Hawaii - James Michener [569]
They drove in silence for more than two miles, looking for a country lane that led to the headquarters of one of the most illogical of the large land holdings that had imperiled Japan, and when they spotted the turning, Shig studied the relatively small area involved--small, that is, as compared with Hawaii--and he began to laugh. "What's the joke?" his lanky, dour companion asked.
"I was thinking how ironic it is!"
"What?" Abernethy asked, for he loved the ironies of history.
"Here we are, you and I, doing all this work in redistributing farm lands in defeated Japan, while, actually, the situation in my own home, Hawaii, is far worse."
Dr. Abernethy sat with his knees hunched up toward his chin and waited silently till Shig looked at him. The he smiled slyly and asked, "What do you suppose I've been talking to you about?"
Shig was so startled that he slowed down the jeep, brought it to a complete halt, and turned formally to look at his commander. "You mean you've been talking to me about Hawaii?"
"Of course. I want you to appreciate what the alternatives are."
"How do you know anything about Hawaii?"
"Anyone interested in land reform knows Hawaii. Now that Hungary and Japan have faced their revolutions, Hawaii and China remain the most notorious remnants of medievalism in the world."
"Will both have to undergo revolutions?" Shig asked.
"Of course," Abemethy replied simply. "The hardest lesson in all history to learn is that no nation is exempt from history. China's revolution will probably end in bloody confiscation. Hawaii's will probably be accomplished by peaceful taxation." He paused and asked, "That is, if smart young fellows like you have any sense."
"I still think it's sardonic that I should be over here helping to save Japan," Shig reflected. "I should be doing this same job at home." He shifted gears and headed for the small house where the nervous Japanese landlords waited.
"As I said," Dr. Abernethy repeated dourly, "few nations are lucky enough to lose wars at the right time. Lucky Japan."
This fact was hammered home when Shig finally overtook his older brother Goro, who served as translator in General MacArthur's labor division. He had been in Nagoya when Shig landed, working on a long-range program for the unionization of Japanese industry, but instead of serving a quiet intellectual theorist like Dr. Abernethy of Harvard he was with a team of red-hot American labor organizers from the A.F. of L. "This job is driving me crazy!" stocky Goro cried, rubbing his crew-cut stubble.
"Are the people you work for stupid?" Shig asked.
"Stupid! They're the smartest characters I ever met. What drives me nuts is that I work fifteen hours a day forcing Japanese into labor unions. I read them General MacArthur's statement that one of the strongest foundations of democracy is an organized laboring class, secure in its rights. And you know, I think MacArthur is right. It's the only way Japan will ever be able to combat the zaibatsu. Strong, determined unions. But by God it's maddening to be forcing onto the Japanese in Japan what the Japanese in Hawaii are forbidden to have."
"You mean unions?" Shig asked, as they drank Japanese beer in the Dai Ichi Hotel, where they were bunked.
"You're damned right I mean unions!" Goro fumed. "Let's be honest, Shig. We practically fought a war to eliminate the zaibatsu in Japan. But you know the big firms here never controlled half as much as they do in Hawaii. You know, Shig, it's a crazy world when you fight a war to give the conquered what you refuse to give your own people back home."
Shig took refuge in a trick he often used when trying to think straight. He stopped talking and held his beer stein to his lips for a long time, but Goro used this interval to comment: "If unions are good in Japan, they're good in Hawaii. If the zaibatsu are bad in Japan, they're bad in Hawaii. Yet I’m forced to make the Japanese join unions here, and if I tried to do the identical thing in Hawaii I'd be arrested, beaten up, and thrown into