An Alibi Confirmed

Tokuji Baba, the defendant who took the witness stand after Miyazawa, was thirty-three years old. He wore rimless glasses similar to Miyazawa's but was much shorter and thinner. As the eldest son of a wealthy farm family near Shibata City in Niigata prefecture, he might have inherited the family lands, but when he was fifteen years old he went to Hawaii where his uncle lived.

Aside from Tsutsumi, Baba and Ichiji Goto^[*] were the only Federation of Japanese Labor officers mentioned in the FBI files. According to one FBI report, "Upon his arrival [in Hawaii], Baba went directly to Waialua plantation where he worked for four years and then returned to Japan. He stayed in Japan about one year and then again he came to the territory and obtained work at Waialua plantation where he has been up to the time of last strike. He was active as the head of Buddhist Youth Association and he wrote to Buddhist magazines and short stories etc. He likes to write and contributes to Japanese newspapers occasionally."^[24]

At the time of the strike Baba worked at the Waialua sugar company mill and was one of the higher wage earners. Along with H. Fujitani, he became involved early on in the local wage increase movement. When the Waialua union was organized, he was named its chairman. According to the FBI report, "At first Baba was very conservative in his views and actions, but gradually through his association with Tsutsumi, Miyazawa and others, became more or less radical in his views and actions."^[25]

Defense attorney Brooks started his direct examination of Baba by focusing on his health on May 22, 1920. Baba testified that after coming down with influenza on February 18, he had been ill all during the strike. He denied giving orders to Matsumoto to go to Hawaii on May 20. "I was not in the office that day," he said. He recalled seeing Matsumoto at Fujitani's home "for a little while," but he did not talk to him. And the first time he saw Saito^[*] , he said, "was when he came here and was on the witness stand."

Brooks completed these direct examination questions in about fifteen minutes. His method of operation was to present his witnesses quickly; then, after allowing Heen to press them during his cross-examination, he tried to overturn those points during his redirect questioning.

In response to Heen's cross-examination, Baba provided further details of his illness. After coming down with influenza after a speaking tour of Maui, Baba remained in bed at the hotel housing workers evicted from Waialua, but so many people were staying in the same room that he could not rest. Both Hoshino and his doctor, Gensho^[*] Hasegawa, feared that his life was in danger if he stayed there. Indeed, Hasegawa took Baba home to stay with him in Honolulu.

BABA: "I went to Dr. Hasegawa's place and stayed there. On the third of April I came with Dr. Hasegawa in his automobile to see the flag parade.^[26] My health was not very good and my friends thought that I could not do any business as an official so they telephoned me one day and wanted to know if I would go back to Japan. I told him if they are going to send me back to Japan I want to go back to Japan. It was about the 17th of May."

The following day, May 18, Baba returned to Waialua Plantation, where he stayed for eight days. It was May 26 when he returned to Dr. Hasegawa's house. On May 22, the day that Matsumoto said Baba had issued the order to go to Hilo, Baba was still in Waialua.

The cross-examination brought out details of Baba's movements around the crucial date of May 21. When Baba returned to Waialua, he sent a resignation letter dated May 20 to the Oahu union, giving poor health as his reason. (The May 25, 1920, Hawaii shinpo^[*] suggested that Fujitani might take Baba's place as Waialua delegate.) His fellow workers objected to his resignation because they felt the strike would soon end, so his offer to resign was deferred. "It was about the time the strike was to end," he said, "that I was asked by Tsutsumi to come to Honolulu to confer with him as to the settlement of the strike. He said, 'we want to have some laborers to be connected with this settlement.'" De-

spite his illness, Baba had to attend the final negotiations with HSPA president Waterhouse at the Young Hotel.

Heen asked Baba, as he had asked Miyazawa, about the daily wage of the workers at the time of the strike, making it seem that their wage increase demands were unjustified. He also sought to show how much Baba (and the other defendants) were being paid by the federation or the unions during the strike. Baba said that he received no pay, only expenses, when he served as a federation director. His monthly salary of $85 began only in August, after the strike ended, and continued for about six months until he returned to Niigata in January 1921.

