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Frank Comments by a Feminine Legislator
- University of Hawai'i Press
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Frank Comments by a Feminine Legislator KAMOKILA CAMPBELL, DEMOCRATIC SENATOR OF MOLOKAI AND NATIONAL COMMITTEE-WOMAN E As an American with the soul of an Hawaiian, living in the midst of a polyglot community, I shall think aloud so that the holders of Hawaii’s destiny may hear. When two grand old political parties, like the Republican and Democratic parties of Hawaii, permit their representation of our government to develop into a poker game, with cards stacked against personalities and chips on shoulders, responsible leaders of this community should take a definite stand for rebuilding the parties along American ideals. Our present civil service laws appear contradictory to American principles when they deprive a man of his rights to participate openly in the affairs of his government. Both parties could stand new blood, and Hawaii calls to its youth for the protection of her future generations . If civil service laws interfere with the interests of our youth in political affairs, then let us change the laws. The Japanese element in Hawaii is giving us something to think about, making us wonder sometimes, like Alice in Wonderland. I have been wondering whether in pressing the issue of immediate statehood for Hawaii we would not be diving into waters far beyond our depth. When we first thought of statehood, there was no racial prejudice, no alien enemies, no suspicion. Today Hawaii speaks for herself under many strained conditions. Until the necessary protective adjustments are made by our American leaders, Hawaii should rest on her past laurels of self-government. I would consider it a form of treason to sell 190 First published June 1944. out my Hawaii for a vote in Congress under the conditions of war and local chaos that exist in the Territory today. If we are someday to become the forty-ninth star on the flag of our country, then let it be as brilliant in traditional background of Americanism as all the other forty-eight states in the nation’s banner.After this war, what are we to have in this Territory—a Japanese-America by force of numbers, or an American-Hawaii by adoption of intrinsically American principles? Which is to awaken first in our beautiful Hawaii, Capital or Labor? Labor in the past, as immigrants and ignoramuses, was satisfied with the crumbs that fell from the master’s table. Today, Labor, as university graduates with leaders of the same caliber, demands ceiling prices on the crumbs before they fall. In Hawaii, when construction or industry men talk about their labor problems, two subjects leap to the fore—shortage of skilled workmen and seasonal employment. It is not only the ownership of construction and industry that pays for the seasonal character of business ; it’s employees and the public that also pay. “Ownership”pays through being unable to secure for brief and interrupted periods of employment the higher quality of labor that would be attracted to steady and lasting positions. It pays in labor turnover and in labor discontent, both of them reflected in overhead.The “Workmen ” sign on when and where they can find jobs, hold these jobs until completed, after which the cycle of searching for another job begins once again. No matter how capable a man is, positions are not always available.The“Public’s”loss is in the necessity of supporting the unemployed and in the higher prices imposed by the contractor’s higher cost of performance, which in their turn trace back to seasonalism. There are many men in Hawaii’s war work today who are members of various Mainland and local unions and who feel that strikes should be outlawed for the duration. Members of these unions are just as patriotic as the best of us and they do not want to let our fighting men down, but they are sometimes misled by arrogant, power-mad leaders who force sit-downs and walkouts on deliberately erroneous issues, which the average working man has neither the time nor the circumstances to investigate. I believe that a better understanding between capital and labor could be effected through giving American workers more incentive, more free enterprise, and more initiative. I feel that the profit motive War!—1944 191 [3.229.124.236] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 00:13 GMT) should be held out to them, making the individual feel he is directly working for the welfare of the whole nation and is not being exploited for the sole profit of the management and...