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.9 The Strike on Kauai
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71 9 The Strike on Kauai ALTHOUGH THE 1924–25 strike is remembered mainly for the battle at Hanapepe, the strike on Kauai was less extensive and effective than on any of the other islands. It was also the last to develop. Kealia (Makee Sugar Company) was one of the plantations on which Manlapit had counted; but there, one night about April 11 or 12, some 400 workers slipped by the police (itself a note-worthy feat) and met secretly in the Kapaa homesteads , where they voted overwhelmingly against striking.1 Not until July 18–26 did Manlapit think it worth while to come to Kauai and agitate for a strike. He announced that 1,000 men would walk out at Lihue alone and 2,500 more at Kekaha, Makaweli, McBryde Sugar Company, and Koloa. Local leaders cut the estimate to a more realistic 700—and even this number turned out to be too optimistic. In actual fact the strike began on July 22 with 48 Visayans out at Lihue and 40 at Koloa. Only 15 men heeded the call at Makaweli, where the strike was postponed . At Kekaha and McBryde nothing happened. Manlapit rented a still uncompleted building owned by Hee Fat in Kapaa for the East Kauai strikers. Most or all of the Koloa strikers moved into an empty Japanese school in Hanapepe, rented to them by the language school association. After one week, the union claimed 600 strikers, but plantation managers and a sanitary inspector agreed on a figure of about 300 men and 200 women and children.2 At Kealia on August 9 perhaps 60 to 80 men joined the strike, and an indeterminate number joined later. At Makaweli on August 12 about 75 Visayans joined the Koloa contingent in 72 THE FILIPINO PIECEMEAL SUGAR STRIKE Hanapepe. The HSPA on August 23 estimated 575 strikers on Kauai, a figure which may include family members. News stories speak of a march of 300 strikers at Kapaa and one of 150 men from Hanapepe to Waimea. About the same number appear to have been involved in the September 9 affray which emptied the Hanapepe camp and left Kapaa as the only strike center.3 The East Kauai group appears to have had the only leader of any stature, Fausto N. Ceralde. This group held on doggedly, even when evicted on September 17 by Hee Fat for nonpayment of rent. Camps were established at Waipouli and on government land in Kapaa, where a shantytown was built. For a while, some used a Catholic hall. Manlapit returned to Kauai in December . He found nobody interested in striking, and no property owner was willing to take in the squatters.4 The strikers had already been ordered to leave by December 1, but having nowhere to go, they refused. Since there was no room for them in the county jail, they were left in their camp. Although its occupancy shrank to only about 200 in mid-March, Kauai people made more fuss about this one camp than Hilo did over a score of camps with thousands of occupants.5 Finally, on May 16, the new attorney general, William B. Lymer, in person cleared the camp by having its 77 male adult residents arrested and charged with criminal trespass. Sixteen with jobs were given suspended sentences, three ‘ringleaders’ were let free on condition they leave Kauai, and 50 were given ten days in jail, their families being housed meanwhile by Lihue plantation. On May 18 the shacks were demolished and burned.6 So ended the strike on Kauai. Law and Order on Kauai Why did the least extensive, least hopeful strike, that on Kauai, result in the suicidal violence of the Hanapepe riot of September 9, 1924? From the evidence at hand half a century later there is no answer. Relations between Filipinos and the police appear to have been no worse and no better on Kauai than elsewhere.7 For what it is worth, The Garden Island of August 26 remarked editorially that the special police had not been ‘hard boiled.’ Sheriff William Henry Rice and his deputy William O. Crowell were nei- [18.188.20.56] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 22:53 GMT) The Strike on Kauai 73 ther much laxer nor much harsher than their counterparts in the other counties. Kauai strikers must have felt unusually frustrated because their strike was so unsuccessful; but that would be true equally in the Kapaa camp, where there was no real violence...