Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1916-10-05
OCTOBER 5, 1916.
GO BACK TO WORK.

week ago today the Star Bulletin said editorial
~ From assaults on strikebreakers, il is just one
short, fatal step to red-handed crime"
ON the following day, this paper added:
Men who have been deluded into joining the
union will be wisely advised If they withdraw their
names quit the paid agitatOrs go back to work and
approach their employers not the branch of a
mainland organization, bound by mainland rules
and run by mainland uniOnsts but as citizens OF
Honolulu who wish to discuss with their employers
an affair which concerns themselves and their
firms ..#.@ .>..s..- 49,.
The truth OF both comments has been abundantly
proved since that time. $685..
Ii required no gift of prophesy to fOresee that
the waterfront strikers were on their way TO hood
lnmism and criminal violence They beg IN therstrike
in an uncontrolled spirit They quit work without
voicing grievances making demands, showing at
the outset that their organization had bad leader:
ship, bad advice, no discipline, no common concep-
fi0n of how to handle a strike lawfully and peace.
ably.
After the first exhibition ii was obvious that the
leaders could not control the disorderly rank and
file of strikers and their sympathizefs
Their demand for 'closed shop"-inspired by
mainland unionism, not by the Honolulu situation
made it impossible for Honolulu employers to treat
ii
right of any organization Of labor or capital to die
tate what men shall accept employment and what
men be refused it,
When the demand for "closed shop'-disguised
as a "closed port''-was abandoned; when the ship
pers recognizing that they could not treat with
mObs, organized TO get labor and began to get it in
large numbers, the strikers saw their deuded dream
vanishing and then their lack of discipline became
openly evident.
The ''short, fatal step to violence" was begun yes.
terday when a mob OF men and boys gathered on
the waterfront and derailed an engine of the o. r.
l. Company pulling ears supposedly full Of strike
breakers Train-wrecking is criminal violence and
II was no fauit 0fthe strikers that there was not
deed Yesterday appalling in it's consequences
The advice given to the strikers last Thursday is
here renewedget out of the union which can Meth
en- guarantee employment nor control reckless re-
yengeful men; get out of the union which has de
luded the longshoremen into the belief that main
land unions will stand by them in a fight - they
won't. Go back to the waterfront and ask your
employers for work and make your pleas for a new
wage-scaIe on the basis of fair play.
There is plenty of public opinion in favor of an
Increase in wages for the longshoremen. There is
definite reason TO believe the shippers are working
On an ncreasedwage plan. Men who go back to
work may do so with the assurance that they will
in the future get more pay. But if they continue
violence and disorder; If they continue the attempt
10 force uni0nisn down the throats of Honolulu EN-
poyers by train-wlecking smuggling and picketing
BY mobs and gangsters, they will find no jobs await
ing thenL Employers do not want thugs and plug
uglies their pay-rolls. Nor do they want agita-
tors who incite TO crime.