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MN: And then so after you passed the bar, what did you do?

KM: Well, the first thing was where was I going to practice? And my brother's firm had an opening, so I joined them with Hiram Fong and Herbert Choy. It was Fong, Miho and Choy at this point. Later on, Mr. Walter Chuck became a partner.

MN: And what kind of cases did this law firm sort of concentrate on?

KM: Fong, Miho, Choy and Robinson, number one, one of the big clients was Hiram's conglomerate of Finance Factors, Finance Investment, we represented them. We also, at that time, represented Foodland chain and general practice of law, wide open. At one point, the biggest civil judgment in Hawaii was Walter Chuck, who came onboard at that time. But in my career, I was involved in two glamorous cases. The first one was the Golden Rule case. Do you have any idea what the Golden Rule case is about?

MN: I know it had to do with a ship named the Golden Rule. You can explain it.

KM: There was a book out on that. Well, this was the time when Johnson Island, atom bomb experiment was being done. And so about the time these atom bomb tests were being taken, suddenly, into Honolulu sailed a small little ship with five members, I think. I forgot which now. I only know the skipper's name was Bigelow. They were all Quakers. And they had come in and announced that they were going to sail out to Eniwetok, and not stop, but sail into the forbidden zone. And so there was a big publicity, it came out in the newspapers, and even announced when they were going to sail out. Having announced their intentions, the federal attorney general sought an injunction to prevent them from going out into Eniwetok. Of course, because my brother was involved with the very early cases of the AJAs wanting to come back after World War II, and they were denied their passports because the State Department ruled that they had voluntarily served with the Japanese army or voluntarily voted in a Japanese election, and so the State Department made a standing rule that all former dual citizens who were in Japan during the war were denied their rights to get back their passports. And so we were involved with that suit. There were some 6,000 AJAs who wanted to come back. And so we had a test case in Honolulu, Fuji Junichi's son. And we represented him and we had the famous civil lawyer from Los Angeles, Al Wirin and his law firm, and we jointly represented these 6,000, we had a test case, and Judge McLaughlin first denied, upheld the State Department ruling that the government was correcting, denying these passports. But on appeal to the 9th Circuit, the 9th Circuit overruled, as a result, the State Department was forced to issue out to all of those AJAs who have been in Japan, the right to come back and get their passport to come back. So we had been involved with that case, and so we got involved with the Quakers. And so Judge Wirin at that time, fellow judge, had a short hearing at which point we represented the Quaker, the Golden Rulers. And the judge issued an injunction to the Golden Rule crew, that you are not to sail out of Ala Wai Harbor.

But what happened was that as soon as the court hearing was over -- and we didn't know this was the plan of the crew -- but we said goodbye and they walked out of the courtroom, went straight to Ala Wai Harbor, got onboard the ship, and the coast guard was waiting for them, they were watching them. Sure enough, they got on the boat, they sailed out, and they were out five or ten miles out of the harbor when the coast guard intercepted them and brought them back into port, and there was a hearing at that point as to having violated the injunction. And at that point my brother and I reappeared in court because he and I were going out to lunch and we got a call, "Hey, you got to go back to court." Said, "Why?" "Oh, they're back in court." So instead of going out to lunch we went back to court. And there were four of them, five of them, I think, were brought in in shackles into court. And the hearing was what penalty they would get for violating the injunction. And Judge Wirin ordered them to be put in jail for x-number of days, thirty days or sixty days. And we thought that was it. But then before my brother and I could walk out, the judge said, "Wait, the two of you, want you to stay back, we've got a little more." The Golden Rulers were taken out of court and then my brother and I were back there. The judge wanted to know why he should not hold my brother and I in contempt of court for allowing or not doing anything about the Golden Rulers violating his injunction. What he wanted to know was whether we knew in advance whether they were going to go out. And his questioning was, if we knew in advance, why didn't we report it to him or to the court authorities that our clients were intentionally going to violate. Well, in the first place, we didn't know anything. And so technically we would have had no... but he thought about it and then he decided not to hold my brother and I in contempt of court. But that was a far-fetched ruling, to hold us, I don't know whether he could have rightfully done that. I don't know if we had a duty to report something that, number one, we had no idea about.

MN: Then the Golden Rulers, did they actually go to prison for that number of days?

KM: They stayed in prison, I think, for thirty days, I think it was, at Iwilei. The prison was in Iwilei, and so I remember going to visit them in the jail. But eventually they got out and went back home. I think they decided not to do anything further. After the jail time they went back. I guess they got enough... this was national news, you know. The Golden Rule was, I think it was a big item in the Life magazine.

MN: How did you and your brother get involved in this case?

KM: My sister, Fumiye, she was head of the Quaker mission in Japan, and through her contact, we had been in touch with several matters involving the Quakers. I think they knew about my brother and I. But because of her, we got involved.

MN: How did you personally feel about atomic testing in the Pacific at that time?

KM: Being ex-military at that point, I did not have any strong feelings one way or the other, other than going along with the rest of the majority of the public that, what needed to be done as announced by the government was something that we had to do if there was further need for testing.

An interesting additional aspect of this is that, at the time of the hearing, unbeknown at that point, was a man listening to all that was going on. Dr. Earle Reynolds is also a well-known name. He and his family was harbored in Ala Wai Harbor, with the name of his ship being Phoenix. After the hearing, Dr. Reynolds and his family got on the Phoenix, and after, I guess after the Golden Rulers left, I think. About a month thereafter or so, a month or two months thereafter, we learned that the navy had stopped the Phoenix from entering into the forbidden zone. They had sailed all the way from Hawaii to Eniwetok, and it had sailed into the forbidden zone. And the navy stopped it and hauled the ship back to Honolulu. And so we had a hearing on what would happen. And Dr. Reynolds called me because he had seen my brother and I both. And he was smart, he said, "I want you to represent me temporarily," until he can get his regular attorney from Washington, D.C. to represent him in this hearing in Honolulu. For that purpose, he asked me to represent him. And I specifically tried to impress upon Judge McLaughlin again, who was a judge, that I was there for a very specific purpose, only to buy time to have a continuance of the case against this Dr. Reynolds, until his attorney... I forgot the name of his famous civil rights attorney for Washington, D.C., who would be coming to defend him, but the judge refused. He refused the continuance. He set for hearing before the attorney could get here, and again, Dr. Reynolds, I think Mr. Reynolds did go to jail. Again, Dr. McLaughlin was overruled because my purpose was to get, for time to have his regular attorney, or his appointed attorney to come from Washington, D.C., which was for a reasonable time only, but the judge refused to continue the matter until such time as the attorney could show up, and found Dr. Reynolds guilty of entering the forbidden zone, which was then overruled again by the Ninth Circuit Court. And so that was the Phoenix, which Dr. Reynolds and his family became well-known pacifists. And finally ended up going to Hiroshima, and I think he became, for a couple of years, I think he was professor of something. And the wife was a well-known educator too, Mrs. Reynolds. And I know they spent several years in Hiroshima involved with all these peace movements.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2021 Densho. All Rights Reserved.