Remembering an Adopted Cousin

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Remembering an Adopted Cousin

TIME Magazine - Time Inc. - May 23, 1969

The endless ocean. The infinite specks of coral we call islands. Coconut palms nodding gracefully toward the ocean. Reefs upon which waves broke into spray, and inner lagoons, lovely beyond description.

PHYSICALLY, the sprawling South I Pacific archipelagoes of Micronesia almost live up to the lotusland evoked by James Michener. But paradise has problems. The population of about 100,000—cut by 50% in the last century by war, emigration and disease—inhabits fewer than 100 of the 2,141 Marshall, Mariana and Caroline islands. And these in turn comprise only 700 sq. mi. of land in 3,000,000 sq. mi. of sea, an area nearly as large as the continental U.S. Distances are so great, and the people so scattered, that not even the ubiquitous and potentially valuable coconuts can be economically marketed: those on sale this month in Saipan, the administrative center, came from the Virgin Islands in the far-off Caribbean. A primitive economy, inadequate schools and social services and almost total unawareness by Americans that the U.S. bears any responsibility for the islands have combined to make Micronesians a sorely neglected folk.

Like the Raj. Before World War II, Micronesia's myriad atolls and volcanic islets were ruled by Japan under a League of Nations mandate and transformed into a honeycomb of airstrips and naval bases. The islands' agriculture and fisheries were also subsidized to help feed Japan. In 1947, the U.N. handed Micronesia over to the U.S. under a trusteeship arrangement that has turned out to be little more than occasionally benevolent colonialism. Education and health services have been improved somewhat, but Japanese-built roads are now so full of potholes that experienced travelers in cars suffer from a landlocked version of mal de mer, while the blessings of sewers and electricity are generally limited to districts where Americans dwell. The plush, U.S.inhabited Capitol Hill section on the island of Saipan resembles a British compound in India in the day of the Raj. Micronesian schoolteachers sometimes are paid only one-fifth as much as their American counterparts for the same work in island schools, and U.S. secretaries often get higher salaries than their Micronesian supervisors.

Now there are signs that the U.S. is moving to right these and other inequities. If Congress approves, U.S. aid in the fiscal year beginning July will rise 38%, to $41.6 million. Last week U.S. Interior Secretary Walter Hickel named an islander as No. 2 man in the trust territory's administration, the first time a native has achieved this status. He is Peter T. Coleman, 49, the first Samoan ever to receive a law degree. A former Governor of Samoa and a district administrator in Micronesia since 1961, Coleman has steadfastly refused to live on Saipan's Capitol Hill. The son of an American sailor and a Samoan mother prefers a modest house in a native community.

Continued Remembering an Adopted Cousin, Page 2

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