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From The Militant, Vol. 12 No. 24, 14 June 1948, p. 2.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
hile Hitler’s barbarous uprooting of whole peoples in Europe is generally known to the public, not much attention has been paid to a similar black page in recent American history. This was the shameful forced evacuation of 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry from the Pacific coast and Alaska in 1941.
This crime was committed in the name of military security. Nevertheless, throughout the war not a single case of espionage or sabotage was attributed to the Americans of Japanese descent, who were torn from their homes, shipped to concentration camps and separated from their families. Thirty thousand Americans of Japanese descent served with exceptional bravery in the U.S. Army. That is the record of the Japanese-Americans in relation to the government. What is the record of the government toward them?
The evacuees were given a week or ten days notice of their coming deportation. Thousands didn’t even get this much advance notice. In this time they had to dispose of their property. They didn’t know where they were going or how long they would be away. They could take with them only those possessions they could carry on their persons.
While the uprooting of all the Japanese-Americans on the West Coast didn’t serve the interests of military security, it did serve other interests. These were the interests that lined their pockets by stealing and swindling the property and savings of the deportees. The deportees left behind them about $200,000,000 worth of real estate, personal property and commercial property. Most of that has been gobbled up by the 200% “Americans” who cloaked their robbery in patriotism.
Two centuries ago Dr. Johnson, who compiled the first dictionary, defined patriotism as “the last refuge of a scoundrel.” That definition, as borne out by the events on the West Coast, is much more up to date than those appearing in current dictionaries. For it was real estate and business interests that put the pressure on the Army to deport the Americans of Japanese descent. The Army enthusiastically took up the plan.
Many homes and farms were left with no arrangement. Others tried to sell, rent, lend or store their possessions on short notice. Others in desperation placed their property in the hands of shanks who offered to act as custodians.
The results were economically disastrous to the deportees. Their farms, crops, livestock, farm machinery, trucks and cars, restaurants, homes, furniture and all the other possessions were ruthlessly pillaged. While they were incarcerated in the “relocation” camps their farms were sold for unpaid taxes, furniture seized for unpaid rents, their once-flourishing businesses in wholesale fruits and vegetables and in fishing were seized by competitors.
A typical example of the wholesale swindling of the deportees concerned a Mr. Higashi, who owned a drug store in Los Angeles. A man who was a local pillar of the community visited Mr. Higashi in the concentration camp and offered to arrange the sale of Higashi’s property. For this purpose he got a power-of-attorney from Higashi. The man sold the property and kept the proceeds. Mr. Higashi has been unable to get a penny out of him. The facts were presented to the Los Angeles district attorney’s office which stated it was not interested in prosecuting the swindler. This is but one case from thousands in the black record of persecution, robbery and fraud which marks the history of the “evacuation” of the Japanese-Americans.
For two years now Congress has kicked around a bill that would in some small measure make up some of the economic losses of the deportees. H.R. Bill 3999 would authorize the Department of Justice to settle claims – not to give a lump sum payment – up to $2,500. Any higher claims would have to go through the lengthy and expensive procedure of the Court of Claims. No one can claim that this bill errs on the side of generosity. The broken lives of people cruelly torn from their homes and imprisoned, then scattered across the country, cannot be repaid in dollars.
But the real estate-backed enemies of the Americans of Japanese extraction are trying to prevent even this modest measure from being passed. The bill died in the 79th Congress last year end all indications are that the same will happen to the bill buried in a Senate Committee this year. Congress has plenty of time for red-baiting activity, anti-labor legislation and diplomatic and military preparation for World War III, but it can find no time to pass a stingy little bill righting some of the great wrong done to the Japanese-Americans.
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