T H. Davies Firings Boomerang      [print]

First White-Collar Workers In Big Five Firms Vote Union

Office workers at Theo. H. Davies & Co., Ltd., reacted strongly to the firm's recent layoff of 25-year men by voting 46-22 for union representation Wednesday.

This election, for the first time in Hawaiian history, cracked the Big Five's well-shielded white-collar workers for unionization.

Company Shocks Employes

Arthur Rutledge, president of the Joint Council of Teamsters, Local 79 (AFL), which won representation, said Davies' last-minute propaganda boomeranged, shocking those who were neutral and making those wanting union representation more firm in their beliefs.

A company bulletin distributed, among employes over the name of the firm's secretary, C. H. Holt, urged the workers, "DON'T FAIL TO VOTE!"

Sixty-nine out of a possible 70 votes were cast under NLRB supervision. One vote was challenged and the final count showed a 2-1 victory for the union.

"Evidently the white-collar workers listened to the company about voting but not about other things," said a union spokesman.

Office workers of all departments at Davies took part in the election with the exception of the insurance department.

Followed Layoff of Five

The election came on the heels of Davies' recent layoffs of one 31-year man, one 27-year man, two 24-year men and one 10-year man for economy reasons. Two had received gold watches for long service to the company and the two 24-year men were about to qualify for the 25-year watch. All were office workers.

Davies employed new office workers in their places at lower wages and circulated a bulletin to employes to explain about its hard times.

While all five were of Japanese ancestry, white-collar workers of all ancestries became disturbed over the farce made of job security by the old and established firm.

The day before the election, the company in its final effort to put some doubts about unionism in the employes' minds, wrote in the bulletin:

"We suggest you weigh the advantages and disadvantages of being represented by the Teamsters. Get all the facts; find out what it will cost you in dues and possible extra assessments; find out exactly what the union can do for you and what it can't do for you; decide whether you want the Teamsters to do your talking for you or not." The company propaganda concluded: "The only thing that will keep our jobs secure in these competitive times is a company that is strong and economically successful—job security can only come through having a growing, prosperous, stable company for which to work."

Company Fosters Competition

Davies' white-collar workers discovered recently when the five were laid off, after sticking with the company "through thick and thin," as one employe said, that there is no job security at the Big Five firm.

"What's a watch. We stay on because we want security," one said.

Without a union for protection of employes in these competitive times, said an, employe, the company pits one worker against another. Thus new employes are taken in by the company to compete with old-timers on wages and "heads begin to roll."

"This unionization of white-collar workers in a Big Five outfit is history," said an observer who did not want to be named. "This is a decided landmark for labor in Hawaii."

One of these days I will appear in court to answer the Justice Department's fantastic charges that I, and six others here, advocate and teach the overthrow of the government by force and violence.

The court will ask me whether I will plead guilty or not guilty.

How else can I answer in honesty but to say firmly that I am not guilty.

This shoe which the Justice Department is trying to make me wear does not fit me. Common sense and the experience of history tell us that established governments which serve the interests of the majority of the people are safe and secure, and governments totter and tumble only when the ruling class undermines their existence by cruelty, oppression, autocracy, corruption, graft and selfish interests.

In the heat of revolutionary upsurge, the founders of our nation wrote in the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, that "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."

Corruption, Graft, Selfish Interests Undermine Government

In the present situation, who is guilty of progressively undermining the people's confidence in government? Is it the Truman administration, which is riddled by graft and corruption and is giving at best a poor leadership? Or is it I and people like me, who raise our voices against such graft and corruption, and constantly remind the administration of its 1948 campaign promises of extending civil rights, repeal of the Taft-Hartley law, etc., all of which were thrown overboard to satisfy the Dixiecrats and the reactionary Republicans and to win their support for a war program when menacing recession and unemployment frightened the incompetent administration?

With the war program has come intensified corruption, gouging by selfish interests, suppression of the people's rights, and bungling in high places in government. Nothing more clearly destroys the confidence of people in government than bad leadership. Recognizing this, the architects of our nation wrote in the Declaration of Independence:

". . . whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends (securing of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness by the people), it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it. and to institute new government laying its foundation on such ' principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." Have Not Said As Much

The language here is very clear. I have not said as much in the editorial columns of the Honolulu RECORD, the medium of my communication with the reading public.

But I am charged with advocating the violent overthrow of our government.

Since my arrest and indictment I have carefully gone over in my mind my thinking and activities up to this day. And I find that I am innocent of the charges directed against me.

In my step by step review of my life, I constantly come up with this question:

Is the fight against discrimination because of color, religion or belief, abuses of laborers, colonialism and subjugation of hundreds of millions, the struggle for civil liberties and for a sane and peaceful world destructive of our government? Only a government which is for big business, neglects and ignores civil liberties—particularly for the non-whites—is for perpetuating colonialism and is for a war program would label such pursuits dangerous to itself.

Experiences Here Molded My Ideas

The ideas which I possess and for which I stand now indicted under the Smith Act, became a part of me as the result of my observations and experiences here in this country. I am not charged with any overt act of crime, but for my ideas, which Attorney General McGrath seeks to lock behind bars.

I am sure many others who are products of the same environment as mine think as I do, although they are forced to be silent because of their jobs or fear of suppression. All the books I have read are sold in the open market and stacked on library shelves. My experiences are common to many.

In reviewing my personal history, I have been confronted by other questions: Certain Experiences Left Deep Impressions Upon Me

What becomes of the conditions that have shaped my thinking, if I can be indicted for my ideas? Are they to be eliminated, as for instance slums, land monopoly and tenancy, discrimination, unemployment and recurrent depressions? What will Attorney General McGrath do with those who are principally responsible for these conditions and who are opposing any change for the better?

During my formative years I was exposed to conditions that made me think and left deep Impressions upon me. I was born and raised on a coffee farm in Kona. I spent some time on a sugar plantation, as a pineapple cannery worker, as a longshoreman on the Honolulu and San Francisco docks, in our public schools here and at the state university in Georgia. I was evacuated from the West Coast when war came and lived behind barbed wire and watchtowers of Manzanar Relocation Center. From there I volunteered to work in Idaho's sugar beet fields when farm laborers were scarce, and from there I volunteered for the army.

Because I am a poor coffee farmer's son, and have worked with my hands almost all of my life, even while a student, my loyalty has always been strongly with the downtrodden, the workers and farmers. We Felt the Whole World Crumble Around Us

Early in life I was exposed to the necessity of "stealing" the coffee we produced on our mortgaged farm in order to obtain cash for family needs. Numerous poor farmers did this under cover of darkness, carrying coffee to independent farmers who either sold it for them or bought it from them.

At times we felt our whole world crumble around us when we were caught by the coffee company and threatened with eviction. Then when I was grown up, the coffee company hired me to pay off family debts, but with high interest, low coffee price and the exorbitant rate charged us for groceries and fertilizer by the company, we were submerged in debt. One of my work assignments was to spy on farmers who "bootlegged" coffee, just as we did. I caught some of them but I never had the heart to turn them in. I only cautioned them.

Those were dark days for us in Kona and I tried to grope for answers and solutions to our problems. I wrote about the hardships of farmers in Kona and the Star-Bulletin published a series of articles by me. I felt that people outside of Kona should be informed and that publicity would help correct the bad conditions and bring help to the depressed coffee industry. Thus I became interested in writing and writing helped me think. I began to observe everything, about me more closely and critically. (To Be Continued)

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.

Rutledge Didn't Speak

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 Rut-ledge 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.

Although he received a promissory note from Kiyoshi James Onoe, 1331 University Ave. and 314 N. Beretania St., a local worker has little hope of getting back the $9,300 he "invested" with Onoe last January. Present during the transaction, the worker says, was Patrick Yim, who has figured in similar transactions here.

Not until last month were the details of the "investment" brought to light in an investigation initiated by Eddie Ujimori, RECORD reporter from Maui, who happened to be here on a visit.

Detective Henry Wong, investigating the case at the request of the worker, was instrumental in having the original promissory note rewritten in language that requires Onoe to pay charges of collection, should that prove difficult.

By Staff Writer

Why did the C-C department of public works pass over four eligible men to appoint Clayton Moe administrative assistant to Chief Engineer Karl Sinclair, replacing John Hammond, who retired?

Why did D. Ransom Sherretz, civil service personnel director, make the appointment, knowing that, unlike the four eligibles, Moe is not qualified for the P-6 rating which the position carries? The answers to these questions and a good many others relating to promotions and appointments, City Hall observers say, would also be the answer to the dissatisfaction of a number of public works employes.

