Packers Dictate Aku Catch     [print]

10,000-lb. Haul From Ocean Limit To Bolster Price

More fish are in easy reach of local fishermen than ever before, but despite the abundance, fishing boats under contract are under orders not to bring in more than 10,000 pounds and the retail price of aku remains, though shakily, at 50 cents a pound.

"The catch this year," William Kanakanui, secretary of the Tuna Boat Owners Association told the RECORD, "is more than twice as big as in any preceding year. The industry is suffering from over-production—over-production and importation." Hawaiian Tuna Packers, Ltd., employer by contract of most fishing boats here, has ordered the boats to bring in no more than 10,000 pounds.

On the West Coast, tuna packers are reported to have stopped taking orders and fishing boats don't go out at all.

Independents Undersell

In spite of these desperate moves to peg tuna at the price of 50 cents, that figure was being rocked by the activities of the few independent operators here who advertised and sold aku last week at 20 to 25 cents a pound.

Irking as it is for fishermen to be forced to bring back partially

filled boats when so many fish are within easy grasp, the situation is better here than on the Mainland, at least momentarily, they say, since the quota allows them at least some activity.

"It's a move," said Kanakanui, "to keep from having to tie the boats up."

Some fishermen, however, point out the wide discrepancy between prices received by the fishing boat owners and prices of aku on the retail market and say that if the price was dropped the fish would attract more buyers to the market.

Imported Fish One Factor An important factor which may force the price of tuna down before long, all fishermen agree, is that of imported frozen fish from Japan and South America, which have both become competitors of the local product on the market.

"They're bringing in albacore and other types from Japan," said Kanakanui, "and they're trying to process them cheaper than our packers can and compete on the market." The only cure Mr. Kanakanui sees for the competition by import is what a California congressman has initiated—a five cents per pound protective tariff charged on all such importations. The bill has been introduced, says Kanakanui, but has not received any action: Others say local prices might be lowered to narrow the gap between fish caught here and the cheaper importations.

Happy Over New Mark-up One bright spot locally for independent fishermen is the newly organized auction at the King St. market, headed by a group which includes Hiram Fong, speaker of the Territorial house of representatives, which offers a new outlet for fish other than aku. Heretofore, the only auction had been maintained by the M. Otani Co., Ltd., as an accessory to the fish bought by contract.

Although the outlet is largely for fishermen who bring in albacore, swordfish and a variety of others instead of principally aku, the existence of a new auction should tend to bring up the prices they receive for their catch.

"There is a big difference between the price the fisherman gets and the retail price," said a man long associated with the fishing industry. "The middleman gets most of the money." Fishermen seldom get as much as 20 cents a pound for their catch, more often being forced to take 16 to 18 cents, and sometimes as little as 10 cents a pound, he said. The low prices received by fishermen, he added, are the result of the comparative monopoly enjoyed in the industry here by Hawaiian Tuna Packers and on another level by the M. Otani Co.

Otani Fought Co-Ops The fiercely protective attitude of the M. Otani Co. in protecting its present economic status was seen during the last session of the legislature when the Senate allowed a bill authorizing fishing cooperatives to die in committee. Leading opposition to the bill was Sen. William Heen, who is also an active member of the board of directors of the M. Otani Co.

Mr. Kanakanui, who recommended the bill on behalf of the tuna boat owners whom it would affect directly, explains that there was nothing in the bill that really isn't already legalized by Federal law, according to a law passed in the '30s.

"You can organize a cooperative here anyhow," Kanakanui explained, "because there's nothing illegal about it. But we thought that haying a local law would provide an incentive to fishermen to organize. We thought it would have the effect of stabilizing the industry. That would be good for the distributors, too."

But the Otani company didn't see it that way and after the bill had passed the house of representatives, it went first to the senate judiciary committee, then to the committee on agriculture, and Sen. Heen, accompanied by M. Otani, appeared to voice opposition to it. The result was that it never got out of committee.

"The bill was iceboxed," says Kanakanui.

Controlling interest of 56 per cent of the stock in Hawaiian Tuna Packers, Ltd., was purchased Wednesday by Castle & Cooke, Ltd. Formerly Castle & Cooke had held 41 per cent of the stock of the fish canning firm since a purchase in 1948.

"Do you favor the selling of lease land to the people?"

This pressing question was asked by public opinion canvassers of Territorial Surveys when they recently made the round of residential districts.

Strongly for Land Distribution

An informed source said that this question brought interesting reactions, with answers, particularly in housing areas and crowded city areas indicating that there can be only one reply to the query. "Why certainly!" "What? Come again Are the big land monopolists finally getting generous and humane?" "Sure. Then the price of land goes down and more people can buy land." "Yes, that's one thing that must be done here."

"These were some of the reactions, although not in the exact words," said the source.

This particular survey was sponsored by American Factors, Ltd., and other firms.

Big Five Did Not Ask

A spokesman at American Factors, said that this was a media study and it gave opportunity to some of the participating sponsors to throw in questions. American Factors was not behind this question, he said.

Dan E. Clark, manager of Territorial Surveys, said that "none of the so-called Big Five" firms puts forth this question. The survey is not completed, Mr. Clark said. In protecting the clients, the agency does not give the names of sponsors. One of the canvassers is reported to have asked a person he queried: Don't you listen to any disk jockeys? No? Come on be cooperative."

He told the individual being questioned that he had been getting a "bad time" on this question all day.

"Now how about a little cooperation. Don't you listen to Hamilton or J. Akuhead or Crockett?" he tried again.

"No, I don't listen to that stuff," one person interviewed answered.

Recalls Political Survey

Other questions asked dealt with what newspapers one read, where one shopped, how many radios a family owned, and family income. "This survey is not so bad. Sure we get some bad times, but nobody has tried to throw me out," the canvasser said. "When we conducted our political survey and asked about affiliation, liberal or conservative and all kinds of questions like that, some people really got hot under the collar. They made us think we were prying into their private lives," he said.

Even to this day I am deeply stirred whenever I reminisce about my formative years in Kona, for despite all its natural beauties, my birthplace, which holds an attraction for tourists, had its harsh and brutal side for the toiling farmers who worked from sunup to sundown, day after day, many of them going deeper and deeper in debt year after year to the coffee factors.

There seemed to be more bad years than good, for once a farmer was set back because of storm or drought that ruined his crop, or because of low coffee prices, the coffee company mercilessly sold groceries and fertilizer on credit at frightening prices and bought the coffee cheap at prices they set. I saw neighbors leave Kona, crushed by the burden of debts. I heard complaints from farmers who had almost no way of redressing their grievances.

Their land was owned by landlords, who in some cases, like the Hinds, also had a coffee mill and store. Because they leased the land which the landlords would not sell and because most farmers fell into debt at one time or another, they were afraid to organize and take their complaints to the coffee companies. The Hinds, for instance, did not then nor do they, even today, permit farmers to pulp their coffee berries at home. This processing would mean extra income for tenant farmers, but the Hinds have the Captain Cook Coffee Company, which does the pulping.

As a child, I listened closely to all that was said, for a high coffee price meant better food and firecrackers at New Year, new clothes instead of window-patched one. I began to work early in life and I imagine that mother taught me, as other children were trained, to pick up the overripe coffee that had fallen on the ground, when I was two years old.

We watched the horizon in the spring for signs of a storm or ocean fog, for it was then that the honey bees sucked and pollinated the fragrant, snow-white coffee blossoms. Storm and fog killed the flowers and if such a calamity came, we worked the whole year round with heavy hearts.

