Angry Aloha

After Jack W. Hall, owlish Hawaii regional director for Harry Bridges' International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union, was convicted in 1953 of violating the Smith Act, 22,000 I.L.W.U. members on the piers and plantations suddenly began to relax quietly into the soft, balmy mood of the Islands. Though they had marched out on 116 postwar strikes or work stoppages before Hall was found guilty, they have seldom misbehaved since. The new look comes partly from a flat look in the union's pocketbook after paying for Hall's defense and Bridges' frequent court appearances to fight deportation to Australia. But it springs also from the union's suspicion that there lies a limit beyond which even the I.L.W.U., for its own security, ought not to strain Hawaii's sugar and pineapple economy.

With long-term contracts and less flaunting of the party line has come new acceptance for the I.L.W.U. in the eyes of island businessmen. And the union's sizable vote is sending politicians scurrying high and low after I.L.W.U. support; e.g., this month it helped Democrat John A. Burns easily unseat Republican Territorial Delegate Elizabeth Farrington from the U.S. Congress.

Eastland Goes West. Thus it was last fortnight that, when the I.L.W.U. staged a mammoth testimonial dinner for convicted Boss Hall at Honolulu's Kewalo Inn, a sprinkling of venturesome politicians were among the 800 diners. Among the venturesome : highly respected Territorial Attorney General Edward N. Sylva, 54, a prominent Catholic, and longtime Communist foe as chairman of the Territorial Commission on Subversive Activities. Sylva explained he had been invited by the rank and file, accepted their invitation to see how the I.L.W.U. conducted itself. But he sat through some misconduct he had not anticipated.

Up rose hawk-nosed, Aussie-born Harry Bridges himself to rant in down-under accents against Mississippi's Senator James O. Eastland. Noting that Eastland and his Internal Security Subcommittee were westward bound and due in Honolulu soon to investigate Communist infiltration, Bridges threatened that I.L.W.U. members might leave their pineapple and sugar plantations, knock off work at the piers and meet the Subcommittee with an angry aloha.

Unions Grow Up. Though integrated Honolulu bears no love for Mississippi's Eastland, it recoiled next morning at a newspaper picture of Harry Bridges and Attorney General Sylva shaking hands while Jack Hall hovered in the background. Shocked, Governor Samuel Wilder King summoned Sylva to his office at Iolani Palace for a 20-minute lecture. The gist of his angry remarks: Sylva had no business honoring convicted Communist Hall, who was on bond pending an appeal "only because of the extreme leniency of American law."

The attorney general resigned. Though he denounced Bridges' threat as "a rash and useless act," Sylva offered no apology for attending the dinner. Said he: "No one could have misinterpreted my appearance there. I don't agree with Governor King's approach to the problem at all. There have been many substantial changes in unions in Hawaii in the past five years. Our thinking has got to change to keep abreast of the times."

But to worried Hawaiians, waiting for the I.L.W.U. to bait the Eastland subcommittee (and probably damage, in the Senate's eyes, territorial hopes for early statehood), the substantial changes suddenly seemed grimly unsubstantial.

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