Center for Labor Education & Research, University of Hawaii - West Oahu: Honolulu Record Digitization Project

Honolulu Record, Volume 9 No. 7, Thursday, September 13, 1956 p. 3

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Crozier To Go After Demos From Republican Platform

Willie Crozien, Hawaii's independent politician, says he will take on the Democrats and give them the works from the Republican platform in the coming political campaign.
Probably no one imagined that he would join the GOP ranks, the party he used to refer to as "Big Five dominated." He probably would still say it, with emphasis when the occasion demands.

Few have publicly blasted the Republicans in the manner the independent has done. He has always carried on colorful campaigns and has pounded away at issues.

Hit Dillinghams

In 1948 when he ran for the senate on Oahu, his vocal artillery pounded away at the Dillingham interests. He called the Dillinghams "fruit flies," and named them from "papa fruit fly, mama fruit fly" down to son Ben, the baby fruit fly, who was running for the senate.

Earlier when he ran a dairy, his cows were the principal characters on his radio program. The cows talked through Willie, discussing politics and business.

Crozier is an independent because he calls a spade a spade. He hasn't said why he joined the Republicans but he can be counted on to speak out his reasons one of these days.

Quit Demos Before

He says he is "fed up" with the Democrats who talk plenty but don't serve the people. Many have "double-crossed" their constituents when they had an opportunity for the first time in half a century to do something in the legislature, he declares. He will speak about this "double-cross" from the political platform. This is not the first time that Crozier has been "fed up" with the Democrats. In 1935, on the first day of the legislative session, he and his brother Clarence quit the Democratic Party because, as he explained this week, "the Republicans were running the Democrats."

He was a member of the House then. In 1932, the year he signed the Democratic roll, he was elected to the House from the Fourth District and became the first Democrat to win a House seat from the Fourth in 20 years. He was re-elected in 1934.

Influenced by Stainback

In 1936 he ran for the Senate on Oahu on a non-partisan ticket. In 1938, after the "Bloody Monday" shooting at Kuhio Wharf in Hilo, he decided to run for delegate to Congress. He was in a fight to get Governor Joseph Poindexter out.

He ran again as a non-partisan in 1940 for the House from the Fourth District. He was unsuccessful in the campaign.

In 1942 he rejoined the Democratic Party at the insistence of Ingram M. Stainback, who, he says, told him that he was going to improve the Democratic Party.

"I bit hook, line and sinker. I was a sucker," he says.

That year he ran unsuccessfully for the Senate on Oahu. In 1944 he ran for the House from the Fourth. He was unsuccessful.

Lost by 45 Votes

In 1946 the Hana Belt Road contract kept him from running for office. That was the only year he did not run for office between 1932 and now. In 1948 he ran for the Senate and went after the Dillinghams with the "fruit fly" theme.
 
In the following campaign, on Maui, he lost a Senate race by 45 votes. In 1952 he ran for the Maui county board of supervisors. He was unsuccessful. In the last campaign be ran for the House from the Fourth District. The Democrats in a landslide took fire of the six House seats.

"And I was the only Democrat defeated in the Fourth District," Willie said this week with a smile.

Evidently it is not this defeat that has made him change parties. Earlier this year at a Democratic county committee meeting, when he introduced resolutions dealing with improving the economy of the Territory certain Democrats who ran the meeting ignored his resolutions or ridiculed them. Some observers say this behavior of some Democrats was one of the last straws that made him "fed up" with numerous leading Democrats.
The explanation of why he bolted the Democratic ranks will come from Willie when he takes the mike on the GOP platform.

p /> I do not say that at odd hours a patient must be given the regular hot dinner or supper. Few people would expect this.
 
But what is so complicated about opening and heating a can of soup, making some toast, or preparing instant coffee or tea? Why cannot a night nurse do these simple things after the kitchen to closed? Is it just too much trouble?

It is only common humanity to feed the hungry. If our hospitals are too big, too complex, too impersonal to do these small kindnesses for the sick, something is very wrong.