Another point of question is the promotion of Y. K. Mau, administrator and personnel man in the same office, from CAF-9 to CAF-10, after less than three years of service, and following on the heels of a similar promotion last year.

As for Moe, it was reliably reported that he is not qualified for the P-6 rating to which he was appointed. It was further reported that there are at least two other men in the department who are qualified, but who were not considered prior to the appointment. One is William P. Grout of the bureau of plans, the other is W. J. Chong of the city planning commission.

Eligibles Not Approached

Asked by Chairman Herbert Kum of the civil service commission about the list of eligibles, Sherretz is reported to have replied that these two who were eligible, did not want the job.

But neither, it is believed, was given the chance previously to say whether he wanted it or not. These two, Grout and Chong, were on the promotional list, it is reported, Chong being at the top. Still two other eligible men are said to have been on the classification list, making a total of four men who are qualified for the job, yet who were not approached. Since Moe's appointment has not been confirmed by the civil service commission, there appears to be a question as to whether or not he is legally entitled to receive the pay of the P-6 rating. Colleague's who feel that Mau's promotion smacks of favoritism, point out that in addition to the promotion, he also enjoys a $25 monthly allowance for the use of an automobile, though his duties seem to keep him mainly in City Hall.

They further contrast his rapid promotions with those of James Goo, who has attained only CAP-11 after 38 years of service, and who is considered by many as indispensable to the department.

"Sinclair never goes to a meeting," said one observer, "that he doesn't have Jimmy Goo there, too. Goo is the real administrator."

Old-Timers Ignored

In the bureau of plans, a common complaint is that new outsiders are brought in—Navy reserve men more often than not— to be given positions over local engineers who have carried on the work of that bureau for many years. The old-timers are forced to teach the newcomers the ropes, they say, knowing that the better they do the teaching job, the less chance they have of promotions themselves.

For some time, Harold W. Butzine, chief engineer of the bureau of plans, has sought new engineers in an effort to diminish the huge backlog of work piled up there, and to mitigate the criticism to which the bureau has been subjected.

"But they get new men and. the backlog remains," said one who knows the story from the inside. "That's because they don't recognize the local boys who have been doing the work for years."

As death on the gallows drew closer to John Palakiko and James Majors Wednesday, the fight to urge Governor Oren E. Long to commute their sentences to life imprisonment was growing in volume and intensity.

Petitions hurriedly prepared in Hawaiian homestead tracts, were being circulated, signed and forwarded to Attorney Harriet Bouslog, who was presenting them to the governor.

Union Woman Leads Fight

Leading the campaign among the homesteaders was Mrs. Helen Kanahele, president of the ILWU Women's Auxiliary, Local 20. Mrs. Kanahele also joined with Willie Crozier of Maui, to present a strong radio appeal Tuesday night.

In her broadcast, Mrs. Kanahele emphasized that there should be a single standard of justice for all in Hawaii, and she cited the Massie case as an instance when those convicted of murder received only nominal punishment.

Society Shares Crime

Mr. Crozier traced the background of Palakiko, orphaned at the age of two and permitted by society to grow up on the streets in the best fashion he could, and he said society must share the blame for the murder of Mrs. Therese Wilder, for which the two Hawaiians were condemned to death.

Taking the most prominent part of any lawyer in the campaign was Harriet Bouslog who had an audience with Governor Long and who addressed a written appeal to him. Attorney Bouslog, too, expressed the feeling that the social institutions in which the two men spent a number of years, shared in responsibility for the crime.

She also stated that she believes considerable newspaper hysteria made a fair trial impossible.

Indications that the campaign might have had a more political nature came also Wednesday when members of the Democratic County Committee strongly criticized the officers for not calling the regular meeting last week. Formal action by the committee would certainly have been suggested, an officer said, and might have carried more weight with the governor if it were passed.

At 7:45 a.m. Thursday morning, fifteen minutes before John Palakiko and James Majors were to be hanged for the murder of Mrs. Therese Wilder, it was announced from Oahu Prison that Gov. Oren E. Long had granted a week's stay of execution.

Gov. Long said the slay was granted "for the further study and consideration of this case." The action was seen by many as response to the appeals and petitions that have come in since the governor had earlier told many that he would not grant a stay unless new evidence is produced.

Those who have circulated the petitions asking that the sentences of the condemned men be commuted were already issuing appeals to all throughout the Territory to write, wire or visit Gov. Long in the coming week to add their voices to the appeal for mercy.

It's a far step from 25 cents to 91 cents an hour, and from 50 cents to $1.58% per hour, but the stride of the sugar workers since they organized in 1945-46 is longer than that.

How far the sugar workers have come may be measured to an extent by the terms of the contract negotiated by ILWU and sugar company representatives at the end of last month. The wage increase, from 25 cents basic pay before 1945 to the 91 cents basic wage of the contract, is dependent partially on factors outside that particular labor relationship—as for instance, the abolishing of the OPA, the fluctuation of prices and wages generally during the post-war years, and the inflation since the beginning of the war in Korea.

But the language of the contract, especially in seniority and union recognition clauses, tells the story more clearly.

Seniority Rules

Layoffs, promotions and transfers are to be made on a straight seniority basis, with the companies able to ignore seniority only when there is a marked difference in the qualifications of the workers. And if there is any dispute over that difference, the Issue may be submitted to arbitration.

The contract provides, too, that grievances over favoritism (which would be an alternative to straight seniority) take precedence over other types of complaints.

All employes are covered by the union agreement, according to the language concerning union security and, "the union and only the union" is empowered to bargain on wages. The union's representatives shall be, further, present at all grievance meetings, and the companies agree that it will not finance or otherwise encourage any rival labor organization.

Any non-union employe who carries on any form of disruptive agitation against the union is in some danger, according to the contract, of being discharged by the company.

All that is a pretty far cry from 1944 when management insisted questions of transfer, layoffs, etc., were strictly its own prerogative.

"Belly" Flattened In taking the "belly" out of the classification curve, the contract represents what both union and company negotiators finally agreed were inequities of the classification system. Previously, company spokesmen had maintained there were no such inequities.

The "belly" would be seen in the line of a graph charting proportionate wage increases according to the job classification. Higher categories had long been set at a wage level markedly higher than that of the lower gradations, where the bulk of the workers are.

The contract corrects the "belly" to a degree by awarding 11 1/2cents to workers in grade three, 121/2 in grades four and five and 11 1/2 cents in grade six.

The result is a gradual flattening of the "belly" made by the graph line.

[PAGE 2] [back to the top]

"When an ally balks, the United States apparently does some arm-twisting," commented the United Press July 13 in reporting John Foster Dulles' efforts to make nations dependent on the U. S. sign the Japanese peace treaty as he had drafted it. Ned Russell of the New York Herald Tribune, wrote Aug. 12: ". . . Mr. Dulles and his advisers are hoping, with an air of desperation, that Moscow will limit its activities to propaganda and simply not show up in the San Francisco Opera House." Delegates from Russia, Poland and Czechoslovakia attended the conference but on their arrival, the U. S. and Britain announced that tough procedural rules would limit discussions on the treaty draft. This attitude toward anticipated opposition created a tense atmosphere and smaller nations like the Philippines, almost completely dependent on the U. S., from fear of disturbing the Washington administration, signed the treaty.

The three eastern European nations did not sign the treaty, which imposes no limit on Japan's rearmament, requires occupation troops to withdraw from Japan within 90 days after the treaty becomes effective, but permits bi-lateral agreements for foreign powers to maintain military forces in Japan.

As soon as the peace treaty was signed, the U. S. and Japan signed such an agreement "to come into force simultaneously with the treaty of peace between Japan and the United States of America."

This military pact brings out these points:

• While it says the treaty of peace recognizes Japan's sovereignty, it in fact continues American occupation of Japan. News reports have indicated that in Japan the people and various organizations, including trade unions, have opposed the granting of land, sea and air bases to the U. S. But the military pact gives such rights to the U. S. "in and about Japan."

• While the pact says: "Japan desires a security treaty" with the U. S., there has been evidence all along, as reported by the press that opposition within Japan had been squelched and war criminals, who welcome such a pact, had been depurged and freed.

• While the peace treaty itself says that Japan may enter into bi-lateral treaty with foreign powers to have them maintain military forces "in and about Japan," Article II of the U. S.-Japan military pact forbids Japan to enter into such a pact with another power without the "prior consent" of the U. S.