Where the Money Came From

For Schoolbooks and Church Offerings

It meant then that we had to "bootleg" the coffee we produced on the mortgaged farm, under cover of darkness. As soon as I became strong enough to carry 50 pounds of coffee, I participated in these midnight activities when mother shook us up. Barefooted, so as not to make alarming noises, we carried bags of coffee away from our farm to a party who bought (them or sold them for us. Thus, we got money for schoolbooks, for occasional meat and for offerings at the church to the priest and to Buddha.

But there were years when we had bumper crops and knew, too, that our lives would be no better after all the hard work in the sun and the rain. I remember when father told us about the extensive territory that was Brazil, where more coffee was produced than the people of the world could buy, and year after year the farmers there were forced to deliberately burn their crop.

We naturally asked many questions. Why can't the people buy coffee? Why do they keep producing so much if the crop must be destroyed? Why can't the Brazilians think of us? What was depression? Why must it come back periodically? Can't someone do anything to bring happiness to people?

The questions, of course, were not put in those terms, but put forth they were with such content for father to answer.

Mother Was My Best Teacher

It was in this environment that I began to grow in mind and body some 37 years ago and my early development there charted the road I would tread in society.

Now that I am indicted by the Justice Department for allegedly teaching and advocating the overthrow of the government by force and violence, I naturally look inward and backward over the span of years to Kona. I do not do this with any doubt or misgivings in my mind that I should have taken other courses. I am proud of what I am. The charges against me and others under the vicious Smith Act, the modern version of the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts which long ago brought widespread fear, then revulsion to the people, are tissues of lies to whip up fear and bring conformity to the war program in this day and age. I now review my life in Kona principally to look at conditions, events and people that molded my early thinking.

Kona was a great school and mother was my best teacher. When I was about five, father became ill with a weak heart. For mother, a woman of small frame weighing about 85 pounds, the task and responsibility of looking after our eight-acre coffee farm was exceedingly heavy. Her hands were calloused and cracked and deeply stained by the green grass which we tried to keep down by hoeing and poisoning.

Every night about 10 or 11, like a ritual, I went to her as she sprawled out on the thin quilt spread on the floor after the hot bath. I massaged her tired and exhausted body from half an hour to an hour and a half, while asking her questions born of deep curiosity and a passionate desire to learn from her, and) left her when I heard her sinking into slumber, breathing like a relaxed child, tired out after a hard day.

What Contract Servitude Was Like

Mother told me about her sugar plantation life. Father was indentured to serve three years for a sum slightly over $10 a month and mother worked for $7.50. Men, young and strong, could not take the daily ordeal and many drank soy sauce to work up a fever in order to stay home. Unfortunately, there were informers, she said, arid the lunas (straw bosses and overseers), once put wise to this machination, dragged out the exhausted and sick workers and chased them into the fields, cracking their whips from atop their horses. Chinese who stayed home were dragged by their long queues as the lunas galloped their horses while hauling the men to work.

In the early morning as the laborers went into the fields, the lunas cracked their whips over the heads of the indentured serfs, which mother used to describe as "just like Arthur Greenwell and his cowboys cracking their whips while driving their cattle."

The Greenwells are big ranchers and landlords from whom numerous Kona farmers lease their land. Besides the Gaspers, who were Portuguese, Arthur Greenwell and his family members were the first white people I ever saw. In driving their cattle down to the beach from the mountain pastures, the cows crowded the narrow highway and dashed into coffee farms if the stone fence was down or the gates were open. If this happened, Arthur Greenwell told us in his booming voice exactly what he thought of us. So, whenever we were working on our farm and we heard the cracking of the whips and the yelling of cowboys, we rushed to the highway to fasten our gates.

Father Brought Me My Proudest Moments

If father was there he would stand and stare back in disdain and answer in Japanese what the Greenwells said in English.

Several times I heard father say something like this: "They came with the Bible some of these landlords, taught the Hawaiians to sing psalms and took their land away. That is no way to use religion. Their God knows."

I idolized my father because he was a fighter. After he became ill, he devoted all his time to helping people iron out their problems, domestic and otherwise. He was a man of considerable influence and prestige in Kona, as oldtimers know.

Perhaps the proudest moments of my life came when I saw father stand on the rostrum in our Japanese school and in his down-to-earth Japanese, urge all students not to be afraid or discouraged but to keep attending school. This was shortly after World War I, when, as now, attacks against civil rights and privileges of non-whites, Germans and political minorities knew almost no bounds.

Makino Leads Fight for Freedom of Education

The Japanese language school was being outlawed. The Hawaii Hochi, under the militant editorship of Fred Makino, fought the case to the U. S. Supreme Court and won.

You have nothing to fear, father told us students. Tell your parents to keep sending you to the Japanese school. Men like Makino, Shibayama and Morita are leading the fight and the Japanese residents will win the right to free education, he said.

Higher Wage Demand Was "Conspiracy"

One year, we had a new principal at the Japanese school. Some of the older students whispered that he had only recently served time in prison. I asked mother if this were true.

It was then that she told me about strikes on the sugar plantations, for higher wages and better treatment. This principal of ours was a great man, she said. He did not go to jail with others because he did wrong. He went for others. He was a leader of the 1920 Japanese strike on sugar plantations. That was why the rich plantation owners used the government to put him behind bars. And she told me of Makino, a familiar name in our family, being jailed in an earlier strike (1909) because he had supported the Japanese strikers. Much later, I found out that Yasutaro Soga, editor of the Nippu Jiji, was among the many who were jailed.

We know of this 1909 strike case as a "higher wage conspiracy."

The employers charged that the organization of workers for higher wages was dangerous to the existence of capital and the government they controlled. The employes on the plantations in 1909 were getting about 65 cents a day.

"We are fortunate to have our new principal," mother said. "You must study hard."

Because we were poor, my brother and I stayed home to work during the coffee season. At that time, Kona's school system did not provide coffee vacation from September to November. To make up for time lost from school, we went to night school at the principal's home for our Japanese lessons and to Miss Kahaliano's home for our English lessons.

Kona Opened Vistas To Newer Horizons

Thus, I grew and moved toward broader and newer horizons. I came to social understanding not by way of books in those formative years, but by way of hard-knock experiences.

I am fortunate that I have a mother who forged me into a rebel who would strive to substitute good for bad and did not leave me to become an anti-social rebel who would commit crimes to eke out a living, or a spineless creature who would prostitute himself to vested interests or cringe before them.

Mother's influence on me was decidedly strong; I need only to tell a story to illustrate it.

Shortly after father's death, when I was about 10, my elder brother and I went to a game-cock fight. Mother was informed of our whereabouts and she sent for us. When I returned home, she was shaking like a leaf, crying as I had never seen her cry before. She must have thought that we had gone to the dogs so soon after father's death.

Mother asked us to kneel before father's tablet, before the shrine in our home. She asked us to promise that we would never gamble as long as we lived.

It is nearly thirty years since the incident and in all those years, this pastime has held no attraction for me at all. (To Be Continued)

Six pineapple companies might today condemn Hawaiian Pine for its stubbornness in prolonging the Lanai strike, but Lanai workers might congratulate themselves that they had won, not only a 15-cent increase for themselves (three cents more than the asked for), but also a seven-cent raise for workers for the other six companies as well.

"It's the beginning of a new era on Lanai."

So said President Takeo Furuike of the ILWU pineapple workers, but he gees on to say it's the beginning of a new era for workers throughout the industry, as well.

"The Lanai strikers had the guts and the conviction to hold out," said Furuike. 'They helped the whole ILWU to a better understanding of trade unionism."

Victory on Lanai came in the union's settlement with seven companies Friday, Sept. 14, which ended the 200-day strike.

Giving the Lanai strikers credit for a sweeping victory which has, subject to ratification by locals, set a new pattern for labor-management relations throughout the pineapple industry, Furuike said he thinks employers have learned that they can no longer isolate plantations or groups, paying different wages and setting up different conditions from those general in the industry. "The industry-wide bargaining is a step toward preventing a situation like Lanai happening again," Furuike said.

