REVOLT IN PARADISE
THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION
IN HAWAII AFTER PEARL HARBOR
By ALEXANDER MACDONALD
{Submitted to Genealogy Trails by Christine Walters}
A few days later Judge Brooks was before the provost court. The judge was not fined or jailed, but he did make a full apology.
If such turnabout tactics came as a surprise to island residents, they were in for something even more startling. The provost courts now began to take "blood fines" from those they found guilty. When a person was found guilty of a minor charge he usually was given the choice, instead of paying a fine or going to jail, of making a blood donation to Honolulu's plasma bank, which had been drained on December 7. For hundreds of guilty, the suggestion seemed an inexpensive and somehow logical way of paying for their wrong against society, or military security. Red Cross workers at the blood bank from then on noted a pleasing increase in the plasma supply on hand. On Christ-mas Day, 1941, they welcomed a batch of 60 new donors, young gamblers who had been rounded up in a Honolulu crap game.
There could be no charge that the Army profited by its control of the courts, save in the matter of military security. Financially, Hawaii itself was the beneficiary of the healthy fines the provost judges imposed; for in August, 1942, the Army announced that it was turning over all revenue from the courts to civilian governments. With this announcement went more than $732,000 that had been collected in fines since December 7.
Justice had become big business in Hawaii. But it was another business in which the Big Five had been stripped of its influence.
Businessmen who might have been reflecting on this turn of events were due for another bit of unpleasantness shortly after Pearl Harbor. This was in the matter of Hawaii's civil governorship. For many years, the White House in Washington had usually listened attentively to the suggestions of island industrialists when it became time for the President to pick the top civil official for the Islands, as provided by Hawaii's Organic Act. In March, 1942, the term of Joseph Boyd Poindexter, governor of the Territory since 1933, automatically expired. Poindexter, though a Democrat, had become highly acceptable to the men of the Big Five; he had proved himself to be very cooperative with big business. A cautious statesman with little political adroitness in matters of public relations, Poindexter's policy of procrastination had earned for himself the sobriquet, "Mahope Joe," by which he was familiarly called, some-times, even in the press. "Mahope" was the Polynesian equivalent of Mexico's "mafiana."
March came and went but no reappointment was announced for Governor Poindexter. It was reported that back in Washington Harold Ickes, who, as Secretary of the Interior, was the man delegated to suggest a nominee to the President, was thinking of anyone but J. B. Poindexter. Secretary Ickes had not been at all pleased, it was said, when Poindexter on December 7 practically flung into the War Department's hands the guardianship of Ickes' favorite territorial charge. It was further reported that Ickes was even thinking of reviving the hated Rankin Bill, defeated in Congress in 1933, which would allow the President to appoint a non-resident of the Islands as Hawaii's governor.
This was enough to make strong men of the Big Five quail. During the spring and through the long summer they bombarded the Interior Department, the State Department, the White House and all their contacts in Washingtori with recommendations for the reappointment of Poindexter. Even the Republican party joined with the island Democrats in protestations for Poindexter who was, of course, a Democratic appointee. But when months passed and no action was taken, the island powers started off on another tack. They began to suggest new names, invariably men high in the ranks of island big business. Several of these unofficial nominees allowed the press to quote them as being willing to accept the office should it be thrust upon them.
In August the White House announced its appointment. It was not Poindexter and it was not anyone of the Big Five men who had fancied the office. It was Ingram M. Stainback.
"Stainback? Now who on earth is Ingram M. Stainback?" More than one islander asked that question.
Even the White House seemed anything but certain of the new appointee's identity. In the announcement of his nomination, Stainback had been identified as "the U. S. District Attorney in Hawaii." Stainback was not U. S. attorney in the Territory. He had been, once, but for more than two years he had been sitting, unpublicized, as a judge on a federal court bench in Honolulu.
Ingram Stainback was a native Tennesseean who had come to the Islands direct from law school in Chicago and, after two years' private practice, had begun the slow climb up the ladder of appointments in the federal court in Hawaii. That was nearly thirty years ago but the entrenched islanders still thought of him in 1942 as a mallhini, a newcomer. Didn't he still speak with a southern accent? Hadn't he been known to regard the native Hawaiians as Black Crow folk? What public service had he ever rendered in thirty years of residence?
The appointment was not a popular one. In downtown Honolulu, businessmen muttered about "carpetbag appointments."
