Harriet Bouslog won
By Harold Morse
landmark labor cases
Star-BulletinHarriet Bouslog, an attorney who helped make the ILWU respectable and who was involved in landmark court cases, died Saturday in St. Francis Hospital. She was 85. She was credited with helping convert Hawaii from a near-feudal society to one in which respect for civil liberties and workers rights are paramount. She was a partner with the firm Bouslog & Symonds.
“I guess probably her greatest contribution was as a lawyer who was willing to put her neck out for civil liberties,” said Norman Meller, University of Hawaii professor emeritus of political science.
“You had the period of time in which you had the McCarthy scare, and Communists were being discovered both in unlikely places as well as likely places,” Meller said. “We had, of course, the (Hawaii Seven) suit here, and very definitely at that time, anyone associated with the individuals concerned -- they were associated with the leadership of the ILWU -- was pretty well tarred as if not a Communist, a sympathizer.”
Bouslog was not to be swayed by passions of the times or popular hysteria, Meller said. “She was willing to take a position of defending rights under the Constitution.”
Florida-born Bouslog was admitted to practice law in Hawaii in 1941.
World War II found her in the nation’s capital, where she was recruited to work for the ILWU by its president, Harry Bridges.
She returned to Hawaii after the war to defend union members who had been arrested for various offenses while on strike.
Bouslog unmercifully assaulted the 1850 Unlawful Assembly and Riot Act, under which workers had been charged. The territorial Supreme Court sustained her on every count, and workers went free.
The years 1947-55 found her island-hopping throughout the territory to keep ILWU members out of jail.
Although her defense contribution during the Smith Act trial was limited primarily to research, she managed to get in trouble for remarks made outside the court.
At a Dec. 14, 1952, Big Island union meeting, she said: “There is no such thing as a fair trial in a Smith Act case. All rules of evidence . . . have to be scrapped or the government can’t make a case. . . . They just make up rules as they go along.”
Her remarks called her conduct into question and prompted an investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office.
Although the Hawaii Seven, including ILWU leader Jack Hall, were convicted in the seven-month Smith Act trial of 1952-53, their convictions later were overturned by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Proceedings against Bouslog began well after the Smith Act trial, and on April 6, 1956, the territorial Supreme Court ordered her suspended from practice for a year.
Bouslog insisted on taking an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
On June 29, 1959, the Supreme Court by a 5-to-4 vote overturned her suspension on grounds there was not enough evidence to support it.
“I have always felt my position would be vindicated,” she said then. “I will be more careful about what I say in the future, but I will never keep my mouth shut when I can open it to help out.”
Bouslog represented not only the ILWU and its members but also poor and underrepresented citizens.
She was a prime mover in getting capital punishment outlawed in Hawaii.
In later life, she was honored with the Allan F. Saunders Civil Liberties Award by the American Civil Liberties Union and with resolutions by the state Legislature and City Council. A law graduate of Indiana University, her alma mater honored her in 1989 when she became a Fellow of its Academy of Distinguished Alumni.
The Harriet Bouslog Labor Scholarship Fund she established each year has provided four-year scholarships to the University of Hawaii to eight children of ILWU members.
She is survived by husband Stephen T. Sawyer.
Memorial services will be held at the ILWU meeting hall at 451 Atkinson Drive at 10 a.m. Sunday . Contributions may be made to the Harriet Bouslog Labor Scholarship Fund, 63 Merchant St., Honolulu 96813.
Services will be held Monday
By Russ Lynch
for ‘Jerry’ Murphy
Star-BulletinMichael J. “Jerry” Murphy, a former Star-Bulletin reporter who spent nearly two decades as a public relations professional before crossing back to reporting and column writing for another 20 years, died Friday in Castle Hospital. He was 74. As a public relations man whose job was to get stories about his employers published in the media, Murphy was respected by journalists because they knew his heart was on their side of the fence.
“He was kind of a natural news guy,” said Charles Regal, a Seattle newspaperman who also made the switch to public relations and worked with Murphy when both were with Matson Navigation Co.
Noting how Murphy got back into writing and editing after 14 years with Matson and another few years in government public relations, Regal said: “He ventured into public relations for a little bit, but he returned.”
After working for some years on East Coast papers, Murphy, who was born in Waterbury, Conn., was recruited by then-editor Riley Allen and joined the Star-Bulletin in 1953.
He was with the newspaper until 1956, serving as general assignment reporter and later specializing as military writer.
Murphy was proud of his military service. He fought in the Army “for three years and 11 days” in World War II, he used to say, serving in Europe and making it into the Pacific just about the time the war ended.
Lyle Nelson, who started as a Star-Bulletin reporter a few years before Murphy, recalls him as a good reporter who was “always a friendly type.”
“Matson took him away from us,” Nelson said.
Murphy, who joined the company in the days when it still had passenger ships, was named Matson’s Hawaii public relations manager in 1958, and in 1969 won the same title at Matson’s parent, Alexander & Baldwin Inc.
He left in 1970, telling friends he wasn’t really happy with corporate public relations, but soon landed another job as information officer for the Honolulu Board of Water Supply.
It wasn’t until 1974 that Murphy returned to his first love, newspapers, working for a local weekly, Wind Word in his home town of Kailua, and from 1978 on at the Sun Press papers.
He was editor of the Windward Sun Press and wrote a weekly column for the paper on diverse issues, often interspersed with wartime memories. After some staff reductions two years ago, he wrote the column from his Kailua home on a free-lance basis.
“He was a good newspaperman,” said Ken Berry, publisher of the Sun Press papers and MidWeek. “He was people-oriented and he had a nose for news. He was a quick thinker. I think he was good because he knew the territory better than the young reporters, and of course he demonstrated his writing style in his popular Sun Press column that should have got him syndicated.”
Murphy, whose wife Carolyn died in 1989, is survived by sons Michael Damien Murphy and Matthew Duncan Murphy, daughter Gael Marie Cookman and four grandchildren.
Visitation over the ashes will be from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Monday at St. Anthony’s Catholic Church, Kailua, with Mass at 11:30 a.m. Inurnment will be at 1 p.m. at Hawaii State Veterans Cemetery, Kaneohe. Aloha attire.
Kazumi “Paul” Abe,80, of Pearl City, a retired carpenter from Fort Shafter, died Sunday in Kapiolani Hospital at Pali Momi. He was Born in Aiea. Survived by wife Yoshiye; daughters Janice Threlkeld and Jane N. Asaoka; brother Masaji; sisters Fukue Kaneko, Masae Mukai, Teru Koike and Grace Abe, and a grandson. Memorial services: 6:30 p.m. tomorrow at Mililani Mortuary-Waipio. Casual attire. No flowers.