More Than They Asked

In a wage gain that exceeded the strikers' demands, Lanai workers won eight cents retroactive to October 20, 1950, which, added to a seven-cent increase granted throughout the industry, gave them 15 cents or three cents more than the 12 cents they had asked. In addition to the seven-cent increase for all employes of the seven pineapple companies, other points of agreement included:

• Stronger union security language similar to that negotiated in the sugar contract.

• Recognition of Local 142 as a consolidated union.

• An increased emphasis on seniority as a determining factor in promotions and transfers. • Reopening Feb. 1, 1953, of negotiations on wages and any other three items to be selected by the union.

• Return to industry-wide bargaining, with all contracts to expire February 1, 1954. Recounting events of the strike, ILWU spokesmen gave much credit to material and moral support received from locals on other islands and from the Mainland.

Soup Kitchen To Continue

The support has not ended yet, President Furuike said, and he told how food is still being shipped to the Lanai workers who will continue to operate their soup kitchen for some time to come.

"It will help them to make the transition from the strike conditions back to their usual life," Furuike said.

The agreement which ended the strike will become general when other locals ratify it.

Masaki Tsumura, manager of the Lanai Community Welfare Association, wrote the RECORD this week to comment on an item in the interview with Mrs. Elizabeth "Cherry" Takao, who visited Lanai as a part of the ILWU morale program (RECORD, Sept. 6).

Concerning the quotation from Mrs. Takao to the effect that a swimming pool under construction there is to be for haoles only, Mr. Tsumura writes that the statement is "grossly unfair to the Community Association," and he says the swimming pool being constructed at Manele Beach is "a voluntary community project undertaken by the Community Welfare Association, and on completion, will be used by everyone."

Being informed of his comment. Mrs. Takao said she had heard the erroneous information on Lanai and added that she. is glad the report is false and that better racial understanding is being promoted on Lanai by the Community Association.

"By the way," Mrs. Takao added, "the company must have read my story, eh! I said, they could save part of the crop if they'd settle in a week—and they did!"

Lampley's Leg Crushed In Industrial Accident

"It looks," said the tall lean man from his cot in Queen's Hospital, "as if I'm going to be in here a long time."

The tall man is Thomas "Pittsburgh" Lampley, former boxer, well known in Honolulu as a trainer of boxers and an expert welder, and it does, indeed, look as if he'll be on his cot for some time to come.

He's lucky, in fact, that he'll be able to walk on both his feet for he almost got his right leg cut in two when a crane slipped and pinned him to a column on a job August 28, where he was employed as a welder.

The report of Dr. B. Alien Richardson says he suffered a compound comminutal fracture of the distal end of the right tibia involving the right ankle joint. Ankle Also Injured

That means the big bone of his right leg was shattered in what is still an open wound, just above the ankle.

The report of the employer, the Industrial Electric & Steel Co., Ltd., 215 Puuhale, says Lampley was sitting on top of a platform roof signalling the crane operator. The crane, says the report, "dipped when it hit a high spot" and pinned Lampley's foot to the column.

At present, the workmen's compensation bureau is waiting Lamp-ley's recovery to determine whether or not he has suffered permanent injury and the extent of such injury.

In the meantime, the popular sports figure is confined to his bed, undergoing treatment, and he welcomes visits from his many friends.

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Behind the changing sentiment of the Hawaiian Homes Commission this week, which saw the commission moving toward a withdrawal of its Waimea, Hawaii, lands from Land Commissioner Frank Serrao's plan to lease to small ranchers, lay the protests of Hawaiians for many months. Although opposition to the Serrao plan has existed for some time, it has not come into the open more clearly than on Tuesday when a delegation from the Hawaiian Civic Club of Waimea, with Arthur Trask as spokesman, presented its views at a hearing before the HHC. Not all Hawaiians agreed on what should be done with the lands, but most opposed the plan by which Serrao proposed to lease them for 18-month periods, to provide land for 10 ranchers who were dispossessed because of their inability to compete in a Territorial land auction earlier this year and by earlier HHC revocations.

"I am not opposed to the small ranchers getting land," said one interested Hawaiian, "but why must the land come from us? There is plenty of Territorial land that can be given them." A Hawaiian who hopes to set up ranching there under HHC auspices, said he distrusts the Serrao 18-month grant plan because he feels it must lead toward efforts of those ranchers to occupy the land permanently.

Must Try To Stay

"How can one of those ranchers," said the Hawaiian, "expect to get a return on the kind of investment he'll have to make, if he's only going to stay 18 months? He's got to try to stay longer."

Part of the 8,191 acres in question is without water, Hawaiians point out, and would require considerable capitalization to utilize it.

The land has been leased to the Parker ranch for the past 20 years and, though the lease expired early this year, the Hawaiian Homes

Commission did not have enough funds to set up Hawaiian residents there with the loans provided by law.

Intended for Poor Hawaiians Home Hawaiians who are able to finance themselves have opposed the Serrao plan, feeling that if the land is leased to any ranchers, it should be leased to those of Hawaiian extraction.

Such an act would, nevertheless, still avoid the intent of the act setting up the HHC, other Hawaiians say, since the homestead land was set aside for Hawaiians in financial distress and who need help —not for people already financially independent.

An interesting sidelight on the present attitude of the commission is its reversal since Serrao first broached his plan early this year. Then the commission was almost unanimous in agreeing to Serrao's plan, the single exception being Mrs. Harriet Magoon.

[MR. SERRAO]

"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.

The Hawaii Medical Services Association did not, as unauthoritative talk had it, make a general increase in its rates of membership recently—or within the past year. It did, however, increase rates for its "non-group" members who constitute about 12,000 of the 52,000 total throughout the Territory. But some of the 12,000 actually got a reduced rate out of the change, these being families of five or more. The increase amounts to 45 cents a month for families of less than five, the increase being from $2.80 to $3.25, F. C. Rawlins of the sales department at HMSA told the RECORD.

At the same time, rates on families of five or more were reduced from $12.50 to $12.15.

Doctors Cost Most

Chief item of expense which caused the increase, Mr. Rawlins said, is that of medical service, including doctors' visits either to the home or the hospital, and patients' visits to doctors' offices.

Other benefits enjoyed by HMSA members include reduction of expenses (often total payment) of surgical, maternity and hospital expenses.

"Non-group" members are persons who came into the HMSA with some group (industry, union, club, etc.) which later had to be discontinued. But the individual members wished to remain in the HMSA and so have been maintained as a group themselves.

Doctor's care is most costly per individual, Mr. Rawlins said, in families of three, when one of the three is an only child.

"When parents have only one child," Rawlins said, "they're inclined to run to the doctor for every little thing. When they have four or five children or more, they know a great many small things aren't worth a doctor's attention. Then, of course, they probably can't afford to go as often."

In the case of the recent increase for non-group members, the members were offered their choice of dispensing with the medical services item, in which case the rate would remain the same, or of paying the 45-cent increase.

By Special Correspondence

New York City—Six white soldiers who committed the mass rape of a Negro mother of two children and wife of a GI one month ago in North Carolina are still free as U. S. army officials have "failed" to arrest them.

The Civil Rights Congress condemned this attitude as "the white supremacist army officers' encouragement to further violence against both Negro and white womanhood."

Sheriffs Have Two Laws Along with the army officers, North Carolina sheriffs and police have also been "unable" to find the six rapists, although they were very quick and efficient when it came to framing up:

• Clyde Brown and Raleigh Speller, innocent North Carolina Negro victims of frame-ups, now facing death.

•The Daniels cousins, innocent Negro teenagers facing death on a murder frame-up.