A Democratic party leader was quoted as saying, "We could hardly be expected to rush forward the congratulations."
The morning Advertiser on its editorial page snidely noted:
"If Stainback's appointment were dependent on the will of the people as expressed by popular vote he'd have to wait some time before assuming this high office."
The afternoon Star Bulletin , which had espoused several good candidates of its own, was too indignant to speak.
The Hawaiians had an angle of their own.
"In lolani Palace," they said, "the kahilis are whispering."
They referred to the two ten-foot high standards, mounted with headpieces of bird feathers, which stood by the throne of Queen Liliuokalani in the Palace and which guards of honor had carried beside her on state occasions. According to Hawaiian superstition, ever since the ill-starred queen died in the palace in 1917, the feathered kahilis rustled and whispered among themselves when something unpleasant for Hawaii happened.
But Stainback soon showed that he meant real business and that he was starting from scratch. Following his inauguration in August, 1942, one of his first appointments to his cabinet was that of Ernest K. Kai, the popular Chinese-Hawaiian president of the Hawaiian Civic Club, as Secretary of the Territory. He began to clean house, so far as his powers of appointment allowed. He asked all members of the governor's cabinet to submit their resignations. Some were reappointed, some replaced. When the new government had been formed, the man in the street was ready to admit that Stainback had chosen very well.
Perhaps the new governor's most significant appointment was that of the territory's Attorney-General, young J. Garner Anthony, author of the anti-martial law article in the California Law Review. That, among other things, indicated that Governor Stainback was going to put up a fight for the return of civilian government in Hawaii.
Seeing this, the military in Hawaii hastened to act. On the heels of the two civil officials, General Emmons and Colonel Green, executive officer of his governmental organization, embarked for the national capital. It looked as though the civil-military scrap was going to be staged in a Washington ring.
To islanders, it appeared that the civilians had landed the first blow. For one thing, it was evident that they had obtained the hearty collaboration of Hawaii's delegate to Congress, the Hon. Joseph R. Farrington, publisher of the conservative Star-Bulletin. Apparently inspired by their arguments, there came back to the Islands a highly-colored newspaper report of conditions in Hawaii under martial law, in the form of a "Merry-Go-Round" column by Drew Pearson, widely syndicated throughout the country. The column described Green, martial law executive, and a university law graduate, as "a former stable sergeant." It also claimed the Star-Bulletin had been warned by the Army that criticism of the military "would not be tolerated." (Islanders sniggered at the attempt to picture this paper as a champion of the rights of the man in the street.) The column listed various military orders that placed restrictions upon the people of the Islands. There was no attempt to note the relationship of the orders to military security.
Indignant extremists muttered that their new delegate should be impeached for misrepresentation of his constituents. No formal action, however, was taken upon this suggestion.
At this juncture came another amazing development. Big business in Hawaii suddenly decided that it was on the military's side. A hasty radiogram was dispatched to Washington by the Honolulu Chamber of Commerce informing President Roosevelt that the Chamber did not believe martial law should be suspended at this time. Here was unprecedented division in the ranks. The new governor and whoever were to follow his leadership were on one side. Big business and the military were on the other.
There was some question about the position of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Its owner, Delegate Farrington, had started out unqualifiedly against the military. In the Washington Post he was quoted at the time as saying:
"Continuance of military rule and complete domination over civilians not only is contrary to every tradition of Americanism since early days but is a positive detriment to the total war effort. This military rule is without precedent in history except in conquered or rebellious territory and is without constitutional or legal foundation."
But once the island interests had thrown their weight on the side of the military, the Star-Bulletin's editorial page began a strategic retreat. A week or so of rope-walking editorial logic ended with the paper standing, not for suspension of martial law, but for the return merely of some few, non-security-violating civilian rights.
The islander now tried to analyze what had happened. There was no doubt that for months the Big Five had chafed under military rule. More than anything else they wanted to get back control of their ships, of labor, municipal affairs, consumer markets of all the economic resources which martial law had turned over to the military. But now they were declining this possible privilege. Why?
