The Hilo Massacre: Striking Terror On The Waterfront

Abstract

On August 1, 1938 Hilo policemen opened fire on a large group of labor union members and sympathizers who were conducting a demonstration at the Hilo Wharf. Although no one was killed, 51 people were injured, including two women. One man, a union leader, was permanently crippled. References to the incident appear in several historical works pertaining to Hawaiian and Hawaiian labor history; notably Dr. Edward Beechert’s Working in Hawaii, Sandford Zalburg’s A Spark is Struck and Lawrence Fuch’s Hawaii Pono, as well as Kuykendall’s A History in Hawaii. Its appearance in virtually every important historical work concerning the Islands suggests that this was no minor event. However, with the exception of the two works concerned with labor history (Beecher and Zalburg in Hawaii, the reports were neither detailed nor completely accurate.