From the Inside: Articles relating to Prejudice from the Internment Camp Newsletters

Preface

Hating people is something that has become sort of a fine art in the human race. It extends probably as far back as human history goes, and it continues right on to the present day. People have hated other people for any number of reasons. There are a different nationality; their skin color is different; they are a different gender; they are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered; they are of a different political party; they are of a different religion; they are of a different age; they talk different; they are of a different social class; they are immigrants; the list goes on and on and on.

In today's world we see hatred directed particularly against illegal immigrants and those who are gay/lesbian/bi-sexual/transgendered and, to what is still a fairly high degree, people who are black.

Remember how many people opposed the election of Obama because he was black? You can go back just a little in history, to the election of John F. Kennedy, when many people opposed him because he was, gasp, a Catholic.

If you go back to the late 1800's on up though World War II, many people in western states hated the Chinese and, after them, the Japanese. There is absolutely no doubt at all that such racial hatred played a role in the internment of 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of whom were actually full-blown American citizens.

So, in this work, we'll examine how the camp newsletters carried reports of prejudice against persons of Japanese ancestry. However, prejudice does not arise full-blown overnight, so we will also examine some older history works (briefly) that relate to prejudice against the Japanese, and those should help the reader see how California and other western states ended up wanting the Japanese in their midst kicked out.

We'll see how groups like the Asiatic Exclusion League led their own campaign of hate. We'll see how some writers, even in the early 1900's, fully expected a war between the United States and Japan, long before such a war actually occurred.

The world may be a big place, but there is no room in it for hatreds of this sort. None at all. It is my firm opinion that the human race can never been considered truly civilized until all traces of such hatred vanish from all over the globe.

We'll start out by noting examples of prejudice during the internment camp years in the Western states. After that will be a section on the record-keeping-obsessed Asiatic Exclusion League who not only hated Asiatics but other groups as well. Then we'll look at examples of prejudice from the Eastern states.

It's a good bit to cover, and I'll admit freely I don't have every single here that I would like to have, but I still want to get out what I do have so others can read the history of this prejudice and, perhaps, realize that prejudice is not just a present-day problem, that it is something that has always been and, until we change our way of thinking, something that may always continue to be.

Live long and prosper.

Examples of Prejudice from States West of the Mississippi.

I found articles covering examples of prejudice from eight different states west of the Mississippi River. California, of course, had the most examples, as that state was basically the leader in the anti-Japanese campaign waged both before the internment camps and even during the internment camps.

The prejudice did not develop out of whole cloth. First came the Chinese immigrants who settled in this country, who succeeded fairly well, and who were met with racial prejudice resulting in their being dumped to the bottom of the social ladder. Then the Japanese came, first settling in Hawaii in good numbers, and then in the continental United States.

There was then a most interesting split in the destiny of the two groups. Those who settled in Hawaii worked hard, succeeded, and became a large part of the labor group of the area. There was already a mix of peoples in Hawaii and the Japanese who settled there did not have to suffer from any great amount of prejudice. There was some, yes, but nothing compared to what went on in the continental states.

There was a tremendous amount of suspicion and accusations against them when Pearl Harbor happened, but efficient work on the part of the military coupled with some very intelligent leadership resulted in a relatively small number of persons of Japanese ancestry being rounded up. The vast majority lived under martial law, as did everything else. They did their jobs. They helped repair Pearl Harbor. When the time came for the Nisei to be allowed to serve in the Armed Forces, they volunteered freely and fought bravely.

Hawaii was not a paradise, but it was a situation that did work well for everyone concerned. Matters were approached differently, and the end result was different.

There were a few people around, though, who wanted all those of Japanese ancestry shipped out of Hawaii and to the mainland camps, but those with more than bricks inside their skulls realized that (1) such an effort would take a great number of ships that were needed far more in fighting the war, and that (2)these people formed a major portion of the labor force on the islands. Removing all of them to the mainland would crippled the Hawaiian economy and could very well have a very bad effect on the war effort.

