Hotel Fat Cats Cry "Discrimination," "Shackles"; Boo Rent Control Agent

By Edward Rohrbough

Three of Honolulu's most powerful landlords spearheaded one of the most boisterous lobbies seen at City Hall for some time, Tuesday, when they came to oppose an amendment to the rent control law and remained to hurl their strongest barbs at the existence of any kind of rent control.

They were Roy C. Kelley, owner of the Edgewater Hotel and other rental properties; Richard "Kinjie" Kimball of the Halekulani, and Judge Ferdinand Schnack of the Schnack Estate.

The trio, who monopolized the hearing on an amendment that would define a hotel, were applauded by a roomful of lesser landlords who accompanied them and who booed their single opponent, Leslie Ladd of the rent control commission, with such a lack of restraint that a Republican supervisor pleaded with them to be fair and allow Mr, Ladd to speak.

Blasts, Not Reasons

"I have heard several bitter excoriations of rent control," said Ladd at one point, "but I have not yet heard any reasonable argument as to why the definition could not be clarified."

But the trio had come to speak against rent control and reasonable or not, their arguments were to the effect that the amendment would make business tougher for the landlord.

Even Ladd didn't differ with that view—so far as unscrupulous landlords are concerned. The amendment is required, he explained, because rooming house proprietors have been calling their establishments hotels and overcharging tenants. When the commission attempted to prosecute a case, Ladd said, Judge Joseph Akau threw it out because he felt the definition of a "hotel" is insufficient. But the trio didn't have many pertinent things to say about the amendment, which makes a hotel a place where 60 per cent of the tenants stay for no more than 90 days. Two of the three said they aren't affected. They wanted to blast the whole business of any kind of rent control and they did, while their cohorts applauded and the supervisors sat and waited for something to make sense.

Discriminate Against Landlords?

Roy Kelley was the favorite spokesman for the landlords, and he was cheered again and again as he made statements like: "When did you start worrying about discrimination? You've discriminated against the landlords for 10 years." A bespectacled man of middle age, extremely confident bearing and athletic build, Kelley spoke with the fury of a zealot as he said he objects to "every comma" of the rent control law. He objected that any landlord should be able to charge whatever he liked.

There are rooms for $15 a day at the Royal Hawaiian, Kelley said, and rooms on River St. for 50 cents a night, "or I suppose there still are," and tenants ought to be able to find something somewhere that would fit their pocket-books.

Contradicts Self

In the next breath, Kelley was citing the shortage of housing and blaming it on rent control which he said deprives builders of "incentive" to build.

Kelley blasted rent control as "bureaucracy," and 150 landlords cheered and clapped.

There were no tenants who spoke at the hearing, but Supervisor Sam Ichinose, who has a business on River St., asked Kelley how landlords and rents might be controlled if all ceilings were taken off, and the owner of the Edgawater said: "We could control ourselves. It would all settle down in a short time."

"How short a time?" Ichinose asked.

''Oh, a year or a year and a half," Kelley replied indifferently.

"And what would all the tenants do in that time?" Ichinose persisted.

Let 'Em Double Up!

"People would double up with their friends," Kelley improvised. "After the landlords found they couldn't get high rents, they'd bring them down."

The Edgewater proprietor's most immediate complaint, he said, is that rent control prevents him from evicting tenants he finds undesirable because of their language or living habits.

"We're conscripted by law to put up with our tenants," he said. "We have to coddle them and play with them, even if we think they're undesirable." Ichinose chose not to delve further into Kelley's standards of desirability.

"Kinjie" Kimball said hotels are jampacked with business and that on Jan. 21, he won't have a vacancy in the Halekulani. He said the Hawaii Hotel Association, of which he is president, has gone on record as favoring the removal of control.

Kimball told a story, calculated to touch the hearts of the supervisors, of how places about the island are run down because their owners don't derive enough rent to keep them in repair.

As for hotels, Kimball said, rooms must remain vacant because rent control has not set a ceiling for them. He said Mr. Kelley had such an apartment.

"No Greater Untruth"

Mr. Ladd, representing the commission, took the floor immediately to comment, "Mr. Kimball is correct when he says he has no reason for opposing rent control. But when he says rooms must remain vacant because of us, he couldn't make a more untruthful statement."

There is nothing to prevent a landlord from renting a room for what he sees fit, pending adjustment, Ladd explained, and there is no reason for any apartment or room remaining vacant unless the owner wants it that way.

Landlords Boo

The assemblage booed Ladd at that point until Teves asked them to be fair and hear him out.

Asked to elaborate on the overcharging by unscrupulous landlords, Ladd said he could not do that unless he were to read verbatim from rent control reports. "There is a law against criminal libel," Ladd said, "and I would not like to be caught."

His implication was that the material contains some very strong evidence, and the landlords were silent as he spoke this time.

"A blight on the face of Honolulu," was the term Judge Schnack had for rent control, and he quoted an anonymous builder who. he said, had just quit building because he couldn't get the rent he thought he should have.

"He's a man who could build 100 or 200 housing unite," Schnack emphasized, though he never bothered to give the builder's name.

Reminded that the amendment, not rent control, was the subject of the hearing, Schnack said the present definition of "hotel" is legal enough and there is no need of changing it.

The proposed change, Judge Schnack said, "is another shackle on the landlord with the intent to give rent control a little more power."

Told that the present definition, which says a hotel is any house that rents ten or more rooms, has been thrown out by Judge Akau, Schnack took the surprising stand that it just hadn't happened.

"It is not possible," Schnack insisted, even after he had heard Mr. Ladd tell of the case. Altering his tactics a moment later, Schnack said: "Even though Judge Akau threw it out, another judge might rule differently."

Teves Wins Applause

Supervisor Teves, who had done much of the questioning up to this point, came to the decision that more cases should be tried and more decisions given before any change is made. The landlords, of course, applauded.

"As it is, I'm against this bill," Teves said, adding that he had thought more than just one case had been thrown out.

Supervisor Kauhane quickly reminded him that all such information was available to the finance committee, of which Teves is chairman. Ladd told the supervisors there are 15 or more cases awaiting prosecution because of the unfavorable decision of Judge Akau, and Supervisor Takahashi rose to advise the board it is "erroneous" to conclude, as Schnack had, that another judge might rule differently. One decision is taken as a precedent, he pointed out, until a new one is made. Action on the measure was referred back to the committee.

Christmas bonuses equivalent to a month and a half's pay, and an increase in wages beginning Jan. 1, 1952, announced by American Factors, Ltd., for its employes, have raised the speculation in business circles as to whether this is not a move by the Big Five firm to forestall unionization of its employes.

While Christmas is a proper time for bonuses, observers say, they point to T. H. Davies & Co., Ltd., where white collar workers were organized a few months ago. Unionization of the first white collar workers in a Big Five agency followed immediately after Davies laid off five old-tuners, including employes who had served the firm for from 24 to 31 years. Davies workers won 13 to 14 cents increase on their base pay rate this week. They went out on strike last Friday and were back on the job Tuesday. At the same time, 46 Davies lumber yard workers who won union recognition, are represented by the AFL General Teamsters Local 996.

American Factors is giving the bonus during the Christmas season in appreciation for the services of the employes, John Coon-ley, public relations director, explained when called by the RECORD. He also said that every raise in wages his firm has given is made "regardless of what every other person" in Honolulu does.

The wage Increases will range from 8 1/2 to 11 cents an hour, depending on salaries of individual employes. The increases will be given on hourly rates and Mr. Coonley said they are the maximum permitted under the existing government wage control. The basis of the increase is a five-cent raise on the present hourly rate, plus 2.7 per cent on the new rate.

By Staff Writer

Having faced bullets in World War II as an American soldier doesn't keep your loyalty to America from being suspected by the FBI—not if you're a working man and a member of a militant union, that is.

