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index / Volume 4 / Volume 4 No. 6

pages 2 l 3 l 4 l 5 l 6 l 7 l 8

Volume 4 No. 6, September 6, 1951

Took Courage To Visit Mainland; Found No Bias In ILWU Members [print]

Mrs. Valdez
Mrs. Valdez

"I am a Filipino but not out of place in a haole family. In an ILWU haole family, I mean. I belong to the ILWU," said Mrs. Catalina Valdez.

The medium-set woman with round, soft eyes, smiling face and gesturing hands, had come to Hawaii from her native Philippines in 1926 as the wife of a plantation laborer. She was trying hard to explain to her listeners that she had a pleasant surprise during her recent visit to California which is known for anti-Oriental racism.

"Always Remember"

When Mrs. Valdez was chosen to represent her Federated Women's Auxiliary of Kauai, at the San Francisco convention of the women's group, she had many questions in mind, particularly the "distasteful" matter of discrimination.

"But I belong to the ILWU. That gave me courage to go to San Francisco alone," she said with a smile.

She stayed with white and Negro families, and proudly says: "Always remember, no discrimination in ILWU."

Saw "America At Its Best"

She said discrimination is a "terrible thing" which all non-whites detest and abhor and she was happy to see "America at its best among our workers."

Ever since the Women's Auxiliary was organized a couple of years ago, Mrs. Valdez has quickly risen to a position of leadership.

Recently she made a trip to Lanai to report on her Mainland experiences to the strikers and their families. In a matter of days she had the women organized into an auxiliary unit, the officers elected and was helping to bring about their fuller participation in the long strike now more than six months old.

"Women can disrupt a union if they do not understand how important it is to their husbands and to their families, but at the same time, they can be a strong element in the labor movement," she said.

Push Husbands From Behind

"I tell the women, 'Instead of hindering the union work of husbands, push them from behind,'" she emphasized with a sharp gesture of her right hand. The next minute she was talking to her husband, Noberto Valdez, a truck driver at Kekaha Plantation, who encourages her activities in the auxiliary.

"I was away from home so long when I went to California. Then I went to Lanai. He made many sacrifices, and all for the union. Without his help I cannot do these things," she explained, and recounted their earlier experiences on the plantations when there were no unions for sugar workers. "I tell the new immigrant Filipino workers about the happai-ko (loading sugar cane on railroad cars by carrying the stalks on the back), and only one dollar a day. And I tell the union brothers that when they hold meetings they should invite women. If the men do not attend meetings, women must put pressure on them."

"Pork Chops" Confuses Wives

As she said this most emphatically she paused, then smiled warmly.

"Let me tell you how much there is to learn about the union of which our men are members. Once I was explaining the pork-chop program which I saw in California, Then some of our auxiliary sisters sighed and said: 'I haven't eaten pork chop for a long time.' And I had to explain that pork-chop program is union language for bread and butter struggle as well as for better conditions, not pork chops you fry to eat. Our husbands use this kind of language and we must understand them." Like all union wives, she said, she hears smears against the union; coming in the form of red-baiting or attack against union leadership.

"My answer is always, 'Go to the union and find out what it has done and is doing for workers, all workers.' If our husbands' wages go up, salaries of even the white collar workers go up. And as I always say, the bosses kept us divided—Filipinos, Japanese, Chinese, Koreans—each in different camps. The union brought us together and even on the Mainland, you can go and enjoy, even if you are not a haole, in ILWU homes."


Arrest of T.H. 7 Gives Clear Warning To All Of Dangers-H. Bouslog [print]

The arrest of seven individuals under the Smith Act gave a clear warning to all that their "rights, living standards" and the hopes of all are gravely endangered, Attorney Harriet Bouslog told nearly 4,000 union members, their families and friends of labor at a Labor Day celebration at Lihue, Kauai.

"These seven are a part of the whole national pattern which shows that the people in power in our country today will not tolerate any criticism or attack upon their announced plan to make America and the world an armed camp," Attorney Bouslog explained.

She spoke of the contributions of Jack Hall, one of the seven, to the trade union movement in Hawaii. She analyzed the motive behind the present arrests, of the role of "disgruntled, so-called labor leaders, the Izukas and the Kawanos," of the witch-hunt of the un-American committee and its counterpart here. "The attack upon the liberties of all working people and true democrats did not, however, begin with the arrests of these seven," she continued. "It is a course and policy that has been followed by our government since the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt."

(Attorney Bouslog's speech will be covered more fully next week, since it gives a clear and broad picture of the meaning of the arrests.—Ed.)

 

AFL To Enter Politics, Owens Says; Farrington Advises fight for Parity [print]

Departing strikingly from the traditional AFL "non-political" stand, John A. Owens, local head of the AFL, told a Labor Day crowd of about 1,500 at Iolani Palace that the American Federation of Labor will definitely enter into political action.

"It will be necessary," he said, "for us to try to get into office people who represent the working men and women of the Territory of Hawaii." Introduced by A. S. Reile of the Central Labor Council (AFL) as, "the man who represents the AF of L in the Territory," Owens pointed out housing as a prime target for such political action, and he said many of the working people live in homes which remain upright "only because the termites are holding hands."

Owens said the AFL is participating in the fight against Communism "right up to the Iron Curtain," and he expressed the hope that before long "even peoples behind the Iron Curtain may find the freedoms they enjoyed years ago."

He did not elaborate as to whether his reference was to the Russia of the czars or to governments formed since World War II.

Must Seek Wage Parity

Delegate J. R. Farrington, introduced by Reile as an "old friend who has the aloha of all working people," advised labor to "put ahead of everything else, parity in wages between what is paid on the Mainland arid in the Territory of Hawaii."

Calling the United States government "our greatest employer," Mr. Farrington said the govern ment needs here require 21,000 persons. 6,000 of these being classified.

"Uncle Sam has always been a good employer and has set the pace," Farrington said, "and that should continue. The lower level (of wages) should not be used." A step toward securing parity with Mainland wages, Farrington said, would be the inclusion of the Territory in the cost of living statistics compiled by the Federal department of labor.

Admiral W. R. Dowd said the U. S. Navy is not only the largest employer here, but all over the world. He suggested that labor might well dedicate Labor Day to the reading and understanding of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Col. J. R. Seward of the U. S. Army, said any war of the future will be "total" and will, of necessity, involve working people to a higher degree than any previous war.

Citizens To Share

"If the winner of such a war is a country like ours," said Col. Seward, "the citizens will share in the victory."

But if a "dictator" should be the winner, Seward said, "under any conditions but ours—would do away with the right to bargain, or even the right to vote on whether you'd strike or not."

Treasurer William B. Brown, speaking in the absence of Gov. Long, asked labor to "think well" before entering into any situation that might "impair labor peace."

Mr. Brown said the governor had asked him to congratulate the AFL and to promise to support them as "I believe I have their support."

Supervisor Nick T. Teves, speaking in the absence of Mayor John H. Wilson, said he thinks good labor relations are a matter of good public relations.

"With good public relations," he said, "you will have peace."

The program was preceded by a parade from River St. along Beretania to Miller St. and down Miller into the Palace Grounds The parade included 679 marchers of the Unity House, headed by A. A. Rutledge, which includes both AFL and independent unions and 417 AFL marchers headed by Owens, for a total of 1,096 in the entire parade.

Boy Scouts March

Included in the Unity House segment of the parade was a troop of 48 Boy Scouts led by their scoutmaster, Tadami Naito, who is also president of the general teamsters union.

Following the program, free beer was served at Unity House on Kalakaua Ave., in an "open house" that received 2,000 guests.

 

Police Raid Fails To Net Kawailoa Inmates On Loose [print]

Two teen-age girls who escaped from Kawailoa Girls' Home July 25 are reported by police to be "harbored by underworld characters." Underworld sources say they are also involved in the prostitution and narcotics rackets.

The weekend raid on a Vineyard St. location, which resulted in the arrest of 80 persons, is reported to have been aimed at apprehending the pair of girls. The RECORD learned that one of the girls did, in fact appear at the location a short time after the raid.

As a matter of policy with juveniles, names of the girls were not released, either by police or by Miss Eileen Ukauka, superintendent of the home who said the July escape was the only one in the past eight months.

Shortly after their escape from the home, the RECORD learned, the girls visited a number of persons in the hope of gaining sanctuary, one who was visited said they did not say they had escaped from the home.

When one of the girls mentioned "shock treatments," he became suspicious and ordered them to leave. Later, according to report, the girls made contact with the underworld characters who are alleged to be harboring them now.