• Article I reduces the sovereignty of Japan and its people, in the following language: "Such forces (United States land, air and sea forces in and about Japan) may be utilized to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security in the Far East and to the security of Japan against armed attack from without, including assistance given at the express request of the Japanese government to put down large-scale internal riots and disturbances in Japan caused through instigation or intervention by an outside power or powers." In these times, when rising revolutionary and nationalist movements which swept the western nations long ago are taking place, the U. S. and the old imperialist powers label all such movements as Soviet-inspired. Thus, Article I makes Japan a bulwark of the imperialist nations against the independence movements in the Par Bast.

Also, strikes and demonstrations by workers and farmers within Japan could easily be labelled foreign-instigated. Peace movements and strikes which were suppressed under MacArthur could be broken up by the use of U. S. armed forces. The peace treaty and the military pact between the U. S. and Japan have made prior international agreements mere scraps of paper. For instance, when the allied leaders, including President Truman, met at Potsdam, they declared that the peace

and security in the Pacific requires Japan to be made, after the war, "politically democratic, economically stable, and strategically neutral." And the U. S., as the occupying power, was made responsible to secure these conditions.

Under MacArthur, Japan did not move along this path and this was clearly expressed by W. MacMahon Ball, professor at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and British Commonwealth member of the Allied Council for Japan. In The Nation, July 25, 1951, Mr. Ball wrote:

"The men who rule Japan today have fundamentally the same outlook and the same interests as those Who planned the attack on Manchuria, China and Pearl Harbor."

WHILE THE CORE of the Potsdam declaration of a neutral, politically democratic and economically sound Japan is not honored in" the U. S.-sponsored treaty already adopted, it is interesting to note that the Potsdam treaty of 1945 was dragged out for propaganda reasons.

Vance Johnson of the San Francisco Chronicle, Aug. 16, wrote: "The most important change revealed in the new draft (of the treaty) pledges all signatories to live up to the Potsdam Agreement of 1945 for the return of prisoners of war. This apparently was inserted largely for psychological reasons after it became known that Russia would attend the conference."

Russia has denied it has any more war prisoners, except for a few too ill to be moved. Recently, eight Japanese, who had been in hospitals because of injuries and illness, returned and said, according to the United Press, they knew of only one more Japanese in Siberia.

Asian countries know the dangers of a remilitarized Japan, therefore they opposed the present treaty. But only India and Burma in the end stood their ground and refused to sign the treaty. China, with one-fourth of the world's population, was not invited.

Because of the threat posed by a Japan armed by the U. S., the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand have sought guarantee from Japanese aggression through a military pact with the U. S. All these, however, are called pacts against Communist aggression in Asia.

The women members of the Japanese parliament recently said: "There are large numbers of Japanese men and women who believe neither Communist China nor Russia will dare invade Japan as long as she keeps faithful to her Constitution and the Potsdam declaration."

The Japanese Constitution to which the women members referred forbids rearmament. Its language says, in part: "Aspiring sincerely to international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation; i. e., the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes ... In order to accomplish the aims of the preceding paragraphs, land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized." (Chapter II, Article 9)

These same women members of parliament issued a statement Feb. 6, 1951, to Dulles when he visited Japan while rushing around the world with the draft treaty in his pocket and "twisting arms":

"We hear some men, a rather large number of them, saying, 'as soon as the United States will supply us with munitions and equipment, we shall have the martial spirit to march to any corner of the world, especially to Russia, with our vengeance. Wait ten years,' they say, 'and our factories will be strong enough to produce excellent munitions, as Germany did after her defeat in World War I. After all, that will be the best way to provide a profession for this ever-increasing population with so little land and resources.' "

Japan, whose ports were forced open to foreign commerce a century ago, caught up with numerous western powers in industrialization through the advent of electrical power as against steam used previously by these nations, thrived on trade and exploitation of colonial resources in Asia. Japan of the future, under the peace treaty and under U. S. control, cannot trade with China, and thus must reach to Southeast Asia. And there her interest will inevitably clash with that of Prance, Britain and The Netherlands.

This in itself would bring international tensions, and once Japan is militarized, is there a guarantee that the U. S. can control the Japanese militarists?

Internally, while Japan is being rearmed, the government would face difficulties and may have to resort to force and violence in keeping down any popular demand opposing foreign troops in Japan.

As the Palo Alto (Calif.) Peace Club recently stated:

"History knows of no example of armed military occupants being loved and trusted by the people of the occupied country. Rather, they have been regarded as uninvited and despised intruders."

Abroad, in the Asian countries, Japan would be feared as the policy of the U. S., which dominates Japan, is against nationalist movements, but for protecting British and French colonial interests. And Japan could become a target of Asia's growing anti-American sentiment.

U. S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, just back from the Far East, was quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle, July 30, 1951:

"The Americans have become victims of military philosophy and this may produce a crusade against America in Asia. Three main revolutionary factors are at work in Asia today; an intensive nationalism born of a deep revolt against foreign domination, a passionate resolve to be rid of landlordism, and a burning concept of equality for the colored races. The Communists win over the masses by preaching reforms that have their historical origins not in Russia, but in the United States. In contrast, we Americans stand for stability, for the status quo. This means that we are behind the landlord in Asia. America has placed its military power behind some of the most vicious elements in Asia, and when the United States announced its support of the French suppression of Indo-China's independence, a shudder passed through Southeast Asia."

And the "Indo-China's independence" Justice Douglas speaks of is attacked by the Truman administration as Soviet-inspired aggression, the kind of movement which makes the administration keep troops in Japan.

As the Palo Alto Peace Club aptly said: "It is impossible for the U. S. to support popular movements for independence in Asia and at the same time, establish itself there as a military power."

It is getting late, but not too late, for the U. S. to return to the tradition of 1776 and be a symbol of freedom and decency for the individual.

New York (FP)—Top management salaries jumped an average of about 75 per cent from 1940 to 194S, but that is "not enough," Business Week reported Sept. 1.

"Not enough" for what? The answer is supplied in a National Industrial Conference Board report on executive salaries in 567 companies.

"Cost of living increased 60 per cent in the 10-year period and taxes also went up sharply," Business Week said, commenting on the NICB study. "Together, these factors made the 75 per cent executive pay rise look sick. NICB figured a man making $100,000 in 1940 would have to make $225,000 in 1945 if he was to maintain approximately the same standard of living. Few raises ran as high as that."

Companies that don't want to sicken their top men by expecting them to scrape along for a mere $175,000 a year are resorting to other schemes for raising their standard of living—such as "stock options and deferred compensation," Business Week said.

The NICB study did not cover the last year and a half, when executive salaries reached extravagant heights along with profits. Most outstanding example of this was President Charles E. Wilson of General Motors Corp., who received a lavish $652,156 in 1950, a $40,000 increase over the previous year.

Along with its "not enough" conclusion, Business Week drew two other major points from the NICB study:

1. No self-respecting company would be caught dead paying any of its executives less than $10,000 a year. "At the beginning of the period, you could find plenty of companies paying their second and third men $9,000 or even less. In 1949, only five of the 567 companies in the NICB survey paid any top man less than $10,000."

2. The "select group" of executives making $100,000 or more a year has more than doubled. "In 1940, only 88 of the 1,701 executives covered by the survey hit the $100,000 figure; in 1949 they numbered 196."

[PAGE 3] [back to the top]

Unanimous disapproval of proposed restrictions on the political activities of government employes and strong backing for a new leadership training program in their own union were expressed by 50 United Public Workers of America who held a two-day Territorial conference last weekend at the ILWU offices, 1885 Kapiolani Blvd.

The disapproval came in a unanimous resolution opposing "Rule 14" passed by civil service officials, after some dispute, several weeks ago at their Territorial conference on Kauai. The leadership training program received enthusiastic support, as did guest speaker David Thompson, ILWU education director, who explained how such a program has operated in that union.

The delegates, who represented all the islands, also voted financial support to the strikers against the Hawaiian Pineapple Co. on Lanai in a resolution which suggested that every unit of the UPWA take additional individual action.

To Hit HGEA

A fight against Part 5 of Act 319, which sets up machinery for a Territory-wide election of government employes, to determine what organization shall represent them, was also begun at the conference. Regional Director Henry Epstein announced further that the union will shortly expose the Hawaii Government Employees Association as a "bosses' outfit" and the chief beneficiary of Part 5, as presently set up.

Thomas Yamashita, president of the Wailuku unit, and Thomas Noda, vice president in charge of the Maui UPWA division, spoke strongly in favor of the setting up of a UPWA auxiliary and their speeches were followed by a vote of approval by the delegates.

The Maui delegates, in their talks, emphasized the necessity of giving wives and families of UPWA members an opportunity to understand and participate in the business of the union.