So, it was pretty much live-and-let live on the islands.

The west coast of the U.S., though, was totally different. The states along the coastline had the most ingrained prejudice against the Japanese. The immigrants had proved they could work hard and succeed economically. They could work with farmland white farmers didn't want and make it produce. They made money. So, the white farmers who couldn't do the same grew to envy and hate the Japanese more and more.

There was also a fear that there would be a Japanese invasion of the West Coast early in the war. Our western coastal area was very poorly defended. If there had been a full-scale invasion there is little doubt that the Japanese Army would have triumphed, at least for a while.

But Japan was thousands of miles away. There were no islands in the middle of the ocean, like the Hawaiian islands, that the Japanese could use as a supply base. The Aleutians proved to be far more difficult and much more inhospitable weather-wise than the Japanese expected. Neither country was ever able to use those islands off the Alaskan coastline as a path towards invasion of the other country.

So, there was no way that Japan could have carried out an effective invasion over that vast ocean distance with no main supply base. They did make a few raids, of a type, on the coast, but those never amounted to much of anything at all. They did try to use their balloon bombs to set the forests on fire, but those also were basically a massive failure.

As the war went on it became more and more obvious that Japan would never been able to wage a direct attack on the West Coast, as the U.S. forces were now engaging Japan on their defensive perimeter and then further inwards, moving ever forward towards the Japanese main islands themselves.

If the Japanese had made their attack on Pearl Harbor a much more complete attack (such as blowing up the oil storage tanks), and then followed it with an actual invasion of the island, and managed to take over the Hawaiian islands, then a west coast invasion might have become possible, but the Japanese attack was to sink ships and destroy planes, all of which could and were replaced. It was pretty much the high point of the war for Japan, as far as the U.S. was concerned, since they never really got closer to the U.S. than they had at that time. Like the battle of Gettysburg was the South's highest point in the Civil War, only to be followed by a steady decline afterwards, Pearl Harbor was the Japanese high point, only to be followed by a steady and very, very bloody decline.

One of the interesting lapses of logic in the whole internment thing was the idea that the Japanese were not loyal to the U.S. and needed to be put away somewhere safe. If that were true, then why weren't the Japanese east of the Mississippi similarly put into internment camps? If the Japanese weren't trustworthy in the west, then why would they be trustworthy in the east? Yet this was never done.

Another interesting matter of logic is this. The Germans and the Italians had started the war in the first place. The Germans made speedy progress and seemed almost invincible. There was a fairly strong pro-German movement in this country called The Bund. Yet there was no call for rounding up people of German or Italian heritage. That one fact alone shows that the rounding up of the Japanese was, at least in part, motivated by racial prejudice. (Yes, some Germans and Italians were rounded up, as were the original group of Japanese business leaders, preachers, teachers, etc. The Germans and Italians were not rounded in the the numbers or with the same efficiency as the Japanese, though.)

One can go on and on trying to figure out the whys, but the basic fact is that it happened, period. Looking at specific examples of prejudice from the time can help us try to understanding the thinking of the people of that time.

So, let's get this underway by looking at the state of Arizona, much in the news in these days due to their effort to deal with illegal immigration of Mexicans. The same types of arguments used against them today are the ones used against the Japanese back in the first half of the last century.

I. Arizona

There are loads of different ways of expressing hatred and prejudice for a group of people. You can ban them from immigrating, for one thing. If they are already here, you can make sure they can't vote, at least for those not actually born here. You can also put economic restrictions on them, and this was an approach Arizona used back in the 1940's.

From the Gila News-Courier of May 27,1943 comes this article:

ARIZONA STATE LAW AIMED AT EVACUEE ENTERPRISES: An Arizona State law which states that anyone having business dealings with any persons whose movements are restricted must give notice of such business transactions by triple publication in a newspaper and file a copy of the notices in the office of the Secretary of State, was enacted in the closing session of the 16th legislature. The law had been in effect since March 23.

