Removed

109,000 Japs

From Californian Coast of USA

r THE following article is from “Far x Eastern Survey,” published in New York on June 29, 1942.

Ttttt + - , .. #, 1 1 HE total evacuation of the Japanese from the Pacific coast of the United States is an unprecedented event in our national history. So momentous is it that it merits careful and continuing examination b<pth as a war measure and in its implications for post-war policies.

A statistical description of the evacua tion would read: Approximately 109,000 persons of Japanese stock lived in Mili tary Area No. 1, the broad 150-mile strip a lc) ng the Pacific coast, at the time the United States entered the war. Of this number, about 9,000 moved out of that area before March 29. 1942, when further I2 ll i n fu ry A evacuatlon was prohibited, so that the Army evacuated about 100.000.

Not quite half of the evacuees were agriculturalists; in California they raised S p !£ c . ent - all truck cr °P s grown in the State in 1941. Aliens numbered 40 per cent., and citizens by birth in the United States, 60 per cent.; but, with the older generation rapidly dying off, the percentage of citizens thus moved will soon be 80 per cent.

The military historian will record that evacuation was caused by our involve ment in a two-ocean war, the west coast thereby being left in danger of a Japanese invasion in which fifth columnists “might play a disastrous part. The social his torian would add that complex forces were at work; the treachery of the Japanese Government; the unprepared ness of the American forces at Pearl Harbour; the tradition of vigilantism in the west; certain economic and political mterests eager to profit by expulsion of the Japanese: anti-Oriental prejudice, the present outburst being only the latest of the racial eruptions that began seventy years agn; and the general acceptance by the public of the rumours of sabotage by Japanese residents in Hawaii.

The g rounds for the total evacuation announced by the Government were summed up in the blanket phrase “mili tary necessity.” When the President, by his order of February 19, 1942, gave the Secretary of War authority to exclude any persons from prescribed areas, he based it on the necessity of “protection against espionage and sabotage.”

In the exercise of this authority, General De Witt’s staff has indicated that his orders for indiscriminate evacua tion of all Japanese were due to fear of Japanese fifth column sabotage and to fear of mob violence against Japanese residents in case of further military re verses or of an attack by the enemy on the west coast.

It is impossible, of course, to prove that national security did or did not require this evacuation; that could only have been demonstrated by trying a less drastic solution and waiting to see what han pened. The stakes were high, and the Army apparently would not take responsi bility for less-than-complete precautions As for mob violence no one who was on the s£StlnMember and January would dispute that General De Witt had grounds for fear. Public hysteria was due, in large measure, to reports that resident Japanese had rammed planes at Pearl Harbour with trucks and had blocked highways leading to the harbour Not until three months after the Pearl Harbour attack were these reports denied by Hawaiian and Federal authorities be latedly helping to allay hysteria and reducing the danger of violence. The official Roberts Report stressed Japanese espionage in Hawaii, but neither affirmed nor denied that there had been sabotage, The Executive Order of February 19 embraced Hawaii as well as all parts of the mainland, but no Japanese evacua tions from Hawaii have been announced although persons of Jananese ancestry number more than one-third of the total population.

The Secretary of War has made no public explanation of this striking dif ference in policy from that pursued on the Pacific coast. Ships would be neces sary to evacuate any large number from Hawaii, and the shipping shortage mav be one factor. Moreover, Hawaii needs all available labour, including Japanese in defence work and on the plantations.'