An FBI report of January 22, 1921, stated, "[Baba is] among the Japanese returning to Japan by the Shunyo Maru tomorrow morning. He is returning to his native land for recuperation." Heeding Dr. Hasegawa's advice, Baba returned to Japan for a time to recover his health. He also married a local woman, who came back with him to Hawaii, and he turned his family home over to his younger sister and her husband. It was clear that he intended to make Hawaii his permanent residence. About two months after he got back to Waialua Plantation he was indicted. Although Baba had resigned as Waialua union chairman, when he returned from Japan he agreed to take on the job again.

Changing his line of questioning, Heen asked Baba in conclusion, "Isn't it a fact that the Federation or the Hawaiian Laborer's Association is paying nine thousand dollars for the defense of all of you in this case?" To this, Brooks interjected, "Not to me."

The first female witness to take the stand was Sajo (Sayo?) Inoguchi, a middle-aged woman whose face reflected a difficult life. According to her testimony, she had worked in the cane fields with her husband on Ewa Plantation until they were evicted during the strike. After going to Honolulu she worked at Kyorakukan^[*] from February 28 until the beginning of June doing cleaning and washing. At that time, about ten federation leaders were staying at Kyorakukan, among them Hoshino, who was in bed most of the time she worked there. It was witness Inoguchi who had seen that Hoshino's condition was dire on May 22 and had telephoned Dr. Hasegawa.

INOGUCHI: "As he was unable to eat normal meals, I had made him rice gruel, but he could no longer eat that. His fever was very high, and I cooled his forehead with ice. He couldn't even make it to the lavatory across the hall, so I had to take him by the arm and lead him there. I think it was just before noon that Dr. Hasegawa arrived. The next day, Mr. Hoshino was admitted to the

hospital. I took his arm and led him to the car. The night before he went to the hospital, I was at his side all night, changing the ice to cool his head. No, he was in no condition to leave his room at Kyorakukan^[*] during that day (May 22) and go to the Federation office. . . .

There were many people connected to the Federation who came and went, but I remember well Mr. Hoshino from his condition. His high fever and serious cough continued particularly seriously for four or five days before the doctor came to see him. Mr. Hoshino took the medicine the doctor gave him, but just when his fever seemed to go down, it would go up again. This situation was repeated, and he gradually got worse.

In his last question to Inoguchi, Heen asked, "Did they tell you what you are to testify of?" She replied, "He told me not to tell lie, to tell pololei [the truth]," Inoguchi replied. "I also became ill with influenza about the time of the strike's end, and I'm still not back to normal health even after a year and a half." Inoguchi left the witness stand with unsure steps.

The Honolulu Advertiser noted that Inoguchi's testimony established Hoshino's alibi for May 22.

The seventh defense witness was thirty-four-year-old Yasuyuki Mizutari. His face was almost too delicate for a man, but his firm mouth expressed the strength of his will. Mizutari came from Mashiki County in Kumamoto prefecture. His father was a spear-fighting teacher, and his family had served the Hosokawa clan for generations. Until the strike Mizutari had worked in the mill at Pioneer Plantation in Lahaina on Maui. Mizutari and Inoue, who died of influenza, were the only two federation headquarters directors from Maui. It was Mizutari who, armed with a revolver, stood guard at the first meeting of delegates from all the islands at which the issue of whether to strike was discussed. At federation headquarters, Mizutari at first dealt with finances, but after the increase in influenza patients, he was active in the health department. After the strike, at the end of October 1920, Mizutari left the federation and returned to Kumamoto with his wife and three children. He came back to Hawaii two months later, on Christmas Eve, went to work at the Oahu Railway. Perhaps it was for these reasons that he was not indicted with the other federation leaders eight months later.

In response to Brooks's direct examination, Mizutari said that he went to Maui on business several times during the strike. In May, however, he went only once to Maui. Mizutari remembered this trip well because it was the only time that he went with Tsutsumi. In cross-examination he stated, "I am a laborer, I couldn't talk very well, and I asked

Mr. Tsutsumi to go along and have this explained." The two men went to Maui on May 19 and returned to Honolulu on May 22.