At least two veterans of the 442nd Combat Team, both union members, report this week that they have been questioned about their activities and those of their friends, though they came forward during the last war to volunteer at a time when their relatives were being harassed as "Japs" and even thrown into concentration camps, called Relocation Centers, of course.

It is said that other veterans have also been questioned on "Communism," though often it is hard to distinguish between the FBI's conception of "communism" and "unionism," one union organizer who sat through a session, told the RECORD.

FBI Plugs Kawano One 442nd veteran described over a union radio program how an FBI agent asked him why his union doesn't choose leaders "like Jack Kawano."

When the veteran said the election of leaders is the business of the rank and file members and asked the agent if he weren't trying to tell them how to run their union, the FBI snooper chose to drop the subject and disclaimed all interest in the union.

The agent followed his questions with a threat that "your wife and children will be sorry" and another that he could go to the boss and have the veteran fired after the man showed plainly that he resented the efforts of the agents to try to make a stoolpigeon out of him. Another veteran said the agent who questioned him had many questions about union activity, though he also disclaimed any interest in union affairs.

Like a Bully

"He had a bad way of approach," said the veteran. "I think he knew the answers to a lot of questions he asked me, and it was just as if he were trying to get me to tell him things he already knew, sometimes his questions were almost like a bully."

That veteran, like a number of other people who have been questioned by J. Edgar Hoover's operatives here, says he was asked about various union people and others and, if he admitted knowing them, was asked to add to smears about them.

"Do you know any of the 39?" he was asked, the 39 being those who were acquitted in record time

in Federal court here after they had been charged with contempt of Congress for refusing to answer the questions of the House un-American Activities Committee.

No Compulsion To Answer

Also, the veteran, like many others, says he would never have answered a single question had he known there is no legal requirement that says he had to answer the agent's questions, or even to allow him to enter a private residence without a warrant. He was surprised to learn that an FBI agent has even fewer powers than a local policeman.

Of the many others who have been questioned by the FBI here in recent weeks, a number report that the agents have changed their tactics somewhat from a few years ago when they appeared to be largely interested in unearthing facts.

Agents Seek Argument

One man said two agents spent considerable time in an argumentative discussion with him while he argued the case for his union. The agents pretended to be surprised when he told them firmly he takes the RECORD and intends to continue doing so indefinitely. "Why?" one asked. "Because it prints a lot of news the other papers won't," the man answered.

The man especially praised the series by Editor Ariyoshi entitled "My Thoughts—For Which I Stand Indicted," and told the agents that since they're Mainland haoles, they probably don't know how much basic, fundamental truth the series has for local people who know life on the plantations.

Still another man, analyzing the FBI methods, said: "They're not necessarily trying to find out the things they're talking about. They're just trying to keep you talking and you may not know whether you've helped them smear one of your friends or not. If you even admit knowing somebody, I think they make some use of it."

To some veterans the questioning recalled an effort a couple of years ago in one local veterans' organization, introduced by a member who had entered the political field, to sponsor the appearance in the Territory of a notorious red-baiter of the IMUA class. The argument for such sponsorship was that it would prove the "loyalty" of the organization before the public.

Tattoo Wouldn't Help

But the move was squelched by a resolution which stated that if the veterans hadn't already proved their loyalty to the U. S. by their war records, they could not expect to prove much by such an importation. If the veterans' combat record hadn't proved their loyalty, the resolution suggested, then neither would any other gesture— even the tattooing of the American flag on the veterans' chests. That, however, was before two veterans with excellent war records, James Freeman and Editor Koji Ariyoshi, were indicted and charged with "conspiracy to overthrow the government."

Sketches of Life Behind Barbed Wire

The beauty parlors, barber shops with manicurists, modern shops and stores which the Hearst newspapers publicized that we would have at the Manzanar Relocation Center were concocted bushels of lies.

The "free" press, like that of Hearst, drummed up the propaganda back in the spring of 1942, that we were being coddled by the government. And this propaganda started as soon as the government began uprooting 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast, largely because of the anti-Japanese American hysteria created by the newspapers.

One morning, Elaine, the wife of my longshore friend from San Francisco, came storming into our tar-papered barracks. I asked her what was the matter. She said she had just seen Assistant Administrator Kidwell and had asked him to partition the women's toilet.

"The young girls are so bashful," Elaine complained and told us about mothers who brought curious little boys into the women's washrooms.

"Are the partitions going up?" I asked her.

"Kidwell said the army made the specifications for the buildings," she explained, and "partitions were not provided for. But he said he would see what could be done."

Soon after this incident newer washrooms had partitions put up. Those in already established blocks were installed later. This pleased Elaine immensely, although by her standards her contribution was small. But these little things, small improvements here and there, made the camp more liveable.

Elaine kept calling the camp administration's attention to such matters. In such a way this Jewish woman won the hearts of countless alien Japanese and Nisei who were prejudiced against Elaine's people because of incessant anti-Semitic propaganda they had been exposed to. She had a double-count against her in a community where so many of the people, held behind barbed wire, harbored bitterness against the white people, a category into which Elaine fell.

Manzanar had great need for a woman like Elaine. She put to use effectively all the training and experience she had acquired in the labor and civil rights fields. She had. been district secretary and national vice president of the International Labor Defense League from 1931 to 1941. She had helped organize and had participated in the defense of labor and political prisoners.

This organization which she had led on the West Coast, had come to the aid of Filipino workers on Maui right here in the Territory when, in 1937, the Vibora Luviminda, an organization of Filipino workers, struck the Puunene plantation. It made a vital contribution in preventing the Vibora Luviminda strike from being crushed through the jailing of its leaders.

A Consistent Fighter for Civil Rights

The history of our country is marked by labor and political arrests. And it also shows many victories of the common people who protested such persecutions during times of whipped up hysteria and resultant fear.

In the 1930s. California had 39 long-term labor and political prisoners, more than any other state. In line of labor defense, Elaine had participated in the 1934 waterfront strike, Salinas lettuce strike, lumber and gold strikes, the free speech fight in Los Angeles, organized the unemployed during the depression, and so on. She herself, had been arrested eight times on charges ranging from "suspicion of criminal syndicalism," riot, refusing to move, vagrancy, for which she was fined $1,000. etc. Twice she had been convicted, on the vagrancy charge and on riot. She appealed her cases, handled her own defense and in jury trials won complete releases.

To Elaine, this experience with her Nisei husband, Karl, made her all the more anxious to help the evacuees. Their son Tommy, namesake of Tom Mooney, who was framed up and jailed following the Preparedness Day bombing in San Francisco, asked many pertinent questions about the barbed wire, watchtowers, sentries, and the searchlights that shot strong beams into the camp and through barracks windows.

Cruel and Embarrassing Experiences

The washroom and the mess hall constituted pur community centers for a long time. When we first arrived in Manzanar, small, single-seat privies were placed between blocks. These were built on sleds so that the drum receptacles could be emptied after trucks dragged the privies to a sewer hole.

One morning a truck driver, who generally knocked on privy doors, forgot to do so. He tied a rope to the sled and started the vehicle. A feminine voice yelling from inside the privy attracted people from the rows of barracks, alarmed by the cry for help. Somewhere down the line the truck was flagged down and an old, gray-haired woman stepped out, extremely angry at the careless truck driver.

Cruel and embarrassing experiences often resulted in a camp hurriedly put up, into which the government poured evacuees even before the limited facilities were installed. The people were highly indignant and embarrassed at such a situation as the one described above, but in public, they tried to pass it off as a joke.

Adjustment To the New Life Was Difficult

In the beginning cooks in the public mess lacked essential cutlery. Once in a while when frozen pork arrived, they let it thaw in the sun before cutting it. The result was devastating. From midnight on we rushed to the privies only to discover long lines of the afflicted ahead of us.