•Mack Ingram, the Negro sharecropper facing imprisonment for allegedly looking at a white girl.

Sheriff Confirmed Rape Story

Sheriff McDonald of Carthage, has disclosed that the Negro mother was raped by the six white soldiers in the rear of an army truck during Army-Air Force maneuvers. The mother of the two children was returning with a group from church the night of August 15 when seven soldiers traveling in an army truck, stopped them. At gunpoint, the soldiers forced her, another woman and a Negro preacher's son into the back of the truck.

The other woman managed to free herself from the soldiers and run. While the seventh held the youth at bay with a rifle, the other six raped the woman.

The Civil Rights Congress called for protests to President Truman against the army's failure to apprehend the six rapists and charged that the Federal government's refusal to act in "the many recent cases where white rapists of Negro women were freed by southern courts served to encourage this mass rape."

Direct Result of Policy

The CRC , also declared that "this mass rape, which has gone unpunished, is a direct result of the army's stated policy of brutalizing American youth for 'Operation Killer' against both white and colored peoples throughout the world." The civil rights organization which is now under government attack because of its unwavering and militant struggle for constitutional rights for all charged that "this brutalization has been decided upon by army brass because the war in Korea is unpopular with American boys and their families."

Frame-Up Conviction of Negro GI

While no effort was made to arrest the six white rapists, the mother of a Negro GI attempted suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills in Los Angeles after her son was sentenced on a murder-rape frame-up.

Sergeant Lawrence Walker was found guilty despite testimony by a ballistics expert that the bullets which killed Doris and Richard Cook, the young white couple Walker was accused of murdering, could not have come from his gun. Mrs. Margaret Chance, lone Negro on the jury which convicted Walker, has charged anti-Negro Was on the part of her fellow jurors. The CRC in California, along with several other Negro and progressive organizations, has called for protests to Governor Earl Warren against the “Jim Crow frame-up of the innocent Sgt. Walker.” It has asserted that this conviction is “another example of an official government policy, on all levels and in all branches, of enforcing Jim Crow and segregation through legal lynchings and terror against the whole Negro people.”

By Staff Writer

Accosted by a reporter friend from the Star-Bulletin as to why he didn't give with the news on rabbits (see RECORD Aug. 9), an official of the Hawaiian Rabbit Breeders' Association said merely that the RECORD reporter had come to him first.

But to others he said: "The Star-Bulletin wouldn't have printed the real story anyhow."

The story was about the organization of the association, but the part the rabbit breeders wanted to see in print was that about their fight against the importation of Australian wild rabbit meat, which they say has been barred in many states and which, T. H. Department of Health officials admit, has been barred here on occasion. All of which recalls the many instances the Star-Bulletin has had to print stories the people, or groups of the people here wanted to see published.

Stood Off Labor Council

One of them is current—the story of the fight the Oahu Labor Council is making against racial discrimination in local bars. The council invited the Star-Bulletin to send a reporter or reporters around with representatives of the council, to see for themselves whether or not there is discrimination in local bars.

The reporters were willing, even somewhat eager, but the Star-Bulletin's editors never gave the project any approval— though they did publish an editorial saying there are at least some bars in which all racial groups are welcome. Which, as RECORD Columnist Frank Marshall pointed out, is the same thing a Dixiecrat paper would say on the same proposition.

Such has been the pattern of the dailies for a long time, and a comparison of their treatment with that of the RECORD shows the pattern on many stories.

When Ben Johnson, Negro veteran of World War II, conducted a one-man campaign against discrimination in downtown bars and dancehalls back in 1948, he invited the Star-Bulletin to send a reporter.

Johnson Picketed Bars Two small stories appeared on inside pages—the two adding up to less than five column inches— and that was all. The RECORD sent a reporter to accompany Johnson as he picketed establishments on Hotel and Nuuanu Sts., ran detailed stories and pictures, and then published a story by Johnson, himself, on the composition and character of life on Smith Street.

When the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Hawaii Civil Liberties Committee were sending investigating committees on the same project, they invited the Star-Bulletin. The reaction of reporters was then, as now, favorable. They wanted to go but the bosses wouldn't let them. . The RECORD sent a reporter to discover and report in detail that racial discrimination not only is maintained by local dancehall management, but that it is strongly upheld by individual members of the police force.

Why RECORD Gets Tips So it is not surprising that when people hear of conditions of mismanagement, graft and corruption they feel should be exposed, they come to the RECORD. Thus, the RECORD exposed the manner in which Carl Flath, administrator at Queen's Hospital, enjoyed an expensive residence while some necessities for the hospital were neglected. Also, when the hazardous condition of Honolulu's harbor became apparent to government officials, it was the RECORD which first told the reading public an explosion comparable to the Texas City nitrate Mast might occur here. Two months later, the Star-Bulletin reported the same facts and won a national prize for it. But even then, the Star-Bulletin never reported, as did the RECORD, that the hazard was extremely intensified by the high concentration of oil tanks near the harbor.

And only a few weeks ago, when old-timers at Theo. H. Davies, Ltd., were laid off after many years of service, it was the RECORD which heard of and reported the story. All of which proves that, regardless of what the fat cats and the Washington un-Americans think, the people know a free newspaper when they see one.

Dem. Precinct Endorses Norman Godbold for territorial Treasurer

The llth Precinct of the 4th District Democratic Club endorsed Norman D. Godbold for Territorial treasurer to succeed William B. Brown who has been appointed to the Maui circuit court bench and is awaiting confirmation by the U. S. Senate.

The forwarding of the resolution adopted August 20, was delayed because of the postponement of the Democratic county committee meeting, Clarence T. Sawai, secretary of the precinct club said.

The club pointed to Mr. Godbold's qualifications as a former district magistrate of Hilo, tax assessor and land appraiser, first deputy treasurer of the Territory for three years and as treasurer of the Territory for three years. It also mentioned Mr. Godbold's part as campaign manager on Oahu of the Democratic Party during the last election.

Americans In Korea

"The Koreans who had attractive homes, who could entertain generously, who could speak English and talk of Western culture, were, of course, the wealthy class... Consequently the Americans were influenced, consciously or unconsciously, by a conservative landlord group whose point of view did not always make for the greatest good for the greatest number, even though it was patriotic according to their own lights. Many of the real patriots, those whose resistance to the Japanese had been consistent and lasting, barred by the language barrier, by obscurity and relative poverty, were usually disregarded or discredited."—E. Grant Meade, American Military Government in Korea, p. 104.

Department store stocks at the beginning of August were about 35 per cent higher than a year earlier. Sales were also running behind last year.

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San Francisco (FP)—"If one editor can be arrested for criticizing government policies and authorities, then cannot other editors be arrested?"

This question was asked in a letter sent to publishers, editors and newspapermen throughout the country by Morris Watson, editor of The Dispatcher, official International Longshoremen's & Warehousemen's Union newspaper. A newspaperman for almost 30 years, Watson formerly worked for the Associated Press, from which he was fired for helping to organize the American Newspaper Guild (CIO). His dismissal led to a court fight which resulted in a U. S. Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of the Wagner Act.

Watson said he was concerned over the arrest within the past month of Al Richmond, executive editor of the Daily People's World in San Francisco, and Philip M. Connelly, the paper's Southern California editor.

"These editors are charged with conspiring to teach and advocate overthrow of the U. S. government by force and violence," he wrote. "As unbelievable as it may seem, they are actually charged in an indictment voted by the Los Angeles Federal grand jury with conspiring to publish magazines, pamphlets and a newspaper.

"There is no charge that they actually advocated or taught overthrow of the U. S. government by violence. The charge is that they might some day do so. Could not the same charge be leveled against other editors? Most, if not all newspapers, conceive it their proper function to inform, to teach, to mold, to advocate."

