<Begin Segment 15>

DG: Okay. So let's move on now. So he had such a business that -- I don't know all the figures, but according to something called the Tolan Report, the Japanese-owned companies produced 50 percent of the market in Washington.

RM: In the oysters?

DG: Yeah.

RM: Yeah, I think that's...

DG: So how many Japanese companies were there around?

RM: Well, the largest one was ourselves and New Washington, and they're the major ones.

DG: How many employees did you have?

RM: Well, we had, let's see, fifty or sixty. We had shuckers. We had an oyster plant, you know. We had about twenty something shuckers there. People working on it... probably around fifty people.

DG: Similar to what Coast Oyster is now?

RM: Yeah.

DG: That is right by you here?

RM: Yeah, not that large, but...

DG: That's larger than what your operation was.

RM: Oh, yeah, sure.

DG: Twice as big or...

RM: Well, they bought our company out.

DG: Well, before we get there, let's talk about your employees back when your father first started and he called it what?

RM: Eagle Oyster Packing Company.

DG: And so you had twenty, thirty employees.

RM: Yeah.

DG: Okay. Was there any union problems or anything at that time?

RM: Oh, we had lots of union problems, yeah.

DG: Do you remember anything specific?

RM: Well, what I mostly remember is our father said, "If they're gonna to strike like that, I'll strike against them." [Laughs]

DG: What did he mean by that?

RM: Well, he was going to fight it. He was quite a person, yeah, and he did.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.