Food was a problem. A great many of the evacuees were old rural farmers, and they could not stomach food prepared in bulk in the Western style. Weeks passed before farmers could enjoy food served in mess halls and more weeks passed before food was prepared semi-Japanese style. The cooks had a difficult problem in satisfying the evacuees, for each person was allowed about 35 cents a day for food.

A Community Like Everywhere

It was the farmers who soon began planting vegetables in the fire breaks between rows of barracks, and the vegetables supplanted food supplied by the government.

In this crowded community, people had difficulties in adjusting themselves to the new situation. The older women, for instance, both from the cities and farms, never felt clean unless they bathed, Japanese style, in a tub filled with steaming water. So quite a number of them shunned the showers and relaxed comfortably in laundry tubs in the washhouse. When this news got to the administration's ears, it caused excitement because officials thought the tubs might collapse. Posters prohibiting bathing in laundry tubs immediately went up everywhere.

During this time, all kinds of signs went up prohibiting this and prohibiting that. Some did not make sense, while others did. Some signs were unheeded, like the ones which asked men and boys to refrain from making peeping holes in the fibreboard walls of women's shower rooms.

Manzanar was a community of all types of people, from various economic classes, temporarily stripped of their former status. There were comedies, tragedies, happiness and sorrow. With almost no outside technical assistance, the people made it a functioning society.

Double Standard In Wages For Evacuees and Free People

Our asset was a superabundance of trained personnel and inexperienced college graduates. The West Coast Nisei had plenty of education but little opportunity to use it in their field of aspiration. Thus, college graduates had been truck drivers, soda jerkers, farmers and produce market clerks. Manzanar was a break for them in that they were able to apply in practice what they had learned in theory. It could be a perfect training ground, for white employers were not there to discriminate against them.

A few white administrators sat at their desks to advise us. For the work we did. we received $8 a month for common labor, S12 a month for semi-skilled work, $16 a month for professional services like those of doctors. Later, the wage scale was upgraded to $12, $16 and $19. Some of us worked with white teachers, doctors and others, doing exactly the same thing for a mere fraction of the salaries they drew.

The Ways of the "Free" Press

Because it seemed in the early months of the evacuation that we would be kept behind barbed wire for the duration, Nisei I talked to spoke of the need of small and handicraft industries and agricultural projects at Manzanar.

Others began asking these questions: Why couldn't we be employed outside the center after we had been cleared? We could make contributions to the war effort. We wanted union wages as General DeWitt's Western Defense Council which set up Manzanar, promised the early volunteers. The press had featured this news in such a way that it antagonized the white people against us. Actually, the volunteers received $2.67 for the first month, but this, of course, was not printed in the newspapers.

We Were Not Allowed To Compete In Production

The War Relocation Authority, a civilian agency, took over the administration of relocation centers from the Western Defense Command a couple of months after we settled in Manzanar. An administrator told me just about this time that the WRA was considering work projects for us. But the plan eventually fell through.

"Why?" I asked the administrator.

He said the white people in California and inland states did not want us to have productive communities. They opposed ownership or cultivation of land, even reclamation of waste land.

"Not even to produce Food for Freedom?" I asked him. "No. They don't want you people to produce for the market. In other words, they don't want competition."

"Free" enterprise had to be protected. This was the free enterprise system with its divide and rule employer policy that had fostered anti-Oriental sentiment against immigrants from the Far East. And this "yellow peril" propaganda of the past had laid the groundwork for the evacuation.

Some People Became Progressively Alarmed

Into Manzanar came the Los Angeles Times and the Hearst Los Angeles Examiner. They spewed anti-evacuee propaganda and these were the only dailies we were able to get in camp. The Examiner frequently printed whole-page colored maps of the Pacific war front, showing Japanese victories. We saw groups of evacuees poring over these maps.

Japanese victories combined with anti-evacuee hysteria being heightened by the press brought concern to many in camp. Some began asking: "What if the Japanese landed on the West Coast, even on a short raid?"

"We would be starved out right here," said some.

Others felt that we would be slaughtered by the military guards and additional troops brought to Manzanar.

As the mode of living at Manzanar became more formalized, with the whole efforts of the people not taken to combatting dust and wind and inconveniences of a crowded life, people began to look to the future and began to think what would happen if war came closer to our West Coast.

Evacuees Began Hoarding Food for Any Emergency

Numerous parents would go to the mess halls in the morning, and even if they were not fond of boxed cereals, they took their share anyway. These and other food they could preserve, they brought back to their barracks and stored away. Some day, when the government stopped giving us food, at least the children would have something to eat for a while, they said.

The reactions of many of these evacuees were not unusual. Prior to evacuation, for instance, Attorney General Earl Warren, now governor, had read to the Tolan congressional committee that it was not a mere coincidence that Japanese farmers lived in close proximity to strategic air fields, oil fields, military installations and power lines. The fact is that by 1910 the main geographic pattern of the Japanese population in California had been set. The Japanese immigrants who arrived in California had limited opportunities and had settled wherever they could, and some inhospitable communities had burned down their shacks and others had put the immigrants in box cars with warnings never to return. The military installations, power lines, etc., came long after the Japanese had settled down in the area. They did not know that these areas would become strategic.

This reminds me of those who fight for peace and for civil rights today and are indicted and jailed for their activities. The majority of them had been advocating peace and civil rights long before the Smith Act or the McCarran Act came into being, just as the Japanese had lived in areas long before they became "strategic."

And regardless of these Acts, which must be repealed by the people, those who believe in peace and civil rights will continue to advocate and fight for their realization. The Japanese aliens and their sons and daughters were removed from the strategic areas, but an awakened American conscience brought about their resettlement on the West Coast.(To Be Continued)

Was a group of local Democrats including Gov. Long, chief host to Interior Secretary Oscar L. Chapman at the Mochizuki tearoom Sunday night? Or was it something largely arranged for the benefit of the Trans-Pacific Airlines?

It is true that Gov. Long, Frank Serrao, Secretary of Hawaii, and other important Democrats were present at the dinner—which was unannounced to the local press until Democrats who were not invited, told the press.

One prominent Democrat who was invited but declined, said he felt the hand of TPA was too clearly demonstrated in the list of guests which included in all, five TPA directors.

The five were Ruddy Tongg, Richard Tongg, David Benz, and two Republicans, Katsumi Kometani and Daniel Ainoa. A number of Democrats who had heard of the entertainment said they felt the governor, striving to attain Democratic Party unity, had allowed himself to be manipulated into a spot where he was successfully used by the TPA officials. Benz Denies TPA "Business" Mr. Benz laughed when asked by the RECORD about the dinner, and denied that it had been held in the interest of the airline. Mr. Ainoa was there, he said, in his capacity as chairman of the Hawaiian Homes Commission.

"Kometani knows the Chap-mans," Benz said, "so he was there."

Mr. Benz added, "There were too many other people there for any TPA business to be transacted."

Land Commissioner Norman Godbold, also one of the guests, denied that he acted as chairman to arrange the dinner, and said he is in charge of arrangements only for the dinner to be given this coming Saturday night. "It was just a bunch of fellows who got together to entertain Mr. Chapman," Godbold said.

Aside from guests, those who attended, it was reported, paid $15 apiece.

Listed as attending by a two-inch item which appeared in a daily were: Mr. and Mrs. Chapman, Gov. and Mrs. Long, Frank Fasi, Thomas B. Vance, Mr. God-bold, James Trask, Noble Kauhane, Mitsuyuki Kido, and Mr. and Mrs. Frank Serrao.

Many Others Present

Others, for some reason unreported, included: Kometani, Ainoa, the two Tongg brothers, Harry Kronick, Walter Barlow, Sakae Takahashi, Chuck Mau, Herbert K. H. Lee, Dr. Ernest Murai and Governor Carlton Skinner of Guam.