Mrs. Helen Kanahele and Mrs. Peggy Baptiste described operations of the units of the ILWU auxiliary on Oahu and Maui, of which they are officials.

FBI Arrests Recall Questions Asked Japanese Here At Start of World War II

The manner of the FBI in making the arrests of seven local people charged with "conspiracy" two weeks ago has recalled to a number of people here, especially those born in Japan and those of Japanese ancestry, the manner of J. Edgar Hoover's agency the last time it was widely active here— at the beginning of World War II.

"They asked the silliest questions you could imagine," said one, who recalls many visits by FBI and other agencies.

On an early visit, the oldster says, he was shown a picture of Hirohito and asked to identify it. He did.

"How do you know it's the emperor?" the agent asked.

"Well, it looks like him. I've seen pictures of him before and it looks like those. He was on a white horse then, too." "What can you say against him?" "I haven't got anything to say against him," was the answer. "I don't have anything to do with him."

The agent then asked: "Don't you know he was responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbor?" "I doubt it," said the Japan-born man. "I think that was the military's idea. I doubt if he had much to do with it."

Encouraged To Deface Picture

After some more of this kind of dialogue, the agent expressed surprise and said many Japanese had been willing to put the picture down and step on it as evidence of their disdain.

The oldster said he thought that was silly and would have no part of such a demonstration under intimidation.

"Why are you a Buddhist?" the agent asked.

"Why are you a Christian?" the oldster shot back.

The agent didn't answer.

One man was suspected and questioned because he had advised families with only one son not to give their permission for them to volunteer in the army.

The hysteria whipped up at that time against Japanese resident aliens and those of Japanese ancestry resulted in the loss of about $2,000,000 in property, it is reliably estimated, in the form of Japanese language schools which were "given" under pressure and eventually turned over to various organizations, Christian and otherwise.

Sixteen strikers at the Honolulu Sake Brewery & Ice Co., Ltd., are confident that the unsuccessful election held to determine union representation of workers will be set aside by the government because, of the brewery's unfair labor practices, according to a letter sent to the firm by Masao Mori, secretary-treasurer of the Brewery Workers Union Local 502 (AFL).

Mori's letter asked that in the meantime the striking employes be reinstated.

The Sake Brewery on Wednesday said that the employes were expected to return to work today. The union has asked the NLRB to set the election aside because the employers had been adamant against the union and employes who wanted to organize the plant. The Sake Brewery, owned by Issei and Nisei, including Senator Wilfred Tsukiyama, pays its employes only about two-thirds of what Royal and Primo breweries pay to their employes, besides giving them work clothing and safety gear, sick leave and vacations.

The profit at the Sake Brewery has been extremely high, largely due to the low wages paid employes. For example, one worker who has been with the company 20 years receives $1.05 an hour.

Previous attempts to organize the brewery had failed largely because the company had exploited the loyalty of the employes to the management because of common Japanese ancestry.

The Sake Brewery is one of the first Japanese-owned companies which workers have tried to organize into a union, under strong opposition. If the Sake Brewery, owned by men like Daizo Sumida, is organized, observers say, the organization of other companies will follow.

[PFC. JUNICHI FUJIMOTO of Mill Camp No. 9, Waialua, was reported missing in action in Korea, but recently his name was announced by Pekng radio on its list of POWs. An army major from Schofield informed his parents about the report and told them not to worry because their son is getting good treatment. The parents, happy to learn their son is still alive, have written the soldier and are awaiting a reply.]

Three hundred and thirty-two members of the working press in Korea, Japan and Washington, and those covering the United Nations are 6-1 in favor of President Truman's act in firing General Douglas MacArthur, the Saturday Review of Literature found in a poll it conducted.

Elaborating on his vote for Truman's action, John Dominis of Life magazine, listed among Mac-Arthur's failings, "aloofness with the troops which failed to inspire them, and his complete non-concern over the morale of his troops. His one-man show inspired few in his command."

James M. O'Neil, Jr., of the Washington News, lambasted Mac-Arthur even more vigorously for what he called the general's "almost treasonous disregard for the administration and his commander-in-chief."

An audience that packed the Hilo County board chamber Monday night heard shocking stories of how patients at the Olaa old folks home were called nicknames such as "droolly" and "fatty" and occasionally subjected to undignified undressings in the presence of persons of both sexes.

The accusations were made by Mrs. Anna Milford, recently resigned head of the home, who appeared as one of the chief witnesses at a four-hour public hearing on Hilo Memorial Hospital, of which the home is a part.

There were no denials of Mrs. Milford's accusations, though Russell Tucker, administrator of the hospital, entered into a number of bitter exchanges with County Chairman James Kealoha and others. Members of the hospital managing committee said the home has only one bathroom for 78 patients. Another witness, Mrs. Jane Geiger, former director of nurses at the hospital, said she was dismissed "like a scrubwoman." She also accused the managing committee of the hospital of playing her and Mr. Tucker against each other. The committee denied these charges. The spokesman for the hospital administration complained that Chairman Kealoha should not have given a previous letter by Mrs. Milford to the press before private inquiry could be made. Kealoha answered that it is his policy that "the public has a right to know," and said letters addressed to him and the board are always open to scrutiny by reporters.

One result of the meeting was to reaffirm the right of Administrator Tucker to hire and fire.

Kona, Hawaii—Farmers in this district are pressed for time in putting up their water tanks destroyed by the recent earthquake as coffee harvesting season is approaching rapidly.

From Keauhou in North Kona to the Hookena area of South Kona, where the earthquake did the most damage, farmers have reported 144 water tanks damaged. Estimates of all tanks damaged run over 200. Masao Aoki and Kobayashi, general contractors are both putting up tanks at a rapid pace and the county trucks are hauling water to the farmers' new tanks from the Greenwell ranch.

The farmers need water for home use as well as for pulping coffee. It is reported that used tanks are being brought from the Kaumana homestead which now has a waterline connection.

The average price for new tanks is about $500. The cost of a 3,000-gallon tank is $275 and 10,000-gallon tanks, about $675.

[NEW WBS HEAD—New chairman of the Wage Stabilization Board is Nathan P. Feinsinger, who moved up to the post after Dr. George W. Taylor resigned.]

By Special Correspondence

Havana, Cuba—Cuban labor demonstrated its strength in paying tribute and respect to Emilio Suri Castillo, secretary general of the National Federation, of Sugar Workers, who died in an automobile accident early on the morning of Sept. 1.

On the evening following Castillo's death, lights were switched off for brief intervals in section after section of the city. At 9 p. m. all street traffic paused for five minutes.

The body of Secretary Castillo; was brought to Havana by plane and lay in state at the National Capitol, while hundreds of people filed past the bier. The Cuban Confederation of Labor declared National Mourning until the funeral was over in the afternoon of Sept. 2. During this time public entertainment was suspended and nobody worked. Long lines of street cars halted in the streets until the period for the suspension of their movement had passed.

Jose Suri Castillo, son of the labor leader, was driving the car at the time it was driven head on into the rear end of a heavy trailer. Both father and son were killed in the accident, and a second son, Emilio was injured, though not seriously.

Secretary Castillo was also a member of the lower house of the Cuban Legislature. He was influential in politics as well as being a respected labor leader.

The Hawaiians who depended on fishing for a livelihood along the Kona coast now find the market for their catch very poor. After the war, numerous residents of Kona became engaged in fishing because it was profitable, but gradually they have left the beaches for more lucrative employment.

* *

Because it does not pay to fish, the Hawaiians are picking coffee in the uplands. During the past decade, the Hawaiians stuck to the beaches, especially when coffee prices were low, but today, coffee commands about 10 times its pre-war price.

[PAGE 4] [back to the top]

St.Thomas, Virgin Islands (ALN)—A five-member delegation of the Virgin Islands legislature, headed by Omar Brown, has left for Washington to urge passage of a law allowing election of a governor and resident commissioner. The act would require the IT. S. to turn over to the islands the import taxes it collects on rum sent to the U. S., including over $60 million in rum taxes collected from 1940 to 1949. "So bad is the situation in the Virgin Islands," Brown said, "that if our people could get off the islands they would all leave." Average wage of a field laborer is $12.40 a month.

Washington (FP) — Initial claims for unemployment insurance increased 26 per cent the week ending August 4 above the preceding week. They were 48 per cent above the same period a year ago.

In seeking a. 56-foot right-of-way for Booth Road, the city planning commission is looking to the future, George Houghtailing, chief engineer, says.

"Booth Road," Mr. Houghtailing says, "will become a main artery into Pauoa Valley."

