Editorial: This is War! Stop Worrying About Hurting Jap Feelings Seattle Times, January 30, 1942

 

Editorial: "More Plain Talk"

Date: February 5, 1942 Location: Bainbridge Island, Washington

Courtesy of the Bainbridge Island Review (Author Walt Woodward)

 

Article in Seattle Times, February 9, 1942

Other headlines from other newspapers during this time period.

“JAP BOAT FLASHES MESSAGE ASHORE”

“ENEMY PLANES SIGHTED OVER

CALIFORNIA COAST”

“TWO JAPANESE WITH MAPS AND ALIEN LITERATURE SEIZED”

“JAP AND CAMERA HELD IN BAY CITY”

“CAPS ON JAPANESE TOMATO PLANTS

POINT TO AIR BASE”

“JAPS PLAN COAST ATTACK IN APRIL WARNS CHIEF OF KOREAN SPY BAND”

 

Today and Tomorrow By Walter Lippmann The Fifth Column on the Coast New York Tribune February 12, 1942 SAN FRANCISCO—The enemy alien problem on the Pacific Coast, or much more accurately the Fifth Column problem, is very serious and it is very special. What makes it so serious and so special is that the Pacific Coast is in imminent danger of a combined attack from within and from without. The danger is not, as it would be in the inland centers or perhaps even for the present on the Atlantic Coast, from sabotage alone. The peculiar danger of the Pacific Coast is in a Japanese raid accompanied by enemy action inside American territory. This combination can be very formidable indeed. For while the striking power of Japan from the sea and air might not in itself be overwhelming at any one point just now, Japan could strike a blow which might do irreparable damage if it were accompanied by the kind of organized sabotage to which this part of the country is specially vulnerable. This is a sober statement of the situation, in fact a report, based not on speculation but on what is known to have taken place and to be taking place in this area of the war. It is a fact that the Japanese navy has been reconnoitering the Pacific Coast more or less continually and for a considerable length of time, testing and feeling out the American defenses. It is a fact that communication takes place between the enemy at sea and enemy agents on land. These are facts which we shall ignore or minimize at our peril. It is also a fact that since the outbreak of the Japanese war there has been no important sabotage on the Pacific Coast. From what we know about Hawaii and about the Fifth Column in Europe this is not, as some have liked to think, a sign that there is nothing to be feared. It is a sign that the blow is well-organized and that it is held back until it can be struck with maximum effect. *****

In preparing to repel the attack the Army and Navy have all the responsibility but they are facing it with one hand tied down in Washington. I am sure I understand fully the unwillingness of Washington to adopt a policy of mass evacuation and mass internment of all those who are technically enemy aliens.... There is the assumption that if the rights of a citizen are abridged anywhere, they have been abridged everywhere. Forget for a moment all about enemy aliens, dual citizenship, naturalized citizens, native citizens of enemy alien parentage, and consider a warship in San Francisco harbor, an airplane plant in Los Angeles, a general's headquarters at Oshkosh, and an admiral's at Podunk. Then think of the lineal descendant, if there happened to be such a person, of George Washington, the father of his country, and consider what happens to Mr. Washington if he would like to visit the warship, or take a walk in the airplane plant, or to drop in and photograph the general and the admiral in their quarters. He is stopped by the sentry. He has to prove who he is. He has to prove that he has a good reason for doing what he wishes to do. He has to register, sign papers, and wear an identification button. Then perhaps, if he proves his case, he is escorted by an armed guard while he does his errand, and until he has been checked out of his place and his papers and his button have been returned. Have Mr. Washington's constitutional rights been abridged

 

Report justifying the removal of Japanese Americans from West Coast (excerpt) General John DeWitt, Military Commander on the West Coast July 19, 1943 The evacuation was impelled by military necessity. The security of the Pacific Coast continues to require the exclusion of Japanese from the area now prohibited to them and will so continue as long as that military necessity exists. The surprise attack at Pearl Harbor by the enemy crippled a major portion of the Pacific Fleet and exposed the West Coast to an attack which could not have been substantially impeded by defensive fleet operations. More than 115,000 persons of Japanese ancestry resided along the coast and were significantly concentrated near many highly sensitive installations essential to the war effort. Intelligence services records reflected the existence of hundreds of Japanese organizations in California, Washington, Oregon and Arizona which, prior to December 7, 1941, were actively engaged in advancing Japanese war aims. These records also disclosed that thousands of American-born Japanese had gone to Japan to receive their education and indoctrination there and had become rabidly pro-Japanese and then had returned to the United States. Emperor-worshipping ceremonies were commonly held and millions of dollars had flowed into the Japanese imperial war chest from the contributions freely made by Japanese here. The continued presence of a large, unassimilated, tightly knit and racial group, bound to an enemy nation by strong ties of race, culture, custom and religion along a frontier vulnerable to attack constituted a menace which had to be dealt with. Their loyalties were unknown and time was of the essence. The evident aspirations of the enemy emboldened by his recent successes made it worse than folly to have left any stone unturned in the building up of our defenses. It is better to have had this protection and not to have needed it than to have needed it and not to have had it – as we have learned to our sorrow. … Whether by design or accident, virtually always their communities were adjacent to very vital shore installations, war plants, etc. While it is believed that some were loyal, it was known that many were not. It was impossible to establish the identity of the loyal and the disloyal with any degree of safety. It was not there was insufficient time in which to make such a determination; it was simply a matter of facing the realities that a positive determination could not be made, that an exact separation of the "sheep from the goats" was unfeasible.