'The law applies to any person who enters into any contract, agreement or understanding written or verbal, involving business relations with persons of restricted movement, or who purchases, sells, trades or or exchanges with such a person any real personal property, commodity or thing, except goods, wares or merchandise for personal consumption', according to the Phoenix Gazette.

Attorneys say the statute is so broad in its prohibitions that a Japanese cannot have a tooth pulled or a haircut without a publication of notice.

The Standard Oil Company was fined the maximum fee of $1000 for selling $9.25 worth of gasoline to a Japanese without publishing notice of transaction.

Another economic way to try and deal with those you don't like is to make sure that they are not allowed to live anywhere you don't want them. The Minidoka Irrigator of May 29,1943, carried such an article, again about Arizona.

ARIZONA PROTESTS EVACUEE INFLUX INTO RICH LANDS: Stating that 'Arizona must be determined to repress a developing Japanese community within the very heard of our fertile valleys' a special committee called on Governor Sidney P. Osborn and asked him to appoint a group to study the problems growing out of the release of Japanese from relocation camps.

The government's program provides for release of about 100 Japanese per week from Rivers, Ariz. and 250 per week from Poston, Ariz. the two centers which house 50,000 of the evacuees. 'Already the Japanese population in Arizona far exceeds the Japanese population before the war' the committee said.

Arizona faces grave dancer of 'racial antagonism and economic disaster through settlement of the irrigated areas by large numbers of Japanese, the committee reported.

Okay. So now you can't sell much of anything to the Japanese Americans, and you don't want them moving into certain areas. the next logical step, then, is to block them from resettling in anywhere in the state at all. The Gila News-Courier of June 22, 1943, carries such an article:

NO EVACUEES IN STATE AFTER WAR. Senator Ernest W. McFarland of Arizona, who visited Rivers Friday and Poston Thursday last week, declared on Sunday that 'it is most important that the Japanese who were residents of other states prior to Pearl Harbor shall not be permitted to locate in Arizona after the war.'

Senator McFarland's statement-often stated by Arizona officials-made no dent on the project consciousness. It was recalled here that the WRA had issued orders that evacuees would no longer be permitted to relocate in Arizona from the relocation centers. Issuance of day passes to Phoenix and other Arizona cities remained on the absolute minimum basis.

(The same article was carried in the Poston Chronicle of July 6, 1943.)

So, if trying to block out people legally isn't enough, then what is next? Violence. Good old American-grown violence as noted in this article from the Granada Pioneer of June 23, 1943, in relations to a group testifying in front of the Dies committee, which was about as rabid an anti-Japanese committee as Washington, D. C. could come up with.

VIEWS DIVIDED: A delegation of citizens from Phoenix, Ariz. warned the Dies sub-committee that bloodshed will follow continued release of Japanese from relocation centers to settle in Arizona.

A group of ministers pleaded for tolerance, and a church group said most of the opposition to the Japanese had been whipped up by the press.

Then there was the, to me, infamous incident of the barber shop. The Gila News-Courier of November 18, 1944 carried an article on what happened. A more complete article was carried on the same day in the Granada Pioneer newsletter. Following is the one from Granada:

CRIPPED JOE NISEI EJECTED BY A BARBER: Poston, Ariz.-A crippled Japanese American Army private, wearing many service ribbons, was forcibly ejected from a civilian barber shop in Parker, Ariz., because the owner objected to his ancestry, reported the War relocation Authority last Saturday.

Andy Hale, the barber, admitted he had ordered the nisei soldier Thursday (Nov.9) not to come into his shop but denied shoving or forcing the infantryman. However, the WRA stated theveteran, walking with a crutch, had been shoved from the establishment.

Hale, a native of Fort Worth, Texas, and a father of three sons in the armed services, said a sign on the front of his shop reads: 'Japs keep out, you rat.'

'I didn't want none of their business,' he asserted. 'They may close me up but I sure as hell won't work on a Jap.' He said it made no difference to him whether they (nisei) were civilians or soldiers, 'they look just alike to me.'

