Honolulu Record, September 2, 1948, vol. 1 no. 5, p. 1
A historic document on "labor and the law in the Territory of Hawaii" — the first of its kind ever prepared — was filed at the U. S. District Court in Honolulu by Attorney Harriet Bouslog of the law firm of Bouslog and Symonds as brief in the Maui grand jury case which grew out of the 1946 sugar strike.
Earlier this year the ILWU, through the above law firm, challenged the constitutionality of the Maui grand jury which brought charges against 75 strikers at Paia for "unlawful assembly," on the grounds that the jury was made up principally of representatives of the employers.
Use Police Against Workers
At the request of a three-judge court, the lengthy memorandum was prepared by Mrs. Bouslog to show the long tradition of suppression of the rights of laborers in the Territory and the pro-employer role of the law and the courts in the area of economic conflict.
Going back to the years of contract labor prior to 1900, the brief, which is heavily documented, deals on the "old ship custom of flogging laborers" by the plantation bosses.
Desertions from "plantation slavery" were so great that the attorney general in 1890 reported:
"... I am of the opinion that the government is put to considerable expense for the benefit of the employers of labor, and were no warrants of arrest allowed to be issued by law for contract laborers, the police force could be considerably reduced."
The same report, quoted in the brief, stated that "one-third of the police work on the other islands," paid for by the taxpayers' money, was taken up in enforcing penal labor contracts for the planters.
Others Worked for Them
In the year 1890, the brief states, when there were 7,612 contract laborers on sugar plantations, there were 5,706 arrests for deserting servitude and 5,389 convictions.
"Actually, the planters had little need to act for themselves. The Citizens Guard, predecessor of the National Guard, police officers, the courts in criminal prosecutions, and orders of deportation rendered the planters able assistance," the brief continues.
The memorandum states that even when investigation revealed "just complaints on the part of the laborers, criminal prosecution and deportation", was instituted by the employers to protect themselves. It cites an instance where a group of 15 Chinese laborers were deported as "ringleaders in a riot" when a manager and a luna were in the wrong.
Name Calling
Strikers were called conspirators and "riot" was a term commonly used for strikes or peaceful demonstrations by the newspapers and the law enforcement agencies, according to the memorandum. It quotes from the Pacific Commercial Advertiser, stating: "High Wage Conspirators Stir Up a Strike at Aiea Plantation" during the 1909 strike when the Japanese laborers demanded equal pay with Portuguese and Puerto Rican workers doing the same kind of work.
The Japanese received $18 a month or approximately 65 cents a day while the Portuguese and Puerto Rican laborers received $22.50, better housing and an acre to till.
The brief brings out instances when the sugar planters used the government in devious manners to prevent free Filipino laborers from leaving the islands to seek higher pay on the Mainland.
Bought Out Prosecution
It also points to eases when the sugar planters paid expenses of territorial prosecutors when the defendants were laborers, in one instance arrested and charged with violating the anti-picketing ordinance passed by the legislature the previous year.
And in the 1937 Filipino strike on Maui, the brief states, William Lymers, who handled the prosecution for the prosecution for the government, admitted in court that he "expected to present the HSPA a bill for his services in the case." The 37-page brief touches on practically all major events concerning laws and practices of law enforcement agencies that have affected the livelihood and civil rights of laborers in Hawaii.