Some who might have been more astute than the rest thought they saw the answer in Hawaii's new governor. Much as they knew big business hated military rule and suffered under it, big business must fear Stainback more. Many a Big Five businessman had voiced this fear. There were rumors downtown that when Ingram Stainback took over, he was going to embark on a campaign of trust-busting of his own. What Thurman Arnold had been doing in the Mainland United States, that Stainback was going to do in Hawaii. So the rumor went. The island industrialists might have believed this. They might have envisioned a hard-hitting iconoclastic reformer thwacking around among the interlocking directorates and the monopolistic combinations of their economic realm. It was a chilling vision. At any rate, they declared themselves firmly as having no part in Stainback's civil rights crusade.
They should have been somewhat disconcerted, then, when a week or two later the erstwhile antagonists came back to Hawaii virtually arm in arm. It seemed that they had amicably thrashed out most of their differences at the national capitol. At a joint conference held in early February in lolani Palace shortly after their return, General Emmons and Governor Stainback announced that they had arrived at a very agreeable compromise. Effective March 10, certain functions would be returned to civilian government with restrictions relating only to purely military matters continuing in effect. Their amiable conference was hailed as an historic one. Military and civilian officials and members of the press attended. The two governors sat side by side at a table, each allowing the other his turn to speak. Each had his own printed proclamation, and each proclamation was distributed to the press.
Both Honolulu papers hit at once upon the idea of calling March 10 "Restoration Day"; they made quite a thing of the return of some civilian rights. The "restoration" gave back to civilians control over the following: commodity prices and rationing, food production, rents, public health, licensing of business, judicial proceedings except against military personnel and except in violations of military orders, imports for civilian consumption, custody of alien property, civilian defense, labor, and the collection and disposition of garbage.
At first, it looked like a lot. But when local big business looked closer, it saw that what it had feared had come upon it.
True civilians had won back the control of importing goods so vital to Big Five merchandising but the Federal Surplus Commodities Corporation was still designated as controller of all basic supplies that came in. Private businessmen could order non-basic foods and materials, but they knew there were few of these they could get. In fact, the proclamations pointed out that civilian shipping, including FSCC imports, would be allowed only in cargo space not required bv the military in Hawaii.
True, control of labor had been returned to civilians; but the War Manpower Commission had been designated as the controller.
True, control of prices had been restored, but Big Five firms were not going to fix them. The Office of Price Administration had set up in business in Hawaii, and was already at work.
Among other powers, the Army retained the right to control shipping, the waterfronts, the public utilities, communications, and a score of such vital things. Significantly, it also pointed out that the privilege of writs of habeas corpus still was suspended. And, as something of a joker, the proclamations provided that the military governor could recall any of the restored powers whenever he deemed a state of emergency existed.
It was apparent that what concessions the Army had made went largely to the new federal bureaus. The traditional island rulers had won back little or none of their private realm.
For the man in the street, "Restoration Day" was a concession at least to his constitutional rights. His normal American way of living was to be restricted only insofar as it related to military security. But for the man in the Big Five, it was obvious that the hands which had for so long freely juggled the economy of the Islands were still tied tightly. More than that, about the only islander who seemed to be prospering under the new order of things was the new governor. Stainback, popular or not, wore the mantle of leadership far too well.
The new governor's accomplishments were all the more begrudged when the ertswhile island autocrats looked upon the sorry state into which their own political creature, the Territorial Legislature, had declined. That the influence of the legislative branch of island government had gone into a nearly total eclipse was first evident when the rolls for fall election were being made up in the summer of 1942. As the same old troupe came trundling out for the biennial political carnival, it must have occurred to even the most hopeful among the Big Five that these were a pretty seedy lot of performers.
At any rate this was the public's opinion, for never had Hawaiian political rallies drawn such pitifully small audiences as in September and October, 1942.
When a troupe of Republican candidates ended a week's tour of island communities and had drawn a total of only seventy-five voters at its largest rally, the Star-Bulletin editorially scolded the people for their apathy. A news story in the same paper noted that sometimes large groups of non-voting soldiers had appeared at the rallies but that they hung around the platforms only while the hula girls accompanying the candidates did their dances.
Worried men of the Big Five saw other disturbing signs as the campaign desultorily progressed. They were particularly disturbed over what island labor might do.
On day in October, 1942, as the campaign was drawing to a close, a Republican worker burst into party head-quarters. "Boys," he announced excitedly, "it looks as though labor's lining up solid against us!"
They asked what he meant.