Democrats who feel Gov. Long and his associates erred in approving the dinner as part of the schedule of entertainment for Mr. Chapman say Mr. Long should have recognized the motives of those who arranged the dinner. TPA, they point out, has much to thank Mr. Chapman for, since he is reported to have given assistance to the airline in its successful efforts to secure an approved schedule and mail pay.

"No business need have been transacted," said one Democrat. "It was a thank you dinner."

Christmas cards have been received by at least two local girls from friends who are prisoners of war in Korea. The families of the two soldiers, Cpl. Tsuyoshi Nishimoto of Hilo and Pfc. Yoshio Tamaki of Honolulu, had received letters from them some months ago informing them of their status as prisoners and assuring them the young men are in good health. The Christmas cards were sent here by John.W. Powell, editor of the China Monthly Review, American magazine which has been published in Shanghai since 1917, and delivered personally by a friend here.

"Mele Kalikimaka" was the heading on the card received by Miss Joyce Kimura of Palama from Cpl. Nishimoto, who had inscribed a message saying "I'm okay," and asking that she "send pictures."

Miss Kimura, who is employed at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, explained that her friendship with Cpl. Nishimoto existed only by letters, since she had been introduced through the mail by a mutual friend, Miss Eiko Kagimoto of Hilo.

"I was in the same class with him at Hilo High," said Miss Kagimoto. "Then I saw him on the street here one day. He was living and working here. After that, he was in the army.

Miss Kimura began writing Cpl. Nishimoto, she said, while he was stationed in Japan, before he was sent to Korea. The Christmas card is the first direct communication she has had from him since his capture about a year ago.

Miss Blossom Lam, recipient of the card from Pfc. Tamaki, is a junior in Roosevelt High School. At her home on South King St., she, too, said the card is the first communication she has had since his capture, although his family has had letters.

Pfc. Tamaki revealed hitherto unknown talents in his card, Miss Lam said, his Christmas message being written entirely in free verse. Both cards appeared to have been drawn and designed by the senders.

Return addresses on both cards were: Prisoner of War Camp, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, c/o Chinese People's Committee of the Defenders of World Peace, Peking, China.

While the Hawaii Government Employees Association moves for a Territory-wide election to become the authorized legislative representative of all government employes, the organizing drive of the United Public Workers of America keeps rolling along.

Last week, the UPWA announced the organization of a new unit at the Puumaile Hospital at Hilo.

Though Puumaile's administrator, Dr. William P. Leslie, charged the UPWA with "pressure" tactics in organizing, UPWA officials were quick to deny any such activity.

"We've charged the HGEA with using pressure," said a UPWA official, "and we had a good case." Some months ago, it was reported that David Trask, Jr., HGEA executive director on Maui, used a throat-cutting gesture to whip potential recruits into line. More recently. C-C employes here have told the RECORD of HGEA pressure through their bosses on the job.

Yasui In Picture?

On Maui, too, the recent strong editorials of the Valley Island Chronicle in behalf of the HGEA, have led some to believe that its editor, Ricki Yasui, may intend to step back into the job of executive director the replace Trask, should the present director step out, possibly to enter the forthcoming political campaign.

Particularly attracting attention was an editorial in which Yasui sharply criticized Yoshito Katsuura, formerly a delegate of the HGEA, but now an officer of the UPWA. On Kauai, the UPWA organizing drive is rolling on, with a new unit announced at the Mahelona Hospital recently.

Lost Members On Kauai

Kauai, incidentally, is a place where the HGEA lost ground last year and worried about it at its convention last month.

"The alarming thing to be pointed out in this report," wrote Paul Goo, chairman of the HGEA membership committee, "is the fact that the Kauai chapter has lost 74 members. However, there may be a bright side, even to that gloomy picture. Kauai has seen fit to change their executive secretary and the new one, Charlie Izumoto, is a go-getter. Our bet is that Charlie will get those members back and more too, during the course of the year."

On Maui, Too

The report of President August Markham, of the Maui HGEA chapter, also reflects a dwindling membership, as well as a certain amount of friction.

Mr. Markham wrote: "It was most unfortunate that a rift had developed between one of our HGEA leaders on Maui and our former secretary. This was quite obvious to the incoming administration. The rift widened to such an extent that the members in that particular department began resigning in wholesale lots."

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"Indeed, our only danger is that we may again be bombed by American aircraft and denied the chance to live as free men again in the countries we hold so dear."

That's a line from a protest of American and other United Nations prisoners of war in North Korea against the bombing of their camp in a night air raid by American planes on Oct. 13. In that raid an American was killed, Lieut. Robert A. Gehman, Englewood, N. J., and seven American and British POW's were wounded.

The story and pictures of the attack, the wounded and the protest are carried in the China Monthly Review for December, which will be on sale at the Corner Liquor Store, 1042 Bethel St.. when it arrives here from China. The present information is taken from sheets of that issue air mailed here.

Supplies Destroyed

The attack came, the Review reports, in bright moonlight. One plane dropped 60 anti-personnel bombs and one high explosive bomb. In addition to the casualties, which included six Chinese and Korean camp staff members among the dead, nine houses turned over by Korean civilians to the POWs were badly damaged, supplies and grain for the POWs for the coming winter were destroyed, the Review reports.

"Following the raid," goes a passage from the Review, "a protest was lodged by 1,362 POWs in the camp and drawn up by their own elected peace committee, emphasizing the callousness of the attack on a non-military target. The committee also wrote to the family of the dead American lieutenant, expressing the condolences of the POWs." The protest and the letter of condolence were signed by the chairman, secretary and members of the camp's Permanent Peace Committee, elected by the POWs themselves. The chairman is Thomas Bayes, Jr., R. A. 5067302; the vice chairman is Ronald B. Allum, 22530148, and the secretary is James King, 19031823.

Pictures carried in the December issue of the Review show that the wounded Americans included both Negro and white soldiers.

"Totally Unwarranted"

The POWs wrote: "We wish to point out that this town, which is situated in a safe zone in North Korea, does not in any way constitute a military target. Hence, we consider that this bombing raid was totally unwarranted."

In the letter to the family of the dead American officer, they wrote: "Lieutenant Gehman came to this camp several months ago and was. like the rest of us, extremely well treated. He fell sick and was transferred to our own hospital here. As a result of careful and skilled medical care, he was completely cured of his complaint and was leading a normal, healthy life in our community. He was looking to returning home to his loved ones in the near future. Like all of us, he hoped to see speedy conclusion of this unjust war. Now he is dead. He died as a direct result of indiscriminate bombing of this camp. ." "We sincerely hope that this kind of action can be stopped. How can this be done? Only you, together with many other peace-loving people of this world, can stop this inhuman conflict, with its enormous waste of life and property."

Also included in the Review's December issue, are statements of POWs contradicting "atrocity" stories released by the American command.

Three days after Col. James Hanley released his original story of "atrocities," American POW Felix F. Ferranto told a Chinese reporter: "I cannot imagine a better prisoner of war camp anywhere in the world. I have never seen or heard of a single prisoner of war being killed, beaten, or even insulted."

Other messages, broadcast from Radio Peiping, after being recorded in Korea, went from POWs to their families, and they bore out Ferranto's conception, the Review reported.

Maui Man's Report

One was Private Joseph G. Kakipi, who told his sister, Mrs. Henrietta Kama of Wailuku, Maui: "I am very fortunate to be alive and to be able to let you folks know that I am in the best of health due to the kind treatment and good medical care given me by the Chinese Volunteers and Korean People's Army. They do not regard POWs as their enemies, but as their friends. They have done their utmost for us . . ."

Others said they had read "atrocity" stories in American papers and had expected the worst upon their capture, but as one, Edward Topping, said:

"Since 1 have been captured, I have seen with my own eyes that these tales are without grounds."

Another, G. R. Richards said: "I was simply amazed at the treatment I received. Never since I have been captured have I seen any harsh treatment."

