Honolulu Record, August 19, 1948, vol. 1 no. 3, p. 4
Letter From New York
Editor, The Honolulu Record:
I am a veteran who served in your islands during the war. I do not know the Reineckes but their case is interesting to us because we have somewhat the same type of school commissioners here who want to impose thought-control in our city.
They speak of "subversive elements" advocating force and violence to overthrow our government. The New York City Board of Education and its law secretary (in your case the attorney general) recommended in their brief that no Communist Party member or "fellow-traveler" or person with the wrong kind of "associations" should be allowed to teach in our public schools.
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The board and its legal counsel criticized the State Eduation [sic] Commissioner—who had handed down a diametrically opposed opinion— that he had "overlooked or disregarded the historic public policy of the state."
I don't know what the historic public policy of the Territory is. I did some reading while there, however. If I am not mistaken it was the missionary families and their growing big-business alliance that effected the coup d'etat and overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy by force and violence a little more than 50 years ago. You are now celebrating your fiftieth anniversary of the annexation and I am sure the average islander had no picnic during this time with regard to civil rights.
I know for sure that you have residential districts which are pretty strongly exclusive for haoles only. I know that until very recently sugar plantations discriminated and persecuted employees who voted or supported the Democratic party. Furthermore, the employers have used force and vio lence to suppress and destroy what the people built for bettering their livelihood. A good example is the "Bloody Monday" massacre your paper printed in its first issue.
There the Hilo longshoremen and supporters were fired upon.
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In New York we also have had rough sledding. But I am proud that we have had public officials who were imbued with the ideals of democracy, who braved the epidemic of hysteria which vested interest has launched from time to time.
I point with pride to the late Al Smith, our governor who pulsed with demoratic [sic] traditions. He was a man of conviction. During his first term in office, the postwar witch-hunt hysteria following World War I took place. That was the period of the notorious Palmer raids. Five Socialist members of our state legislature were ousted from their duly elected positions. Al Smith and Ex-Governor Charles E. Hughes denounced this invasion into political and civil rights. It was during this time that our state legislature created the Lusk Committee. This committee was charged with investigating "revolutionary radicalism," particularly the "subversive activities" in the school system.
Following a wave of witch hunting, the Lusk Committee introduced six "loyalty' measures of the most repressive type and the legislature passed them.
In voting the Lusk Bill, Gov. Smith stated: "No teacher could continue to teach if he or she entertained any objection, however conscientious, to any existing institution. If this law had been in force prior to the abolition of slavery, opposition to that institution which was protected by the Constitution and its laws, would have been just cause for disqualification. . . . "Opposition to any presently established institution, no matter how intelligent, conscientious or disinterested the opposition, would be sufficient to disqualify the teacher. Every teacher would be at the mercy of his colleagues, his pupils or his parents, and any word or act of the teacher might be held to indicate an attitude hostile to some of the institution of the United States or of the state. "This bill unjustly discriminates against teachers as a class. It deprives teachers of their right to freedom of thought...."
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But the people got wise — and tired — of witch hunting, of living in fear of losing their jobs and persecuted in one way or another. Witch hunt mania was right up the employers’ alley to bust up unions and all civic organizations which tried to solve the problems of the people, such as unemployment, housing, adjustment of wages to meet rising prices, etc. Al Smith was swept back into office by the people who became politically wise. And he signed a bill which a sobered and humiliated legislature passed in order to repeal the Lusk laws. Gov. Smith stated in his veto message: "They (the Lusk laws) are repugnant to the fundamentals of American democracy. Under the laws repealed, teachers, in order to exercise their honorable calling, were in effect compelled to hold opinions as to governmental matters deemed by a state officer consistent with loyalty. . . . Freedom of opinions and freedom of speech were by these laws undully [sic] shackled, and an unjust discrimination was made against the members of a great profession."
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Then when a protesting citizen wrote him, he answered:
"You and the other advocates of the Lusk bills make no allowance for human differences of opinion, for the right of every citizen to advocate his opinions lawfully and. honestly, and most of all for the fact that real political progress comes from the expression and exchange of conflicting opinion."
I read in New York newspapers that Louis Budenz flew to Hawaii to "expert" on Communism and to help your governor and the Big Five in intensifying the witch hunt hysteria. I was amused to learn— by reading between the lines—that Mr. Richard Gladstein tripped Budenz up quite thoroughly. Are the Hawaii papers giving the Reinecke hearing a pretty complete and unbiased coverage. I don't expect it but the people of Hawaii deserve to get the truth anyway.
Yours truly, Jacob Field