"Shock treatments," said to be given as a part of the "cure" for drug addiction, has also been alleged to be given as punishment for incorrigible juveniles. According to information received by the RECORD this week, the girls are generally located in a North School St. establishment. It was in the same vicinity, the RECORD reported some weeks ago, that a meeting occurred between certain officials and members of the prostitution racket, in which a "juice line" was said to have been set up.

Reports of that meeting had it that, for the payment of $10 per night, a prostitute could operate without legal impediment. The Vineyard St. location was also rumored to be on a "juice line" of its own, though the weekend raid jarred the faith of some in the immunity the place enjoyed.

Drug Use Alleged

A person who has seen the girls said both had indulged in the use of marijuana cigarettes and that one had recently been using heroin. Although use of narcotics by local juveniles has often been rumored in the past, U. S. Narcotics Agent William Wells said not long ago that all such stories, when run down, have proved groundless. .

On the Mainland, pimps and procurers have made use of marijuana to lead prostitutes into the heroin habit. Once addicted to heroin, the prostitutes come almost entirely under the control of those who can supply the drug.

Speaking of the Kawailoa escapee said to be now addicted, a local person said: "If she's hooked on that stuff, she'll follow him (the procurer) around like a little puppy dog."

The men allegedly involved in harboring the girls are of Mainland origin.

 

Man's Arm Cut Off; Navy Wife Found Guilty, Sentenced to Jail, Flees Territory [print]

When a navy plane carrying Mrs. Phyllis June Horne took off from Barbers Point May 27, the 10 day jail sentence she was to serve beginning the following morning became a big joke. Left behind was a Honolulan whose left arm had been amputated in an accident caused by her reckless driving.

With Mrs. Horne flew her husband, William F. Horne, aviation ordnance chief, who got his orders of transfer about the time of her conviction.

Like Massie Case

"Just like the Massie-Kahaha-wai case where the convicted murderers spent only one hour in custody, and that in lolani Palace. The navy swung its weight then, too" said Ernest Freitas, the man with the amputated arm who is turning every stone in trying to get Mrs. Horne back here to serve her sentence and to collect damages due.

At the time of the conviction, according to Freitas, Horne told Judge Robert M. Yates at the Pearl City court that be would "buy her time" to keep his wife out of jail.

Judge Yates is reported to have answered that if he were to allow Horne's request, it would mean "no punishment at all." But Judge Yates on May 25 gave Mrs. Home the weekend to straighten out her household affairs. May 25 was Friday. On Sunday night, May 27, the Homes left for Treasure Island, Cal., and out of the jurisdiction of the territorial courts.

Couldn't Roll Off The automobile accident happened on the old Aiea road near Waiau shortly after midnight, March 25, when Mrs. Home and four sailors plowed into Freitas'

car. Freitas says he pulled far off to the edge of the highway when he saw the speeding car coming toward him on the wrong side of the road.

Because Freitas was driving with his left elbow on the door, his arm was completely chopped off by the collision and fell on the road. Mrs. Horne's car kept going and according to Freitas stopped only when its front tire blew out.

"I sat beside the road, asked a passing driver to get me an ambulance," Freitas said. "He got the police instead. All this time Mrs. Horne and her four companions, none of them hurt, did not even come to see me and the police had to bring them to the scene of the accident."

The police charged her with driving on the wrong side of the road. There is no proof that she was drunk, says Freitas, "although she admitted in court that she had two beers and a highball." A few days after the accident Mrs. Horne visited Freitas at the South Shore Hospital and according to him, said everything happened so fast she did not know what actually took place. She asked if he wanted tobacco and toilet articles and promised to be back the following day but never returned.

When the case came up May 4 Mrs. Home did not show up. She did appear on May 11, accompanied by her husband who had in the meantime returned from Okinawa. She then pleaded guilty and asked for two weeks before the imposition of sentence. Then on May 25 Judge Yates sentenced her to 10 days in jail and suspended her license 12 months. "Was the two weeks requested necessary for her husband to get his transfer in order? I never stop wondering," says Freitas.

Others who have heard of this case recall the Kahahawai-Massie sentence where the navy beat the local law.

Freitas has asked Judge Yates to bring her back and says he has been told that this would cost the government too much money.

He has gone to Delegate Joseph Farrington and was told that he should get an attorney. The Delegate promised he would do anything to help him. The navy officials at Barbers

Point and Pearl Harbor have told Freitas that there is nothing they can do. Mrs. Home is a civilian and she was involved in a traffic accident tried in civil court. Before Mrs. Home left, Freitas' lawyer got service on her for damages. The case is not on the calendar yet and there is doubt as to whether Mrs. Home can pay the damages. Her car insurance had expired.

Freitas, a jack-hammer and buster operator on construction jobs prior to the accident, is receiving welfare assistance. He has been hospitalized from March 25 to May 22 and July 17 to August 17. He has had two operations and recently he had bone and silver plate insertions in the stub of the arm amputated above the elbow.

 

Kauai Men Ired By Coney Konohiki On Huleia Stream [print]

"One for the book!" That is what an official from the Territorial land office told the RECORD, but checking revealed to him that G. M. Coney of Kauai, does indeed, have konohiki fishing rights on the Huleia stream, which flows into Nawiliwili Harbor.

The disclosure came after Kauai residents in the area had told the RECORD Mr. Coney prevents boats from travelling on the Huleia, citing his konohiki as basis for his action. The land office here, though surprised to find that such rights exist, did some research and found further that Coney had upheld his rights once in a suit. Though the details of that suit are virtually unknown here it was believed that the konohiki had been questioned by some individual who wanted to fish Huleia's waters. Attorney General Warren D. Ackerman, Jr., said no such suit has been filed by the Territory and he added that, although the Territory is in process of acquiring konohiki rights in coastal waters near several islands, it is not trying to buy any that may be held on inland waterways.

Date Back To Kings

The konohiki rights, dating back to the days of the Hawaiian kingdom, have been maintained according to the Organic Act, Mr. Ackerman said, and there are cases in which private individuals actually own stream basins as well as fishing rights.

The konohiki, passed down in the same manner as real estate, gives its holder a fishing monopoly in a specific area. Although only one type of fish is named in a konohiki, courts have interpreted the right as allowing the konohiki owner power of permission over other types of fish in the same area. Rights of access or passage, Ackerman said, are entirely separate from konohiki rights, and could be held only when the private individual owns the stream basin. In most cases, the Federal government claims ownership of any navigable stream, though, Ackerman said, streams of that size are virtually non-existent in Hawaii. Although some konohikis have been purchased by the Territory, many others remain in private hands since the legislature has never appropriated enough money to buy them all.

 

Traitors, Finks To Be Swept To Trash Heap, ILWU Keynoter Tells Audience [print]

Longshoremen labor day
Longshoremen lead parade in Wahiawa, leaving the waterfront for the first time on Labor Day to march in sugar-pine district

Rejoicing over the conclusion of the sugar negotiations, pledging continued all-out support for the Lanai pineapple strikers and angry at the arrest of union leader Jack Hall along with six others under the Smith Act, nearly 5,000 workers and women auxiliary members from Honolulu's waterfront, shops and factories, the sugar and pineapple plantations, all of ILWU, paraded with members of the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union, Independent Taxi Drivers Union and the United Public Workers of America in Wahiawa on Labor Day.

Led by Joseph (Joe Blurr) Kealalio, president of the Territory's longshoremen's union, Local 136, ILWU, the workers marched through the town of Wahiawa on California Ave. to Fred Wright Park for assembly.

Consolidation a Milestone

The dock workers who left downtown Honolulu and its waterfront for the first time on a Labor Day to parade in the heart of the sugar and pineapple districts, led the procession in their customary white caps and blue working gear. Many had worked all night, going to Wahiawa shortly after getting off their shift.

Behind them came the sugar and pineapple workers, bearing banners and placards that spoke of the consolidation of their unions which was observed as a milestone of progress in Hawaii's labor history. For the sugar workers who only two days before did not know whether or not they would be forced to take strike action, Labor

Day for the first time was a paid holiday under the new agreement, waiting for rank and file ratification. \

Unity and solidarity of the laborers, which speakers later mentioned made possible the successful sugar contract negotiations with Big Five employers, stood out sharply as wave after wave of smiling workers marched in the bright sunshine.

Thousands who lined the route of the parade saw the forest of placards carried by individual marchers, with slogans that hit the big employers who constantly try to crush the unions, right between the eyes.

"ILWU Forward; Backward Never!" "ILWU, Pioneer of Decent Wages." "Traitors and Two-bit Politicians Cannot Bust the ILWU." "We Shall Not Be Divided." "Bosses Make More Profit, Workers Get Less." "Sugar and Pine One Big Union." "Labor Is Prior To and Independent of Capital" (Lincoln's statement).

"We Are For Peace." "Intimidation Will Not Scare Us." "Mabuhay Jack Hall." "Thought Control Under Smith Act."