L. E. Dodd said: "I have had time to think things over and as a result of the lenient policy, I will always remember the Chinese as friends instead of enemies."

Last week, the national pattern of economics was extended to the Territory in a particularly unpleasant way when two high school football, players confessed they had taken bribes to play for the gamblers instead of the school, and a star of last season was implicated in the deal as a go-between.

Principals who only the week before had said they didn't think football is over-emphasized here, now expressed themselves as "shocked"—so was much of the community. The dailies, for instance, have not dared tackle the problem yet. Probably they never will attempt to take it by the horns, because it's a very touchy problem for papers which exist principally as advertising media and mouthpieces for Big Business and for "Free Enterprise."

To do so properly would mean revealing the whole rotten mess of war contracts with corrupt politicians and bribing businessmen, which would expose the war in Korea as a war for profits. You cannot deal with the case of these two boys without considering the world in which they live—in which they are surrounded by businessmen and officials seeking profits and gain at the expense of all else.

About the time these boys were in swaddling clothes, for instance, American Big Business was selling munitions and scrap iron to Imperial Japan, over the protests of labor unions, liberals and progressives—for profits.

The great duPont empire was making secret cartels with a Nazi Germany that almost destroyed the world—and that also, was for profits.

When these boys were coming into high school, Hawaii's waterfront employers were battering at longshoremen with every foul means in the book, from the Advertiser's "Dear Joe" editorials to the infamous "Broom Brigade" in an effort to keep men from earning as much as longshoremen on the Mainland— and to preserve and increase their own profits.

With such outside influences to shape their thinking, with material inducements being offered star high school athletes for their participation, with the profit-hungry machine making a spectacle of football, the temptation of a bribe for immature boys is obvious. And which Big Five spokesman cares to be the first to condemn them? Which government official? Which newspaper?

Certainly the observations of Dr. John Fox of Punahou, made before the confessions, are in point. Certainly temptation to schoolboys has been increased by the manner in which their sports have been made public spectacles, subject to the attention all public spectacles get from gamblers, sportswriters and others. Certainly, as Dr. Fox said, this situation would be reduced if the schools had enough money from the legislature to conduct their games along lines more nearly proportionate to education.

But that would mean a playing field or a stadium for each school, and enough money to pay for sports that don't draw at the gate. It would mean far higher taxes to be paid by the Big Five, and the legislature, which has obviously been controlled by Hawaii's land and business barons, is not likely to move in any such direction as that suggested by Dr. John Fox.

And even if the legislature did give a stadium to each school, it still couldn't remove the germ of the matter. That would require a complete national about-face, a complete change of officialdom on the national level, so that within the limits of existing laws, those in positions of authority would enforce the law against bribing officials and institute scrupulous abstinence in the matter of receiving gifts.

You cannot expect a system to be simon-pure at the high school level while it is rotten at the policy-making level on top.

"I would like to make a request for a $1,000,000 loan for our city, to be paid back, with Interest, in the same manner as foreign loans. You see, we have about 200 city employes and we are anxious to grant them a salary increase so that they may meet the increased Federal Income tax that you just had the Congress enact."

Some Americans laughed at this request made to President Truman by Mayor Stanley C. Shaw of Ithaca, New York in late November. Even the mayor wrote In his letter: "Of course, this request is ridiculous."

To families on relief in the Seattle area, there was nothing ridiculous about the administration and Congress providing for the needs of people at home, rather than sending guns and ammunition abroad to help reactionary regimes keep down their people and control colonies.

In King County, Washington state, a score of mothers and children in desperate need of food, ended a 10-hour vigil at the welfare department offices on November 28. Welfare authorities refused their demand for emergency food vouchers and threatened to have police take them to the county jail.

The women and children, who arrived in the early afternoon, were prepared to stay all night if necessary, to press their demands for food. They were typical of 33,000 persons in Washington—including 24,000 boys and girls under 18—hit by 40 per cent slashes in Aid to Dependent Children grants.

All the women cried they had practically no food at home. One mother said if nothing was done to help her, she would slash her two children's throats and her own.

At about 8 p. m. members of a cannery workers union supporting the dramatic demonstration, brought in hot meals for the women and children.

Shortly before midnight, the women and children started to go home after! L. L. Hegland, welfare administrator, promised that he would seek emergency aid from CARE, the overseas relief agency.

To the mothers and children, plodding home in hunger, the $7 billion in foreign military aid voted by Congress and $8 billion more which Truman proposes to seek from Congress next year must have seemed something entirely out of this world.

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The Territorial attorney general "asks this court to sanction events and procedures which violate civilized concepts of criminal procedure, the Constitution of the United States and the laws of the Territory of Hawaii," but "society will have the blood of these men on her hands if these procedures are sanctioned."

With these words Defense Attorney Harriet Bouslog concluded her argument in the month-long habeas corpus proceedings of James E. Majors, 25, and John Palakiko, 23, who have been convicted of the murder of Mrs. Therese Wilder.

Earlier she appealed to the court to reduce the first degree murder charge to second degree, or to set aside the sentence in granting a new trial so that "civilized proceedings can be obtained in the Territory of Hawaii."

Some defense contentions were that Majors and Palakiko were held illegally and their confessions were taken under duress, by force, threats and promises.

Watanabe Argues "Scope"

Assistant Attorney General Michiro Watanabe argued before the court that in so far as unlawful detention is concerned, "we must bear in mind that we are dealing with convicts, not citizens," And he added that "unlawful search and seizure are not in the scope of habeas corpus cases."

He also argued that it is "not extraordinary" to interrogate "escapees" like Majors and Palakiko. They had escaped on March 10, 1948, and Palakiko was arrested on March 12 and is alleged to have been held and questioned by police until March 17.

He was then returned to Oahu Prison and again turned over by prison authorities for further questioning on March 20, when Palakiko testified that he was beaten by former Detective Vernal Stevens until he agreed to make a confession. As to the defense contention that the two men were not given preliminary hearings as provided by law, Mr. Watanabe stated that the denial of this procedure in their cases cannot be prejudicial. He said they were under sentence and were escapees.

In dealing with "convicts," Mr. Watanabe said, "I can't see any point in giving them a hearing."

"Cannot Deny Rights"

"Mr. Watanabe and I cannot agree on points of law and the application of law," Attorney Bouslog said in rebuttal, "because I believe that the poor and ignorant who do not know their rights cannot be denied the rights guaranteed in the Constitution and laws of the Territory of Hawaii."

She added that "because a man was once convicted," there is no standard of law that permits him to be beaten and abused by the police on the grounds that he "has no protection under the law."

The "48-hour statute" of the Territory, which permits the police to hold a person without bringing charges against him "flies in the teeth of the Fourth Amendment on its very face."

The attorney general "asks the court to sanction all methods used to get confessions" from Majors and Palakiko, Attorney Bouslog argued before the court, and mentioned that Palakiko had testified he was beaten by Stevens. She also said Police Captain Eugene Kennedy, at that time, had given credit to Stevens for obtaining the confession.

"Uncivilized" and "barbarous" were the words she used.

In the original trial where the two petitioners were convicted, Stevens testified that he saw Palakiko only for two or three minutes on the night the latter is alleged to have made the confession to the former detective.

Attorney Bouslog charged that Stevens is a "perjurer." She also told the court that the "attorney general asks you to sanction the use of repudiated, unsigned confessions" on the alleged rape of Mrs. Wilder, "the truth of which is challenged by scientific evidence in the possession of the Territorial officials knowledge of which was withheld from the court and jury."

In answer to Mr. Watanabe's argument that Majors and Palakiko had a fair trial and there was no mob rule as in a case he cited, Attorney Bouslog answered that the press stories given out by the police, the editorials in the dailies, the action of the Chamber of Commerce giving rewards for the capture of the murderer of Mrs. Wilder

made a fair trial impossible. She referred to testimony by John Desna, former assistant prosecutor, who handled the early investigation of the Wilder murder where Mr. Desha had said that if he were a defense attorney he would have asked for a change of venue because of the hostile atmosphere.