 

Naval Intelligence Memo (excerpt) Lt. Commander Ringle, Office of Naval Intelligence, February 1942

(a) That within the last eight or ten years the entire "Japanese question" in the United States has reversed itself. The alien menace is no longer paramount, and is becoming of less importance almost daily, as the original alien immigrants grow older and die, and as more and more of their American-born children reach maturity. The primary present and future problem is that of dealing with those American-born United States citizens of Japanese ancestry, of whom it is considered that least seventy-five per cent are loyal to the United States. The ratio of those American citizens of Japanese ancestry to alien-born Japanese in the United States is at present almost 3 to 1, and rapidly increasing. (b) That of the Japanese-born alien residents, the large majority are at least passively loyal to the United States. That is, they would knowingly do nothing whatever to the injury of the United States, but at the same time would not do anything to the injury of Japan. Also, most of the remainder would not engage in active sabotage or insurrection, but might well do surreptitious observation work for Japanese interests if given a convenient opportunity. (c) That, however, there are among the Japanese both alien and United States citizens, certain individuals, either deliberately placed by the Japanese government or actuated by a fanatical loyalty to that country, who would act as saboteurs or agents. This number is estimated to be less than three per cent of the total, or about 3500 in the entire United States. (d) That of the persons mentioned in (c) above, the most dangerous are either already in custodial detention or are members or such organizations as the Black Dragon Society, the Kaigan Kyokai (Navy League), or the Hoimusha Kai (Military Service Men's League), or affiliated groups. The membership of these groups is already fairly well known to the Naval Intelligence service or the Federal Bureau of Investigation and should immediately be placed in custodial detention, irrespective of whether they are alien or citizen. (See references (c) and (f). (e) That, as a basic policy tending toward the permanent solution of this problem, the American citizens of Japanese ancestry should be officially encouraged in their efforts toward loyalty and acceptance as bona fide citizens; that they be accorded a place in the national effort through such agencies as the Red Cross, U.S.O. civilian defense production activities, even though subject to greater investigative checks as to background and loyalty, etc., than Caucasian Americans. (f) That in spite of paragraph (e) above, the most potentially dangerous element of all are these American citizens of Japanese ancestry who have spent the formative years of their lives, from 10 to 20, in Japan and have returned to the United States to claim their American citizenship within the last few years. These people are essentially and inherently Japanese and may have been deliberately sent back to the United States by the Japanese government to act as agents. In spite of their legal citizenship and the protection afforded them by the Bill of Rights, they should be looked upon as enemy aliens and many of them placed in custodial detention. This group numbers between 600 and 700 in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and at least that many in other parts of Southern California. (g) That the writer heartily agrees with the reports submitted by Mr. Munson, (reference (b) of this report.) (h) That, in short, the entire "Japanese Problem" has been magnified out of its true proportion, largely because of the physical characteristics of the people; that it is no more serious than the problems of the German, Italian, and Communistic portions of the United States population, and, finally that it should be handled on the basis of the individual, regardless of citizenship, and not on a racial basis. (i) That the above opinions are and will continue to be true just so long as these people, Issei and Nisei, are given an opportunity to be self-supporting, but that if conditions continue in the trend they appear to be taking as of this date; i.e., loss of employment and income due to anti-Japanese agitation by and among Caucasian Americans, continued personal attacks by Filipinos and other racial groups, denial of relief funds to desperately needy cases, cancellation of licenses for markets, produce houses, stores, etc., by California State authorities, discharges from jobs by the wholesale, unnecessarily harsh restrictions on travel, including discriminatory regulations against all Nisei preventing them from engaging in commercial fishing--there will most certainly be outbreaks of sabotage, riots, and other civil strife in the not too distant future.