And the Marine Cooks and Stewards hit hard at the threat to the long-fought-for gains of seamen and dock workers on the West Coast waterfront. A large placard said: "Maintain Our Democratic, Hiring Hall Practices."

Eight floats were in the parade. Green and white taxies of the Taxi Union also carried placards calling for" the support of the Lanai strike now in its sixth month. For Wahiawa, this was the first Labor Day observance of this magnitude and oldtime residents said this parade was different from those of the military stationed nearby. Others said this was the "best" or the "biggest" parade ever held there.

Mr. Goldblatt
Goldblatt Keynote Speaker

Louis Goldblatt, secretary-treasurer of the ILWU, who had participated in the sugar negotiations, told the 9,000-odd people who gathered at Fred Wright Park that "unity and solidarity" of the workers made it possible "to conclude a very successful sugar contract."

The ILWU official reviewed the meaning and history of Labor Day, which originated with the struggle for an eight-hour day. The May 1, 1886 demonstration in Chicago for an eight-hour day was marred by bombing, and subsequently, four leaders of the working class were executed on a frameup charge. May 1 became Labor Day throughout the world, showing international workers' solidarity, and in this country, this caused the ruling element to set aside the first Monday in September for Labor Day, in 1923.

"In one way, this was done to take the minds away from Labor Day, May First, of international solidarity," Mr. Goldblatt said.

The frameups or labor leaders in this country from the Haymarket of 1886 to Bridges-Robertson-Schmidt and now Jack Hall, were hit by Mr. Goldblatt, while at the same time he pointed out the achievements of labor, in bettering conditions for all. Labor's contributions for free public education, fight against child labor, for fair labor standards, safety, health and sanitation are never credited to the working people in the textbooks which children of workers use in schools, he said.

Labor Traitors To "Junk Heap"

People who fight for the betterment of laborers and are persecuted and victimized, will live as heroes, but "traitors, finks and stool pigeons will be swept onto the junk heap of history," he said . emphatically.

Justo dela Cruz, vice president of the sugar workers on Oahu, pointedly remarked that "Rizal and others are revered today but in their times were not loved by the ones in power. But the majority of the people loved them."

James King, attorney of the firm of Bouslog and Symonds, explained the Smith Act under which Hall and the six others here are charged with advocating and teaching the overthrow of the government by force and violence. This act, he said, is contrary to the First Amendment, which guarantees free speech! press, assembly and with them the right to listen and to read publications. He read from the dissenting opinion of Justice Hugo Black in the case of 11 U. S. Communist leaders convicted under the Smith Act:

"These petitioners were not charged with an attempt to overthrow the government. They were not charged with overt acts of any kind designed to overthrow the government.

"They were not even charged with saying anything or writing anything designed to overthrow the government." Like Justice Black, Mr, King said he looked forward to calmer and normal times bereft of hysteria and added that by Labor Day next year he hoped the First Amendment would be in "full force."

The Rev. Emillo C. Yadao gave the invocation and Henry Epstein, regional director of the United Public Workers of America, was master of ceremonies.

The Federated Women's Auxiliary of the ILWU, served hot dogs and cold drinks at Fred Wright Park.

 

Sake Brewery Strike In 4th Week; Strikers Say Vote May Be Set Aside [print]

company's supervisory staff who threatened layoffs if the men joined the union and voted for it to represent the workers.

Strikers at the Honolulu Sake Brewery & Ice Co., Ltd., still picketed the plant at Pauoa as the strike entered its fourth week. They expected the government to set aside the unsuccessful election for union recognition because of unfair labor practices by the company.

The employes have reported intimidation by members of the Once the employers are ordered to cease unfair labor practices, it was reported that the Brewery Workers Union would recommend that the men return to work under improved conditions, permitting the men to have their union.

The company makes a high rate of profit but has kept down the wages of employes and practically ignored bad working conditions. It has been successful in this by playing upon the old Japanese custom of loyalty of its workers to employers. Where the company pays from $1 to $1.10 per hour to employes, other unionized breweries in Honolulu pay $1.50 and more, and provide workers with safety gear and work clothes, as in the case of cold storage workers.

 

[PAGE 2] [back to the top]

 

Japan Peace Treaty Called Menace To So. Pacific, Asia [print]

For weeks the big buildup in the press and over the radio centered on the Washington administration's anticipation of Soviet Russia's objections to the Japanese peace treaty provisions as drafted by the U. S. Speculation ran the full gamut and several weeks ago news reports put out feelers that Russian delegates would accept the treaty draft and pose no difficulties in the way of the U. S. campaign to have the agreement signed by all participating nations without changes. On the other extreme, U. S. officials publicly announced that the Soviet Union can take the treaty as drafted or be excluded from the conference.

When the Soviet government announced that it would send delegates to the San Francisco conference, high U. S. officials said that foreign delegates may come to sign the treaty but not to alter its provisions. And as the delegates began pouring into San Francisco, United Press reported that a tough set of procedural rules to gag opposition to the treaty would be pushed through by the U. S. and British delegates.

The draft treaty, prepared by John Foster Dulles, had been altered slightly not long ago when the Philippines and other countries strongly objected to the soft terms of non-reparations and provisions granting Japanese rearmament. Opposition still exists but to a large extent, it has been silenced by U. S. pressure and so many of the dependent nations are "going along" in order to be left in line to feed at the "Dollar Trough" which the administration fills by putting the squeeze on the American people in the form of higher taxes.

The Presiden'ts speech at San Francisco this week warned the Russian delegates to keep their hands off the Japanese treaty. This was clear indication that opposition, not only from the Soviet Union, but from any nation, will be blocked. In another speech addressing the Democrats, he spoke of the terrifying and fantastic weapons the U. S. possesses. This shaking of the big stick was reiterated in other ways when Truman addressed the peace conference delegates, saying that attempts to change the draft treaty would result in being branded as an advocate of war.

India, which wants the return of Formosa, Chiang Kai-shek's refuge, to China and inclusion of the Peking government in the UN, refused to attend the conference. The Peking government was not permitted to participate in the treaty conference by the U. S. England, which has diplomatically recognized New China, prevented the U. S. from inviting Chiang's government on Formosa. Of both these forces, the Chinese Communist-led forces fought the Japanese invaders and in doing so, grew from three divisions to a force of a million armed men, with the support of the people. And when the war ended, Chiang, whose government had frequently made deals with the Japanese occupiers of China, became gradually discredited and his government's corruption precipitated its downfall.

The Dulles-drafted peace treaty brings an uneasy tension in the Pacific. In order to safeguard their sovereignty and security, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand want a military alliance with the U. S. as protection against Japanese military resurgence. And the administration's line to these countries advocates a strong Japan to fight communism in Asia. But the monster to these nations, from past experience, is Japanese militarism, with which Dulles wants them to live in concert.

From Australia this week, former Foreign Minister H. V. Evatt spoke in clear and simple language, stripped of diplomatic doubletalk that "the overwhelming majority of Australians are convinced that the proposed Japanese peace treaty menaces the physical and economic safety of the South Pacific and Southeast Asia."

Mr. Evatt said also that his people are convinced that the treaty "openly and unashamedly deserts all standards of international justice for the fatal objective of temporary expediency.

"Now all the tragedies of the past apparently are to be reenacted. Agreements will be treated as scraps of paper. The products of low-standard labor conditions in Japan will be allowed to swamp countries with higher living standards. Japanese big businessmen and militarists will again be armed and will soon be on the march."

Most revealing of the role played by Dulles in pressuring the nations seeking dollar assistance to take the peace treaty provisions as prepared by the U. S. was nakedly pointed out by Evatt who was reported by UP dateline Canberra, Australia, Sept. 4, to have charged Dulles with not consulting a single Far Eastern expert while in Australia.

What all of Asia fears today is that the peace treaty drafted by Dulles would dress up Japan, and those being attired with war gear are the purged war criminals from higher to lower ranks. And once dressed up, these Japanese would like to go places, and in a militaristic atmosphere, they would look for aggression again, beyond the shores of the narrow islands now crowded with 80,000,000 people.

In Japan, the people oppose the conditions imposed by the U. S. After the signing of the treaty the U. S. would hold on to military bases. Already the U. S. has more air bases there than Japan had during the peak of its military might. And today, Japan is a "privileged sanctuary" for U. S. airmen, just as the press says Manchuria is a "privileged sanctuary" for the Chinese air force in the air battle over Korea.

Neutrality is a condition desired by war-weary Japanese. Last November, when newspaper polls and polls in factories were showing that the Japanese overwhelmingly opposed foreign military bases in Japan, Yoshishige Abe, president of the Peers' School and former minister of education, wrote in the Asahi Hyoron:

"We should not be ashamed of our inability to fight, but on the contrary, we should positively arouse the will not to fight. I am firmly convinced that Japan's freedom and independence cannot be found except through this course."