Residents along Booth Road now have expressed displeasure with the project because the wide right-of-way will cut into their land—chopping at least one house in two—and some of them maintain Booth Road is nothing but a dead end street leading into the U. S. forest reserve.

"That might be said of many of our roads leading from the higher places down into the valleys," says Mr. Houghtailing, "but they're arteries just the same."

The planning commission is building for a day when Booth Road serves many more homes than at present, Houghtailing says, and toward that day, it seeks a road wide enough for two lanes with space for parking on both sides.

Grand Rapids, Mich. (FP) — After a 90-minute debate), the American Federation of Teachers (AFL) convention here August 23, instructed its executive council to withhold charters from any new locals that practice racial discrimination. The vote was 142 to 42. The action followed adoption earlier of another resolution directing 44 segregated locals, most of which are in the south, to work toward elimination of discrimination against Negroes. The second vote, amending the first resolution, pointed out that the union constitution forbids discrimination on racial and religious grounds towards applicants for membership. It instructed the AFT council strictly to observe the constitution in chartering new locals.

Sgt. Paul Shaffer who formerly headed the morals division of the vice squad, has been assigned to Pearl City in the recent reorganization. What he got, police observers say, was something less than a promotion. Sgt. Chris Faria, on the other hand, is now sergeant of the vice squad, both gambling and morals details. And that is a promotion, as the observers see it.

* *

UPW delegates to last weekend's two-day convention bought quite a lot of union literature from ILWU sources while they were here. The young union, which has made tremendous strides since its organization here, reflected, growing maturity in other ways, too. One of the books selling fastest was a biography of John L. Lewis, head of the United Mine Workers. Another popular item was the magazine, March of Labor.

* *

Joining the articulate opponents of the RECORD last week, alongside IMUA, California's Japanese-hating Sen. Jack Tenney, and the radio spokesman for the pineapple companies, was a man who has been associated with the narcotics traffic and who had the bad judgment to make his threats before disinterested witnesses. If it really needs repeating—the RECORD win print what it pleases regardless of efforts at intimidation, whether from the Big Five and its agencies or from the underworld. The present indictment against our editor stands as clear evidence of that. As for threats —well, we've been threatened by experts and one more or less makes very little difference.

* *

The seebring juke box, made in Chicago, is currently the favorite with restaurateurs and saloonkeepers here because it has more records than others. But there's considerable competition among the promotional companies over rates, or proportions of the split with the owners of businesses which have them installed.

* *

Edward Frank, the efficiency expert whose plan for reorganizing Theo. H. Davies, Ltd., resulted in layoffs of old-timers, and who is currently making a similar study at City Mill, Ltd., is a man who believes in practicing what he preaches. Certainly he doesn't waste any time himself. Two weeks ago, we reported that he spent his extra time playing a bass fiddle with a band at Gibson's Bar. But that isn't all. He also has a tape-recorded radio show and participates in the management of a Waikiki dress shop, we're informed. All that apparently kept him too busy to play with the band, Trummy Young's, for the Labor Day parade.

* *

If any peasant of Eastern Europe ever sees the August 18 issue of the Saturday Evening Post, he's likely to get a good laugh over the picture on page 26 of four who profess to represent him in Washington. Leaders of the "International Peasant Union," they are Dr. Vladko Macek, Dr. George Dimitrov, Ferenc Nagy and Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, and they are as white-collared, soft-handed peasants as you'd ever want to see. The Post has a piece telling how these and others now receiving support from Washington, are striving every day to get war started between the U. S. and the USSR.

* *

Not all probation officers were notified of the escape of the two Kawailoa girls (see story elsewhere in this issue), and some learned it first from last week's edition of the RECORD. They were inclined to attribute their lack of information to the reluctance of Miss Eileen Ukauka, Kawailoa superintendent, to publicize escapes. Although, as Miss Ukauka said, these were the only escapes in eight months, a list for a year and a half would show a higher percentage, some officials say.

* *

On Molokai, David Trask, Jr. is reported to have gone about his organization for the HGEA by telling former members they'd better rejoin within two weeks "or else." The succinct speech is supposed to have been accompanied with a knife-like motion of the hand across the throat.

* * Herbert Ishi, AJA vet and small independent businessman, became the first democrat to serve on the Kauai civil service commission recently when he was appointed to fill the seat formerly occupied by R. L. Garlinghouse, engineer for the Lihue Plantation Co.
* *

One of the most baffling of City Hall puzzles is the delay in manning the new fire boat. Although qualifications were raised when the position of pilot was increased from a CC-11 to CC-13, several applicants are known to be qualified well enough to sail the seven seas. One is David Van Geison, who has already sailed several as a master mariner and who has an excellent record in other respects. Another is a master who plied among the islands for many years. Who are they waiting for—Admiral Byrd?

* *

J. Akuhead, the radioman, whose opinions are often as funny as his comedy, was all out on a familiar theme early in the week, lambasting the students at the U. of H., which institution, he said, "is well known for its lack of spirit." He wanted all 4,000 of them out for Wednesday night's police benefit football game—the University's first game, with the Town Team. That would have been school spirit, indeed. School doesn't begin up in Manoa Valley until the end of the month and a lot of the students are still on the outer islands.

Maui Notes

"In protest of the cavalier treatment of Shizuichi Mizuha," who was not reappointed to the library board by the supervisors. Mrs. Maud R. Milne resigned last week as member of the board of trustees of the Maui County Free Library.

"I feel that in not reappointing him you did not act in the best interest of the library or of the people of Maui as his work on the board was to my mind quite outstanding," Mrs. Milne informed the supervisors.

* *

To throw off suspicion that he was the firebug responsible for the series of fires in Puunene, John Edward Walsh, 19, set fire to his home, he told police last week after his arrest.

Four fires, including that at the Walsh home, kept the firemen, police and residents busy before and after Labor Day. Walsh was charged with malicious burning and hearing will be held at the district court in Wailuku after 30 days. His bond was set at $250.

A Bureau of Labor, created in 1884, was originally attached to the Department of the Interior.

[PAGE 5] [back to the top]

(Ed. Note—The following is the major portion of a speech by Attorney Harriet Bouslog on Labor Day at Lihue, Kauai.)

Union Brothers and Sisters, Fellow Americans:

On this Labor Day, September 1951, the rights, the living standards, and the hopes of all of you, for yourselves and your children, are in danger. The seriousness of this danger was made clear to all of us by the arrest on August 28, of seven persons, all of whom are known to us personally or by reputation.

The attack upon the liberties of all working people and true democrats did not, however, begin with the arrest of these seven. It is a course and policy that has been followed by our government since the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

These seven are a part of a 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. As a part of this plan, they have frozen wages while prices and profits soar. They have tried to infect all of us with hate and fear.

Among the group of seven who are charged with conspiring to advocate and to teach the overthrow of the government by force and violence is Jack Hall. Particularly the people of Kauai know the record of Jack Hall. All the people of Hawaii know his record . . .

At first, he and a handful of others struggled alone (from 1935) to organize unions against the powerful opposition of the Big Five, who did not hesitate in their struggle to use all arms of government—police, the legislature and the courts—to interfere with every attempt to organize a successful union.

You remember him when his powerful voice was raised in the Kauai Herald and the Voice of Labor against the oppression of workers in Hawaii. That was in the days when you were earning less than two dollars a day for your toil—the days you had to take chickens to the lunas to be sure to keep your job . . .

It is not hard for any of us to figure out why Jack Hall is hated by the employers in Hawaii, and by the politicians in Hawaii. It is more difficult, perhaps, for us to understand why it is that representatives of the government of the United States brand a man who has contributed so much to bringing the dignity of a human being to the workers of Hawaii, one of the 63 most dangerous persons in the United States . . .

You and I and all of us know that the union for the first time brought real democracy to the islands, at least in respect to all of its activities. You have never been taken in by the newspaper and employer accusations that a handful of men run this union, because you yourself have participated in the making of union policy and decisions. It took the united action of 20,000 working people to win the sugar strike.

How does it happen, then, that the government of the United States calls a man who has contributed so much to bringing democracy to Hawaii, a dangerous person?

The plot began right here in Hawaii with the red-baiting and cries of communism against labor by employers and the local press, by those who feared statehood. It was built into a fire of frenzy by politicians who betrayed the workers who put them in office. The ILWU-hating governor—Stainback —who smeared the working people of Hawaii in the nation's capital and through the nation's headlines in order to keep himself in office—fanned the flame to white heat. Gasoline was poured on the fire by the IMUAs, the Kauhanes, the Sylva Committee, the Butlers, the un-American Committee. Then along came disgruntled, so-called labor leaders, the Izukas and the Kawanos, spurred on by hypocritical politicians who wooed labor's support with sweet words to get in office, and who stabbed labor in the back when they thought it was to their personal advantage.