 

Memo from General Mark Clark (excerpt) Army General Headquarters, Washington DC February 12, 1942 I cannot agree with the wisdom of such a mass exodus for the following reasons:

a. We will never have a perfect defense against sabotage except at the expense of other equally important efforts. The situation with regards to protecting establishments from sabotage is analogous to protecting them from air attack by antiaircraft and barrage balloons. We will never have enough of these means to fully protect these establishments. Why, then, should we make great sacrifices in other efforts in order to make them secure from sabotage?

b. We must weigh the advantages and disadvantages of such a wholesale solution to this problem. We must not permit our entire offensive effort to be sabotaged in an effort to protect all establishments from ground sabotage.

I recommend the following approach to this problem: a. Ascertain and designate the critical installations to be protected in each area and list them

according to their importance. b. Make up our minds as to what means are available for such protection and apply that

protection as far as it will go to the most critical objectives, leaving the ones of lesser importance for future consideration, or lesser protection.

c. Select the most critical ones to be protected and delimit the essential areas around them for their protection.

d. Eject all enemy aliens from those areas and permit entrance of others by pass only. e. Only such installations as can be physically protected in that manner should be included

in this category. For example, it is practicable to do this in the case of the Boeing Plant, Bremerton Navy Yard and many other similar vital installations. In other words we are biting off a little at a time in the solution of the problem.

f. Civilian police should be used to the maximum in effecting this protection. g. Federal Bureau of Investigation should be greatly augmented in counter-subversive

activity. h. Raids should be used freely and frequently. i. Ring leaders and suspects should be interned liberally. j. This alien group should be made to understand through publicity that the first overt act on

their part will bring a wave of counter-measures which will make the historical efforts of the vigilantes look puny in comparison.

It is estimated that to evacuate large numbers of this group will require one soldier to 4 or 5 aliens. This would require between 10,000 and 15,000 soldiers to guard the group during their internment, to say nothing of the continuing burden of protecting the installations. I feel that this problem must be attacked in a sensible manner. We must admit that we are taking some chances just as we take other chances in war. We must determine what are out really critical installations, give them thorough protection and leave the others to incidental means in the hope that we will not lose too many of them – and above all keep our eye on the ball – that is, the creating and training of an offensive army.

 

Interview describing the days before the signing of EO9066 James Rowe, Asst to the U.S. Attorney General during WWII October 15, 1942

I am convinced that the whole story lies in the single fact that the Army folded under pressure. When I was in San Francisco the first week of January, General DeWitt told me, in referring to the demand already made by Los Angeles group, that he 'thinks mass evacuation is damned nonsense!' and I agreed with him and still argue with his original statement. Mass evacuation is damned nonsense and there was no good military reason for it.

Proclamation 9066 was actually put through in less than two days. The Justice Department had no idea that the Army was considering the evacuation of citizens and aliens from large territories until an evening meeting at Attorney General Biddle's home which can now be definitely dated on February 17. Before this evening meeting, there had been discussion of evacuation of aliens and citizens from all strategic areas. And the Justice Department previously had refused to evacuate citizens from Bainbridge Island. The January 17th meeting was called to adjust the differences between the Justice Department and the War Department in regard to the huge areas in Oregon and Washington that the Army had set forth from which it wanted all aliens excluded. But the question of citizens being evacuated was not being considered.

The argument waxed hot and though the Attorney General did not back Ennis or me with much force, he at least did not argue against us, and we had refused every Army demand successfully. Suddenly General Gullian reached in his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper which contained an order giving the War Department power to remove citizens and aliens.

I laughed at him. The old buzzard got mad. I told him he was crazy, and immediately perceived that he was pulling the Army tactic of attacking when on the defense. But in another minute I thought that I was crazy. Because the Attorney General immediately wanted to get to work polishing up the order. His attitude amazed me. Ennis almost wept. I was so mad that I could not speak at all myself and the meeting soon broke up.

The next morning we met in Mr. Stimson's office and I arrived about three minutes late. Ennis was there when I arrived, arguing with Stimson and Biddle and getting absolutely nowhere because his own boss was against him. Now Biddle was wholeheartedly in favor of the resolution. Ennis and I might have combated Biddle's passive acceptance of 9066, but it was impossible for us to oppose his energetic approval.

So Ennis and I helped draw up the resolution that very morning, and on the way home in the cab I had to convince Ennis that it was not important enough to make him quit his job." Rowe pushed 9066 through the budget and had it [illegible] by the evening of the 19th, just two days after it was suggested for the first time.

