill had been governor. (The same question might be asked about former Honolulu Mayor Frank Fasi, who made several tries for the top job.)
Advertiser library photo
Gill remains most proud of what he did to help the Democratic revolution succeed in the mid-1950s. Looking back, he says he would have spent more time trying to keep the liberal Democratic program on track and not "pecked at and put aside" by the Burns people.
Gill takes a break with Mayor Neal Blaisdell in 1968. Gill did not run for office again after his 1974 loss to Gov. George Ariyoshi, and old-timers can only wonder what impact the Democrat, now 81, might have had.
Few expect he would or could have changed a personality that was seen at times as too abrasive, immodest and even arrogant, as well as intolerant of stupidity and dishonesty and notable for biting humor.
Even from retirement, Gill has delivered zingers. Hawai'i historian Tom Coffman, in his latest book "The Island Edge of America," tells how Gill summed up Democratic contenders early in the 1978 gubernatorial race.
"Our choice for change at the moment isn't very encouraging — so we replace a dummy with a dingbat?"
In the end, some will conclude that Tom Gill was better at inspiring and devising liberal programs than he was at the politics of winning elections himself.
But the more vital verdict is as one of Hawai'i's best and brightest, a politician who kept his integrity over a long career in which he stressed the importance not just of winning, but of standing for true equality and the greater public good.
John Griffin, former editor of The Advertiser's editorial pages, is a frequent contributor.
