Samoans Say
p. 42 · Read in the full issue
What The Samoans Say About Progress
THE number of sex violations —the very high percentage compared to other offenses—is a sign of the times. The fact that it involves young people points out the section of our population that is most acutely affected by the transitional period that we are going through. There is great disorder in the manners and morals of our young people. —Editorial in the “Samoa News”, on August 20, 1965.
PEOPLE are more important than gadgets. Granted that television sets, fancy hotels, elec tric bulbs, your Telex System, paved roads, and whatnots are essential to a growing nation, but they will not make Samoa a truly great nation. . . .
The advent of these material wonders has also brought with it much grief, juvenile and adult delinquencies, a flagrant disregard of law, and total neglect of individual initiative.
This planet is littered with ruins of magnificient temples and relics of great nations. But they all crumbled for lack of a strong moral fiber. —Letter from Poro tesano M. Fa’apouli Fitiuta in the “Samoa News”, July 23, 1965.
OVER the past four years, we have to a very alarming degree placed our everyday affairs in the hands of one man, the Governor, to decide by his own personal opinion as to what is good and what is bad for us. . . .
Anyway, let’s hope that we all don’t wake up some fine morning and find that instead of having a name, we find our heads shaved and a GAS [Government of American Samoa] serial number stamped thereon, or perhaps a feather stuck in our hair and required to perform a war-dance for tourists. —Letter from D. C.
Spencer in the “Samoa News”, October 22, 1965.
THE number one dispute among families in American Samoa today is the argument over land rights. The Office of Samoan Affairs which handles the disnutes now operates a daily schedule of cases. . . .
The current boom in the build ing of residences has brought with it the sudden outburst of disnutes. One out of every two houses now under construction
has been subject of a dispute. A number of houses now stand in complete because one or more family members objected to the building after it was put up.— News item in the “Samoa News”, July 30, 1965.
THEY [the teenagers] might be right that they are receiving better education nowadays which is very good, and their parents are fooled by them, but as long as they don’t know the meaning of the rule of law, and they don’t have any respect for it, then the education they are receiving now is worthless. —Editorial in the “Samoa News”, July 16, 1965.
DO we need pencilled parks from experts who mark out areas of destruction in one of our largest sea food and clam grounds? The once-attractive air port fishing area should be an example. . , . Are we to create more disaster where disaster has already been? Are playgrounds for tourists more important than homes for citizens and taxpayers?
The GAS pays alien agents large sums of money per acre to produce land [by reclamation] while taking Samoan land at prehistoric money values. —Letter from Marvyn Cox in the “Samoa Times”, March 28, 1966.
A BALANCE must be main tained between the political, economic and social development of the territory. No part of the Samoan life should outstrip its other component parts. We have learned that in some under developed areas there are often tendencies for economic develop ment to outstrip the political and social development to the detri ment of the whole society. . . .
At this time . . . conditions of stability exist in the territory, partially because of the sensitivity of the administration to the hopes and aspirations of the people, and partially because of the inner strength of the Samoan system.— 1960 Annual Report of Governor Peter Tali Coleman.