 

From the Opinion of the Court, Korematsu v. United States Fred Korematsu challenged EO9066 in the courts U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the United States 6 to 3 Justice Hugo Black, affirming December 18, 1944 … It should be noted, to begin with, that all legal restrictions which curtail the civil rights of a single racial group are immediately suspect. That is not to say that all such restrictions are unconstitutional. It is to say that courts must subject them to the most rigid scrutiny. Pressing public necessity may sometimes justify the existence of such restrictions; racial antagonism never can. . . . we cannot reject as unfounded the judgment of the military authorities and of Congress that there were disloyal members of that population, whose number and strength could not be precisely and quickly ascertained. We cannot say that the war-making branches of the Government did not have ground for believing that, in a critical hour, such persons could not readily be isolated and separately dealt with, and constituted a menace to the national defense and safety which demanded that prompt and adequate measures be taken to guard against it. … It is said that we are dealing here with the case of imprisonment of a citizen in a concentration camp solely because of his ancestry, without evidence or inquiry concerning his loyalty and good disposition towards the United States. Our task would be simple, our duty clear, were this a case involving the imprisonment of a loyal citizen in a concentration camp because of racial prejudice. Regardless of the true nature of the assembly and relocation centers -- and we deem it unjustifiable to call them concentration camps, with all the ugly connotations that term implies -- we are dealing specifically with nothing but an exclusion order. To cast this case into outlines of racial prejudice, without reference to the real military dangers which were presented, merely confuses the issue. Korematsu was not excluded from the Military Area because of hostility to him or his race. He was excluded because we are at war with the Japanese Empire, because the properly constituted military authorities feared an invasion of our West Coast and felt constrained to take proper security measures, because they decided that the military urgency of the situation demanded that all citizens of Japanese ancestry be segregated from the West Coast temporarily, and, finally, because Congress, reposing its confidence in this time of war in our military leaders -- as inevitably it must -- determined that they should have the power to do just this. There was evidence of disloyalty on the part of some, the military authorities considered that the need for action was great, and time was short. We cannot -- by availing ourselves of the calm perspective of hindsight -- now say that, at that time, these actions were unjustified

 

Minority Opinion, Korematsu v. United States Fred Korematsu challenged EO9066 in the courts U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the United States 6 to 3 Justice Frank Murphy, dissenting December 18, 1944 This exclusion of "all persons of Japanese ancestry, both alien and non-alien," from the Pacific Coast area on a plea of military necessity in the absence of martial law ought not to be approved. Such exclusion goes over "the very brink of constitutional power," and falls into the ugly abyss of racism. In dealing with matters relating to the prosecution and progress of a war, we must accord great respect and consideration to the judgments of the military authorities who are on the scene and who have full knowledge of the military facts. The scope of their discretion must, as a matter of necessity and common sense, be wide. And their judgments ought not to be overruled lightly by those whose training and duties ill-equip them to deal intelligently with matters so vital to the physical security of the nation. At the same time, however, it is essential that there be definite limits to military discretion, especially where martial law has not been declared. Individuals must not be left impoverished of their constitutional rights on a plea of military necessity that has neither substance nor support. Thus, like other claims conflicting with the asserted constitutional rights of the individual, the military claim must subject itself to the judicial process of having its reasonableness determined and its conflicts with other interests reconciled. "What are the allowable limits of military discretion, and whether or not they have been overstepped in a particular case, are judicial questions." Sterling v. Constantin, 287 U. S. 378, 287 U. S. 401. The judicial test of whether the Government, on a plea of military necessity, can validly deprive an individual of any of his constitutional rights is whether the deprivation is reasonably related to a public danger that is so "immediate, imminent, and impending" as not to admit of delay and not to permit the intervention of ordinary constitutional processes to alleviate the danger. United States v. Russell, 13 Wall. 623, 80 U. S. 627-628; Mitchell v. Harmony, 13 How. 115, 54 U. S. 134-135; Raymond v. Thomas, 91 U. S. 712, 91 U. S. 716. Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34, banishing from a prescribed area of the Pacific Coast "all persons of Japanese ancestry, both alien and non-alien," clearly does not meet that test. Being an obvious racial discrimination, the order deprives all those within its scope of the equal protection of the laws as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment. It further deprives these individuals of their constitutional rights to live and work where they will, to establish a home where they choose and to move about freely. In excommunicating them without benefit of hearings, this order also deprives them of all their constitutional rights to procedural due process. Yet no reasonable relation to an "immediate, imminent, and impending" public danger is evident to support this racial restriction, which is one of the most sweeping and complete deprivations of constitutional rights in the history of this nation in the absence of martial law.