"Well, I just came from Democratic headquarters. Rutledge, the CIO agent, went in there as I passed by. You know what he wanted? He asked them for five thousand membership blanks. Five thousand! Looks like labor's going over to their side, and I mean wholesale!"
Labor didn't do quite that, but there was little doubt that labor was getting ready to make its voice heard in politics. And, for the immediate future, it seemed as though the Democratic party was favored.
Another campaign incident that disturbed island Republicans was when two of their favorite candidates, certain of election, switched their allegiance to the Democratic party.
It was not that the Republicans feared the Democrats would soon take over. The GOP was still too firmly entrenched and Democratic leadership was still too bungling to threaten their control of legislative votes. But it, all looked too much like the beginning of a trend away from the well-adjusted political norm.
The war gave the Big Five group an even break at least so far as two seats in the Legislature were concerned. They noted with satisfaction the young Rep. Dillingham, who had given them so much trouble on the pier bill in the 1941 session would not be on hand in 1943. He had gone off to war, a major in the Army Air Corps. But offsetting this was the loss of Representative Eguchi, of the Hawaiian Pineapple Company, who had discreetly declined to run. Eguchi was one of nearly a dozen Japanese who did not run for reappointment or for assured seats in territorial or county government in 1942, chiefly because of the embarrassment it would cause Hawaii in the eyes of the rest of the nation.
The Japanese officeholder who held out longest was a Republican member of the Legislature, Senator Sanji Abe of the island of Hawaii. Elected in 1940, Senator Abe was entitled to sit in the 1943 session. If he planned to stick it out, it was somewhat of a blow for his plans when, in August, 1942, he was arrested by FBI men, charged with possession of a Japanese flag, a violation of military orders.
From some place of internment Senator Abe dispatched a letter to the Secretary of the Territory in February, 1943, resigning from the Legislature.
Perhaps another portent of the changing political times came in the election itself. The Republicans' star candidate, Roy A. Vitousek the HSPA attorney who had been speaker of the House for so many sessions, got back into the Legislature by the narrowest margin of any candidate. The startled favorite, who had always been among the leading vote getters, won the last place on his district ticket, nosing out a newcomer to politics, Herbert K. Lee, a Chinese lawyer, by the scant margin of forty-eight votes.
The session that convened the following April was a remarkably subdued one, in contrast with the usual hijinks of an Hawaiian Legislature. Entrenched business interests sponsored only two measures that were worthy of note. One no one could say they gave up easily! was a resolution memoralizing the U. S. Congress to grant statehood to Hawaii. Those members of the Legislature with any conscience at all, when they looked upon this proposition coming even while troops were crawling all over the Islands and fighting ships were shuttling in and out of Pearl Harbor from scenes of combat, must have given their vote just out of sheer fascination with the persistence shown by the devotees of statehood.
The other measure was an anti-labor bill, legislation which the nearness of war may have made seem opportune. Introduced by a well-recognized plowhorse for downtown interests, the bill placed restrictions upon the registration of labor unions and upon their methods of keeping accounts. The bill was pushed through with little trouble and was sent to the governor's office for signature.
Here, again, something unprecedented occurred. Governor Stainback vetoed the measure. More than that, he told in a public statement why the bill was a bad one.
"Support was won for the bill," he pointed out, "partially by citing a single instance of embezzlement by a union agent. This territory has laws to take care of cases like that. All labor in the Islands must not be penalized for one man's crime."
Those endorsing the governor's action noted that the record of island unions in the first year of war had been an outstanding one, not deserving what they called "a political stab in the back."
A bill that the 1943 session did not pass was one prohibiting the existence of Japanese language schools in Hawaii. Described by the military as breeding places of disloyalty, the language schools were closed only for the duration, with nothing to interfere with their reopening after the war. The bill that proposed permanent closing was killed. A bill which 'forbade the teaching of foreign languages to any child under nine was substituted instead, and passed.
During the session a Hawaiian member of the Senate won enough support to put through a bill charging members of the board of trustees of the Bishop Estate, which controlled $15,000,000 worth of land holdings in the Territory, with failing to live up to provisions of the will which they were supposed to be fulfilling. This was the board on which the former city-county auditor who stumbled on to Big Five methods was comfortably sitting. The Hawaiian legislator charged that the trustees were pocketing as much as $16,000 a year apiece for themselves from the estate* The bill cut the fees down to a couple of thousand dollars a year. It also called upon the Attorney-General to bring ouster proceedings against the board. The trustees subsequently forestalled the proceedings, however, by conducting hasty reforms of their own; these were accepted by the Attorney-General's office. As a life time career the trustee positions thenceforth were not so alluring.
