The Strikes
On 4 February 1938, strikes began. The strikers demanded equal wages with workers on the West Coast and closed shop or union shop. Strikes continued well into July and August. The SS Waialeale, owned by the Inter-Island Steamship Company, which in turn was owned by the Big Five, was due to come in to port on 1 August. On that day, protesters from different unions arrived to protest the ship's docking. Witnesses estimated the crowd anywhere from 80 to 800, with the newspapers reports saying around 500 to 600. It is likely, however, that there were only around 200 protesters.
Read more about this topic: Hilo Massacre
Famous quotes containing the word strikes:
“Nothing is so beautiful as spring—
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightning to hear him sing.”
—Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)
“What strikes me as odd now is how much my father managed to get across to me without those heart-to-hearts which I’ve read about fathers and sons having in the study or in the rowboat or in the car.... Somehow I understood completely how he expected me to behave, in small matters as well as large, even though I can’t remember being given any lectures about it beyond the occasional, undramatic “You might as well be a mensch.””
—Calvin Trillin (20th century)