Hite Took Over Case

The fact that Charles Hite, former prosecutor, was appointed to that position as Mr. Desna's superior and took the case away from him shows that the pressure and clamor were effective in bringing first degree murder charges against Majors and Palakiko, Attorney Bouslog contended.

Mr. Desha had testified that Mr. Hite and former Judge Alva Steadman had called him, prior to Mr. Kite's appointment as prosecutor, to bring a first degree murder charge against the two suspects when he lacked evidence to bring such a charge. When Mr. Hite became prosecutor, he had already made up his mind and the "public clamor" had brought results, the defense attorney said.

The petitioners did not have effective counsel in the murder trial, Attorney Bouslog said, and added; "This very hearing here disputes" the attorney general's contention that the defendants had adequate counsel. However, the attorney said, "much work was done by the defense counsel on legal issues, as the record shows," only they did not have adequate time to prepare the case.

"Civilized standards of police investigation should apply to the Territory of Hawaii," Attorney Bouslog argued, and said that lor Majors and Palakiko, "their youth, poverty and lack of education" became "tools for police to rob the defendants of their rights."

By Eddie Ujimori

The Cadillac costing $3,900 the board of supervisors recently bought for its Chairman Eddie Tam, glides smoothly at 70 miles an hour. At this rate of speed Chairman Tam burns up lots of publicly paid for gas and violates traffic speed regulations.

With Shizuichi Mizuha of the Maui Chamber of Commerce, Chairman Tam whizzed past this writer's car between Wailuku and Kahului three Saturdays ago. This writer gave chase and discovered that the county chairman was driving 70 miles an hour on a road where the speed limit is 35 miles an hour.

Chairman Tam stopped at the Maui Country Club and his great haste, endangering life and property, apparently was for the purpose of keeping a golfing appointment.

"You know," he told this writer, "last year I paid four thousand, two hundred dollars in taxes and that's more than what the Cadillac is worth."

* *

J. R. Roberston, ILWU International First Vice President, and Territorial Regional Director Jack Hall met with union members at the Maui division headquarters in Wailuku on Dec. 1 and 2. Robertson, who was on Maui last year, commented on union solidarity which enabled the organization to win a contract that is considered the best in the world's sugar industry. The conditions which the ILWU membership realized were never offered by the employers before the union was organized. The attack against the union continues, he said, and mentioned the arrest of Jack Hall under the Smith Act, during the sugar negotiations. He called to the attention of those present the current intimidation of union members by agents of the immigration and naturalization service and the FBI. He said there is no substitute for solidarity in the ranks.

Regional Director Hall explained the Smith Act and its use by anti-labor government agencies and employers in their attempts to destroy militant unions like the ILWU.

* *

Robert Hughes, Sr., of the transportation control committee of Maui County, behaved in a manner unbecoming a public official during the last meeting of the body on Nov. 29. Present at the meeting were Committee Chairman David Trask, Manuel Molina, Hughes and Samuel Tanimoto, clerk-inspector.

The committee took up the matter of Dennis Decoite's bus service in the up-country district which is giving competition to the powerful Kahului Railroad Co.

During a heated discussion, Hughes looked around and saw the RECORD reporter, who was the only one present besides the committee members. He inquired if this observer wanted something arid he was informed that the reporter was covering the meeting. Hughes looked at Trask in an incredible manner and asked if this was an open meeting, and indicated that the matter of bus competition should not be aired openly.

Chairman Trask then informed Hughes that he would entertain a motion for an executive session. Hughes turned to this reporter and asked: "What newspaper are you from? The Maui News or the Chronicle? I read those papers." By this time his initial alarm had worn off appreciably and he seemed to indicate that he received courteous treatment from the newspapers he had named.

"No, I represent the RECORD," this writer told him.

This answer cooled off the warmed-up discussion like a dash of cold water and the meeting went on without heat, unexcitably and uninterestingly. At some future meeting, someone will speak up for the Kahului Railroad Co. and probably someone will defend Decoite.

* *

An example of a public official who takes constructive criticism and adverse publicity about his agency in a healthy manner is George Zane, chief sanitation inspector, who has served the people of Maui for the past 14 years. He has been promoted and will fill his new post in Honolulu January 1, 1952.

"We appreciate criticism and welcome complaints because they indicate our mistakes, shortcomings and improvements we can make," Zane says. * *

Rumors to the effect that F. F. Baldwin has said that no employe of HC&S Co. and Alexander & Baldwin would be paid for political campaigning on company time, have flustered, confused and brought some concern to certain politicians. Using employes to campaign for candidates the Baldwin interests favor, support or control, brought winning votes for some contestants. Observers say that even Rep. "Pete" St. Sure may not run if he does not get this kind of support.

San Francisco —The Marine Cooks & Stewards Union won" its prolonged and hard battle from the hard-knuckled Pacific Maritime Association which agreed to pay a 6.2 per cent wage increase. The wage hike will be retroactive to June 16, 1951.

"This is no concession by the shipowners," MC&S Pres. Hugh Bryson said: "They are only agreeing to pay now what they had committed themselves to pay out five months and ten days ago. MC&S will support all other unlicensed personnel in getting the same concession."

Union Takes Strong Stand

In the face of stalling by the shipowners, the union, prior to employer agreement, took a determined stand not to sign steward department crews on West Coast ships. The wage stabilization board had approved the 6.2 per cent increases in wages over the rates of January 1950, and this ruling had been made in September, after the union and the employers had agreed to a general increase of 8 per cent.

The shipowners alibied that the WSB had not given the final . and full order for the increase and that "there was a question of representation involved and the NLRB and the WSB would object if they really increased wages as they had agreed to in June."

The union and the shipowners have a contract agreement for all steward department employes, but the question of a representation election was brought up in attacking the militant union which has won the best pay schedule and working conditions on U. S. commercial ships for steward department personnel. Recently, certain maritime unions, with the backing of employers and government agents have tried to muscle in and take over the union but they have not reached first base.

Employer Fiction Blasted

There is an election pending, but not scheduled, to determine who represents MCS members. The fact that the membership refused to sign on West Coast ships blasted the employers' fiction of disputed representation.

The screening program, which is designed to hit militant trade unionists is another of the various moves to attack the union which has won and maintained improved conditions for its membership.

The shipowners, in stalling the authorized wage increase, also told the MC&S that they would raise the rates along with other unions. The MC&S answered that it does not hinge its wages and conditions on those of other unions.

Will Support Other

Unions MC&S President Bryson said that the union will support all other unlicensed crews in getting the same conditions won by his union.

The shipowners, besides agreeing to wage increases, also accepted the other union demands for the 40-hour week beginning Dec. 16, pro-rated vacations up to maintenance and cure and other gains as soon as approved by the WSB.

Policemen who conducted a vigorous campaign to get salary raises had good motivation; all experts agreed they were paid somewhat below the scale set for other government workers. But in addition to that inequality, they have certain expenses unknown to other public servants.

These are for equipment. On the average, one complete outfit for a policeman costs $154, and the breakdown is something like this:

Uniforms (3 suits)............. $105

Pistol ........................................ 15

Holster and Belt.................. 10

Cap .......................................... 7

Shoes ........................................ 8

Ties (3)................................... 3

Rain Cape................................ 6

The cost of keeping uniforms in good order is something like $96 a year, an officer says.

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Gross Violation of Health Standar Exists On Plantat'n

"If the plantations had not mechanized, the animals would be getting better treatment than us workers," an employe of Oahu Sugar Co. living in the plantation's Filipino camp in Aiea said last week.

"Look at that," he said, pointing to the rotten walls of a house and a window kept from falling to pieces by pieces of lumber nailed to keep it in place.

