Nothing quite like it had happened before in the history of Hawai'i. Some called it a revolution.
For the first time, the Democratic Party would be in control of both houses in the territorial Legislature, having won enough seats in the 1954 general election to dethrone a Republican Party that had been in control longer than anyone could remember.
The new Democrats were young, products of the working class who understood social injustice and labor unrest. They came from the plantations, and they could quote racial discontent, chapter and verse.
And many were Japanese-American veterans of World War II, men who fought and bled for a democracy that had shut out their parents.
They had come home and used the G.I. Bill of Rights to pay for their educations. They saw politics as a way to create social change in Hawai'i.
Among their ranks was newly elected territorial Rep. Daniel Inouye. He made his presence felt the first day of the Legislature when he chastised Republicans who had challenged the new order on procedure almost immediately after they were sworn in Feb. 16, 1955. "We are here," he said. "We have the majority. I suggest you let us proceed."
The future U.S. senator had been a key leader of the rise of the Democrats. The Democrats saw Inouye as a way to draw more Japanese-American veterans into the party.
A bona-fide World War II hero who lost an arm in combat, Inouye had teamed up in 1948 with former Honolulu police officer John Burns, whose own political stock was rising. Burns would go on to become governor.