Watson pointed out that "the left press, even the labor press . . . has no monopoly on criticism of government. As a matter of fact, newspapers, large, small, conservative or liberal, are today devoting major attention to exposure and criticism of graft and corruption in government and the political connections with gambling, sports bribing and scandals such as that at West Point. There is also raging a fierce debate on American foreign policy and peace, and the newspapers are surely in this debate."

Watson emphasized he was not concerned with "direct or indirect support of the beliefs of the editors, whether they be socialist, communist or some other variety of radical belief," but only with support "for an inviolate right as guaranteed to all by the Constitution."

He called on the publishers and editors to "bear in mind the dangers to the freedom of the press that lie along the path of political persecution" and to inform their readers of "the threat to their own individual liberties if freedom of the press is destroyed."

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.

Lake Placid, N. Y.—A denunciation of the Smith and McCarran Acts and a warning that "the danger inside America is the threat of fascism," was made by a national CIO leader at the recent New York State CIO convention.

The speech, by Prank Rosenblum, secretary-treasurer of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers and a vice president of the CIO, was delivered in the closing hour of the convention. He warned that the country is being "deliberately engineered" towards fascism, fear and hysteria.

Creeping Fascism Real Menace Rosenblum's denial that Communism, was a menace in this country, his charge that thought-control was replacing the Bill of Rights and his challenge that "the times call for less hysteria, not more; less panic, not more; less violence, not more," had an electrifying effect.

Rosenblum rejected the repeated clamor of previous convention speakers that Communism was a "threat" in the United States. "Nobody seriously believes that," he said.

"But a creeping fascism is a real menace here, and we must take steps to counteract it," he added. He then spelled out this fascist menace.

"Our civil rights are insidiously being impaired, restricted and curbed. A wave of legislation beginning with the 'Taft-Hartley Act and the Smith Act, embracing the McCarran Act and similar measures, has created in effect, a parallel legal system superseding the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and our traditional body of law," he charged.

Conspiracy Is "Deliberate"

"This is a dangerous movement toward fascism, representing a real threat to labor and liberal elements in this country."

He said this conspiracy is "deliberate," and "engineered by those who would substitute fascism for democracy, even though they seek to create the impression that it is being directed against Communists." Rosenblum warned that reactionaries are sowing hate, fear and dissension in the minds of the American people. "We are getting into the habit of substituting trial by committee for trial by jury," he warned.

In an unmistakable reference to government witch-hunts and repressive federal and state legislation, the CIO leader said flatly.

Field Day for McCarthys "We have begun to institute thought control."

"The McCarthys, the McCarrans, the Tafts, the Wherrys and others of the same stripe, have a field day . . . Guilt by association, by innuendo, by gossip, is making a mockery of our vaunted American jurisprudence . . ."

The price of wine will come down in local stores October 1, the Office of Price Stabilization told the RECORD this week, confirming talk that had come from the wholesalers. Although the OPS spokesman was loathe to make any prediction oh the amount of the reduction, he said it is definite that new ceilings will bring prices down.

In the liquor industry, the most general estimate was that the reduction will be from 10 to 12 per cent, varying with brands to some extent.

The OPS spokesman said ceilings will be placed on a basis of the landing price in Hawaii.

Various reasons have been given by wholesalers for the rise in wine prices, which began in December 1950. The reason mentioned most recently was that the grape crop was bad, therefore the wine output is correspondingly low, but the war in Korea has also been cited as a factor that put prices up.

While the cat's away, the mice will play. Wonder if they play cribbage in the department of buildings when Arthur Akinaka's on the job, as they were doing Monday morning in his absence on a Mainland trip? Probably no great sum changed hands, and it wouldn't be quite cricket to put the finger on the winner—but the loser must have been John Q. Taxpayer.

* *

Not since the "Dear Joe" editorials were frontpaged in the 'Tiser during the longshore strike has the ayem paper aroused as much indignation as it did with its Monday editorial asking the execution of Palakiko and Majors. "Vicious" was the word applied by an AJA newspaperman, but Hawaiians were the most indignant.

In City Hall, there were groups which congregated and discussed the 'Tiser's concept of justice in heated terms.

"If they want to stir up race prejudice," said one lady, "they're going to succeed."

She, like many others, had just finished making the comparison of the sentence in the present case with that in the Massie case, when the admittedly premeditated murderers of Kahahawai got a pardon one hour after the trial.

* *

Nothing in that editorial appeared in poorer taste and judgment to many than to refer to those who seek clemency for the two men as a "pressure group," and to try a backhanded smear of the people who went from door to door circulating a petition in an effort to save two lives, and a smear of those who signed the petitions. The part union people have played in the campaign is conspicuous, but the broad front of sympathy for the two young men is readily seen in the names, of those who have approached the governor—Alice Kamokila Campbell, Attorney Dan Ridley and 21 ministers.

To what depths have we fallen, when an appeal for human mercy is suspect as subversive?

* *

Chief Dan Liu's letter to the board of supervisors this week, suggesting that restrictions against all-night parking be abolished, was the first time the police chief has brought out what many at City Hall feel has been on his mind for a long time. The idea should be a popular one with everyone except possibly the Traffic Safety Commission.

* *

Did you know that the Honolulu Realty Board believes so strongly in the principle of arbitration that it has a standing arbitration committee to settle disputes?

It would be naive to think that the unflattering pictures of the "Hawaii Seven" released to the local press by the FBI are the only pictures that agency has on file—of most, at least. During the longshore strike and its Million-Dollar Picket Line of bosses' wives, and also at other picket lines before and after, G-men were busy snapping pictures of the spectators and so were paid stooges. There couldn't be much doubt that most of the pictures were chosen with a view toward making the subjects look as villainous as possible. Note the difference between those pix and the ones the RECORD ran last week.

* *

Those circulating petitions asking mercy for Palakiko and Majors found a little, though not too much, of the same sort of fear exposed by Reporter John Hunter for the Madison (Wis.) Capital-Times when he found 111 out of 112 people who wouldn't sign the Declaration of Independence. There were some, local petitioners say, who orally agreed that execution of the pair has no real bearing on justice, but who just feared to sign their names in what would seem the local type of McCarthyism. A few even, were union men.

* *

The controller's office is said to be currently understaffed and, in a manner different from that of previous years, Paul Keppeler is making no move to fill the vacancies. Instead, Mr. Keppeler is reported to be waiting until his own appointment has been made and confirmed. It will be recalled that his term expired some time ago and that he has been acting as a de facto official ever since. His first deputy Henry Nye, is reportedly quite dissatisfied with the situation.

* *

Llewelyn "Sonny" Hart, head of the garbage disposal division, went on vacation to the Mainland and took along with him an assistant, Tony Jardine also of the same department. The story is that Mr. Hart is buying a new car and needs someone to help him drive it to the West Coast.

* *

The China Monthly Review, an American-owned magazine which has been published in Shanghai since 1918 (excluding years of the Pacific war) is now available here in Honolulu, at the Corner Liquor Store and Magazine Shop, 1042 Bethel St. It carries the names of many American prisoners of war whom relatives may contact in Peiping and in some cases, has assisted prisoners' families in getting in touch with them more quickly than through official War Department channels. In the August issue, now on sale, one article is titled: "Land Restored To Its Masters." Another reviews Lau Shaw's new play, "Dragon's Beard Drain." Lau Shaw, if you don't remember, is the author of "Rickshaw Boy," which had a wide sale in the U. S.

Detroit (FP)—Though interdicted by U. S. Attorney General McGrath, bail offered by the Michigan branch of the Civil Bights Congress was accepted by U. S. District Judge Theodore Levin for indicted Secretary William Albert-son of the Michigan Communist Party.

