by Scour Old Cereal Bowls <scouroldcerealbowls@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
Mar 18, 2008 at 01:52 PM
nebusj-@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Joseph Nebus) wrote in
news:nebusj.1205805163@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Discovered while looking about Wikipedia for events of historic
> significance on these dates, was this entry for March 18:
>
> 1959 - American President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a bill
> into law allowing for Hawaiian statehood, which would
> become official on August 21.
>
> So, uh ... why the wait?
According to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Admission_Act
and
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d3/Hawaiivotesinset.JPG
Hawaiians didn't vote to approve statehood until June 27 1959, so that
accounted for a big chunk of the delay. That puts the amount of time
between the final final final final approval and official statehood as
less than 60 days.
My guess is that votes in Hawaii in the 50s took a while to organize
since you had to reach a lot of people in remote areas by seaplane and
outrigger and whatnot, so that's why the popular vote didn't take place
until roughly 3 months after Ike signed the bill.