With the fires already lit and burning brightly, the national administration could not resist seizing upon the prosecution of Hawaii's seven as the next step in building up national hysteria and fear. Hawaii is a natural for such a purpose. Here, World War II started with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. It is the jumping-off place for troops to Korea. A charge of spies and subversives in Hawaii, the national frontier, is a cinch to frighten even peace-loving people not yet stampeded into hysteria and fear.

Most Americans know so little of Hawaii. Mainlanders do not know and most likely never heard of any of the seven. No one on the Mainland could catch the lies, no matter how big. It is our job to make all Americans know that these seven are persons of integrity and honor; that any conspiracy is a conspiracy against them and us.

The prosecutions come about because Jack Hall and persons like him throughout the United States have dared individually and as trade unionists, to criticize the policies of government.

The reason for the prosecution of Jack Hall is the same as that for the prosecution of Harry Bridges; of Henry Schmidt; of Bob Robertson. If these attempts succeed, the prosecution of all militant trade unionists will follow, until the government silences all who dare to challenge the right of the government to freeze wages, while prices and profits soar; who demand peace when the government is bent on war.

The government, in order to carry out its policies, must have something—some means of building up hysteria and fear and an| acceptance by the people of the idea of living in an armed camp for the next several generations.

Thus, the government has, in a deliberate and longstanding policy, built up a bogey-man in the United States, of reds and communism.

But something had to be done to those people who refused to be stampeded. Criticism had to be silenced in all its forms, and so a campaign of fear was instituted— fear of job security, if any criticisms were made—fear of arrest— fear of prosecution—fear of speaking out and speaking one's mind.

Franklin Roosevelt once said: "We have nothing to fear except fear itself." We can now realize the great wisdom of Roosevelt— now that our country is ridden and haunted with fear in all places, high and low.

The elected representatives of the people in power today were elected because they shouted loud and long, as they stumped the country, of their great love for the working man. They promised him repeal of the Taft-Hartley law, low-cost housing, a national health act. They promised to defend the peace of the world. They promised a civil rights program to stamp out vicious racism and discrimination.

Not one of their promises have they kept. Instead, they have given the same workers who elected them wage freezes while they admit inflation is out of hand. They have involved us in war, not as provided in the Constitution, by declaration of Congress. One man, President Truman, threw us into war. In direct violation of the Constitution, our sons have fought and died on the battlefields of Korea.

The FBI has been one of the chief tools in carrying out this program of fear and hate. Its tactics are more appropriate for a thought-police in an undemocratic state than an agency whose primary function is supposed to be to detect violations of Federal law . . .

We know of the unlawful conduct of the FBI here in Hawaii. We know and can prove that they have placed dictaphones in homes, have unlawfully tapped telephones, have seized personal books and papers without search warrants, have used threats and intimidation against persons who have refused to become stool-pigeons and informers. We can and will prove these things.

First, with the help of the FBI, the administration directed its campaign of fear and intimidation against government workers, then towards unpopular political groups then towards trade unions, and now it attacks all who oppose it. The present administration is rotten and corrupt with bribery and gangsterism, according to government reports. The trusts become larger and larger, but are not prosecuted. Civil rights act violations are ignored.

The administration just has to keep beating the drums of hysteria to keep attention away from itself. It is like the thief running down the street, pointing and crying "thief." The only time great freedoms and constitutional rights are remembered is when the President and his cronies cry out with injured innocence when jackals like McCarthy use against them their own weapons of the big lie and the red smear.

Let us look at the technique of these prosecutions. It closely follows the fascist technique.

In the year 1945, in the case of the Communist, William Schneiderman, the U. S. Supreme Court said that it found no evidence sufficient to find that the Communist Party advocates the violent overthrow of the government of the United States. It further said that an American Communist like William Schneiderman could be devoted to the Constitution of the United States.

Clearly, a court composed of men who believed this did not fit into the plans of the administration. So, as justices died or retired they were replaced with men of wholly different views. Five years later, the Supreme Court, packed with Truman appointees, reached the opposite conclusion and upheld the conviction of the 11 Communists.

Here is what Fred Rodell, professor of law at Yale University, says of the present court, in the July 31st issue of Look Magazine. I quote:

"The Supreme Court of the United States today belies its awe-inspiring title. Degraded by President Truman's devil-may-care appointment of four justices whose work has ranged from mediocre to miserable, the Court has sunk to its lowest point in a hundred years.

"When Truman chose Harold H. Burton, Fred M. Vinson, Tom. C. Clark and Sherman Minton, it was clear that their major qualification for the nation's top judicial jobs was that they were old cronies of the President. Today, it is clear that a nine-man Court weighed down by so sad a quartet either cannot or will not properly perform its high function . . . the Truman-Vinson Court, judged both by the quantity of work it takes on and by the quality of its work has branded itself, conservatism aside—as incompetent, indolent and irresponsible."

. . . First, the government says the Communist Party advocates the overthrow of the government by force and violence. Congress passes laws saying the Communist Party does. The radio, the press and the politicians shout it -from the housetops so loud and long that no one listens to the denials. Everyone is even afraid to disagree with the government. If a person says he does not think the government is right, if ha points to the decisions of courts, or any thing that is in conflict with what the government has announced, he too, is branded red by the mere fact that he disagrees. He may even be fired as a fellow-traveller or Communist sympathizer, or a poor security risk if he does not say repeatedly over and over that the Communist Party is subversive and its members should all be behind bars. Keeping his mouth shut and keeping his ideas to himself is hot enough.

Every person convicted under the Smith Act has flatly denied that he believes in or advocates the violent overthrow of the government. He points to the constitution of the Communist Party, which says the achievement of socialism by lawful and peaceful means is the objective.

How does the government, in the legal hanging technique, prove its point? Here is where the stool-pigeon, the professional witness, the political opportunist, the renegade, the Izukas, the Kawanos, come in.  

They are paid with publicity, with witness fees, with royalties from their books and pamphlets. One of these stool-pigeon informers, Mr. Izuka, once testified that he directed a slow-down at Port Alien to hold up lend-lease ships. No lend-lease ship ever docked on Kauai, but no lie is too big for these stool-pigeons or the government prosecutors.

Maybe some of you longshoremen may recall what the slowdown was about—a little job action to reduce the size of the sling load.

After the government's campaign to force everyone to believe) that Communists are subversives was in high gear and everyone who disagreed almost was afraid to say so, the government started its prosecutions of Communists and trade unionists accused of being Communists. It didn't make any difference, by this time, what the accused Communist said.

Trade unions and working people all over the country and in Hawaii are the last to give in to hysteria because of their long experience of being red-baited every time they ask for more pork chops.

But certain so-called labor leaders went along with the hysteria built up by the government, and the house of labor was divided. We are, therefore, in the darkest days of our hysteria, because we do not have one united trade union movement to oppose the fear, hate and war campaign of the government.

In addition to the trade unions, the government finds it necessary to attack and brand us subversive newspapers which dare to speak out in critical terms of its policies.

I don't suppose there are many people here who have not read the Honolulu RECORD. We all know that the RECORD filled a need in Hawaii. What the people of Hawaii need really, is a daily newspaper with honest reporting of facts, but the best the Territory has been able to achieve is the weekly newspaper, the Honolulu RECORD . . .

Freedom of the press in this country has become a matter of having a million dollars to start a newspaper. The people who really believe in honest reporting so that people would have the facts, don't have that kind of money.

Two of these seven defendants are employed by the Honolulu RECORD. One, Koji Ariyoshi, advised the U. S. District Court that he was the managing editor of the Honolulu RECORD, that his salary was $200 a month; that he had no cash on hand except the $20 he had given his wife upon arrest.

Koji Ariyoshi was born in Hawaii, on the Big Island. He was raised on a coffee farm and lived on a sugar plantation. His parents were sugar workers in the days of brutal treatment of workers, before there were unions. He served five years in the United States Army in the Intelligence Unit. He is considered, even by the commercial newspapers in Hawaii, a newspaperman of outstanding ability.

He is a product of Hawaii. He voluntarily chose to edit a newspaper which presented the truth, at $200, rather than to work where he would have to go against his ideals at double or triple his present salary.

Yet, the attorney general of the United States describes this man, who engages in the publication of a newspaper, as one of the 63 most dangerous persons in the United States.

Likewise, Jack Kimoto, who, as an employe of the Honolulu RECORD, makes $170 a month, is called one of the 63 most dangerous people in the United States. He, too, is a product of Hawaii and a long-time local newspaperman.