On May 22, after their ship from Maui arrived in Honolulu at 6:30 A.M ., Mizutari and Tsutsumi walked to federation headquarters. Tsutsumi telephoned Umemoto, another director, asking him to come in. Umemoto arrived with Nippu jiji reporter Gen'ichi Okubo^[*] at about 7:00 A.M . They talked until after 8:00, then Mizutari and Tsutsumi headed by car for Suigoro^[*] in Waiau. (The driver of this car later died of influenza.) On the way they stopped off to see Mizutari's family, which was renting a house in Honolulu. It was only after 9:00 A.M . that the two arrived at Suigoro. As they had a meeting scheduled for 7:00 that evening at federation headquarters, they spent the time until then at Suigoro, ate an early supper, and returned to Honolulu.

In other words, Mizutari's testimony directly conflicted with that of Matsumoto and Saito^[*] , both of whom had stated that they received orders from Tsutsumi at the federation headquarters office during the day on May 22. Mizutari confirmed Tsutsumi's alibi. The Suigoro was located near Waiau station, standing alone on a narrow road facing Pearl Harbor. It was some distance from Honolulu, but it was beyond the reach of bothersome newspaper reporters and there was no chance for planters' dogs to enter there. Federation leaders often gathered there, including the meeting that decided on the strike's end, because it was possible to maintain confidentiality.

In response to Heen's cross-examination, Mizutari spoke in detail about the day at Suigoro: "I was hungry, I had some rolled rice and, while we were eating, the nine o'clock train passed. Well, we went in the boat to crab fishing and we took some food along with us and, while we were eating the food in the boat, that a train that passed there a little after nine o'clock."

The Oahu Railway schedule for that year shows a train leaving Honolulu at 9:15 A.M ., the only one around the time Mizutari heard a train pass by. This train arrived in Waiau at 9:45 A.M .

When Mizutari and Tsutsumi reached Suigoro, they changed into cotton kimonos. It seemed that they were hit by the accumulated fatigue from four months of rushing around night and day since the strike started. The two men relaxed to prepare for the struggles ahead. Pearl Harbor was calm as usual that day. No doubt they were able to see several U.S. warships in the distance as the construction of the naval base was in progress. Then they fished until after 2:00 P.M . After returning to the Suigoro, they asked that the crab they had caught be cooked, played

some go in a room overlooking Pearl Harbor, and left at about 6:30 P.M . to attend the meeting.

Take Hamamoto, the manager of the Suigoro^[*] , confirmed Mizutari's account. Her husband was a fisherman who went out to sea every day. While caring for her four children, Take had operated the Suigoro on her own since its opening seven years before. Her testimony was summarized as follows:

Many Federation members came, but I remember Mr. Tsutsumi well. I think it was Mr. Mizutari who first started to come. The first time that Mr. Tsutsumi came a while later, he said he had a cold and wasn't feeling well. He slept in for a couple of days. After that, I think he came about three times other than when there were meetings.

It was just once that he and Mr. Mizutari came together. I can't give the exact date, but it was in the middle of May and I know it was a Saturday.

When they came they says, "Well, fix up something for us, we want something to eat, we have just come back from Maui." I was making sushi, that is rolled rice, and my husband was not there, and I told them, "Why not take some of this sushi?" and they says, "Well, if you have that we don't need anything else." And they took that sushi and went to the pier, eating sushi.

I remember distinctly the time that they came together they took these two rolls of sushi and went out, eating, and looked funny to me and, for that reason, I remember the time.

I think they were in their suits [this is the only point on which her memory differed from Mizutari's], and they went off with the towels I lent them draped around their necks.

Take Hamamoto's testimony, devoid of extraneous emotions, seemed very solid. The Honolulu Advertiser noted, "The cross-examination of [Mizutari and Hamamoto] by Judge William H. Heen for the Territory, failed to bring out any contradictory testimony each holding to the fact as stated in direct examination."