The soldier was Pvt. Raymond Matsuda, 25, former resident of Hawaii, who was shot in the knee on the Italian front July 22, according to Mrs. Pauline brown, Poston relocation center reports officer.

Matsuda was searing seven army ribbons and badges including the combat Infantryman's Badge and the Purple Heart. He came here from the Army's Hammond General Hospital at Modesto, Calif. to visit his friends. He had served two years overseas.

Matsuda is reported to have given the following version of the incident: Matsuda went into the shop without notice the sign and was confronted by Hale, who said 'Can't you see that sign?'

The nisei soldier replied he hadn't noticed it but even so he was wearing a US Army uniform. Hale then showed him out the door.

The Manzanar Free Press in its article of November 22, 1944, added that Matsuda had served with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

This rather rude act did not go unnoticed. The Gila News-Courier of December 13, 1944, ran this article:

READERS SYMPATHIZE: Many letters of sympathy from nearly every state were received by Pvt. Raymond Matsuda of Poston who had been ejected from a barber shop in Parker, Ariz., recently, according to an AP release.

Parts of the letters from some of the people to Matsuda, a war-crippled Nisei, read;

'You are just as good an American as any of us.'

'There are a good many boys like you who are or will be coming home again. Some of them are mixed nationalities, some German, some Japanese, some Chinese...You're all our boys.'

'I would like to have you spend your convalescence at our farm home where you would be most welcome.'

'It is not the color of the skin or the shape of the nose that makes people decent or good Americans.'

This is, of course, very similar to the type of discrimination that Blacks encountered all the time, especially in the South, what with the separate water fountains, separate facilities, riding on the back of the bus and so on. It involves the issue of what rights does a person who owns a public business have vs. what rights does the general public have.

It's a complex issue and reminds me of a statement from Ambassador Kosh in the science fiction series Babylon 5. He said something like this: 'Truth is a three-edged sword. There is one side's truth, the other side's truth, and finally what the real truth is.'

To my mind, if a person runs a public business then they should serve the public. If you aren't willing to do that, then make your business totally private or stay out of business all together. Matsuda had served his country well, and had been badly injured in the process. He deserved respect, not hate. The problem is that there are some people to whom common courtesy and decency don't apply, who allow their own hatreds to overcome them. I wonder why the barber didn't have a sign in his front window saying 'No Germans or Italians allowed inside.'

II. California

This state will take the most time of all to cover since they were without doubt the leaders in the anti-Japanese movement in this country. They led in hate and they led in incidences of violence towards Japanese Americans released from the internment camps with a sizable number of shootings, house burnings, and even an attempt to blow up a house. (This is all covered in my work on Violence in this interment camp series.)

The first article I found was in the January 3, 1943 issue of the Heart Mountain Sentinel.

CALIFORNIA RUNS TRUE TO FORM BY TOPPING RACE BAITING 'CROP': The sun which Californians claim casts its rays of health and vitality only on the Golden State continues to shine out west. And a good thing it does, for California crackpots and rabble-rousers burning up energy, ranging and fuming to 'keep the Japs out of California' can bask in their salubrious sunshine and replenish their state of precious energy.

And all the while evacuees in relocation centers look with bored amusement upon the antics of Californians who have run amuck in the 'good' of race hysteria.

The rantings are all so much wasted energy now. Californians need not exert themselves to prevent the return of evacuees.

Evacuees know when they are not wanted. They are not looking back. Their eyes are projected eastward, where people are in control of their emotions, where gred, avarice and spite play minor roles in the drama of human relations.

A small nisei girl, in the days before evacuation, asked her mother 'Why do we have to go?”

'Because we're not wanted.'

'Why aren't we wanted?'

'Because we raise better crops, catch more fish, operate better markets and grow more beautiful flowers,' replied the mother.

It is sickening to realize that evacuation was the price for industry, for enterprise, for doing things better than the whites.

