Center for Labor Education & Research, University of Hawaii - West Oahu: Honolulu Record Digitization Project
Honolulu Record, Volume 9 No. 19, Thursday, December 06, 1956 p. 1
Bouslog Nails Eastland Shibai; Union Offer to Answer $64 Question Ignored
"You came down here to put on a show. Mr. Morris has all the information — " The gavel in the hand of Sen. Olin Johnston, acting chairman of the Eastland committee, banged down and the senator announced angrily that he would have no "reflections" cast on the committee. But Harriet Bouslog had expressed the sentiment, not only of herself, but of thousands of organized working people, about the Eastland committee's current hearings on Communism in Hawaii. Before the Senator's gavel cut her off, Mrs. Bouslog had made it clear that she feels the subcommittee "exceeds its authority" by "hauling the people in and making them feel guilty — asking them questions about their trade unions and their newspapers." The attorney's ringing denunciation of the committee's procedure here came while she was on the witness stand, answering questions like those that had been asked 17 "unfriendly" witnesses before. They were questions by which the committee clearly implied disloyalty of those to whom they were asked even though a fair proportion of those witnesses had proved their loyalty on the battlefields of
World War II.
Veteran Heckled
There was David Thompson, ILWU educational director, who lost a leg fighting with the U.S. Marines at Iwo Jima. He was asked what position he would take if there were war between the U.S. and the USSR, and he replied with dignity he would aid the United States, adding, "I think my record speaks for itself."
He might have said he is not really physically capable of fighting in any war, but he was asked anyhow whether or not he had engaged in espionage and answered, "I've sworn to defend my country. I've carried out my oath in the past and will continue to do so in the future."
Less flagrantly, but just as definitely was the loyalty of other veterans questioned. There were men who had fought from the beaches of Normandy and to the coast of Japan, including Henry Epstein, MAX Roffman and Steve Murin, all of the United Public Workers, and Yugo Okubo of the RECORD.
The committee had subpoenaed seven witnesses from the ILWU, as well as Attorneys Myer Symonds and Harriet Bouslog who have often represented the union, making it clear Hawaii's big union is a principal target—though the senators often protested loudly they are not on any union-busting mission.
IlWU Offer Not Accepted
Nothing roused their ire more, however, than an advertisement placed in the Advertiser by the union the day the hearings opened last Friday—to the effect that the union had offered to have its officials and members answer two questions if the senators would agree not to try prying further into union business. Those two questions:
1. Are you a Communist?
2. Have you ever been a Communist?
Since the union's offer was not accepted,, the advertisement said, it was obvious the Senators are not in Hawaii hunting Communism. At the close of Friday's hearing, the senators stated hotly that they couldn't be expected to " accept the offer and cast dark looks at the union attorneys who had made it—now that the whole matter was in the newspapers.
Anti-union character of the hearings was revealed again by the character of the "friendly" witnesses, Gov. Sam King, Justice Ingram Stainback, Dr. Lyle Phillips, luminary of IMUA, the organization founded in the midst of the 1949 clock strike, Ronald B. Jamieson, who proved more absolute in his anti-ILWU views than any, and former Sen. Ben Dillingham, presently an aspirant to Washington Place, who has been a violent critic of the ILWU and all unions, as well as welfare and welfare clients, in the past.
Witnesses like Edward N. Sylva, attorney general until recently, and former Gov. Oren E. Long, who had minimized the "Red threat" recently, and who had asked to be subpenaed, had still not been heard at mid-week. Sylva, an ardent anti-Communist who. has strongly denounced local Communism in the past, was fired by Gov. King after he attended a. dinner for Jack Hall, and later said he doesn't think there is "one live Communist" in the ILWU, though there are plenty of ex-communists.
High point in the dramatic show of the hearings came Monday at the close of the hearings, when the committee subpoenaed the books of the ILWU and the UPW and demanded immediate delivery, in order, as the Senators said, to find out how much union money, if any, had been spent in defense of "Communists" in the local Smith Act trial.
Agreement Met On Books
After an emotional scene, the Senators calmed down and agreed the terms of the subpoenas would be fulfilled if their staff members were allowed to go through the books for items they seek, without hauling the" books to the palace by the truckload. Attorney George Anderson appeared -to carry the burden of negotiation for the union.
Tuesday members of the RECORD staff. Edward Rohrbough and Yugo Okubo and RECORD contributors, Wilfred Oka and Frank Marshall Davis were subpoenaed. After an executive session, Davis, the only Negro subpoenaed locally, was dismissed. The other three were questioned at the public session, and like witnesses from the two unions, they relied on the First and Fifth Amendments in refuse their political beliefs, or questions that cast reflections upon their loyalty.
Irving Fishman, a customs off-from New York, testified to an amount of printed matter coming to Hawaii from the "Soviet bloc" countries, and said the RECORD-is mailed to those countries.
When he was asked to name them, however, he named Czechoslovakia, China, India, Hong Kong and Shanghai. Asked about the amount, he said information he had received indicated "several" in each bundle.
(The truth is that the RECORD has about 20 foreign subscribers in these and other countries.
Despite the lack of evidence (the only indication of present Communist membership Was an unidentified witness who, the committee claimed, had told them of 100 Communists he knew) the "friendly" witnesses hewed to the same old line they have followed in the past. Gov. King asked that the Senate Invoke the Communist Control Act against the ILWU, and Justice Stainback read from matter gathered before 1950. Dr. Lyle Phillips recited his oft-repeated assertion that "nowhere under the American flag" has communism gained such strength as in Hawaii, and Ben Dillingham claimed no dictator in the world has as much power as Harry Bridges.
Symonds Cites Purpose
Most articulate of the witnesses who relied on the Constitution were the two attorneys, Symonds and Bouslog. Proceeding Mrs. Bouslog to the stand, Symonds told an over-persistent Senator, "Your purpose is to hold me up to ridicule and scorn," and he charged later "You are not affording the presumption of innocence" afforded by the Fifth Amendment as interpreted recently by the U.S. Supreme Court.
When Sen. Herman Welker, whose manner at hearings much resembles that of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, repeated a question that had been asked already, Symonds commented caustically, "I assume-you were doing something else when I made the previous remark."
Sen. James Eastland, the chairman," was noticeably mild and meek of manner in the sessions he chaired and almost never took part in the baiting of witnesses that occasionally took place.
Wednesday night, he left Hawaii early, heading back to Mississippi and varied reports had it that he had suffered an attack of malaria and that he had business there to attend to. Before his departure, however, he told the press the current hearing is "only the beginning" of a series of probes.
The subcommittee's counsel, Robert Morris, explained later that the Senator probably meant there was still a lot of business to clear up about the current hearing.
It is only common humanity to feed the hungry. If our hospitals are too big, too complex, too impersonal to do these small kindnesses for the sick, something is very wrong.