Would Go Through Floor

Another resident of the Filipino camp led Tadashi "Castner" Ogawa, business agent of Local 142, ILWU, into his room and demonstrated how his house shook as he walked around. He said that if he jumped up and down he would go through the termite-ridden, rotten flooring.

Rent per house is $21 a month. The long shacks with partitioned, dark rooms and the floors of some rotting away on the damp ground, pass for kitchens. Rats roam them at will and leave their droppings on the floor and tables. "If the boss doesn't run over these houses with a caterpillar we must stay here for years more," another employe said, and asked that his name not be mentioned because the management may not like such criticism.

Make the Boss "Feel Shame"

"Put it in the newspaper. Good. Make him feel shame. If after twenty-thirty years they don't improve and treat us like human beings, you think he gets angry? Make him shame," another employe said.

A rusty water pipe behind the kitchen was squirting water and the camp's residents had placed rags around it but the cloth was rotting away.

"You remember the boss told us not to waste water," an employe who has lived on the plantation since 1921 remarked. "But look. We tell the company to fix and fix but the bosses don't care."

Same At Puerto Rican Camp

The waste of water would not cost lives but rusty pipes and breakage of the line where an open sewer runs may cost lives, one of the oldtime employes commented.

In the Puerto Rican camp at Aiea, also owned by the Oahu Sugar Co., the same situation of dilapidated housing prevails.

"I think the boss will not live here even if we did not charge him rent," a resident of the camp remarked.

The steps leading to the kitchen had been pounded with nails to make the joints firmer, but they shook and it seemed as though he whole house shook as one climbed the steps.

Shoves Hand Through Wall

The walls were rotting away or are rotten, and one only has to touch them and pieces fall off.

A resident of one house stuck his hand through a hole in the wall. The wood was damp and gave off a hollow sound as the employe tapped it.

Toilet Far Away

"I came here in 1925. I have worked a long time but what difference does it make? Only the union can help us." another resident of the Puerto Rican camp said.

"Look, our toilet is three miles away," another laughed.

This man's family uses an outhouse far away in a banana grove. The outhouse is of the "honey box" type, with a receptacle that is emptied every day.

The Puerto Rican camp is below the old Aiea road and one passing there would not know how dilapidated the houses are. They were stained maroon long ago, now much faded.

"The machines have good garages. If the mules were not replaced by machines, they would have good stables, too. What kind of system is this anyway, the plantation treating man worse than animals and machines?" a veteran of 26 years on the plantation said.

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Talk is that the 25 cigarettes seized by Narcotics Bureau and local police raiders last weekend from, one of those arrested, really are asthma cigarettes as the man in whose possession they were found, described them. They had been thought by officers to be marijuana.

Entirely apart from the arrest, this column recalls an item, published months ago, that juveniles here have been known to buy asthma cigarettes for a dollar or so a throw, and to smoke them under the impression they were marijuana.

* *

Joe Carvolho, who signed a number of the arresting warrants, is expected by associates now to appear in uniform any day. His friends believe he was following the pattern often used by local police, of using a new recruit as an undercover man before he's taken openly on the force.

* *

A Maunakea St. businessman, who says he has no record of gambling, was surprised to find himself barred from the stadium under orders he was told emanate from the vice squad. He's pretty indignant about it, but not sure yet just what he may do.

* *

The fight at the stadium last week, which saw Yoshio Shirai take Dado Marino on a TKO, also saw an extremely dissatisfied fan who says the prices and the advertising were all out of whack. He went, expecting to pay the $1.20 advertised in a daily paper. Instead, he was charged $1.50. And he says further, that the $1.20 price was advertised as "tax included." The tip came too close to press time to investigate more, but the warning should serve the promoters to check their ads and their prices.

* *

Now that "Sonny" Hart is back from his Mainland vacation, Joseph Iseke, who dared him to sue to collect an old bill issued by the C-C division of refuse disposal, is daring him again. It's been more than four months, Mr. Iseke points out, since Mr. Hart threatened, at a meeting of the public works committee, to take the case to court. Prior to that, Iseke had refused to pay the bill, which he kept receiving quarter after quarter, because he said it wasn't correct. Once when he visited the city hall in an effort to get it corrected, the bill was halved, but that only struck Iseke as being an arbitrary action, not based on any real figures.

"I owe the city something," he said this week, "and I want to pay what I really owe. But I expect them to prove to me why they state those figures."

* *

"LATE TO ARRIVE" was a phrase that might well have been applied to Editor Riley Allen of the Star-Bulletin, said Democratic women who attended the wedding reception of Mr. and Mrs. Alvin Leong at the Chinese-American Club last week. Mrs. Leong is the former Miss Helen Lau, daughter of Lau Ah Chew. Mr. Allen, undoubtedly detained by the press of his duties, didn't get there until everything was over but the dancing.

The reason the Democratic ladies would apply such a phrase to the S-B editor is that his paper applied it to them in the outline of a picture covering the tea for Mrs. Oscar L. Chapman. They, too, had been detained by the press of their duties—they're working people and the tea hour of four p. m. is one that was bound to make them late, since none of them work in banks.

* *

CAPT. Leon Straus of the detective division, is due a vacation any day now, reliable report has it, to relax from the physical and nervous strain of his job.

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ILWU Local 142, Unit 31, Wailuku Sugar employes, will stage a Christmas party for all the kids of the unit on Friday, Dec. 21, at 7:30 p. m. at the union's headquarters in Wailuku. The Christmas party will be for children between the ages of one and 15. The Wailuku Women's Auxiliary Unit 12 will decorate the hall. A donation of $300 was made by Wailuku Unit 31 for the affair.

Another Christmas party will be held on the following night, Dec. 22, for the UPWA children between the ages of one and 12, sponsored by the Wailuku Unit 1, UPWA.

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During the six years following V-J Day, Americans have been told that Japan has been progressively democratized, and with the ratification of the Dulles-drafted peace treaty, she would be able to take her place among the "free" nations.

Japan is actually a captive nation. Powerful industrial, financial and military elements in the U. S. are making it a military bastion in the Far East, and in doing so, have brought back the latent Zaibatsu and Gumbatsu.

These warring finance magnates and militarists had not been swept away by MacArthur nor by Ridgway. On the other hand, militant trade unions have been suppressed by the U. S. occupation authorities. Just as the Zaibatsu and Gumbatsu invoked thought control laws, outlawed the Communist Party and persecuted the people prior to the invasion of Manchuria, so is the Yoshida government, under the domination of U. S. officials, following the pattern.

No person with common sense believed the news releases from MacArthur's headquarters that the National Police Reserve of 75,000 was merely a police force. This boldfaced lie was criticized in the Far East Commission, particularly by the Soviet delegate. Today, this nucleus of the Japanese army is staging war maneuvers with live ammunition shot from U. S.-supplied weapons. And the United Press reported last week that 400 former high-ranking wartime Japanese imperial army officers were spectators at a war practice. They were recently released from the purge list and are slated for assignment with the new army.

On the tenth anniversary of "Pearl Harbor," Japan is being pushed on the war path. Hence the great concern and fear of the people of the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand.

The Japanese people themselves are apprehensive, and last week Time magazine's correspondent reported from Tokyo that "there are dissidents, daily growing more vocal, who want no part of the U. S. protection or alliance."

The correspondent also wrote that the Japanese people are irritated and tired of American-imposed inequities, of new cabs for "tourists" and "foreigners only," of beer halls, off-limits to Japanese, where Americans buy Japanese beer tax free at 20 cents a bottle while the Japanese must pay as high as 90 cents for the same beer. Even drinking water for Americans is off-limits to Japanese and so are certain beaches.

The pride of the Japanese people is trampled upon and they get, not democracy, but insults. This is the logical outcome of a master-puppet relationship.