The mood of the hundreds of thousands of Japanese workers was reported in the Spotlight, publication of the Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy, thus:

"Shipyard workers at Nagasaki resisted for a time orders to repair transport ships for the Korean war. Four hundred members of the Mitsui Shipping Co. union gathered six times as many signatures to the Stockholm Pledge. Radar engineers of the Jindai branch of the Telecommunications Research Bureau refused to go to Korea. Despite the arrival of 2,000 police, Mitake plant workers of the Fuji Industrial Co. (formerly Nakajima Aircraft) resisted conversion to war production. Yokohama dockyard workers stamped the wrong addresses on finished goods destined for Korea."

Even John Foster Dulles, in order to placate fears of resurgent Japanese militarism among Australians and New Zealanders, used as his argument the mood for neutrality in Japan. He said: "In Japan, I received thousands of communications from individuals and organizations. All pleaded against rearmament."

What if the peace treaty is signed as is? Would it make possible the ramming of rearmament down the throats of the Japanese people? Would the military recruits, relied upon to do the fighting if war should break out, battle with the zeal with which they fought for the emperor? In the end, would they be better than Chiang's or Syngman Rhee's troops?

Or would the Japan of Hiroshima and Nagasaki assert the anti-war temperament and bring progress and peace in Asia? All this is tied up with developments in China and India, neither of which is represented at the signing of the treaty in San Francisco.

 

In Other News      [print]

French Legislators Vote Themselves Pay Boosts

Paris (ALN)—Members of the French national assembly have voted themselves another cost of living salary boost after having refused labor's demand for a system to guarantee the real wages of the workers.

After one increase in March, the legislators got their nose in the government feedbag again in August, coming out with an annual compensation of 11/2 million francs. The most highly skilled French workers earn less than a third of that sum in a year and the wage of the unskilled is about equal to the two raises the parliamentarians gave themselves this year.

Socialists, followers of Gen. Charles de Gaulle, Catholics and independents voted for the pay boost, which found only the Communist deputies in opposition.

Has Truman Doctrine Helped 15 Million Turks?

Ankara (ALN)—Fifteen million Turks are living in indescribable misery, the newspaper Kudret said here, reporting: "Not only in the most remote villages of the countryside, but also in big towns such as Ankara, Istanbul and elsewhere, starv-

ing masses of the Turkish people are living in slums."

Special camps for beggars have been established by the Turkish authorities on the outskirts of Istanbul to prevent them from "making the town look ugly," according to another newspaper, Aksham, which said large numbers of destitute children are also in the camps, sleeping on stones in the open air.

Less than 40 per cent of the able-bodied population has regular employment, according to another Turkish paper, Zafer. The number of unemployed workers rose by 32,000 in the first six months of this year, Aksham disclosed.

The death rate in Turkey is appalling as a result of hunger and lack of the most elementary medical care, but young Dr. Alstash, whose fate is typical of many of his colleagues, is forced to sell fruit in the Istanbul streets since he cannot find a job in his profession, Cumhuriyet, another newspaper, reported.

Meanwhile, the Turkish ministry of health announced recently that there will be no vacancies for doctors until 1954.

British Ask Insistence On Cease-Fire

London (ALN)—The British Peace Committee "called attention to the grave danger that failure to agree at the Kaesong negotiations may lead to an intensification of the Korean war and the spreading of the conflict throughout the Far East."

It urged "all lovers of peace to impress on the British government the universal demand for a new initiative to insure that these negotiations do not break down and that the conflict which is still destroying the people of Korea and the manpower of the countries fighting in Korea be brought to an end."

It recalled that Lord Jowitt in the House of Lords on July 31 expressed the government's belief that a truce line would be "obviously in the neighborhood of the 38th. parallel."

 

more communist jailed
More Communist Jailed--FBI arrests under the Smith Act include three district leaders of the communist party from Western Pennsylvania. Arraigned at Pittsburgh were (left to right): James Dolsen, a reporter for the Daily Worker; Andrew Onda and Benjamin Lowell Careathers. (Federated Pictures)

 

[PAGE 3] [back to the top]

 

"Back Door" Entry Offer To Negroes Hit In AFL Confab [print]

San Diego, Calif. (FP)—The issue of racial discrimination hit the convention of the floor of the California Federation of Labor when a Negro delegate charged the AFL body with permitting employment discrimination and intolerance.

He said not only is no Negro on a federation committee, but many union locals continue to bar Negroes from membership. When a resolution was offered requiring that one of the 24 state vice presidents of the federation be a Negro, it was defeated, with Negro delegates leading the opposition.

"We Negroes don't want to gain recognition this way," a delegate angrily declared. "We don't want to come in by the back door. We want to be elected on our merits." The convention called on AFL President William Green to coordinate opposition of AFL organizations in California, New Mexico, Texas and Arizona to the illegal entry of Mexican workers. It proposed laws to bar Mexican labor, even under contract, except where a definite labor shortage exists, and requiring that such labor be paid the same wage scale as American workers.

 

Letter In Washington Post Asks: "Are We Becoming a Police State?" [print]

Washington (FP)—The following letter appeared in the August 24 issue of the Washington Post:

"I raise the question: Are we becoming a police state?

"Last week I was near one 9f the capital's public libraries in company of the cultural attache of one of the foreign embassies here. A young (police) officer walked by; first he stopped by a man sitting on a bench, asked him for his identification, which he could not show (the man was in working clothes), accused, him of being drunk.

"The man protested and gave the name of his employer. The officer dragged him across the street to a phone and then forced him to sit down on the pavement. The phone call obviously resulted in the clearance of the man. Our 'enforcer' crossed toward the park surrounding the library. He started then to force all colored people to stand up, raise their hands and subjected them to a) search. He didn't net anything, but forbade them to sit down on the bench where they were and pushed them away.

"This display of power did not escape my attention or that of the diplomat. It reminded me of the days I spent under German occupation in Europe. The diplomat smiled and asked me if this was enforced democracy. I smiled and did not answer. As an American, I was embarrassed.

"I agree that there must be discipline and that the law must be enforced but through my work abroad and my years as a correspondent I have learned that too much of these methods leads the way to very unfortunate regimes. (Signed) H. R."

 

"Cherry" Takao Tells of Social Order Among Bosses On Hilltops of Lanai [print]

"You know they have discrimination there," says Mrs. Elizabeth "Cherry" Takao, just back from a visit to the Lanai strikers. "The bosses even discriminate against each other."

What Lanai workers pointed out to her was that the biggest bosses live on the tops of the hills, while the lesser bosses live down the sides according to their respective ranks and, of course, salaries.

"When you get down to the bottom," she says, "that's where the workers live. They have other kinds of discrimination. Each racial group has its place to swim. They don't have signs, but everyone knows just the same. Then, you heard about the swimming pool they're making? That's for haole kids."

Mrs. Takao and 10 members of her Local 152 orchestra from Honolulu visited the strikers last week to provide music for a pre-Labor Day program held Saturday night. Other members of the orchestra are from Hawaiian Pine, California Packing Co. and Libby's, all in Honolulu.

Can Hold a Year

They can hold out a year, said the strikers, who have already been out longer than any workers in Hawaiian history, if they continue to get support from their brothers on other islands.

"The brothers there have developed a way of living," Mrs. Takao said, "and it's so well organized you wouldn't know there's a strike on—it operates so smoothly."

Keystone of the success of the strikers' way of life, Mrs. Takao says, is cooperation. When the morale committee hears of a wife who's having a hard time, they assemble and go visit her to help her catch up and get ahead with her work.

Even the school children help with office work for the union, says Mrs. Takao, and wives take an active part in nearly everything that goes on. The women have been brought into action by the organization last month of the Lanai local of the ILWU Women's Auxiliary under the leadership of Mrs. Catalina Valdez of Kekaha, Kauai who also represented the Women's Auxiliary at the international convention on the Mainland.

Wives Strong In Strike

"Before," says Mrs. Takao, "husbands didn't tell their wives much of their union business, but now the wives insist on knowing."

It's all part of the realization that when the breadwinner of the family is on strike, the whole family is on strike with him.

Although Lanai air is heavy with the smell of rotting fruit, Mrs. Takao said the workers told her more than half the pineapple might still be saved if the company were to settle the strike this week.

"They say it's the best crop in years," Mrs. Takao reports, "and to think the company is letting it rot instead of settling the strike."

Police Watched Cadagan

Among organized duty groups set up by the strikers, says Mrs. Takao, are teams of men and women who prepare meals and do kitchen work, and there are the union police. When C. C. Cadagan, Hawaiian Pine vice president, took a short vacation on Lanai recently, the union police kept him in sight all the time.

