Arthur K. Trask

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Categories: Hawaii Democrats | Native Hawaiians

Arthur K. Trask, 1910 - 1991, a lawyer, politician and member of the Trask family. Trask was well-known for having strong opinions. According to his niece Haunani-Kay Trask, her uncle was a notable storyteller and orator, a throwback to the "great lawyers of that era." [1]

Arthur K. Trask graduated from Saint Louis School and did his undergraduate work at the University of Southern California, University of Hawaii and Iowa State University. He earned his law degree from Georgetown University in 1936.

Before leaving the Islands for school, he sometimes performed errands for deposed Queen Liliuokalani, collecting debts owed her.

A member of the Hawai'i and Washington, D.C., bars, Trask practiced for 40 years as a trial lawyer. From 1940 to 1944, he served as a magistrate in the Ko'olaupoko district.

But politics also was in his blood and he served as chairman of the Democratic Party's platform committee in 1936-46. Trask also was a supporter of statehood and was the last surviving member of the Statehood Commission, which he sat on from 1944 to 1957.

While fighting for statehood, Trask also was a supporter of Hawaiian rights. During the formation of the sovereignty group Ka Lahui, led by lawyer Mililani Trask, Arthur Trask argued eloquently for a nation-within-a-nation form of government for Native Hawaiians.

Haunani-Kay Trask said she at first could not understand how her uncle could be an advocate for statehood and Hawaiian sovereignty at the same time.

"Statehood meant they could vote for the governor, and once I understood that I could understand why they wanted statehood because before that the governors were all appointed by the president," she said. "They knew very well that until they got the vote they would never control who was governor." [2]

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See also David Trask Jr., brother of Arthur Trask.