Employers are becoming more interested in what their workers think, the National Industrial Conference Board reported. It found that 223 companies have taken surveys of employe attitude, compared with 50 in 1944.

The Polish Research & Information Service reports that three bricklayers in Panki, Silesia, averaged 21 bricks a minute apiece, laying 30,484 bricks in 8 hours as a three-man team. They were paid the equivalent of $85.50 per day per man, the service adds, including bonus.

It further reports that a new plastering device on apartment buildings plastered a room in 23 minutes that by the old methods took two men two days to plaster.

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Thousands of people in the Territory who were reached by the last-minute appeals of individuals working independently for the commutation of the death sentences of James E. Majors and John Palakiko—have made known the will of the people to Governor Oren E. Long. He stayed the execution last week but as this is written, he has announced that the death sentence will be carried out.

There is still tune to have the sentence commuted, between now and the new date to be set for the executions. As the following story shows, people who did not know each other, who did not know that others were working for the commutation, brought one stay of execution.

Now that the people are organized, working together more closely, the will of the people can be demonstrated more impressively and forcefully by additional thousands appealing to the governor, by wire to President Truman and to others in positions of influence.

A police car slowed down and stopped on King St., in front of Iolani Palace, to let a pedestrian cross the street Monday afternoon, September 10. Gottfried Seitz, a former probation officer who had handled the cases of James E. Majors and John Palakiko, both sentenced to die four days later for the murder of Mrs. Therese Wilder, walked in front of the police car. As he went into the next traffic lane, an automobile struck him, breaking his pelvis and sending him to the Queen's Hospital.

"I was going to see Governor Long to ask him to commute to life imprisonment the death sentences of the two boys," Seitz told the RECORD later. "I had tried to see him before and was not able to."

• On Monday, the same day, Willie Crozier, former representative, spoke to the governor, asking that the death sentences be commuted to life imprisonment. "The governor kept looking down as I spoke to him. I think there is a chance for commutation," he said, after the interview.

• On the same day, John and Mary Kushinsky, brother-in-law and sister of John Palakiko, saw Governor Long, who told them that only "new evidence" would make him reconsider.

Still hopeful, the Kushinskys returned to their home on Hausten St. Shortly afterward, William P. Mottz, deputy warden of Oahu Prison, called, in line of duty, to find out what the family of John Palakiko had decided to do with the body after the execution on Thursday morning.

"I felt there would be no hanging," Mrs. Kushinsky said. Because the Kushinskys were not thinking of the execution taking place, but of saving "the two boys," they did not give a definite answer.

Mr. Mottz told the Kushinsky's that he would call Ordenstein's Mortuary to come for Palakiko's body. The Territory would take the body and the expenses would come under church charity, he said.

• On Monday also, H. K. Choy, stepfather of Majors, went to Delegate Joseph Farrington in asking for his help in the effort to obtain a commutation. Mr. Farrington sent Mr. Choy to George Kobayashi, one of the attorneys. Who had conducted the long legal fight in the Palakiko-Majors defense.

• Mrs. Helen Kanahele, who had tried to see the governor a few times without success, went to a friend to "get help to save the boys." This was also Monday afternoon. She met Willie Crozier and both planned for her to do everything possible to see the governor Tuesday morning.

Early Tuesday morning, Attorney Harriet Bouslog called the governor's office for an appointment and she went to see him that afternoon, and asked him to commute the sentence to life imprisonment.

"I felt that at least I must express my opinion on the Majors-Palakiko case," she said later.

Mrs. Kanahele saw Governor Long, who told her that only three people, Attorney Bouslog, Mr. Crozier and she had come to him with the appeal.

"I thought then that he wanted to know the will of the people. I went straight to Harriet Bouslog and asked her, 'Will you help me?' " says Mrs. Kanahele.

Shortly afterward, a simply phrased petition took form and once the people found out about it, they called from everywhere, within the city and out of town, from the neighbor islands, even.

• Mrs. Kanahele and Mr. Crozier went to Robert McElrath, ILWU public relations director, and asked him if it were possible to say something on the air for the "two boys." "I will turn the program over to you two after making introductory remarks. You can say what you wish. I will not censor your statements, and my only request is that you keep them in good taste and within the time limit," Mr. McElrath said. That night at 6:45, on the radio program which has one of the largest followings in the Territory, Mrs. Kanahele appealed to her audience to ask the governor for commutation of the sentence.

When the recorded program came over the air, Mrs. Kanahele was out in a residential area of the city, getting signatures to the petitions.

"I cried all the way with her, as I listened to the program," a woman listener commented.

• Willie Crozier spoke of Palakiko, who did not have an opportunity in society. Left alone without parental care, he said, and tossed around in society, the youth kept sliding. He said society must assume a large part of the responsibility.

That radio program had an electrifying effect, jolted the people who were silent and meditative to move. Hundreds of names were collected and sent to Governor Long. The people had responded.

• At 7 a.m. Thursday, an hour before the execution time, John Kushinsky went on the air on J. Akuhead Pupule's program on KHON.

"I must have spoken about fifteen minutes. I asked the people to send local telegrams to the governor since it is hard to reach him by phone," he said. "Within half an hour when I called RCA, they said they were jammed, overloaded, but they would get the message to the governor. The same must have been with the other wire services."

• At five minutes to eight, a county worker at Kapiolani Park began crying. His co-workers did not pay much attention to him, thinking he was sick or hurt and the foreman standing nearby would look after him. Then he began telling about brother-in-law Majors and the last minute efforts of Mrs. Kanahele and Willie Crozier to save the two boys.

Ferdinand Kamaka, brother of Mrs. Kanahele, who was working with Walter Fo, brother-in-law of Majors, asked Fo: "Why didn't you tell us earlier? We all must work hard to save the boys."

When the news came over the radio a few minutes later that the execution had been stayed, the men shook hands. • At eight that morning, the mothers of Majors and Palakiko were praying. The day before, at what was believed to be the last meetings, the boys had given their families statues of the Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ and ornaments.

Mrs. Kanahele, who had worked for the commutation had not met the parents of Majors and Palakiko. Saturday, she met Majors' family and on Sunday, Palakiko's family.

The petitions kept coming in, with thousands of signatures written on them.

Twenty-one ministers signed one petition. Other church people made appeals.

The Advertiser and the Star-Bulletin were both displeased at the favorable public response. The Advertiser said editorially: "Given a perfect opportunity, they (the leaders of the petition movement) have made the most of it by enlisting the signatures of many sincere, decent, law-abiding citizens who have been caught up in the manufactured emotional turmoil."

Mrs. Rose Wong, Majors' sister, had just come out of a hospital where she had undergone an operation. She went out with the petitions for 12, 13, 14 hours a day. She became ill, but she still went out.

Sunday morning during mass at the Kalawina Church, everyone signed the petition except a haole man who said the boys deserved to be hung. Palakiko's mother was standing behind him, therefore others tried to quiet the man. He ignored them and kept on condemning the two boys.

"God forgive him. He does not know any better, I prayed," said Palakiko's mother, Mrs. Alice Nahoe.

But the others kept asking: "What of the Kahahawai-Massie case? The murderers of the Hawaiian were freed after one hour in Iolani Palace."

"Yes, everywhere we go with the petitions, people say, 'What about the Kahahawai case?'" said Mrs. Kushinsky.

"Japanese people talk of the Fukunaga case," said Mr. Choy, "and the Chinese of the Wong murder on School St. The murderers have not been found. What if Wong was Mrs. Wilder?"

George Kobayashi, attorney for the defense, said: "This appeal to the governor is forceful. He wanted to know the will of the people and they are making him know their will. I am glad this has not became a racial issue."