"He asked why they were following him," Mrs. Takao says "and one told him, "The brothers told me not to let you out of my sight.'" A huge crowd turned out Saturday night for the program, she said, and she was surprised to find that everyone present was a union member or from a union family. In addition to the music, the members heard speeches by ILWU officials Koichi Imori and Shiro Hokama.

As an agreement on a sugar contract was arrived at by union and management negotiators last weekend, President Tony Rania of Local 142 immediately announced that union food stores, piled up for the possible emergency of a strike if terms were not met, will be turned over to the Lanai strikers.

President Rania said also that, with sugar settled all possible support will be thrown behind the men and women on Lanai who have been striking against Hawaiian Pine for almost six months.

 

Sugar Contract Seen As "New Suit"; Includes Wage, Social, Union Gains [print]

What ILWU spokesmen termed "the best agreement ever negotiated in the Territory" for sugar workers, was signed Sunday in Honolulu after union and employer negotiators had come to terms in Hilo late Saturday.

The agreement gave 18,000 workers benefits totalling 13 cents an hour and providing so many improved changes in procedure that a union spokesman called it a "new suit of clothes," and not "an old suit patched up."

Improvements outside the wage increase included:

• Reduced requirement for evidence the union presents before an arbitrator. Formerly, the union had to have a "preponderance" or 51 per cent of the evidence. Now only a prima facie case is required of the union and the company is expected to present evidence.

• Three paid holidays, Labor Day, Christmas and New Years, with time and a half to be paid on other holidays.

• Work opportunity to be given a "regular work force," comprising employes with more than a year of service in preference to part-time or temporary employes.

• Overtime to be paid after 40 hours a week except for 26 weeks when overtime is to be paid aftter 48 hours. Establishment of a 40-hour week and a Saturday-Sunday weekend was seen by some union men as the most important social gain of the agreement.

• Additional union security in the form of stronger union recognition and increased dues deduction.

• Supervisors to be stopped from performing work which has generally been the province of unclassified workers.

• Two weeks' paid vacation for employes with more than two years' service. One week paid vacation during the first year, based on a 44-hour week.

• Seniority to be the governing factor in layoffs and downgrading.

In the wage agreement the "escalator clause," tieing increases to the market price of sugar, was retained from the former contract. The job classification system at the present price-wage schedule, brings the wage minimum to $1.011/2 an hour, with the top classified workers getting $1.69. The five "high-cost" plantations on the Big Island received special consideration in the contract, four of them being allowed to take a five per cent across-the-board wage cut if the price of sugar drops below $117 per ton. But the cut includes everyone from the manager down.

These four—Hilo Sugar Plantation Co., Onomea Sugar Co., Pepeekeo Sugar Co. and Hakalau Sugar Co.—pay the same wage as that negotiated by the rest of the companies when the price of raw sugar is $124.01 per ton. From $124 down to $122.01 the basic wage rate is 95% cents, and from there down to $117.01, the rate is 91 cents. The "high-cost" plantations win pay overtime above 48 hours for 44 weeks of the year and above 40 hours for the remainder.

Olaa Sugar Co. will pay the wages negotiated by the majority of the companies, but is also allowed the lower overtime pay schedule.

 

Colgate Workers Honor Salesmen's Picket Line [print]

Clarksville, Ind. (FP) — About 1,100 employes of Colgate-Palmolive-Peet Co.'s Clarksville plant stayed away from their jobs August 27, honoring a picket line set up by four striking salesmen from New Jersey.

Almost no one but maintenance and protection workers entered the plant, and production at the southern Indiana soap factory was halted.

The New Jersey strikers are company salesmen, members of Local 153, Office Employes International Union (AFL). The local is on strike at the Jersey City plant.

Flying Pickets

No workers at the Clarksville plant are a part of the strike, as no salesmen work out of this office and there are no members of the office workers union at the plant. Production Workers here belong to the Chemical Workers International Union (AFL).

The four pickets from New Jersey arrived by plane over the weekend and set up their picket line before the arrival of first-shift workers over Monday morning, August 27.

Spokesmen for the chemical workers said their union held no meetings to discuss the picketing or to adopt policy. They said they were leaving it up to each individual worker to decide whether to cross the picket line. Practically none of them did. Strike Issues

AFL truck drivers refused to deliver shipments and a few AFL building tradesmen, performing repair work at the plant, refused to cross the line.

The strikers said 41 salesmen are on strike at the New Jersey factory, where 2,500 other employes are honoring their picket lines. Strike issues are bonuses, union security, seniority benefits and improved working hours, they said.

 

Good Times Gone      [print]

New York (FP)—Prosperity has disappeared around the corner for thousands of textile workers, the Textile Workers Union (CIO) reported here.

 

Preparation -- Language Bosses Understood      [print]

sugar negotiations
Successful conclusion of the sugar negotiations, with terms of agreement still to be voted on by the rank and file, came about because of employer respect for union solidarity and strike preparations made as precaution if the workers were forced to take such action by the Big Five. The above photo shows Mobilization Strategy Committee members of ILWU Local 142, Unit 23, Lihue, during a meeting to set up the strike strategy program. The executive board members, seated left to right, are P. Contrades, M. Morita, G. Gallardo, F. Silva, J. Nogani, A Miyia, C. Sasaki, hidden behind Miyia, J. Bernal and J. Matsuyama. Standing, left to right, are H. Nakamoto, H. Ibe, S. Sumida, M. Nishioka, M. Arinaga, T. C. Manipon and Y. Morimoto. Not in picture are W. Paia and Frank G. Perriera.—Photo by J. B. (Jerry) Smith

 

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Gadabout      [print]

One police officer, according to the grapevine, changed his mind about rough stuff, at least temporarily, a couple of weeks ago. It was in Waikiki where the officer is supposed to have slapped one young man around in an unofficial manner, which inspired bystanders to make uncomplimentary remarks. To silence his opposition, the story goes, the cop assumed a threatening attitude toward one of the men-about-town nearby but the reaction was not what he expected.

"All right," said the young man. "Go ahead and take a punch if you think you're tough."

The young man is not at all husky. On the contrary, he looks a little fragile, but the cop made no further move. Probable reason: the young man is closely related to one of the town's most important politicians.

* *

The incorrigible unit at Oahu Prison, recently taken out of use, had been used about 16 years for the purpose of housing the prison's hard cases, and was always called the "new unit" by prisoners. Its elimination is seen as a definite step forward in penology here.

* *

Hawaii Meat Co. truck bearing license 56-883 was last Friday the vehicle of the old unsanitary practices exposed by the RECORD months ago as its workers unloaded at a King St. market. The meat was hauled over the uncovered tailgate upon which the truckers would have to stand as they got at the rear half of the load. The Department of Health says it has 20 inspectors around town looking for infractions like that.

* *

H. M. Armstrong, manager of the Benson-Smith stores here, reacted to a recent Gadabout item as if it were an electric signal. The item, which inspired a number of B-S employes to congratulate the RECORD, reported the dissatisfaction of both store managers and employes with the manner in which personnel policies are being carried out. Armstrong introduced the. item at a meeting of the managers, it is reported, read it and then did his best to find out who gave it to the RECORD. He invited any who don't like the policies to find employment elsewhere, report has it.

* *

Big news in San Francisco's Chinatown these days is the murder of a man who had just won a lottery, the prize being from $25,000 to $35,000. The victim's throat was cut from ear to ear only a little while after his winnings were delivered to him, and the money vanished, of course. Police haven't decided, according to late correspondence, whether or not it was an "inside job."

* *

"Never be a yardman, or do any kind of work like that for the haoles," a Japanese mother told her son, whom we interviewed last week. The woman had been a housemaid for more than a dozen years for a haole known as a very religious man. The family insisted she come early to work and stay late when necessary, and to do plenty of extra work without pay when parties were being given.

"But they wouldn't even let her eat the food that was left over," said the son. "I think they'd rather give it to the dog than to her."

When she finally quit, the mother was getting $12.50 a week, but the family always kept it coming a week behind.

Which reminds us that less than 15 years ago, $2.50 a week was better than average for housemaids (haole) in West Virginia, for which the maids "lived in" and got one-half day off out of seven.

* *

When negro women, working as housemaids in the south during the war began asking as much as a dollar a day, the indignant white women who hired them began blaming Mrs. Roosevelt. They manufactured tales that would have exercised the imagination of the Nazi propagandists about how the Negro women had formed "Eleanor Clubs" whose chief object was the confounding and frustration of their white employers. Silly as such stories were, many of the white employers pretended to believe them.

