Statewide County HI Archives Biographies.....Ford, Alexander Hume April 3, 1868 - 
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/hi/hifiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
J. Orr jessicanorr@gmail.com July 5, 2011, 9:03 pm

Source: The Story of Hawaii and Its Builders, Honolulu Star Bulletin, Ltd. Territory of Hawaii, 1925
Author: Edited by George F. Nellist

ALEXANDER HUME FORD, Director-General, Pan-Pacific Union. The existence of the 
Pan-Pacific Union, the most significant and influential non-political movement 
yet launched in the Pacific, having for its purpose the cultivation of better 
relations between Pacific peoples and countries and the promotion of 
scientific research, is due to the efforts of Alexander Hume Ford.
  Mr. Ford was born at Charleston, South Carolina, April 3, 1868, the son of 
Frederick Winthrop and Mary Mazy (Hume) Ford, both of his parents being 
members of old Southern families. A classmate of Major General Charles P. 
Summerall and General Alex. King, he was graduated from the Porter Military 
Academy at Charleston, but turned to magazine and play-writing. He made one or 
two dramatizations with Mark Twain, which were produced in New York.
  In the late 90’s Mr. Ford began making trips around the world, writing for 
the Century, Harper’s, McClure’s, and other leading magazines of that period. 
He visited Hawaii for a week’s stay in 1907 and has remained ever since. His 
first acts were to revive the old Hawaiian sport of surfboard riding, and to 
have trials cut in the mountains for tramping, and out of these works grew the 
Outrigger Canoe Club, the largest club in the Hawaiian Islands, and the 
Hawaiian Trial and Mountain Club.
  Mr. Ford’s next undertaking in Hawaii was to organize a Hands-Around-the-
Pacific Club, and call a Pan-Pacific Conference, which was held in Hawaii in 
1911, coincident with the birth of the Mid-Pacific Magazine, which Mr. Ford 
started, and which is still issued in Hawaii every month as the organ of what 
is now the Pan-Pacific Union. This organization, founded by Mr. Ford, and of 
which he is the director-general, has for its honorary officers the heads of 
every Pacific government, and for its directors the leading and most 
distinguished men of Pacific races. In many of the countries of the Pacific 
there are branches that hold weekly luncheons, notably in Japan, where the Pan-
Pacific Club of Tokyo is the outstanding luncheon organization in the Japanese 
empire.
  The Pan-Pacific Union has held many conferences in Honolulu and has aided in 
conferences held elsewhere in the Pacific. It brought about the organization 
of the scientists in Pacific lands, and during the recent Pan-Pacific Food 
Conservation Conference in Honolulu had turned over to it the magnificent 
estate of the Mary Castle Trust for the foundation of a Pan-Pacific Research 
Institution, and here is to be erected the largest telescope in the world, and 
here also are being gathered for residence and work the leading scientists of 
the Pacific, especially those who are students of race, population problems, 
food conservation, oceanography, and the conservation of fish and fisheries of 
the Pacific. David Starr Jordan is the first honorary president of this 
institution, and Mr. Ford is acting as secretary until the organization is 
perfected.
  Mr. Ford is a member of the Cosmos Club of Washington, D.C., and numerous 
clubs in America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and China.


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/hi/statewide/bios/ford347bs.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/hifiles/

File size: 3.8 Kb