What happens to the Bill of Bights when the government of the United States charges in an Indictment that publishing and circulating a newspaper containing reports of facts and editorial comment is a part of a conspiracy to overthrow the government?

The Honolulu RECORD is given the use of the U. S. mails. It is sold on newsstands. It is a strange charge of conspiracy that is based upon the publication of a newspaper particularly when the very most basic provision of the Bill of Rights is that Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech or of the press.

Now, if Congress can make no law abridging freedom of speech or of the press, how does it happen that publishing a newspaper can come to be part of a conspiracy for which one may be subject to prosecution with possibly five years imprisonment and a $10,000 fine?

Also charged in the indictment is Charles Fujimoto, who has announced that he is chairman of the Communist Party in the Territory of Hawaii, and who has issued press statements as chairman of the Communist Party.

Charles Fujimoto is known to many of you. He grew up on the island of Kauai. He did not feel that the democratic rights he learned about in school were being given to his fellow citizens. He was fortunate enough to be able to go to college, and the more he learned, the more he became convinced that the great guarantees of freedom that existed on paper, were not put into practice in Hawaii. And so, according to his own conclusion of what would help the working people, he announced to the world that he advocated socialism as better for workers than capitalism.

Now, there is nothing in the United States Constitution that says capitalism and democracy are the same.

Since 1848, when the Communist Manifesto was published by Karl Marx, there have been advocates in the United States of the doctrine known as Marxism, but not until the present government campaign and the cases of the 11 in New York, and the other 63 persons now charged, has the government deemed it necessary to suppress dissenters, that is, people who do not think capitalism is the answer for the people of the United States.

And so it comes about that Charles Fujimoto, who grew up on the island of Kauai, whose opinions and beliefs come from observing the plantation system at work in the Territory, and capitalism at work in the Territory, achieves the great prominence of being selected as one of the 63 most dangerous persons in the United States. He is labelled "dangerous" because of his ideas. He is prosecuted for those ideas.

All of you know John Reinecke. For 20 years he and his wife were faithful public servants—teachers in the public schools. Then Gov. Stainback chose him and his wife for the first whipping boys in the red smear campaign. Our law offices represented John and Aiko in their first hearing. The attorney general of Hawaii was forced to admit that he had no evidence of any kind to attack either of the Reineckes as teachers. They had to admit that they were fine and outstanding teachers; that whatever their beliefs were, they had tried to teach their students how to think, not what to think. The crime of the Reineckes was their walking on picket lines, and their constant association with and help to workers.

Eileen Fujimoto—the wife of Charles Fujimoto—is known to many of you. She, too, was born in Hawaii. She has been a faithful and efficient secretary to the ILWU. She is accused of conspiring with her husband and others. She is prosecuted, among other reasons, because she associates with her husband and is accused of sharing his ideas. Can this be a crime in the United States? I think not, in the kind of America you and I want.

James Freeman is a worker like all of you. Even the chairman of the un-American committee had to agree that he served his country well during World War II. All his life he has been either a worker or a labor organizer.

There is not one of these seven defendants who did not grow up in and is not a product of America. Four were born and have always lived in Hawaii. What they learned they learned in American schools; they learned by observing in the United States. Their ideas were based upon what they saw and felt.

Can we not, in the United States, disagree with a person and yet defend his right to have ideas in conflict with ours? Must we all think alike and accept as gospel what we are told, or else be labelled "subversive"? That is not my idea of Americanism . . .

In several places throughout the country, recently, newspaper reporters have tried an experiment. They have made up a petition containing parts of the Bill of Rights and parts of the Declaration of Independence: The common ordinary citizens who were asked to sign these petitions refused to do so. Some of them labelled the circulators of the petitions "Communists." Some of them said they were afraid to sign for fear they would lose their jobs.

When we get to the place in the United States of America where our people are afraid to sign the basic documents of our liberty for fear that the government will punish them for doing so, we have already lost our liberty and now we must put up the fight to get it back.

The Declaration of Independence, adopted in Congress July 2 and signed July 4, 1776, says:

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers by the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. How can the prosecution of individuals on a charge of advocating and teaching socialism be squared with the Declaration of Independence and the right to freedom of speech and of conscience?

At the time when the Congress of the United States adopted the Declaration of Independence, they too, were branded "criminals.'' Our forefathers thought it basic to our country that henceforth this right be guaranteed to all Americans. Thus, with this in mind, the people of the United States insisted on a bill of rights—a bill of rights which guarantees freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, the right of persons to be safe and secure in their houses and papers, the right to a fair hearing and a fair trial—all of these rights which we are taught in school are basic to America.

Yet the government itself has overthrown these rights and refused to make them apply to persons whose ideas are unacceptable to them.

The Supreme Court of the United States has already upheld the conviction of 11 leaders of the Communist Party in New York. Two justices only dissented from that decision. Those two justices, Justice Douglas and Justice Black, said in clear and certain language that the United States government was doing more to undermine and overthrow the form of government . . . than the defendants before the court.

This attack by agents of government against all who disagree with their policies is not limited to the seven defendants. The name of Judge Delbert E. Metzger is known to all of us. Judge Metzger has been a member of the legislature, a circuit court judge, and a federal judge. He has been an engineer and a private lawyer. He has been in Hawaii since 1898.

He alone, among all the public officials in Hawaii, tried to preserve the Constitution of the United States during the period of martial law. He alone was not intimidated by threats of physical violence against him and his family, and issued a writ of habeas corpus to release a person charged and convicted by the drumhead military courts and the United States Supreme Court upheld him in that decision.

Now, because he dared to fix a bail that he felt adequate to serve its purpose, namely, to guarantee the appearance of the defendants, he has been castigated in Congress, statements have issued from the White House, saying he will not be reappointed, and all manner of personal attacks have been made against him. No stronger proof could be shown than in this attack upon Judge Metzger that persons like the seven defendants are only the first in the Territory of Hawaii, and among the first in the nation, who are charged as criminals for disagreeing with the policies of the government.

If this campaign of the government to silence all opposition succeeds first among persons labelled "Communist," it will then move to militant trade union leaders, judges and others.

Do not feel safe because your name is not among the seven, because if this conspiracy of government against the seven succeeds, you and your children will have lost your liberties, and we will go again into the dark ages of thought-control — thought control against which we fought in Germany, in Japan, in Italy, and to which our government has now turned to maintain itself in power.

What can you do? What can you, as individuals, do to stop the destruction of your liberties? ' The first and foremost thing you can do is to strengthen your trade union so that all of you can speak with one mighty voice, to protest, to give aid and assistance, and to demand that American freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Bights be preserved for all of us.

But if you cannot get your friend, your neighbor to join, you must still lift up your voice even if it is a voice in the wilderness, if you are to save your liberty and the liberty of your children and your fellow man.

[PAGE 6] [back to the top]

[PAGE 7] [back to the top]

DAMASCUS (ALN) — Twelve hundred Syrian employes of the Vestol American oil company have gone on strike for better working conditions. Vestol is a branch of the American Trans-Arabian Pipeline Co.

Describing what they called "deplorable" conditions, spokesmen for the strikers said 700 workers at pumping stations No. 3 and 4 were forced to work for 24 hours at a stretch without rest or food. They worked in the burning sun and had to sleep outdoors on the hot sands. At mealtime, they said, only one plate was given to every 10 workers and there was not enough drinking water.

According to the worker, the transaction involved a game guaranteed to "double your money." The worker had entrusted first $6 and then $25 to Onoe, and he had brought back double the amounts. On the day $9,300 was given him, all in $10 bills, the worker said, Patrick Yim was also present.

Although the incident occurred in January, the worker waited six months before making his complaint to the police, being assisted by Ujimori, who identified Onoe as a man who formerly ran a saimin stand in Wailuku, Maui.

[PAGE 8] [back to the top]

The record of our Japanese-owned firms, in so far as labor relations go, is disgraceful and this is a mild expression for the kind of treatment and pay they give employes.

If as Senator Wayne Morse says, Hawaii's Big Five employers are 25 years behind the times in their dealings with labor, these large firms owned by people of Japanese ancestry are at least 50 years late.

The Honolulu Sake Brewery & Ice Co., Ltd., was struck by 16 employes recently and investigation showed that its employes receive $1.05 an hour after 20 years of service, as compared to $1.50 or more for employes doing the same type of work at unionized local breweries. Safety gear plus work uniforms, vacations and sick leave are granted workers in organized breweries.