* *

When Gov. Long asked one Democrat, at a get-together at Washington Place recently, what he thought was the best move toward uniting the party, he got the answer that his own appointments are the only measure by which party sub-chieftains can estimate his feeling toward them. He should keep unity in mind, the governor was told, while considering men for positions.

* *

More than 200 marchers from both the ILWU and AFL parades danced Labor Day afternoon at a vivacious entertainment given at The Party House, 1870 Kalakaua Ave., by the United Public Workers of America. Music was by Johnny Almeida and his orchestra and hula dances were performed both by entertainers and guest artists from the crowd.

* *

Clayton Moe's appointment to be first assistant to C-C Engineer Karl Sinclair, is the subject of considerable corridor speculation in City Hall. It is rumored that Moe couldn't qualify for the P-6 rating he got along with the job rising from the P-5 he enjoyed in the division of sewers. It's a question to be asked of D. Ransom Sherretz, civil service personnel director.

* *

Edward Pea would be the logical man to succeed Frank Shaner, formerly assistant to Roy McBean in the division of automotive equipment. Pea ranked next to Shaner, who died in a fishing mishap recently. But there is talk that someone else may be slated for the job.

* *

"Goodbye, My Fancy," currently playing in cinema houses here, is something more than the light comedy the dailies make it out to be. It's about the attack on academic freedom in these times of hysteria. A physics professor is suspect, it seems, because he talks to his students on current events and affairs other than the purely material aspects of his subject. There's comic relief, all right, but there's more to ft than that. We recommend it as a diversion from the horse-operas which are general Saturday night fare.

* *

Local 999 of the Teamsters' Union (AFL) was back in full strength in the AFL parade, indicating a complete survival from the split of more than a year ago when Henry Gonsalves tried to take the local over. Gonsalves is presently reported in the business of making and marketing lamp shades.

* *

The Commercial Club, often alleged to be a spot where card games go unmolested by police action, moved into the fifth floor of of McCandless Building and gave itself space to accommodate more members than ever before.

 

Remington Conviction Reversed      [print]

Subversive List Blasted As 'Purely Hearsay Declaration'; 'No Competency'

New York (FP)—The U. S. Court of Appeals August 22 unanimously reversed the perjury conviction of former government economist William Remington, and lashed out at Attorney General J. Howard McGrath's "subversive" list as a "purely hearsay declaration."

In a decision written by Chief Judge Thomas Swan and concurred in by Judges Learned and Augustus Hand, the court returned the ease to the district court for retrial. Former Commerce Dept. Employe Remington, one-time employe of the Commerce Department, was sentenced to five years in prison by Judge Gregory Noonan after his conviction on a charge of falsely denying membership in the Communist party at a grand jury hearing.

The reversal upheld the defense argument that Noonan's charge to the jury defining what constitutes membership in the Communist party was too "vague and indefinite."

The judges held that Remington "never learned until the filing of the government's brief on appeal just what overt acts the prosecution contended proved his membership in the party. Prosecution's Behavior Criticized They were sharply critical of Prosecutor Irving Saypol's behavior in the courtroom and his frequent references to the attorney general's list of so-called subversive organizations.

"The list is a purely hearsay declaration by the attorney general," Swan's 12-page opinion said, "and could have no probative value in the trial of this defendant. It has no competency to prove the subversive character of the listed associations, and. failing that, it could have no conceivable tendency to prove the defendant's alleged perjury even if it were shown that he belonged to some or all of the organizations listed."

Saypol was criticized for harping on the fact that one witness, had changed his name for professional reasons from Bernard Rosenberg to Bernard Redmont. This, the court said, "could only serve to arouse possible racial prejudice on the part of the jury."

 

Maui Notes      [print]

The Hawaii Government Employees' Association on Maui has been losing members steadily for some time, it is reliably reported, and that loss has inspired HGEA officers to try taking strong steps. One of these, of course, was the hiring of David Trask, Jr., to lead organizing on the Valley Island.

Observers in a position to know say HGEA membership dropped from a figure close to 700 to no more than 250.

* *

Maui Democrats have generally acted less hysterically about red-baiting than their party colleagues on Oahu.

"We have anti-labor elements," said one of them, "but those are smart enough to know that if labor walks out of the party, there won't foe very much left."

It's a lesson a number of Oahu elements have still to learn—unless, of course, they're inspired by motives rising from the GOP.

* *

Chairman Eddie Tam has been subjected to criticism in the past by labor from time to time, and rightly so. But Chairman Tarn was never one to be stampeded by hysteria and there are militant union men who don't forget that kind of calmness when election time conies.

* *

Supervisor John Bulgo (D) said that Harold Rice tried his best to dump him (Bulgo) and even went as far as to make a bet with Al Burdick that Bulgo would not win the last election.

Miss Jane Ichiyasu of Lahaina Meisho YBA, won the Territorial oratorical contest held at. the Puunene Meisho hall on September 1. Jane recently celebrated her 16th birthday. She is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Tsuyoshi Ichiyasu, the eldest of five children. Others are Janet, Joyce, Jessie and Erwin. Jane is a junior at Lahainaluna high school and her ambition is to become a school teacher.

* *

Supervisor John Bulgo told the RECORD: "The waterworks board goes and hires an engineer who doesn't know a damn thing about water. Then they go and lay pipe wherever a new subdivision is opened without first developing the sources of water supply."

Bulgo asked Chairman Eddie Tam and County Engineer Hamada if there will be enough pressure to go up to the fourth story of the new Central Memorial Hospital and, according to Bulgo, Tam, and Hamada couldn't answer.

 

MC&S Hits McGrath On Arrest of Seven And Attack On Metzger [print]

San Francisco —The Marine Cooks and Stewards Union membership in San Francisco voted unanimously Aug. 30 to condemn J. Howard McGrath's attack on Judge Metzger for his refusal to set excessive bail on ILWU Regional Director Jack Hall, and others arrested under the Smith Act:

"The administration you represent is now openly attempting to eliminate all justice, jail any labor leader and oust any judge standing in the way of the government drive to destroy every labor organization that protects its members and refuses to be subservient to the employers and the Truman administration," the wire to McGrath charged.

The wire to the ILWU sugar workers signed by MCS President Hugh Bryson, stated: "MCS membership outraged by arrest of Jack Hall and attempts of government to persecute the judge , who set bail." Sent prior to the sugar negotiations agreement, MCS pledged full support to the Territory's sugar workers.

President W. H. Ruffin of the National Association of Manufacturers told a businessmen's dinner June 6 that nearly $5 billion could be cut from the "non-defense budget with nothing but good resulting."

The Australian ballot was first adopted in the United States by Massachusetts in 1888. It was first proposed in Australia itself in 1851.

 

Your Shrinking Dollar      [print]

your shrinking dollar graph
Purchasing power of the dollar has been cut almost in half since prewar, this chart shows. It was prepared by Labor's Monthly Survey on basis of government figrues. (Fed. Pic.)
[See what your dollar is worth now. Scroll down and click on inflation calculator]
inflation calculator

 

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Finance Committee Does Flip-Flop on Fire and Police Gradings [print]

By Staff Writer

Substantial pay increases for members of the fire and police departments are being delayed by City Hall red tape, according to this writer's observation, and it would seem that the origin of this particular kind of red tape is attributable to individual jockeying for position on the board of supervisors.

Vehicle for the increases would have been the $3,338 appropriation asked by the civil service commission for the work of classifying positions in the two departments. Without the classification, governmental experts say, the firemen and policemen cannot receive the substantial increases voted them by the legislature during its last session.

The finance committee, after reporting the appropriation out favorably August 14, met opposition headed by Noble Kauhane when the supervisor said he thought the work might be done by the wage standardization board, when that board begins to function on a Territory-wide basis.

Long Wait Seen

But those who sought the appropriation have pointed out that such action may be far in the future and that police and fire departments on three outside islands have already been classified.

The work would have been done here, civil service spokesmen told the board, had not Albert Lee, personnel expert of the commission here, been called up for military service. The work appropriation became necessary and the job was advertised. Only one application was received—that from Research Associates.

Mr. Kauhane's opposition was enough to scare the appropriation back into the finance committee again, and the next time, August 28, they reported it out recommending rejection — thus reversing their previous stand. Proponents of the plan to have the work done outside say the amount asked, $3,338, would amount to little more than six months' salary which would normally be paid Mr. Lee who drew $548 per month. The job of classifying the two departments, comprising 886 positions, would take Lee six months or more, it is estimated.

Two who voiced strenuous support for the appropriation were James Trask, dissenting member of the finance committee, and Mayor John H. Wilson.

"How," asked the mayor, "can you expect to get the work done if you won't pay for it?"

