◆ SpookStack

. —s * ' Have We Forgotten Justice? ; oe, _ By CALEB FOOTE+ u I Army plans materialize, before this article is in print 112,000 persons, a majority of whom ar: American * citizens, will have been evacuated from theit homes on the Obviously this compulsory evacuation of those whose : only crime is theie Japanese ancestry is a flagrant violation ‘of the Sth and 14th Amendments to the Constitution, and - ; $0 2 perversion of democracy itself. Obviously, too, it ’ denies the Christian doctrine of the supreme worth of the individual. It is creating untold human suffering. both physical and psychological, and it is a scrious blow at inter- racial understanding and Japanese assimilation into Amer. . _ ican life. Even more serious than these, however, is the fact that the evacuation heaps fuel on the fircs of racial distrust, and lends authenticity to Japan's claims that this is a racial war. By putting many of our native-born citizens into “assembly” and “réception™ centers—which, allowing for some differences, are virtually concentration camps—purely because of their cace, our Government has aped the totali- tarianism it is supposedly fighting. The peace that will follow the war is being made during the war and this treat- ment of innocent persons will not facilitate the creation of the state of mind necessary for gaining a good peace. , Background of Race Hatred The background of what Life calls a “great and unprece- dented migration” has been a vicious campaign of race - hatred conducted in the Pacific Coast states. The anti- Japanese feeling that gave rise to it goes back forty years to a time when Japanese immigration into California was at its height. At first, these immigrants had been en- couraged ta come. They furnished cheap labor, and so “were useful in breaking strikes and for field work. But these very “advantages” caused labor and small. farming groups to resent their competition bitterly, and as.time went on and the mew cacial group became more Americanized and acquired some economic power, the big economic " groups who first welcomed them joined in opposing them.- They were charged with destroying our standard of living, * bringing in disease, being un-American and anti-Christian, and endangering our control by their own high birth-rate. A!l of this resulted in the “Gentlemen's Agreement” restricting emigration from Japan, a secies of land faws preventing Japanese ali¢ns from owning or renting land, . andthe passage of the Exclusion Act in 192-4. It is this latent race prejudice that has heen whipped up anew since Pearl Harbor. Newspapers and politicians who just before the war commented on the “loyalty of the great majority” of Niseis and issets.' led the parade of intolerance a ‘ month or two later. The city of Los: Angeles fircd all of its American-born Japanese cinployces, and other citics followed! tte lead) The State Personne! Roaed Qecriminated rent firm Petieedeg, Mae, poe against citizen as well as alien Japanese, and the Amer- ican Legion, County Boards of Supervisors, California Con- gressmen and others, joined newspaper editorial, writers _and columnists in urging complete evacustion. Eacly in January, job discrimination against aliens had become so severe that President Roosevelt called the firing of “honest and loyal people who, except for accident of birth, are sin- cerély patriotic” as “playing into the hands of the encmies of American democracy.” Meanwhile, anti-Japancse rumors and stories ran rife, purporcing that “every Jap is a damned jap,” that they were poisoning vegetables and engaging in sit-down strikes, that there had been much sabotage in Hawaii, that all the Japanese in California were part of a well-organized fifth column. There is every reason to believe that persons or groups who hoped to gain from the evacuation had a major part in stirring up these ircational forces of racial prejudice. Big land-holding groups, laundries? and plant nurseries, who felt the competition of the Japanese, had a stake in the “internment,” as did those who hoped to gain cheap, forced labor. The defeats in the Far East, the shelling of an oil field Angeles, had much to do with a rise in anti-Japanese fecl- ing that just preceded the evacuation order, Against this pressure were arrayed the efforts of the Japanese com- munity to prove its loyalty, evidenced in the vigorous pa- triotism of the Japanese-American Citizens’ League and heavy Japanese contributions to the Red Cross, U.S.O., Defense Bonds, etc. Some white groups made a notable effort to calm public opinion, and during the first two and one half months of wart the Federal Government kept the heeteris camewhat within haunile . te . On February 19, 2 sweeping proclamation by the Presi- dent gave the War Department the power “to prescribe military areas from which any or all persons may be ex- cluded.” Gn March 3,:General DeWitt issued the first of 4a sweeping serics of proclamations resulting m curfews,- travel bans, and evacuation Fromm an extensive area reach- ing weil inland from the Pacific Coast. In most of these actions, Japanese-American citizens were considered more dangerous than German of Italian aliens! = The “Need” for Evacuation ., Explanations for the military accessity of the evacua- tion have assumed that sabotage was committed, that the * Japanese as a ractal group were a potential fifth column, of that the evacuation was necessary for the protection of the Japanese themselvts. Not until late in March were the widespread rumors of japanese sabotage at Pearl Elarbor disproved by the, statement of the Honolulu Chief of Police, confirmed froin other sources, that “there were no acts of sabotage com- mitted in the city and county of Honolulu on Dovers! ot 7," i