Honolulu Record, August 26, 1948, vol. 1 no. 4, p. 8
A Professional Against Amateurs
Whether you are a Communist or whether you are a rabid anti-Communist, whether you are for Dr. and Mrs. Reinecke if you attend a session of the Reinecke case now being held in the Federal Building you will, if you are intelligent to any degree, come to the conclusion that Attorney Richard Gladstein is making monkeys of the attorneys representing the Department of Public Instruction.
As far as Ichiro Izuka, who is on the witness stand for cross examination this week, is concerned, Attorney Gladstein should be arrested for extreme cruelty.
Innocent Bystander
There is no dispute about the Reinecke hearing receiving tremendous public interest.
A glance at the attendance will show that a wide cross section of the public is following the case very closely. There are professional people including teachers and lawyers, white collar workers and laborers, all equally interested.
To call these 300-400 people Communists is something out of this world. No clear-thinking person would do so.
Therefore it comes as a shock when local officials of Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., say that "only Communists would go to the Reinecke hearing. No one could take such an interest who is not a Communist."
They have gone further. They have discharged one of their salesman for attending the Reinecke hearing. And mind you, this salesman does most of his work in the evenings. His attending the hearing a few hours a day did not interfere with his work. This his superiors admitted.
The manager of the local firm told the discharged salesman that he did not want anyone in Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., who was a Communist, who associates with Communists or sympathized with Communists.
What would happen to the rest of the 300-400 if their employers applied the same rule because they had packed the same public hearing? One thing is certain. We will be short of teachers a few weeks from now. And what of the employers who are equally interested, not missing a session? What of those who avidly follow newspapers accounts, much more interested because they could not attend the hearings?
There was a previous "aggravating reason" which possibly led to the discharge. This salesman had recently written two letters to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin on the question of the Japanese "race." The editor of the Star-Bulletin answered his letter.
For expressing his views this salesman was reproached by his superior at a salesmen's meeting. He defended himself by stating that he believed in the constitutional right to say what he pleased.
One of his colleagues then said," [sic] I think you are a Communist. Your thinking is communistically inclined. Talk of civil rights is a Communist line."
Imagine an Encyclopaedia Britannica salesman saying this!
It is time to arrest the spread of this contagious witch hunting, "The move by the Governor to wreck the trade unions through the Reinecke hearing must not take its toll of innocent bystanders.