Supervisor Teves, who has often opposed what he calls the interference of supervisors in the administration of departments, is in the position of having to explain his flip-flop.

In the meantime, firemen and policemen must wait.

 

Floats With Message At Wahiawa Parade; Carabao featured By Kahuku [print]

Waialua sugar unit
Waialua Sugar Unit float told the story of increasing productivity, higher profits for employers and fewer employes in the sugar industry.

The pineapples and sugar which the workers produce, the plow and the black carabao (water buffalo) which is a symbol of the toiling peasants of the Philippines and a graphic illustration of the diminishing job security of workers in Hawaii's basic sugar industry— all on floats—added color and interest to the Labor Day parade at Wahiawa.

The white ship float of Unit 18, United Sugar Workers, Waialua, exposed the conditions in the sugar industry, showing mounting employer profits, reduction of work force but increase in productivity, a condition warning the workers of the need for a stronger union to struggle for job security.

Productivity Up, Man Hours Down

Figures printed on the white ship said man hours on the sugar plantations dropped by 10 million between 1947 and 1950, thus:

1947 ........................ 50,545,000

1948......................... 46,178,000

1949 ........................ 43,503,000

1950 ........................ 40,557,000

The number of employes dropped 3,403, thus:

1947 .............................. 22,743

1948 .............................. 21,381

1949 .............................. 20,258

1950 .............................. 19,340

Productivity "zoomed up by 111/4 tons per employe," thus:

1947 ...................... 38.35 tons

1948 ..................... 39.06 tons

1949 ...................... 47.19 tons

1950 ..................... 49.69 tons

Total industry payroll went down $7,000,000.

The writing on the float said: "HSPA (Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association) figures for past 4 years prove sugar workers deserve more pay."

Carabao Is Symbol

Unit 17, United Sugar Workers, Kahuku, symbolized the struggles of the thousands of Filipino workers in their native homeland and advances made here under their union organization by the simple figure of a black carabao and a wooden plow.

Filipinas in colorful native costumes sang and danced on the float.

Units 4, 5 and 6, ILWU Pineapple Workers Union, introduced a float decorated with sugar stalks and "pineapple fruit, emphasizing the consolidation of Locals ,142 (sugar) and 152 (pineapple).

The longshoremen had a float and a large banner, Waipio pineapple workers introduced a float and so did the Waipahu sugar workers. The Kahuku and Waialua workers had two floats each in the parade, bringing the total, number of floats to eight.

 

Hogs Weigh 158 Lbs. At 4 Months, 2 Weeks; Big Surprise to Farmers [print]

"A surprise even to many hog raisers," said a farmer last week as he heard of a litter of seven Durocs that averaged 158 pounds at four months and two weeks.

The thoroughbred Durocs owned by Harold Lloyd and Daniel Chock are at their farm located at 701 Wawamalu St., Koko Head district.

"We feed them grain, all dry feed and no slop," said Lloyd. "The pigs eat about four pounds a day and they put on weight at an unbelievable rate. In five months or so they are ready for market."

Local garbage fed hogs are generally ready for market in about 8 to 10 months.

The partners Chock and Lloyd, who are raising thoroughbreds for breeding purposes, brought in the original stock from the Mainland last year.

Recently the Choak-Lloyd hog farm imported thoroughbred Tamworths, which will be crossed with the Durocs. The partners say they have been getting orders for breeding stock from schools and individual farmers.

 

Advertiser Snubs ILWU      [print]

The Advertiser, editing the news to suit its views, gave the AFL Labor Day parade frontpage coverage, but didn't devote so much as an item to the ILWU parade at Wahiawa.

Instead, the 'Tiser ran a paragraph in its AFL story reporting that the Territory's "other large labor union," the ILWU, staged its parade at Wahiawa and its Secretary-Treasurer Louis Goldblatt, was the principal speaker.

"Other" is good! The ILWU comprises all organized plantation labor for the sugar and pineapple industries as well as the longshore and miscellaneous urban industries.

It's almost like when the 'Tiser used to omit pictures of Orientals from the front page of its Sunday society section a year or so ago.

 

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Student Organization Raps "McCarthyism" As Campus Menace [print]

Minneapolis (FP)—The techniques of "McCarthyism" were denounced as a menace to American colleges in a resolution adopted by the U. S. National Student Association here, representing 600,000 college students.

Adopted by a vote of 220 to 43 after prolonged debate, the resolution charged that "there is a contraction of freedom on the American college campus, due to the present fear of being called 'Communist' or 'subversive.'"

The resolution was introduced by the delegation from Wisconsin, home state of Sen. Joseph B. McCarthy (R), whose name has become associated with the smear technique.

 

Cockfights National Sport In Puerto Rico; Run By Parks-Recreation Dept. [print]

Special Correspondence

San Juan, Puerto Rico—Cock-fighting, considered a national sport in Puerto Rico, was introduced from Spain in the 16th century. It was outlawed for a period following the Spanish-American War, but some 10 years ago the ban was lifted and the sport is now carried on under strict regulations by the government's department of parks and recreation.

Fine for Illegal Cockfight

Upon building a cockpit the owner pays a construction fee of $100 and annual license fees ranging from $150 to $400, depending upon location. The judges and officials are appointed by the commission and infringements of rules governing the sport carry heavy fines. An unregistered or illegal cockfight carries a fine of $500. Receipts of the commission go into the general fund for improving recreation facilities.

Cockfighting is usually conducted on Sundays, and as many as 20 matches may occur in one day. The spectators are seated in circular galleries and often "betting runs high. Two dollars is the minimum bet which may be made and the bets run into thousands. Fighting birds last as long as 10 fights, but are usually so crippled after that they must be withdrawn.

Best Birds From Spain

Fighting birds are being bred in Puerto Rico, but the best ones come from Spain, and cost from $25 to $100. Good birds are retired for breeding purposes, and may bring as much as $1,000.

A cockfight may legally run for 40 minutes, but hot bouts take much less time. The better fights are usually over in from eight to ten minutes. Birds must be of the same weight and the steel spurs with which they are equipped must be of the same length.

 

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Rutledge Didn't Speak      [print]

A. A. Rutledge, head of Unity House, which comprised considerably more than half the marchers in the AFL Labor Day Parade, failed to appear when A. S. Reile, master of ceremonies called his name at the end of the program.

Reile told the crowd that he was "put out" by Rutledge's non-appearance and that the "Teamsters ordered him to speak and when the Teamsters order the general usually obeys."

For a number of years there has been some disagreement between the two AFL factions over the Labor Day program, and Rutledge has expressed disapproval over the policy of inviting "name speakers" who do little to help labor between holidays and who, he feels, merely add to a false prestige by appearing.

Both Rutledge and many of the Teamsters have expressed dissatisfaction with what they believe is an effort to use Rutledge to hold the crowd by having him last on the program It was the second straight year the Teamsters' agent did not speak

Unity House comprises the teamsters, dairy workers, hotel and restaurant employes and the independent transit workers.

 

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The War-Scare Racket      [print]

The new world alliance with resurgent militarist Germany and Japan as close and full allies of the U. S. will undoubtedly cost the American taxpayers billions of dollars. There was a time only a few short years ago when the same propaganda whipped up by reports of "unidentified submarines" near our shores or of flying disks was enough to raise a scare for putting the bite on Congress for military appropriations.

With appropriations now running into $60,000,000,000, the imaginary submarine stunt is not enough to maintain a high war fever. Thus we find General Ridgway getting tough in Korea, ordering the bombing of Rashin, only 17 miles from the Soviet border, at the time Congress is debating military appropriations. And high State Department officials bluntly say that they took the chance that the Soviet Union might be provoked.

This country is driving hard on the road to war. Everyone knows that to speak of peace makes the speaker suspect, for in the prevailing hysteria and near-insanity, the administration says flatly that only the Communists and their sympathizers want peace to let the guards down of the "freedom-loving" nations.

And all the while the war mobilization which postponed a recession and growing unemployment two years ago is given booster shot after booster shot by Congress in the form of appropriations. The greatest fear of the leaders of this country is genuine peace. It is a national phenomenon that war mongering is accepted as a patriotic contribution.

The Magazine of Wall Street said May 5 that "were it not for the new defense program, today would doubtless find us in some sort of recession . . . Any de-, crease in the rate of arms spending, and even more so, a decline in such spending could create serious problems of overcapacity."

In order to postpone depression the economic rulers of this country, with the administration it controls, planned a war economy. But even this poses difficulties, for today, because there is no big general war to consume the weapons produced, the hectic search for warehouses is underway.

Now that the country is geared for war, there is very little talk of Marshall Plan civilian aid. And because the dependent nations, from Britain to Luxembourg, all beg for dollar assistance, they too, must arm and keep arming for war. If there is no war, then the end result would also be a bust.

