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275 chapter 15 Upheaval It was a blowout by the Democrats. It was November 1954, the first election in Hawai‘i after the Smith Act convictions and its aftermath, when the anticommunist declaration was underlined that Moscow controlled the CP, which in turn controlled the ILWU, which controlled the Democratic Party—and therefore meant that it too was directed from the Kremlin. Yet despite this propaganda barrage, it was during this election that the Democrats established a stranglehold over Hawai‘i’s politics that has continued to this very moment, in stark defiance of the local elite. Correspondingly, the GOP was the big loser in 1954—and thereafter. The reason for this was simple , said the Honolulu Record: the dominant party in the archipelago since the ouster of indigenous rule had banked on Red-baiting and “labor baiting” and was rejected by the electorate.1 An ILWU journal roared that fifty-two years of GOP domination had ended, as for the first time in the history of the territory the Democrats gained working majorities in both houses of the legislature and control of three of the four county governments. The GOP, it said teasingly, was “acting like a groggy prize fighter who didn’t ‘see it coming.’”2 Robert McElrath observed that from the US takeover of the islands in the 1890s until 1954, the GOP was in power. But in one fell swoop, a GOP majority of 19–11 in the legislature had been transformed into a Democratic majority of 22–8.3 While the Democrats on the mainland were in full flight from the spurious charge that they were close cousins of the now hated Reds, in the islands this party took a different approach, which was possible not least because the demographic makeup of Hawai‘i was different. That is, the existence of an apartheid-like system, with what Koji Ariyoshi routinely called the “boss haole elite”4 at the top of the pyramid, made it difficult for the Asian-Pacific electoral majority to swallow the bitter pill that those who had rescued them from misery—Jack Hall and his comrades—were the villains. Attaining the level of myth was the dramatic episode during the campaign when a politically influential haole—Samuel King—burst into a political 276 Chapter 15 meeting, grabbed the microphone, and delivered an extemporaneous tirade about alleged Communist infiltration of the Democratic Party and the islands generally—remarks that were interpreted as challenging the loyalty of the candidates themselves. When he had finished, Daniel Inouye, who possessed an impressively stentorian voice, rose and with much dignity and feeling said that he had lost one arm in Italy fighting Nazis and that he would willingly relinquish his remaining limb fighting Communists if his nation so requested.5 A not so subtle message was sent by these transforming elections. As the Record headline put, “30 Out of 33 AJA Victors Ran on Democratic Ticket,” while “19 Out of 21 AJA Losers [Ran] on GOP Ticket.” This headline summarized the lesson to be drawn by alert Americans of Japanese Ancestry—i.e., that the Republicans with their Red-baiting and thought-control trials were the party of the past. After World War II, the elite minority on O‘ahu, especially in the fourth district, went all out to eliminate Chinese American candidates by smearing them as war slackers. Now this same elite was complaining about alleged bloc voting by the majority—though its own routine bloc voting did not grace its concern.6 Union foe Frank Fasi triumphed over union friend John Wilson as the Democratic nominee for mayor of Honolulu. “Switch-voting of from 10,999 to 15,000 Republicans” in the Democratic primary tipped the scales in Fasi’s favor, with virtually all of these switchers being white. “Haole GOP precincts bloc vote,” the Record contended, as it cited one observer’s assertion that “‘the one point in which the Chinese and Japanese agreed was in the belief that the greatest amount of bloc voting is done by the haoles.’”7 Sour grapes could not obscure the reality that the GOP had been swept from control of the territorial legislature.8 And the union was credited with bringing “political liberty” to Hawai‘i,9 a point endorsed by Hall.10 The Star-Bulletin, which had a flirtation with those to its left before being hounded back into line (as early as 1950 Hall termed its owner, Joseph Farrington, “anti-union”),11 also sought to...

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