Jack Hall: His life and times
Few people in Hawaii know about Jack Hall, but a new video and a reissued book, will tell the story to a lot more people about this remarkable labor leader and the union he helped build, the ILWU.
On February 28, 2008, PBS Hawaii aired the documentary “Jack Hall: His Life and Times.” Long out of print, A Spark Is Struck! Jack Hall and the ILWU in Hawaii, has been reissued by Watermark Publishing. Written by former Honolulu Advertiser city editor, Sanford Zalburg, the book is easy to read and tells the exciting story of how Jack Hall and the ILWU transformed Hawaii from a plantation economy to a modern democracy.
Jack Hall’s life spanned a volatile and extraordinary time for Hawaii, the United States, and the world. The period from 1935 to 1971 included World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. It was a time when each successive US president kept the government in a state of perpetual warfare. Our tax dollars were used to develop the most advanced weapon systems and to project U.S. military power over the world. Domestic programs such as social security, medicare, and education received minimal funding or were reduced.
A government at war will often ignore Constitutional freedom and democracy in order to control its people and insure internal security. In 1942, the government forcibly removed over 120,000 JapaneseAmericans from their homes and held them in prison camps until the Supreme Court ruled the action unconstitutional and ordered their release in 1944. That same year, Harry Bridges appointed Jack Hall as the regional director of the Hawaii ILWU, as the union began its successful drive to organize 30,000 sugar and pineapple workers.
Beginning in 1947, millions of government employees were subject to background checks and required to take an oath of loyalty. This was extended to waterfront workers on commercial docks in 1950. Fortytwo states and 2,000 city governments passed similar loyalty oath requirements. A congressional committee led by Senator Joseph McCarthy held their own investigations of “unAmerican activities.” Union leaders, educators, and the Hollywood entertainment industry were the primary targets. Witnesses who refused to cooperate with McCarthy’s committee were sent to jail for contempt of Congress or were later fired by their employers.
In 1951, Jack Hall was arrested and indicted under the Smith Act for associating with an organization the government considered “subversive.” The government indicted a total of 140 people under this law. Hall and six others from Hawaii were convicted in 1953. The convictions were appealed, and in 1957 the Supreme Court threw out nearly all of the convictions as unconstitutional. Following the Supreme Court decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the convictions against Jack Hall on January 20, 1958.
ILWU members supported Jack Hall throughout his trial. There was never any question about his loyalty to America nor his commitment to freedom and democracy, because this was how the union itself operated. Within the ILWU, freedom of expression, wide open discussion and full democracy at all levels were basic principles.
Jack Hall passed away on January 2, 1971 in San Francisco. It was only two years after being elected International Vice President of the ILWU. From 1935, when Hall first arrived in Hawaii, he had dedicated his life to improving the conditions of working people. Five days later, on January 7, 1971, 23,000 ILWU members and 41,000 government workers (members of the HGEA) stopped work for 15 minutes to pay tribute to Jack Hall and his enormous contribution to Hawaii’s working people.
Does internal security require Americans to give up their freedom?
Eileen Fujimoto, who quietly passed away late last year, was working for the ILWU when Jack Hall was its regional director. She worked as a secretary and clerk for the ILWU’s Oahu longshore local from 1944 to 1959.
Eileen’s husband Charles Fujimoto quit his job as a soil chemist with the University of Hawaii’s Agricultural Research Station in October 1948. Fujimoto announced he would work full time as chairman of the Hawaii Communist Party.
On August 28, 1951, FBI agents arrested Jack Hall and Eileen Fujimoto along with John Reinecke, a McKinley High School teacher, Eileen’s husband Charles Fujimoto, Dwight James Freeman, a Communist Party organizer who came to Hawaii in 1946, Jack Kimoto, an employee of the Honolulu Record, and Koji Ariyoshi, the editor of the Honolulu Record.
The seven were charged under the Alien Registration Act of 1940 (The Smith Act) which made it a crime to be associated with an organization that teaches, advises or encourages the overthrow of the government of the United States by force or violence.
In 1957, the Supreme Court ruled that the government could not convict people for their beliefs. The Court found that mere speech, without actions, did not violate the law. The convictions of the Hawaii Seven were dismissed on January 20, 1958.
While the convictions were overthrown, thousands of people had their lives turned upside down, lost their jobs, and suffered other losses because of the government’s actions.
John Reinecke and his wife Aiko were fired from their jobs as school teachers in 1948. They were excellent teachers and nothing was found wrong with what they taught, but they were accused of communist sympathies. In 1978, ILWU attorneys Harriet Bouslog and Meyer Symonds won a formal apology for the Reineckes and a $250,000 settlement from the Legislature.
