The Filipino Piecemeal Sugar Strike of 1924–1925

17. Jose Figueras’ Tour of Inspection

119 17 Jose Figueras’ Tour of Inspection INSPECTOR GENERAL Jose Figueras arrived in Honolulu on December 15, 1933, not to take Ligot’s place but for a three months’ survey of the condition of Filipinos.1 Figueras, an unknown quantity in Hawaii, had come up the hard and probably the strongarm way to be head of a longshoremen’s union and a Manila city councilman. Obviously he had good political connections. Speaking only Tagalog and a little English, he had to use interpreters in communicating with the Ilocanos and Visayans who made up the bulk of Hawaii’s Filipinos.2 Butler of the HSPA looked forward to his arrival with unease and wrote to Senator Manuel Quezon, who had recently stopped in Honolulu on his way to Washington, D.C.,3 to complain that Francisco Varona had wired Manlapit and Taok, asking them to cooperate with Figueras. Butler was worried that ‘these two grafters’ would ‘show up in the limelight’ and profit from their connection with Figueras.4 Indeed, they were the first to gain Figueras’ ear when he landed, and his first public speech, on the 17th, was at a rally held under the auspices of the two unions. Taok, Manlapit, and Kumalae also spoke. Kumalae called for unionization, backing President Roosevelt, ‘For the time is at hand, when the government of our country will be controlled by the working class.5 But four days later Figueras addressed another great crowd of Filipinos in company with Territorial Secretary Raymond Brown, Ligot, Vicente B. Boiser, and other conservative Filipinos.6 As Figueras toured the islands, Butler’s uneasiness grew, especially as a series of about a dozen strikes broke out on the 120 THE FILIPINO PIECEMEAL SUGAR STRIKE outer islands.7 On February 16 he wired the HSPA office in Manila urging that it work to have Figueras recalled; on the 21st Governor Judd cabled Governor-General Murphy supporting this appeal; and on the 26th Butler wrote a nine-page personal letter to Murphy detailing his complaints against Figueras. The letter went on the same steamer as Figueras, who left on the 28th, two weeks short of his announced tour of duty.8 Butler accused Figueras of arrogance, self-aggrandizement, and double-dealing. He complained that Figueras called on few of the managers but went directly into the plantation camps talking to small groups, soliciting complaints, and assuring the workers that ‘he was the man to get their requests granted’; that he used bad characters for interpreters, who made his speeches ‘more incendiary than they were’; and that he was often in the company of Taok and Manlapit and worked in collusion with them. As for the strikes, according to Butler, These were the queerest kind of strikes in that the laborers would simply not be at work in the morning, would have no demands to make to the management and would have no complaints. They would refer the management to the fact that they were going to wait for Mr. Figueras who was going to take up all of their demands. They refused to deal with the management in many instances. On talking with Mr. Figueras about this situation, he very readily agreed to go to the plantation and “settle everything ”. He went to a number of plantations where these strikes occurred in the manner I have stated and after ten minutes’ talk the men would be going back to work. This specie of legerdemain was suspicious.9 While it is impossible from the available data to check on most of Butler’s statements, clearly he did not tell Murphy the full truth about the strikes. A report by Military Intelligence, supported by press accounts, stated that the laborers “demand the discharge of some or all of the lunas or overseers, demand more pay, and present other demands.” Nor were all the strikes settled by a wave of Figueras’ hand; strong measures were sometimes taken. At Lahaina more than 40 laborers were said to have been jailed; at Pahala two men were sentenced to 30 days in jail and three others to six months ‘on the charge of picketing and Jose Figueras’ Tour of Inspection 121 agitating.’ None of the strikes were attributed to Taok, Manlapit, or their lieutenants. But Figueras did develop a reputation among the Filipinos as an efficient settler of strikes and for influence over the labor leaders,10 and Butler was probably justified...