The newspaper business was run by his son Lorrin Potter Thurston, whose policy of using the term "Jap" during World War II pleased the military, but not local readers of Japanese descent. After the war readership declined, until its hostile take-over in 1962 by Lorrin's grandson Thurston Twigg-Smith who changed to a more moderate editorial line. In 1992 it was sold to Gannett Company as the next generation of the family had no interest in running the paper. Twigg-Smith wrote a book about the overthrow and the role of his grandfather in 1998, and criticizing the modern Hawaiian Sovereignty movement.