Hawaii - James Michener [582]
At the beginning of the sixth month Goro Sakagawa, attended by four assistants, marched into the board room of The Fort, waited for the directors of the great plantations to assemble, and then sat in precisely the chair he had promised Hewlett Janders he would one day occupy, and in that symbolic moment some of the intractable fight went out of him. It was curious that seating oneself in a chair that had been insolently forbidden should affect a man, as if there were hidden emotional channels that ran from his bottom to his brain, but that is what happened. Secure in his chair, Goro said in conciliatory manner, "We think the strike has progressed long enough. We are sure you think the same. Is there not some way to end it?"
"I will not have a Japanese field hand stomp into my office . . ." Hewlett Janders began, but Hoxworth Hale looked at him in pity, as if the horrors of six months had been useless, in that Janders was using the same words he had used when the strike began.
Quietly Goro ignored him and addressed Hale, a tough negotiator: "Mr. Hale, my committee is not going to take cognizance of the fact that your negotiator, Mr. Hewlett Janders, has attacked us for being Japanese, because we know that your cousin, Colonel Mark Whipple, laid down his life that we might be free citizens. We're acting as free citizens, and I think you appreciate that fact."
The gracious tribute to Colonel Whipple softened the meeting, and all remembered what this same Goro Sakagawa, an army captain in those days, had said when it was proposed to bring Mark Whipple's body home from the Vosges Mountains: "Let them bring my brothers home, but Colonel Whipple should sleep in the heart-land of the world, where he died. No island is big enough to hold his spirit."
"What new terms have you in mind, Mr. Sakagawa?" Hale asked.
"We will never end the strike unless we get full union recognition," Goro replied, and Hewlett Janders slumped in his chair. He could see it coming: the others were willing to surrender. The communists were about to triumph. But before Hewie could speak, Goro quickly added, "Then, to match your concession, well accept ten cents an hour less."
"Gentlemen," Hoxworth Hale said with fresh hope, "I think Mr. Sakagawa's proposal gives us something to talk about." Subtly the spirit of Colonel Mark Whipple, who had died for these Japanese boys, invaded the room, and Hale asked quietly, "Goro, will you bring your men back in about three hours?"
"I will, Mr. Hale," the union leader assured him, but as the group started to leave, Hewie Janders asked sharply, "How do we know that communist Rod Burke'll allow us to open the piers?"
"That's what we've been negotiating about, Mr. Janders," Goro replied. "When I reach an agreement with you men, the piers are open. That's what negotiation means."
When the delegation left--three Japanese, a haole and two Filipinos--Hewlett Janders left his seat at the head of the table and said, "I cannot participate in what you men are about to do."
"I appreciate your position," Hale said coldly. "But will you bind yourself to accept what we decide?" At this question everyone turned to stare at Janders. If he refused to accept, in the name of J & W, the principal plantation operators, no one knew what the eventuality might be, and it was just possible that he might be big enough to resist both the unions and his own associates. Desperately he was tempted to fight this out to a Gottedammerung conclusion, but he was prevented from doing so by cautious words from the man who twenty years before had taken the leadership of The Fort from him. Hoxworth Hale said slowly, "Hewie, your family and mine have always loved these islands. We cannot stand by and see them suffer any