Territorial Years: 1898 - 1959
The
Territory of Hawaii was created on July 7, 1898, when Congress
passed the Newlands Resolution annexing Hawai'i to the United
States. The formal ceremony took place in Honolulu on August
12, 1898. The Newlands Resolution created a commission to
study what laws were necessary to govern Hawai'i, but in the
interim the laws of the Republic of Hawaii were to remain
in effect unless they were contrary to the U.S. Constitution.
President
McKinley appointed five commissioners to report on what laws
Congress should pass for Hawaii. They were U.S. Senators Cullom
and Morgan, Congressman Hitt, and President Dole and Justice
Frear of Hawaii. Their report was debated by Congress for
over a year because of a fear that it would lead to admission
of Hawaii as a State. The objection to statehood was that
the population was not European in origin.
In
1900 Congress passed An
Act to Provide a Government for the Territory of Hawaii
(alternate
link). This law is referred to as the Organic Act, and
established the form of government of the Territory of Hawaii.
The
Territorial economy was based upon sugar and pineapple. The
plantations employed about 36,000 unskilled agricultural laborers,
most of whom were Japanese or Chinese. Of an additional 2,000
skilled laborers on the plantations, most were European. Wages
and living accommodations depended upon your job, and your
race. Europeans got paid more and got better quarters. You
should read the report of Secretary
of the Bureau of Immigration in Hawaii to get a flavor
of how labor was viewed in Hawaii in 1900.
The
biggest event in the history of the Territory of Hawaii was
the attack on Pearl Harbor,
and World War II. Governor Poindexter
declared martial law, suspended the writ of habeas corpus,
closed the local courts, and turned over the powers of government
to the military. President Roosevelt approved this action,
and the military ruled Hawaii until October 24, 1944. The
U.S. Supreme Court ruled that this declaration of martial
law, and trial of civilians by military courts, was invalid.
Those
of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast of the United States
were interned during World War II as a threat to national
security. The tragedy of the Japanese 'relocation' is fully
explored in various online sources. I recommend the National
Archives Documents
and Photographs Related to Japanese Relocation During World
War II. Over 117,000 people of Japanese descent were relocated
away from the coast to inland internment camps. 70,000 of
these people were native born citizens of the United States.
The United States eventually apologized and provided some
reparations to those relocated.
In
Hawaii, the Japanese were not relocated or interned. The usual
explanation is that we knew our Japanese neighbors better
than did the people on the mainland. The real answer is probably
they were needed on the plantations, and the plantations had
political pull. A very few prominent Japanese were interned,
but nowhere near the complete relocation undertaken on the
mainland.
The
economy and government of the Territory of Hawaii had largely
been controlled by the Big Five corporations or plantations,
and Hawaii was solidly Republican. After World War II, the
returning Japanese-American service men felt they should be
able to participate in the government they just fought to
defend. They were generally ignored by the Big Five and the
Republican Party. The Democratic Party had no such silly prejudices,
and Hawaii has been solidly Democratic since the 1950s.
These
returning veterans also were not content to go back to the
old life on the plantation.
"But
the grip of the Big Five control over Hawai'i would continue
until the fifties. By the late forties labor had achieved
a considerable degree of solidarity forged in a number of
key strikes that aimed to establish the principle of wage
parity in the islands. Employers had always paid local workers
less than the standard wage paid to workers on the West Coast
of the United States. The 1949 Longshore Strike that lasted
six months and crippled the Territory's economy was the greatest
single battle in that campaign. The employers and their spokesmen
in the media seized upon the popular fears of the day and
tried to portray the unionists as communists. And an anti-union
organization called IMUA was formed to stir up the community
against the strikers.
"Five
years later not only had wage parity been achieved, but the
political domination of the Big Five was ended and a newly
elected Democratic majority commanded both houses of the territorial
legislature.
Next:
Statehood
About
the Author:
Brian N. Durham is currently editor of My
Hawaii News, a publication of The 'Ohana Network.
A retired Coast Guard officer with 22 years of service, Brian
is a member of the Hawaii Bar and has worked for the Hawaii
State Legislature and the Linda Lingle Campaign Committee.
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