The Filipino Piecemeal Sugar Strike of 1924–1925

12. The Conspiracy Trial

92 12 The Conspiracy Trial THE TRIAL of the two leaders took place three months later, on September 15–27. William B. Pittman, a Democratic politician, was their attorney, assisted on the appeal by Clement K. Quinn and Carrick H. Buck. Judge James J. Banks presided. His sympathies as indicated by his rulings on objections and especially by his treatment of government witness Montecillo were pretty clearly with the prosecution.1 The Territory was required to prove beyond what the jury would consider a reasonable doubt, first, that Inayuda had perjured himself regarding his child’s removal from the Waipahu hospital and his own departure from his Waipahu home, and second, that Basan and Manlapit were aware of his falsehoods and had conspired to coach him in them. Clearly the emotional climate a week after the Hanapepe deaths made the prosecution ’s task considerably easier. Inayuda, the key witness, gave his revised and now presumably truthful story. It aimed to prove that he had knowingly lied in court about the two points in dispute, that Basan and Manlapit , or at least the latter, had known the truth from the time of his arrival in Honolulu, and that in two meetings on April 22, with other government witnesses present, ‘Manlapit and Basan, the two of them instructed me what to say.2 Other government witnesses presented to corroborate his testimony included Dr. Mermod, two nurses, Inayuda’s landlady, two Japanese taxi drivers, a special policeman and a union leader at Waipahu, and finally, Rafael G. Urzua alias David and Enrique Montecillo, former union staff members and police agents, both of whom The Conspiracy Trial 93 had left their union posts in June, i.e., at the time of the indictment . Rafael was a collector of strike funds; Manlapit had fired him in March for alleging that the leaders were embezzling strike funds but had forgiven him and taken him back. Montecillo was an all-round helper and evidently of some importance .3 Eviction from Waipahu Of the two points on which Inayuda gave conflicting testimony , let us examine the less complex one first. In the libel trial Inayuda testified that shortly after he and his wife brought their baby home from the hospital on April 10, a special police officer and a plantation employee loaded his belongings on a truck and took the family to Waipahu railway depot, whence in company with other evicted Filipinos they came to Honolulu by train.4 In the conspiracy trial he testified that he had been told by his landlady that he must leave because his cottage was owned by the plantation, that the family came to Honolulu by taxi and at the railway station by prearrangement met Rafael, who took them to union headquarters to meet Manlapit and Basan. The next day Inayuda returned to Waipahu to pick up his baggage.5 The second version was confirmed by the two Waipahu taxi drivers, by special officer H. W. Helfers, who testified that all the evictions were on the 8th and 9th, by Rafael and by Apolinario Christobal [sic], a strike leader who said that he telephoned Manlapit on April 10 that Inayuda was coming into town with a sick baby, and by Mrs. Nakamura. The landlady was very frank about why she had (without giving legal notice) ordered Inayuda to leave: No, the plantation people never spoke to me, but I know if I rented it to him, I have my family, and I didn’t want to get into trouble with the plantation people. They would say it wasn’t nice.6 It is almost impossible to escape the conclusion that Inayuda in the libel trial lied gratuitously about his departure from Waipahu, when the truth would have been just as discreditable to the plantation. It is difficult, also, to see how the union 94 THE FILIPINO PIECEMEAL SUGAR STRIKE leaders could have been ignorant of how the Inayudas traveled into Honolulu. And if they accepted one falsehood, might they not condone a second and bigger one? Eviction from the Hospital As regards the removal of infant Eugenio from Waipahu hospital on April 24 and Dr. Mermod’s testimony in both trials are in irreconcilable contradiction. On the face of it, one man or the other was deliberately lying. Inayuda testified at length and specifically , including pidgin English dialog, that he begged for his child to be left in the hospital...