King John Proposes

Of all the myriad islands in the mid-Pacific, few have had a more colorful history than little Kusaie, a six-by nine-mile dot in the Carolines. Americans were the first white men there, in 1806. Brutal, roisterous, buccaneering crews of U.S. whaling ships turned the gentle natives into fierce killers. For years Kusaie was an island of savagery.

Then, about 85 years ago, a few Americans set out to right the wrongs which a few Americans had done. Missionaries of a Boston society taught and toiled with the resentful, disease-ridden, impoverished Micronesians. Kusaie became a tropic paradise. It had no poverty or crime, almost no disease. It was a communal democracy--its village chiefs and the island king were elected by the people. Then in 1941 the Japanese sent the missionaries away.

When Americans returned to Kusaie last year they found the natives again impoverished and racked by disease. The Navy set up dispensaries, established markets for crops (taro, copra, sweet potatoes) and native handiwork. Last week King John of Kusaie solemnly inscribed in his native language a petition to the President of the U.S. It said: "We earnestly desire that Kusaie be made a permanent possession, and we request that our people shall be kept forever under the protection of the American flag."

Few Micronesians had ever heard of the United Nations Organization, let alone the plans for UNO trusteeships of Pacific islands. King John and his 1,557 neighbors simply knew what they wanted.

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