At Pier 40, two haoles had an argument because one wrote obscene words on the petition. And the tavern keeper, who had been indifferent to the petition, now asked for copies of it and said he would get signatures, after scolding the scribbler of obscene words.

More than 10,000 signatures on petitions have been turned in to the governor from the law firm of Bouslog & Symonds alone. From all over the islands people have called in for copies of the petitions. People who have circulated petitions independently have taken theirs directly to the governor. Others who have picked up petitions from the families of Majors and Palakiko have brought them to the governor. Four thousand more signatures on petitions were being sent to the governor late Wednesday afternoon by Attorney Bouslog.

"I believe that it will be a great injustice if Governor Long fails to listen to the voice of the people. From my own experience, as I talked to people and went out with the petitions, I found the will of the people is overwhelmingly for commutation of the sentence," Attorney Bouslog said.

Visiting Governor Long to add his voice to the plea for clemency for Majors and Palakiko, Edward Conroy, former guard at Oahu Prison, said the governor evinced considerable interest in conditions at the prison. Long remembered Conroy's case, the ex-guard said, which received considerable publicity when Conroy appealed.

Conroy was fired in 1948 for allegedly sleeping on duty—a charge which he denied.

Later, before a subcommittee of the holdover committee, Conroy made strong charges of maladministration against Deputy Warden William Mottz and Warden Joe Harper.

While making his plea for the two condemned men, Conroy also presented two affidavits to the governor concerning the prison administration, he said, which Mr. Long read carefully. The governor invited him to come back "when this case is over," Conroy said, and discuss affairs at the prison further.

Workers, Company Hold Stop-Work Meeting; Union Vote Overwhelming By J. B. (Jerry) Smith

Lihue, Kauai—One thousand, two hundred sixty sugar workers of Lihue Unit 23, ILWU Local 142, packed Isenberg gymnasium Sept. 11 and voted 1,224 to 36 for the new sugar contract.

Unit 23 was the, third sugar union group on Kauai to ratify the newly negotiated contract. Members at McBryde were the first to ratify the sugar agreement, followed by the membership at Kilauea and Lihue. A four-hour stop-work meeting was held to conduct the balloting, with the full cooperation of the company to furnish transportation to and from the meeting. The company agreed with the union that nobody, including the non-union men, was to work during the four-hour meeting.

The management of Lihue Plantation Co., Ltd., said the company would "also hold a stop-work meeting of its own and all supervisors met at Hanamaulu beach.

Meantime, the union's negotiating committee is discussing fringe issues with the company in order to nail them down to agreement.

In Madison, Wis., only one out of 112 citizens would sign a paper which carried nothing but quotations from the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. These historic expressions of the American creed scared away the other 111. What has happened to our pride in the freedom of every citizen to speak his mind? To be sure, Americans shouldn't be afraid, even now, but they are afraid. By creating this fear we have lost a deeper security than all the so-called security programs can regain.
—Textile Labor

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Here is something for Chief Sanitation Inspector George Zane to look into. Two fifth graders at a certain public school on Maui have been saying that insects have been found in lunches served by the school cafeteria. One reported almost eating a cockroach and another a dead lizard. A thorough inspection and investigation to ascertain the truth of the reports is necessary, for sanitation and for the morale of the students.

* *

A teacher at the Puunene School feels that students should have their own choice about bringing their lunches from home or buying them at school. While this teacher's colleagues have been saying that students should be encouraged to buy food at the cafeteria, the teacher has not gone along with the idea, partly because of her childhood experiences. Some parents cannot afford cafeteria lunches for their children and some students like home-made lunches better, she said. The RECORD has learned that the students appreciate her views. * *

Fireworks were not lacking at the Maui county board of supervisors meeting Sept. 18, as Supervisor John Bulgo blasted the waterworks board and its members. Bulgo charged that the water board spends too much of the taxpayers' money for advertising in the Maui News. He questioned Waterworks Engineer Tommy Cooper's knowledge of water, to which Chairman Eddie Tam replied: "He knows more about water than we do."

Supervisor Bulgo then asked: "What does Chairman David Fleming of the water board know? He doesn't know a darn thing." Bulgo also said that Chairman Tam spends too much time in Honolulu and not enough on Maui.

* *

A student who has attended a Maui school for six years is still in the third grade and, according to some teachers, this student will not be advanced. Certain teachers feel that something should be done to help this particular student. If the DPI can't do anything, perhaps the PTA ran do something about it.

Almost one-half, or 49 per cent of the families of this country made less than $3,000 last year. That is something the tax-writing Senate finance committee should remember. The big business crowd tells it the House tax bill—which increases income taxes by 12 1/2 per cent—is not tough enough on the low-paid individuals. "Tax the little fellow—that's where the money is," they shout. It doesn't make sense, but they still shout it.—Flint (Mich.) Labor News.

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Los Angeles-(FP)-War production will take at least $2,500 from each U. S. family in 1952, the Los Angeles Labor Conference for Peace said in a pamphlet mailed to unions throughout this area.

"Labor has a special reason to demand action for peace," the pamphlet said. "Labor does the fighting and the starving and the dying in wars. If politicians and the generals cannot afford peace —the people cannot afford war." Also calling for peace pressure on Pres. Truman was the Southern California Peace Crusade. Some 100 volunteers, said Director "Peter Hyun, will hand to downtown shoppers 10,000 postcards addressed to Truman, bearing the message:

"Not another life must be lost in Korea. I urge that you propose an immediate cease-fire, even before truce talks are finished

Retail food prices rose an average of 0.7 per cent between July 30 and Aug. 27, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It said the retail food price index on Aug. 27 was 227.2 per cent of the 1935-39 average and 15 per cent higher than just before Korea

Less than one in 40 farms in the U. S. have gross incomes averaging over $51,600 a year, but they receive more than one-sixth of the gross agricultural income."

Government And Narcotics

When the bosses need help from the government, they get it in a hurry, with plenty of fanfare and all the trimmings. No one spares the expense.

But when the people need something, the government suddenly becomes extremely pinchpenny and action lags until the people do something themselves.

Such is the inescapable conclusion of anyone who notes the announcement Wednesday from the Federal grand jury that it will investigate the dope racket here. It is the conclusion he must arrive at if he stops to compare the efforts the government has made to investigate narcotics with those it made to probe communism.

When there was a longshore strike, the un-American Activities Committee sent investigators to gather what they called "evidence" and the newspapers gave a great buildup to the committee's hearings, which proved beyond a doubt that there is a union here and many people engage in pro-labor activity. The hearings also proved that there are people here who positively fight against discrimination and for constitutional rights for all.

But no witness among all the stool-pigeons could name a crime that had been committed.

The government spent money to publish reports of the sham hearings. Other government agencies participated and sent more investigators.

All of this resulted in deportation charges against some and the indictment of seven persons. But still no crime that any ordinary man could recognize was charged —unless it was that of "dangerous thoughts."

Evidence of the narcotics traffic has been underfoot in Honolulu for at least two years. Arrests have been made and convictions have followed. Even one officer from the local police force has been convicted and sent to prison.

Heroin, the deadliest of all narcotics, has been revealed here as almost as easy to buy as bootleg whiskey in the days of prohibition. Yet the government keeps only one agent, William Wells, to operate its Narcotics Bureau here.

It is to the high credit of Mr. Wells that so many narcotics seizures have been made, so many dope peddlers convicted and put out of circulation. His work is to the benefit of poor people who mistakenly become narcotics users in trying to escape the squalor in which they are forced to live.

But why couldn't the government have helped Mr. Wells with some of the money it spent trying to prove that labor's friends are dangerous "un-Americans"? If Mr. Wells had been assisted by the phalanx of investigators which has descended on Honolulu to investigate "communism" from time to time, it is safe to say Honolulu's teen-agers would not be threatened by the narcotics traffic today.