The big industrialists in this country are thinking in terms of generations of armament, or at least they say so. This is preposterous and the people, taxed and abused year after year, would rebel.

This is why we have the present campaign to silence people, the kicking of the First Amendment in the teeth and the upholding of the Smith Act to jail Communists, alleged Communists, then fellow-travellers and finally, all critics of government.

Although we have gone far on the road to militarization, we still can turn back and build homes, schools, peacetime industries with goods made available to all.

We would then win friends throughout the world. We do not need to shake the big stick of the A- and H-bombs. In Korea, the refugees who have sought allied lines did not pay tribute to democracy but they did pay tribute to the rain of high explosives and jellied gasoline.

Abroad, people fear the Americans who would destroy a whole village from the air to get a single sniper. At home, fear stalks the land as more and more people are arrested. The double-barrelled propaganda of the war scare and the red hunt must be stopped by an awakened people. The nation must be brought to its senses and its face turned to the future of peace and prosperity for all here at home, and friendship abroad.

 

Frank-ly Speaking      [print]

By Frank Marshall Davis

Dicatorship of the Mind

Last week's column, titled "What Is Loyalty?" in which the question of safe and disloyal ideas was discussed, was written before the seven local arrests. This new development therefore makes it possible to raise the issue of thought control on a concrete local basis.

The tempest around Judge Delbert Metzger's decision to reduce bail and an editorial in last Friday's Star-Bulletin, show with amazing clearness, how far we have gone down the road to dictatorship of the mind.

Our system of government provides for separation of the executive, the judicial and the law-making branches. This is supposed to provide checks and balances, to keep one from complete domination over the others. But it looks now as if this basic concept is being tossed out of the window, along with the First and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution.

Thought Control Now Covers the Courts

Judge Metzger has served two terms. From all I can gather, he has an enviable record for strict adherence to the spirit and the letter of the Constitution. He evidently believes wholeheartedly in an independent judiciary. In his decisions, he has been guided by his conscience and the finest traditions of American jurisprudence. In the past, that is all we have asked of a judge.

But today, it is different. When Judge Metzger refused to bow to the dictates of the executive branch of government in the setting of ridiculously large bail in the case of the seven accused of violating the Smith Act, powerful members of the law-making branch of government and the White House announced he would be purged.

What this means it that thought control now covers the courts. Those judges who believe in an independent judiciary are to be intimidated and liquidated, when possible, if they refuse to bow to the dictates of Congress and the White House. Instead of preserving the Constitution, they are to subvert it to the convenience of Washington. No matter what the Eighth Amendment says about excessive bail, they are to ignore the Constitution and set excessive bail if Washington so orders.

Some Will Not Succumb To Prevailing Hysteria

But it is comforting to know that there are some men of such high principles and sound belief in democracy and the Constitution that they will not succumb to the prevailing hysteria. Judge Metzger is one of these Supreme Court Justices Black and Douglas are two others who stand as beacons in the deepening gloom.

By no stretch of the imagination can they be called Communists or fellow-travellers. Instead, they are sufficiently far-sighted and level-headed enough to know that the official pattern of anti-Communist action threatens the traditional rights of all Americans.

For once we accept the principle that one group may be outlawed and jailed for holding unpopular beliefs, what is there to prevent this from happening to any other minority group if it pleases those in power?

I think that coming generations—if the world survives the threat of atomic annihilation—will look upon the Supreme Court decision in the Smith Act in much the same way that we now glance back at the infamous Dred Scott decision of nearly 100 years ago.

Swallow Race Bias, Says Star-Bulletin

It was on March 6, 1857, that Chief Justice Roger B. Taney handed down a majority decision holding, in effect, that "a Negro has no rights which a white man is bound to respect" and stating that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were not for Negroes.

As in the recent Smith Act decision, there were two dissenting justices. History has proved the majority of seven wrong in the Dred Scott case and the two dissenters right; I believe that history will prove Chief Justice Vinson and the majority of six wrong when they stated, in effect, that "a Communist has no rights which others are bound to respect" and indicated that the Declaration and the Constitution are not for them.

Coming now to the Star-Bulletin lead editorial of Friday, August 31, the final paragraph stated, among other things, that any time you find a man or a newspaper trying to "overplay alleged 'race discrimination' . . . beware!"

To me, the meaning is obvious. In the drive for bigger and better thought control, the afternoon daily would have the victims soft pedal or swallow race discrimination without protest, under the threat of being called "Communists." If I or any other victim of jim crow object to such treatment, or if a newspaper exposes and opposes such undemocratic conduct, then those who refuse to conform to white supremacy are to be termed "disloyal" and "subversive."

As a matter of fact, race discrimination cannot be overplayed. After all, it has no business existing in a democracy. It must be completely eliminated, and the only way to get rid of it is to expose it and fight it. To those who have never been hurt by the white supremacists, race discrimination may not be real and can be viewed only as alleged, but to the families of the Martinsville Seven and of Willie McGhee, or to that air force veteran in Cicero, Ill., or to those who are barred from public places in Honolulu solely because of color, it is a cruel fact. And no amount of name-calling or thought control will keep us from fighting against it until it is completely destroyed.

 

Looking Backward      [print]

Attorney Thompson's Conspiracy I.

Attorney Frank Edward Thompson (1875-1944) was a "respected" citizen of Honolulu. He had practiced here since 1900, in partnership with other successful lawyers, and stood near the top of his profession, being attorney for the Matson Navigation Co. He had been chairman of the Community Chest Fund, president of the Bar Association, Exalted Ruler of the Elks.

It is true that Pablo Manlapit had accused him of offering Manlapit a bribe to pull his Filipino followers out of the 1920 sugar strike, but then Thompson had in return, accused Manlapit of soliciting a bribe for the same purpose.

Go Back "Where He Came From"

Max Weisbarth was a tough and rugged seaman. He was not the sort of person a respectable man like Mr. Thompson would like to see living in Honolulu, especially as Mr. Weisbarth was also a very militant member of the Sailors Union of the Pacific. As such, he was sent, in company with Charles W. Post of the Marine Firemen, to reopen the union hiring hall, closed for many years, and begin organization on Honolulu's waterfront.

This was in August 1935, a date which may be taken as the starting point for Hawaii's modern labor history.

The day Mr. Weisbarth arrived, he received a message at his hotel to the effect that "he would be dumped out at sea if he didn't go back where he came from." Weisbarth, being a native Hawaiian, felt he had already gone "back where he came from."

Seamen's Institute Manager Implicated

On August 20, three men appeared in district court, charged with plotting to beat up Weisbarth and Post. Two of them, young waterfront toughs named Thomas H. Blaisdell and Nicholas Akana, had been arrested after severely beating a 60-year-old seaman, Karl W. Olsson. His beating, they confessed to police, was an error; they had been promised $150 for beating Weisbarth and Post instead—and the man who had promised them the $150 was Garnett M. Burum, manager of the Seamen's Institute.

The Seamen's Institute is an institution, now some 115 years old, where seamen "on the beach" can live cheaply until they are able to ship out of Honolulu. It is supported in part by funds from the Honolulu Community Chest. It is run by a board composed chiefly of businessmen; the chairman in those days was George H. Angus, vice president of Theo. H. Davies, Ltd., Shriner, Legionnaire, ex-president of Oahu Country Club.

In court, the two goons refused to verify their confessions, on grounds of self-incrimination. The case was dismissed for lack of evidence, only to be brought up again in circuit court on October 18. This time the two roughnecks got suspended sentences of 13 months. Mr. Burum did not appear in court; his lawyer, Fred Patterson, made a merely formal argument for him, and he was fined $200.

Davies Boss Sticks Up for Burum

Union seamen thereupon boycotted the Seamen's Institute and The Voice of Labor demanded to know why the public's money should be allotted to an institution whose manager took part in such conspiracies. When Mr. Burum professed an interest in organized labor and spoke of running for the legislature on a labor platform, the Voice gave him a loud raspberry.

Mr. Angus and the rest of the Institute's board, however, kept Burum at his post. They thought he had been "framed," said Angus.

A few months later, on January 23, 1936, when the janitor opened the doors of the union hiring hall on Maunakea St., he found seven stick of dynamite, complete with cap and fuse, tied together with friction tape, a few inches from the door. It was never discovered who had left the dynamite there.

Organization continued on the Honolulu waterfront. The stevedoring companies used policemen as labor spies, intimidated and fired union ' men. The ILWU appealed to the National.Labor Relations Board, and in a hearing before trial examiner George O. Pratt, the whole background of anti-union activities by Honolulu employers was dragged into the light. Included in the hearing was the alleged Burum-Blaisdell-Akana conspiracy. (To Be Continued)