"Next session," they told one another, "there are going to be plenty of new faces in the Hawaiian legislature."
It was a prophesy requiring no great store of political acumen.
Hardly was the 1943 spring legislature over than a fresh skirmish broke out in an entirely unexpected sector, this time in the field of civil-military relations. It was the much publicized "Habeas Corpus Case." Dramatis personae were Hawaii's new military governor and a hard-bitten judge of the U. S. District Court in Honolulu. There was some difference of opinion as to which was the villain in the piece.
The general was Lieutenant-General Robert C. Richardson, Jr., who in the summer of 1943 succeeded General Emmons as commander of army forces in the island. The judge was Delbert E. Metzger, one-time Kansas engineer who had come to Hawaii as a well driller in 1 899.
The action got under way one day in July when Albert Glockner, aged 43, and Edward R. Seifert, aged 29, German Americans who had been placed in detention by the Army authorities, decided to see what might happen if they filed a writ of habeas corpus. They would demand that they be brought before a civil court to see on what charges they were being held.
On August 2 their counsel, Herbert Lee, who so narrowly missed election to the Legislature, filed the petitions in Honolulu's federal court. No one paid much attention.
Exactly two weeks later, however, the Army was astounded to hear that Judge Metzger had issued the writs. The judge contended that the proclamations of March 10, 1943 had, despite the Army's several exceptions, lifted the suspension of the habeas corpus privilege which had been invoked by General Short on December 7. He apparently was ready to do battle for this civil privilege.
Aghast, the Army thought of the hundreds of other internees, mostly Japanese, in their custody. What was to stop every one of them from demanding, perhaps winning, their release? What if this developed into a full-dress court hearing on the necessity of martial law?
If the Army and the Navy had to defend martial law in a public court they would conceivably have to reveal phases of their war plans and their knowledge of enemy military dispositions. This could never do.
But meanwhile a rheumatic deputy U. S. Marshal was on his way from the federal court to the military governor's office, a summons ordering General Richardson to produce Glockner and Seif ert in court by August 2 1 .
Outside the general's office a military policeman held the marshal off. He could not see the governor. When the messenger from Metzger displayed his badge, demanding the right to serve the summons, the guard took him by the arm and firmly escorted him off the premises. Back in federal court the deputy marshal reported to Judge Metzger that he had been "manhandled." The report went into court record.
Next day the faithful marshal was back in action. For days he stalked the military governor, but to no avail. Most of that time General Richardson remained close to his head-quarters at Fort Shafter, on the outskirts of Honolulu. This stratagem was a sound one, for the marshal, as a civilian, was not allowed on the reservation.
Only occasionally did the general, in his role as military governor, have to go down to his other office on lolani Palace. When he did, he was whisked in and out of the palace grounds in his three-starred official car, with a guard of military police on hand when he got out. At each appearance the marshal could only stand by the driveway and curse the ways of generals.
But General Richardson had good reasons for avoiding service of the writ.
For one thing, he had received word from Washington to await instructions from the War Department. And, besides that, he knew that acceptance of the service might start a "run" of internees upon the federal court.
But the best reason was that at just that inopportune time the general was playing host to Assistant Secretary of War Patterson who had arrived from Washington on an official inspection tour of his area. This was military posts, there was every possibility of the marshal blundering in with his summons. The general found himself hard put to fill his role of official host gracefully.
On the day before Judge Metzger's August 2 1 deadline, General Richardson accepted service of the writs. But he did not abide by their orders. He did not appear in court the next, nor did he have the internees produced.
On August 25 Judge Metzger declared the military governor guilty of contempt of court.
"General Richardson," he announced in his charge, "has shown open and notorious defiance of the mandate of this court." The penalty would be a fine of $5,000.
The news spread quickly and Honolulu buzzed with excitement as the report made the rounds. But the court clerk had hardly entered the findings on the court record before a messenger arrived in the courthouse with a freshly issued decree from the military governor's office.
Officially, it was Military Order 31, but delighted islanders almost immediately dubbed it "The Court Plaster Order." It summarily prohibited any further issuance of writs of habeas corpus. Moreover, it tied Judge Metzger's hands by specifically forbidding any further action in the Glockner-Seifert case. Violation of the order would bring a penalty to $5,000 fine or five years in prison.