Garnett M. Burum, manager of the Seamen's Institute, made Big Five executives gnash their teeth and hit the ceiling when he voluntarily testified before the NLRB hearings in 1937 that:

• Frank Thompson, attorney for Honolulu Stevedores, Ltd., ordered him to hire a gang of men to beat up Max Weisbarth, union agent.

• Thompson promised to take care of doctor bills if any of the hired thugs got injured. The Big Five attorney had also promised to pay regular insurance rates equivalent to workmen's compensation for men hurt in line of duty (in beating up Weisbarth).

Angus, Davies Veep, Wields the Club

The Seamen's Institute of which Burum was manager, is now about 115 years old. Seamen "on the beach" go there because they can live cheaply until they are able to ship out of here. It is not run by maritime workers as the name would suggest, but by a committee of businessmen. In those days, the chairman of this committee was George H. Angus, vice president of Theo. H. Davies, Ltd., Shriner, Legionnaire, ex-president of Oahu Country Club.

Angus became angry at Burum, according to an Advertiser story, because of his testimony, and the Big Five executive promptly demanded the resignation of the Institute manager "because he had put himself in a bad light by his testimony at the hearing and was therefore, of no further value to the Seamen's Institute."

"After this testimony ... you can no longer be of use to us; we don't want you; you are fired," Angus told Burum.

Burum refused to accept the check tendered him by Angus, or to resign. More than 60 union seamen moved in on the Institute to protest Burum's dismissal, and Burum said he would stage a one-man sitdown stride. Further, Burum began preparing charges to file with the NLRB. He pointed out that the Wagner Act made it illegal to discharge an employe because he had given testimony before an NLRB representative.

Angus Changes Tune But Is Licked

Thereupon Mr. Angus changed his tune and said Burum had been fired because of the disgrace he brought to the Institute by conviction of conspiracy—almost a, year and a half before! Two weeks previously, Angus had testified that Burum's services were entirely satisfactory and that he believed the conviction was not justified.

The Wagner Act had Mr. Angus and the Institute committee licked. They voted to reinstate Burum as manager, on probationary status. Some time after this, Burum was elected secretary-treasurer of the Hawaiian Islands Federation of Labor—but there were always union men who believed that he became active in the Federation in order to act as a labor spy. Two members of the Institute committee were Randolph J. Sevier of Castle & Cooke and Jack Guard of McCabe, Hamilton & Renny.

"Mr. Guard," said Burum, ". . . did not see how I could be loyal to my employers (the Institute) and at the same time be loyal to a labor union. I tried to get Mr. Guard to explain what he meant by that . . . but he could not do it, but advised me ... to quit my job or have nothing to do with the union. I called on Randolph Sevier, who was very specific. He said he did not approve of labor unions, that I was employed by them (the Institute) and they could give me any instructions they wanted to, Wagner Act or no Wagner Act, and that they did not want me to accept this position to which I had been elected. . . . However, I accepted the position."

Now comes what is in some ways the most revealing part of the whole Burum affair—its handling in the Hawaiian courts. (To Be Concluded)

By Frank Marshall Davis

"Unbelligerence" vs. Discrimination

Several persons have called my attention to the article on Herb Jeffries the Negro crooner, appearing in the September 3 issue of Life magazine.

Permit me to say at the outset that it is an excellent article for Life, since it paints a picture of discrimination that undoubtedly is foreign to the majority of readers of this widely circulated publication.

But despite its many good points, there is one with which I and many other Negroes disagree. It is the emphasis placed by the Life writer on the "unbelligerent" attitude of Jeffries toward racism.

Discrimination Costs $30 Billion Annually

Shortly after reading the Life story, I came across an item which said that Elmo Roper, noted public opinion analyst, had estimated that racial and religious discrimination in industry is costing the nation's economy close to $30 billion a year.

In addition to the loss of purchasing power brought about by low wages and limited job opportunities, Roper cited the wasteful expense of maintaining segregated schools, housing, hospitals and other public facilities. He also pointed to the high cost of crime, delinquency, sickness and social maladjustment which can be traced to prejudice and discrimination.

To bring this close to home, undoubtedly the crime, delinquency and social maladjustment which shaped the lives of Palakiko aria Majors was partially the result of discrimination against non-haoles in the Territory. It is no secret that here in Hawaii, haoles often draw higher pay than non-haoles for doing the same job; low wages often lead to the breaking up of families with the resultant scarring of the lives of the children. Society then pays a high price later for the delinquency it has created through discrimination.

Although prejudice hits Jews, and in some areas Catholics, as well as all non-white groups, its chief victims because of then numbers and historic condition, are Negroes.

Tactics of "Unbelligerence" Cannot Erase Discrimination

But the cold fact is that discrimination cannot be erased through the tactics of "Unbelligerence," no matter what the Life writer might think. I doubt that Herb Jeffries himself would advocate unbelligerence as a general weapon.

For a half-century the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has taken the lead in the fight against discrimination, and its guiding light is militancy and more militancy.

The breaking down of discrimination in education, which finds many Negroes entering universities in Dixie; the equalization of teachers' salaries; the ending of restrictive residential covenants, and the many other gains on the civil rights front are the result of intelligent militancy instead of unbelligerence.

Doesn't Pay To Have Segregated Schools

The Pair Employment Practices Commission, established by executive order of President Roosevelt at the start of World War II, came into being only because militant Negroes threatened a mass march on Washington. Since then many firms, which previously barred Negroes, Jews and Mexicans from jobs, have them regularly employed and several states have set up their own Fair Employment Practices Commissions.

As a result of these definitely belligerent actions by the NAACP and other organizations, many persons have come to realize that discrimination is a tremendously costly business. It doesn't make sense for poor states such as Mississippi and Georgia and other Dixie commonwealths, to split their comparatively scarce dollars and duplicate their educational facilities just to keep two groups separate. The result is that neither group gets first class education.

Not only does the $30 billion sacrificed yearly on the altar of the god of prejudice make a mockery of democracy and hurt us in the eyes of the rest of

The world, but it is a disgraceful waste and unsound economically. It's the same as pouring that amount of money down a rat hole.

Militancy Necessary To Bring About Improvements

Last week I spoke of a plan advanced by Dr. Mordecai Johnson, president of Howard University, to establish peace between our nation and Russia and bring up the standard of living of the rest of the world. That would require an estimated annual expenditure of $25 billion. Simple arithmetic shows that ending discrimination in America would provide not only the funds needed for worldwide rehabilitation, but would leave a total of $5 billion for domestic use, or else taxes could be reduced by that amount.

But unless you are militant about fighting discrimination, how are you going to point out these facts to the general public and thus move toward their correction?

In 1903, a Department of Commerce and Labor was created. The Department of Labor, as now constituted, was finally organized in 1913.

Profits of 30 large oil companies soared to around $1 billion in the first half of 1951. That's a 42 per cent increase over the 1950 period.  

[MR. DAVIS]

Up to very recently, white-collar workers in Big Five firms felt pretty secure in their jobs, until T. H. Davies & Co., Ltd., laid off some of its 25-year men.

Two of the five who were laid off and replaced by younger and new employes at much smaller salaries, have received gold watches for long service with the company. The management thanked them at that time for their devotion to the firm and asked them to continue their services.

Their illusion that once a person got a foot inside the door of a Big Five firm he has job security for the rest of his life, was definitely smashed. And a great wave of resentment swept over the community because the five were all of Japanese ancestry.

Now the white-collar workers at Davies have answered the company by organizing themselves into a union. Davies workers have set an example for office workers in other Big Five firms. White-collar workers can no longer be lulled by management propaganda that unions are not for them.