The president and principal owner of the Sake Brewery is Daizo Sumida and one of its two vice presidents is Senator Wilfred Tsukiyama, who is regarded by many as the "pillar of Americanism" among the AJAs.

All the employes are of Japanese ancestry and almost all were either born or educated in Japan.

The strikers formally set forth their grievances through the Brewery Workers Union, Local 502 (AFL), that the management exploits the old Japanese custom of loyalty and subservience of the workers to the bosses. And prior to the recent consent election for union representation, the strikers say that some of the supervisory staff threatened the workers with loss of their jobs if they voted for the union. The union lost the election and has now appealed to the NLRB to void the action because of unfair labor practices by the company.

The strike itself was big news, for it takes courage for employes in tightly-controlled Japanese-owned firms to strike. But the two Japanese dailies made almost no mention of the strike.

The reason is simple. Daizo Sumida is a powerful businessman and spends substantial amounts in advertising. Other stockholders in the Sake Brewery have businesses which also buy advertising space in the Japanese dailies.

The two Japanese dailies, once known for their support of plantation laborers, showed where they stand on the issues of better wages, working conditions and living standards for the workers and their families at the Sake Brewery and all big Japanese-owned firms.

Why can't the Sake Brewery, which earned about 15 per cent in dividends on capital invested in 1949 and 10 per cent in 1950, pay more to its employes?

Sumida and Tsukiyama and others in similar positions will not give better wages and working conditions out of good heartedness. Only the demands of laborers, backed by unity and strength, will win them better standards of living. And this is possible only by organizing themselves. It is high time that workers in Japanese-owned firms get down to brass tacks and begin organizing.

Attorney Thompson's Conspiracy II.

When NLRB trial examiner George O. Pratt opened hearings in April 1937 on anti-union activities on the Honolulu waterfront, one of the things that came to light was the alleged Burum-Blaisdell-Akana conspiracy to "dump" union organizers Weisbarth and Post. This conspiracy had resulted in the beating of a 60-year-old haole, whom Akana and Blaisdell said they mistook for young half-Hawaiian Maxie Weisbarth.

There was a sensation when Garnett M. Burum, manager of the Seamen's Institute, himself voluntarily took the stand. (Later, on October 9, Burum repeated certain details of his case before a Congressional committee holding hearings on statehood for Hawaii.) While the Advertiser and Star-Bulletin gave Burum's statement only a small fraction of the space they later gave (for example) to the statements of a Jack Kawano or an Ichiro Izuka, they could not suppress it.

Big Five Attorney and Gangsterism

Burum declared he had come forward to help clear up "the mess things had gotten into." When he was convicted of conspiracy in the beating of Karl Olsson, he said, the real story behind his conviction was not told. He then related the incidents that led to his trial.

"The highlight of Burum's testimony," reported the Advertiser, "was reached when he said Frank Thompson, attorney for Honolulu Stevedores, Ltd., ordered him to hire a gang of men to beat up Max Weisbarth, union agent. Burum said he refused to comply with Thompson's instructions, although he did not tell Thompson he would not obey his order. Burum said he was afraid he might lose his job by taking an open stand against Thompson."

It was natural that Thompson should give such an order to Burum. The manager of the Seamen's Institute was expected to be an ex officio stooge and labor spy for the Matson Company and its allies. Randolph J. Sevier, today president of Matson, testified that Burum came to him to report the existence of a gang headed by H. M. Fields, a union man, whose members told Burum they were willing to wreck the union hiring hall. "Burum came to report his knowledge in the line of duty," the Castle & Cooke official asserted.

Sevier Gives Orders To Evict Union Longshoremen

"Sevier admitted that he later obtained employment for Fields at the Royal Hawaiian hotel."

Sevier had also ordered Burum to turn out of the Institute 12 union longshoremen, whom Burum had admitted during the strike of 1936 because they had no money and no other place to go. Non-union longshoremen were allowed to remain.

Burum testified that "Thompson first requested and later demanded) (of) him to submit reports to Thompson regarding the activities of union men in favor of a hiring hall. He gave a detailed account of an asserted trip to San Francisco, ordered and financed by Thompson, for the purpose of influencing San Francisco union men that a hiring hall was not needed in Honolulu . . .

Promise Compensation for Men Hurt In Beating Organizer

"Burum declared that when Thompson ordered him to hire men to beat up Weisbarth, he promised to take care of the doctor bills of any of Burum's men that might be injured. Thompson told Burum he would pay the regular insurance rates that workmen's compensation would award men hurt in the line of duty. Thompson said he wanted the job done right, Burum testified."

"When Burum was charged with paying Nicholas Akana and Thomas H. Blaisdell to beat up Karl Olsson, Burum testified Thompson said he thought Burum's men had got the wrong man. Thompson, Burum said, was surprised to learn that Burum had nothing to do with the beating."

At least Burum steadfastly denied having anything to do with it. But since Thompson did not approach Akana and Blaisdell himself, who except Burum could have put the idea of beating Weisbarth into their minds? Besides, Burum paid Attorney David K. Trask $25 to represent Akana and Blaisdell in district court.

Frank E. Thompson never appeared before the trial examiner to give his side of the story. He asked for a couple of days postponement be cause his throat was so sore he could barely talk, and then took to bed! with a case of influenza until the hearings were over. (To Be Continued)

By Frank Marshall Davis

The Johnson Plan For Peace

"Communism cannot be stopped by military means . . . We can have an honorable peace with Russia, if we are willing to take the initiative. But it will mean revising many of our present policies and attitudes."

These are the opinions of Dr. Mordecai Johnson, president of Howard University, Washington, D.C. largest Negro university in America. Long noted as a keen student of domestic and international affairs, the renowned educator in a recent interview spelled out a plan for establishing a lasting peace between the U. S. and the Soviet Union—if we have the will for peace.

President Johnson said he believes peace with Russia and Communism is possible "in such a way as to preserve the institutions and practices of freedom which are the precious heritage and achievement of the western world, and in such a way as to enhance those institutions and practices of freedom."

Price for Peace Consistent With Our Honor

As for war:

"There are some forces in the world which cannot be stopped by military means. Communism is one of them. Communism is a powerful revolutionary movement in the realm of ideas and human organization.

"If peace is to be achieved with Russia and with the Communists it must be achieved in the field of ideas and in the field of human organization."

The U. S. must take the initiative in establishing such a peace and we are free to take this initiative now, said Dr. Johnson. But it will require a great price of us. Yet this price is within our power and consistent with our honor.

"If we do pay the price of peace, it will result in the functioning of our nation on a higher level than at any other time in its history, and could possibly win for us not only peace, but the esteem and affection of the entire human race," he pointed out.

Abolish Colonialism, Support Global Economic Reconstruction

There are two points to Dr. Johnson's program. One is the abolition of colonialism and the other is world-wide economic reconstruction which we should support to the tune of something like $25 billion annually.

"It requires the United States, first of all, to accept and to discharge the responsibility of bringing the Western powers, of whom she is the leader, to a deliberately planned and programmed liquidation of the remnants of colonial power in Asia, Africa and America, and to give up once and for all the imperialistic habits of political domination, economic exploitation and social humiliation of Asiatic and African peoples," the educator said.

"These habits are themselves the very essence of violence. They invite distrust and violence in return. It is not conceivable that the Western powers can win the confidence and goodwill of the peoples of Asia, and Africa as long as these habits persist in ever so reduced an area.

Overcome Animal-Like Struggle for Existence

. "It requires the United States, secondly, to accept the moral responsibility toward the whole human life which goes with our enormous scientific, technical, organizational and productive genius and to go into the United Nations with a program of economic reconstruction on a worldwide basis, designed to overcome the animal-like struggle for existence which up to this time has prevailed over the earth, and to bring about adequate subsistence in food, clothing, housing and health for every human family of every race, color, nationality and culture on the earth, within the generation now before us.

"As the proponent and leader of this program, it requires the United States to support it with , magnificent and responsible adequacy, in an amount which may be equal to one-tenth of our annual productive power—about $25 billion per year.

"It requires that we set this program before the world, not as an accessory to our military program, but as the main objective in relation to which our military program is only a protective fence-building operation.

Plan On Highest Level Of Statesmanship

"Now this is a plan on the highest level of statesmanship, designed to recognize and encourage to the. maximum the Russian and Com munist belief that a world-wide conquest of the struggle for existence is possible and to offer them a well-planned and magnificently supported way of working toward it by consultation and democratic cooperation on a world encompassing basis, as an alternative to the procedure of aggressive war and the violent and subversive establishment of totalitarian states which we so greatly fear."

There you have the Johnson plan for peace. What do you think of it? Your comments are invited.