At this point it seemed to be even all for the general and the judge.
Back in Washington, action was taken to break the impasse. It was reported in Honolulu that officials of the War Department, the Department of the Interior, and the Department of Justice were sitting down to unravel this snarl in Hawaiian affairs. They were some time about it. Not until the middle of October was a representative of the U. S. Attorney General's office dispatched to the Islands with instructions on how to make peace.
The stage then was set for the climax. It came on October 21, when Ernest J. Ennis, the representative from Washington, appeared in Judge Metzger's Honolulu court with his plan for peace. At first glance it looked as though Ennis had prepared for anything but peace. He arrived armed with a brief case bulging with documents. With him were Angus Taylor, acting U. S. District Attorney, and a sober group of army legal officers. He seemed ready to have it out, hot and heavy.
But almost at once he revealed that the Army was to talk compromise.
"General Richardson," he began, "has authorized me to announce that General Order 31 is being rescinded." He paused, as though for dramatic effect.
One of the army officers coughed. Judge Metzger said nothing, waiting for more.
"I am also able to announce that some time ago army authorities transferred the two internees, Albert Glockner and Edward Seifert, to the Mainland. Both men were released there."
This definitely came as a surprise. Judge Metzger glanced sharply at the army officers, as though to confirm the intelligence.
"It is the feeling of the Army and of government officials whom I represent that these developments bring to a close the present habeas corpus issue." Mr. Ennis studied the judge's face now, seeking some trace of concurrence. There was none.
Mr. Ennis pushed on. He explained that the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus had never applied to anyone except persons held by the military. Hence, he added, there had never been any actual prohibition against habeas corpus suits involving domestic relations or other matters of no interest to the military authority.
Mr. Ennis now played his trump card. "All these concessions having been made by the Army, it was felt that concessions might be made, in turn, by this court. Specifically, might your honor not see fit to drop the contempt of court charges against General Richardson and waive the $5,000 fine?"
Grizzled Judge Metzger deliberated. He shifted his gaze from the group before him to the open court window, looked thoughtfully out upon the mountain vista beyond the town. There was no doubt that he was mightily tickled by the turn of events.
It was some moments before he turned back to the group. "It is the feeling of the court that it can be lenient in this case/' he said, dryly. "But the court still holds that General Richardson was in contempt. Therefore the motion to dismiss the charge is denied. The court, however, orders that the $5,000 fine be reduced to $1.00. Thank you gentlemen."
Mr. Ennis started to speak, as though in protest. Changing his mind, he reached for his brief case. "Thank you, your honor." Then, followed by the Army emissaries, he strode out of the courtroom.
The habeas corpus case was the only issue upon which the military and civilian authorities came to actual grips and the latter had by no means fared badly. In fact, up to 1944 there were few instances where the general public expressed themselves against the restrictions of martial law. The Honolulu Advertiser stated the general opinion editorially in September, 1943. "It is a most inopportune time to oppose and object to military control. Such crusading is ill-timed. The spectre of military government hovers more closely if our mixed population interferes with military or naval authorities."
That was advice which the average Honolu'an found not too difficult to take. The restrictions which martial law made in his public and private activity could easily be dismissed as minor sacrifices of war. He could take them in his stride.
It was a different story for Hawaii's industrialists. War had not hit their interests just a glancing, casual blow; it had shaken their whole economic system to its foundations. It had toppled over the whole intricate structure of community control that they had been so diligently building for nearly a century. An inventory of Big Five war losses will show at once how thoroughly their tight realm had been overturned.
"The chief objective of industry is not the accumulation of wealth for a jew, but providing a way for the social order to be more successful as a whole." Pres. David L. Crawford, University of Hawaii, 1936.
The military's wartime seizure of economic and political control of Hawaii was a dramatic overturn of the order set up by the entrenched industrial interests, but it was by no means the only setback suffered by the Big Five coincident, with the outbreak of war. There were several instances just before and after December 7, 1941, where the tight grip of Hawaii's autocratic few had been loosened. The first two years of war afforded many more evidences, beyond the necessary capitulations to the military, that their hold on the Islands was slipping.
