The Filipino Piecemeal Sugar Strike of 1924–1925

5. HSPA Law and Order

35 5 HSPA Law and Order THE 1924–25 STRIKE is remarkable for the range and severity of legal, and sometimes extralegal, action taken against the strikers by the executive authorities and courts of Hawaii. As in the 1909 and 1920 strikes, prosecutors and police acted baldly and openly as agents of the planters, and the courts in general were hostile to the strikers. George W. Wright, toward the end of 1925, estimated that about 50 Filipinos were still in prison, serving terms for strike-related offenses.1 Scores of others had served their terms and had been released. The authorities had at hand a wide variety of criminal laws, besides the sanitary regulations and the power to evict tenants: assault and battery, riot and unlawful assembly, vagrancy, carrying a concealed weapon, malicious burning, criminal trespass, false imprisonment, conspiracy, and criminal libel. The 1919 act against criminal syndicalism was invoked once, unsuccessfully. The anti-picketing act of 1923, passed in anticipation of a plantation strike, was used repeatedly. As its author, Rep. Roy A. Vitousek baldly stated, its purpose was to prevent picketing. It defined as criminal acts not only the threat or application of force to interfere with the right to work, but any picketing whatever, even by a single peaceful individual, aimed at injuring anyone’s business, and also the importuning of a scab or his family. Also useful was a provision (not definitively overturned in the courts until 1972) which allowed the police to hold a suspect without charging him, up to 48 hours after arrest—a period likely to be extended for the humbler members of the community.2 Everyone expected a Filipino strike to be a violent one. The 36 THE FILIPINO PIECEMEAL SUGAR STRIKE stereotype of Filipinos as ‘Pilipino poke knife,’ with a low flash point, was widely held, and it had some justification in past experience. Widespread purchase by Filipinos of cheap mail order handguns caused worry, which at Hanapepe was justified by the event.3 Even the prolabor Hawaii Shinpo predicted: If the strike is once commenced, violent deeds would be perpetrated everywhere. We may witness nearly every day the arson and murder.4 It therefore appeared to be a matter of elementary precaution to swear in a great many special police. On Oahu there were 86 just before the strike and at least 16 were added later.5 On Kauai 20 were enrolled on April 1 even though there was no strike, and about 110 were paid off early in December.6 At Lahaina, Maui, the peak number was 107 to handle about 600 strikers, and at one time there were 95 watching only 230 strikers .7 On Hawaii 40 or 50 were enlisted for the Kohala strike and on August 1 there were over 300 on duty between Kukuihaele and Olaa. In mid-October 121 remained on duty on the Big Island, and a few days later 65 were added in Ka’u even though the strikers promptly left the district.8 Some of the deputies had National Guard training; plantation managers on Maui asked for postponement of the Guard encampment because so many Guardsmen had been assigned to police duty.9 Others were less disciplined. A Filipino deputy named Miguel Babid was killed at Honokaa as he and a Hawaiian buddy twirled their revolvers in movie actor style.10 Deputy Ramon Dapitan at Puunene took offense at ‘insinuating remarks’ made by strike leader E. A. Taok and struck him with a flashlight, a reaction which cost Dapitan his badge and a $50 fine.11 At Olaa about 50 special policemen, after a drinking party, struck because they believed that supporters of a particular senatorial candidate had been singled out for layoff in a reduction of the force.12 In Honolulu City and County special policemen received $5 a day and a free uniform. The bill for Honolulu alone therefore ran to over $500 each day while the force was at its height. Special policemen in Hawaii County received $4.50 a day, which cost over $1350 each day in July 1924. The police departments did not have anywhere near that sort of money. The emergency HSPA Law and Order 37 funds asked for but not necessarily appropriated were modest: $1000 in Honolulu, $2000 in Maui, something over $5000 in Hawaii.13 Indeed, the whole cost of the strike to Hawaii County was estimated at only $30,000...