It is evident that the great masses of the Japanese who went through the last war will be no pushover for the Dulles program. They know Japan, as Time says, was on the "ragged edge of bankruptcy" prior to the Korean war because of Mac-Arthur's restriction on her trading with Asian nations, particularly China. The Korean war has improved the situation somewhat, but this is temporary. Peace, which the majority yearn for, will bring Japan to the "ragged edge" again unless she develops a healthy basis of trade and manufacture with neighboring countries. Only by doing this and not by becoming a U. S. dependency, can Japan and its people win self-respect.

When Labor Throughout the World Found Its Voice

The following is an excerpt from "Raising Cane," a brief history of labor in Hawaii, by Victor Weingarten, published by the ILWU in September, 1946.

In 1919, after the first World War, labor throughout the world found its voice—and the sound was heard in Hawaii. The workers listened and learned. They soon followed the pattern set by their fellow workers in other lands.

The Japanese organized a series of labor organizations on the various islands and late that year combined them into the Federation of Japanese Labor in Hawaii. The Filipinos formed a Filipino Labor Union.

Both groups made one mistake. Although they suffered the same abuses and sought the same remedies, they worked independently of each other. Eventually, the planters profited from their lack of unity.

In December 1919, the Japanese Federation formalized its grievances in a resolution submitted to the HSPA. It read:

"We are laborers working on the sugar plantations of Hawaii.

"People know Hawaii as the Paradise of the Pacific and as a sugar producing country, but do they know that there are thousands of laborers who are suffering under the heat of the equatorial sun, in field and factory, and who are weeping under 10 hours of hard labor and with the scanty pay of 77 cents a day?

"Hawaii's sugar I When we look at Hawaii as the country possessed of 44 sugar mills, with 230,000 acres of cultivated land area, as a region producing 600,000 tons of sugar annually, we are impressed with the) great importance of the position which sugar occupies among the industries of Hawaii. We realize also, that 50,000 laborers who, together with their families, number about 160,000, are a majority of the 250,000 total population of Hawaii. We consider it a great privilege and pride to live under the Stars and Stripes, which stands for freedom and justice, as a factor of this great industry and as a part of the labor of Hawaii.

"We love production . . .

"Look at the silent tombstones in every locality. Few are the people who visit these graves of our departed friends, but are they not emblems of Hawaii's pioneers in labor? Turn your eyes to the ever diligent laborers. They are not beautiful in appearance, but are they not a great factor of Hawaii's production?

"We are faithful laborers, willing to follow the steps of our departed elders and do our part toward Hawaii's production. We hear that there are in Hawaii over 100 millionaires, men chiefly connected with the! sugar plantations. It is not our purpose to complain and be envious, but we would like to state that there are on the sugar plantations which produced these fortunes for their owners, a large number of laborers who are suffering under a wage of 77 cents a day.

"When asked: 'What is a laborer?' a certain plantation manager is said to have replied: 'A laborer is an ignorant creature.' We do not wish to believe such a statement, but when we look back over our own experience in Hawaii, we regret to state that the above fact is undeniable.

"Impartial and just ladies and gentlemen, we are laborers working on the plantations of Hawaii. Certain capitalists may regard us as ignorant creatures, but as laborers working seriously and faithfully we wish it understood that we art willing to do our part toward Hawaii's production and welfare as best we know how, hoping for the progress of civilization and endeavoring to safeguard justice and humanity as members of the great human family."

The resolution was accompanied by a list of demands which included:

1. An increase of from 77 cents to $1.25 a day. Women laborers to receive a minimum of 95 cents a day.

2. The bonus system to be made a legal obligation rather than a matter of benevolence.

3. An eight-hour day.

4. Maternity leave with pay for women two weeks before and six weeks after birth.

5. Double-time for overtime, Sundays and holidays.

These demands were first submitted to the HSPA on Dec. 4, 1919. They were flatly rejected.

The demands were submitted to the planters three times. The planters refused to discuss them or grant any of them. Each time they were sent back with a flat "NO!"

The workers sent two representatives to discuss their grievances with the HSPA. The planters refused to grant them an interview. "We will settle our own industrial troubles," they said.

By Frank Marshall Davis

Churchill and Malaya

During World War II, Winston Churchill made the famous statement that he had not become prime minister to preside over the breaking up of the British Empire. Since then, and up until a few weeks ago, there has been a Labor government in power. Despite its faults, there were some concessions and promises made to the colonies.

That is why the recent Tory victory is of extreme significance to the millions of subject peoples in Asia and Africa ruled from far-off London Prom all indications, the fights for freedom will be sharpened for, as it was phrased by a prominent British Guianese doctor in England, Ganesh Sawh, member of the Hindu Society of Great Britain, the India Club, the League of Coloured Peoples and the Caribbean Labour Congress: Conservative Policies Will Sharpen Conflict "The Tories will definitely attempt to improve conditions for the peoples in Great Britain, but this will have to be at the expense of the colonial peoples. There will hardly be a better outlook for colonial peoples in Great Britain and the tolerant policy of the Labor government may be altered to place more hardships on local colored peoples and colored peoples in the colonies."

With this in mind, let's take a look at Malaya, one of the few remaining strongholds in Asia of British imperialism. For some time now there has been a growing revolt against British rule. The Labor regime did promise self-government, but if that was not enough to satisfy the Malayan people who want to completely control their destiny, it seems certain that the more conservative policies of the Churchill government will sharpen the conflict.

Malaya is about the size of the state of New York. Four-fifths of the land is still jungle, but the remaining one-fifth is used primarily for rubber estates. Last year, some $340,000,000 worth of crude rubber was exported, which shows how important •Malaya is to the dollar-hungry British economy. Most of the rubber plantations are owned by English corporations. However, a few Asians have recently made immense fortunes. One of these is a Chinese businessman named K. C. Lee who is reputed to have pocketed some $10,000,000 in one six-month period and is considered to be one of the world's richest men. Exploitation Causes Revolt Against Colonial Rule

But the firms and individuals who get the profits are few. Most of the people live, by contrast, in unbelievable poverty and misery. The population is almost evenly divided between Malays and Chinese; there are quite a few Indians, and, of course, the British, who actually rule.

In Malaya, as in other outposts of empire, the basic cause of the revolt against colonial rule is exploitation. While the plantation owners collect their millions in profits, the rubber workers earn but $20 to $30 monthly. This persists in the face of) inflation caused by the boom in rubber. As a result, hospitals in the crown, colony of Singapore are swelled with workers suffering from starvation.

This wide economic gap, with a few fabulously rich and the masses starving, cannot help but causa trouble—particularly when there is an increasing solidarity of the whole Moslem world and nearby are the examples of India and China in throwing off outside domination and the struggle of Indonesia for independence. There has been armed resistance against the British for over three years and the end is not in sight, although an estimated $100,000 daily is being spent by the government to fight this resistance. Yearning for Independence General In Malaya

Even those who have surrendered, because of policy disagreements with the leaders of the resistance, are nevertheless determined to win independence for Malaya, Some of the British under the Labor regime realized that the old style colonialism was on the way out and for that reason set about establishing a time-table for self-government. While this has pacified some, it is not at all satisfactory to many who want nothing short of immediate independence.

Here is whore the Churchill government finds itself on the horns of a dilemma. Britain's sorely pressed economy is so desperately in need of the more than $300,000,000 in rubber and tin sold annually to the U. S. that she cannot afford to lose economic control of this rich land; the impoverished masses of Chinese and Malays and Indians are so tired of being exploited that even the reforms and concessions planned by the Labor government will not keep them in line. Anything less than the minimum promised by the Labor regime will mean greatly Intensified resistance.

What is true of Malaya is true of other sections of the British Empire. There is an increasing resistance to colonialism everywhere. The sun is setting on empire, and all the money, bullets and atom bombs cannot bring back the dead days of Kipling. True, they might use the latest mass weapons to kill off all those subject peoples who want independence, but if this happened, who would there be left to exploit?