Fundamentally, Big Five influence in the Territory's economy was vested in control of the triumvirate land, labor, and water supply. By the end of 1943 there was no question that military demands for land, such as the need for new army posts and forts to house the increasing thousands of servicemen being brought to the Islands and for more and more airfields, had seriously cut down the sugar acreage. By that time, too, both the sugar and pineapple industries found that they had not nearly enough manpower to plant, cultivate and harvest their crops. Thousands of laborers had drifted away to take highly-paid jobs on defense projects. And the Big Five found that what labor they did retain was becoming more and more difficult as a problem of "control." Through unionism, island labor was beginning to find its voice. Only the control of water supply could still be said to be well in hand.
The loss of Big Five influence was even more apparent in a dozen other sectors. Big Five control of shipping, for instance, was threatened by more than the wartime demands of the military. As far back as 1938 it began to be evident that the factor of open competition was going to enter for the first time into modern Hawaii's shipping picture. At that time federal authorities brought up for closer scrutiny the Matson Line's pact with the Dollar Line which gave it a stranglehold on trade to and from the Islands.
On August 17, 1938 the U. S. Maritime Commission summarized the results of this competition-killing agreement. The records showed that from April, 1930, when the pact began, until August, 1938, the Dollar Line had turned over to Matson a total of $1,248,605 that it had picked up in trade in the latter 's "territory." During that time Matson had paid the Dollar Line as its part of the agreement a total of $7,03 1 . The commission's report pointed out that in those eight years Matson had been able to buy out the Los Angeles Steamship Company, its only serious competitor, while the Dollar Line in its field had faced many new competitors. As a result by 1938, the Dollar Line was nearly bankrupt; it had been kept afloat by federal loans of $4,500,000.
The commission's summary of the shipping pact did not spare the feelings of the Matson people. "The record leaves little doubt that the agreement is unfair to Dollar, and therefore is detrimental to U. S. commerce. . . . Most unfair of the provisions is the fifty per cent clause under which Dollar is apparently condemned to conduct its Hawaiian trade at a loss." They ruled that henceforth the agreement was invalid and that no further payments would have to be made to Matson by the Dollar Line. As a sort of side comment, the commission report also noted that the Matson Line, through interlocking directorates, was tied in with fifty-eight Hawaiian companies, all Big Five affiliates, and that the line carried ninety-eight per cent of all cargo between Hawaii and the Mainland.
Soon thereafter the Maritime Commission itself took over the struggling Dollar Line, renamed it the American President Line and started out to recoup some of the money it had for eight years pressed up in the Pacific trade. However, it did not seriously encroach on Matson's island trade for, until the outbreak of war, its ships were concerned almost solely with the evacuation of thousands of Americans from ports in the Orient. The Matson fleet of thirty-nine ships, meanwhile, piled up record earnings. For 1940 the line reported earnings of $5,372,243, over and above taxes. For 1941, earnings were $4,753,287.
Some months before December 7, Matson realized that war was going to do evil things to this trade. In August, 1941, two Matson ships, the Eiva and the Mobile City, were seized by the government to make runs down to Malaya for tin and rubber cargoes. The line strenuously protested the move.
"What about our export business? How are we going to move our sugar?"
The protests fell on unlistening ears. In November two of Matson's luxury ships, the Monterey and the Mariposa, were also taken over.
Upon the outbreak of war the Army Transport Service and the War Shipping Administration took over Matson's remaining twenty-nine ships. Three others had been sunk by Japanese submarines and one was wrecked off Oregon.
Under the War Shipping Administration all business was conducted under U. S. Maritime Commission auditing. Castle & Cooke, former agent and virtual owner of the Matson fleet, now became agent for the WSA, on a straight fee basis. By the end of 1943 there had been a two hundred per cent increase in cargo to the Islands, largely due to military shipments. But the only share going to Matson, which under peacetime conditions would have had a ninety-eight per cent cut in the business, was the modest fee collected by Castle & Cooke. Matson had not only lost her stranglehold on Hawaiian trade; the line was barely holding on by its finger tips.
As part of the shipping picture, Matson found itself faced with a new competitor in the island stevedoring business, which had been exclusively a Big Five enterprise before the war. Early in 1943, a new firm, American Stevedores, Ltd., was organized with capital outside the circle of Big Five interests. Employing five hundred longshoremen, it got the bulk of the defense cargoes coming to the Islands.
Submitted by Christine Walters
