Quotes by Neil Abercrombie

25 quotes by Neil Abercrombie

Neil Abercrombie, American Politician

Life period: 1938

A good portion of the airport is on ceded lands, and lease money was paid for that. So the state's collecting lease money because all of a sudden ''worthless'' land now has an airport on it.

Quote by Neil Abercrombie about money, state, good, good luck

A lot of the homelands turned out to be land where no water was readily available, no roads, no amenities. So you had your ceded lands of a couple million acres, and y Hawaiian homesteads of a couple hundred thousand acres.

Quote by Neil Abercrombie about couple, water

All Hawaii beaches are open to the public - there's no...

All Hawaii beaches are open to the public - there's no such thing as a private beach.

Quote by Neil Abercrombie about public, things

Are the Native Hawaiians going to be able to control...

Are the Native Hawaiians going to be able to control their own land and their own money? When the land was seen as worthless, nobody gave a damn.

Quote by Neil Abercrombie about money

At the same time there's a history in Hawaii of the emergence from pre-feudal separate islands into a kingdom, into a shotgun republic, into an annexed territory, and then into a state.

Quote by Neil Abercrombie about state, history, time

Everybody got interested in ''How do I get mine? '' Which...

Everybody got interested in ''How do I get mine? '' Which motivates, I think, 99 percent of the opposition to the bill.

Fundamentally, the land was held in common and...

Fundamentally, the land was held in common and administered by a group of nobles called the alii on behalf of the common good.

Quote by Neil Abercrombie about common sense, good, good luck

I came to Hawaii in 1959 with statehood, and of course the whole foundation of this multiracial, multicultural, multiethnic society in Hawaii is the aloha spirit, the legacy of the Polynesian pioneers.

Quote by Neil Abercrombie about society, spirit

I remember saying to the chairman after serving the first year, ''Why are we doing this? Why don't the Hawaiians have control? '' ''Well, we have no mechanism to do it, '' I was told.

In 1920, a couple hundred thousand acres had been set aside called ''Hawaiian homelands. '' The idea was to rehabilitate Hawaiians by letting them homestead on acreage set aside for them.

Quote by Neil Abercrombie about couple, idea

In highly affluent areas, between multi-million dollar estates, you'll see a right of way so that anybody can get their surfboard and walk between these estates and get down to the beach, which is public.

Quote by Neil Abercrombie about public, rightness

In this rainbow society that we have, it became very apparent to me after I entered into an electoral political life that the question of settling the issues on the assets of the Hawaiians is what the Akaka bill is about.

Quote by Neil Abercrombie about question, society, life

Land began to be seen as something to be owned privately and exploited for private interests, and never was entirely reconciled with the old ideas that land should be utilized in common for the good of all.

Quote by Neil Abercrombie about common sense, old, olderness, good, good luck

Land in Hawaii is money. What I'm talking about here is ceded land - land that belonged to the kingdom and was ceded to the republic and then to the state when we achieved statehood.

Quote by Neil Abercrombie about talking, state, money

So as soon as the land was worth something and there was money in the bank, all of a sudden everybody got interested in non-discrimination, in who's really going to administer this stuff.

Quote by Neil Abercrombie about money

So there's always been this clash between what is the public good - that which belongs to all of us in common - and what can be exploited for a private interest.

Quote by Neil Abercrombie about common sense, interest, public, good, good luck

The Iolani Palace is right downtown in Honolulu, the only...

The Iolani Palace is right downtown in Honolulu, the only palace in the country.

Quote by Neil Abercrombie about country, rightness

The thing that distinguishes them as Native Hawaiians is...

The thing that distinguishes them as Native Hawaiians is that Native Hawaiians were part of their racial and ethnic heritage.

Quote by Neil Abercrombie about things

There was a queen that was overthrown here. So I was affected by all of that and felt profoundly grateful for the opportunity to live in Hawaii, and I set out at once to try to fit in.

Quote by Neil Abercrombie about chance

There's a series of benefits - educational, health, etc....

There's a series of benefits - educational, health, etc. - that benefit Native Hawaiians. The revenues are starting to mount into the millions.

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