And evacuees knew that if accomplishment is to be rewarded with covetousness and hate, there is no incentive to live and to achieve in such a state.

And once you're not wanted, you'll never be wanted again.

California's pattern of living and thinking is designed to hate Japanese. It's a new and different California, in an ugly, unbelievable sort of way.

A nisei girl relocatee in the midwest was invited to take part in an International Fellowship program at which participants were to speak on a foreign country.

The nisei girl was asked to speak about Japan. 'I don't know anything about Japan,' she said. 'But I'll tell you about another foreign country. I'll talk about California.'

California is foreign, and will always be to evacuees. In the seething cauldron that is California since Pearl Harbor, the scum has risen to the surface, overflowing and overrunning the Golden State contaminating and putrefying, giving it a sour, diseased, unrecognizable complexion.

'It sure is desolating to realize that your native state has turned against you, that you're not wanted,' said a nisei. 'Once we loved California, but now...'

The trouble with California is that it doesn't do anything in half measures,' said another. 'It always goes for the jackpot. It builds the biggest racetrack, the roomiest stadium, the most sprawling estates. It grows the biggest oranges and grapefruits. And even if they aren't the biggest and the best, California really believes they are. It's a complex. And so when they go in for race hatred, watch out; they really do it up brown.'

At this distance, evacuees can see straight through California as though it were cellophane. And they said to themselves 'No wonder California was held up for ridicule among the family of states as a simple child worshiping dazzling glory and imaginary fame and colossal figures.'

Today it is making a first-class spectacle of itself by leading the parade in race hysterical. California wants to grab front page space, been at the cost of making a fool of itself.

...Evacuees would do well to forget California completely, to lock its memory in their chamber of horrors. They've just lost a friend who ran true to form in the pinch; they will find a better and truer friend on the rockbound Atlantic, on the rolling plains of the expansive midwest, and on the hills and dales of the stretching Alleghenies.'

One of the ways to try to get people to hate a certain group is to make it look like that group gets special treatment and is better off. This was done in a series of attacks charging that the internees got better food and more money than those on the outside. I found a good example of this is the Nevada State Journal of January 10, 1943. Rep. F. Leroy Johnson, a republican of California, charged tat there were numerous reports 'that huge shipments of scare foods-including eggs, butter, sugar, coffee and meats' were being given to the internees. He claimed the teachers in the camp schools received higher pay than those outside. He claimed there were immoral conditions in some of the camps. Johnson wanted an official investigation into his charges.

Investigations were not enough for the Californians, though. They wanted legal action and they move to get it. The Rohwer Outpost of January 23, 1943, can an article called CAL POLITICIANS DRAFT RACIAL LAWS.' They wanted the U.S. Congress to amend the U.S. constitution so that no citizens of Japanese descent could become citizens, even those born here, and any of them still holding citizenship in Japan would be stopped from becoming a citizen in the U.S.

They also wanted Congress to 'enact adequate legislation to prohibit all persons of Japanese ancestry, both alien and native born, from owning, enjoying, using or occupying agricultural lands, and to restrict all persons of Japanese ancestry from becoming citizens of the United States.'

Another California Senator wanted the state personnel board to 'push disbarment proceedings against the state's discharged civil service workers.'

The first article dealing with a section of California banning the return of the evacuees was in the Granada Pioneer of April 12, 1943.

SANTA BARBARA BANS RETURN: Unanimous objections to any move to release interned Japanese and return them to the Pacific coast was voiced by the County Board of Supervisors.

C.W. Bradbury, first district supervisor, stated it would hurt the morale of local farm workers and be injurious to the food production program.

Harold Ickes was the Secretary of the Interior and he took a pretty fair and solid stand on the evacuees, and did not approve of the prejudice. He hired some Japanese to work on his farm which didn't go over well with people in Los Angeles. A group called The Pacific League wrote him, saying they wanted him to return the workers to the camps. 'How do you think the mothers and fathers of these gallant lads (who fought at Bataan and Corregidor)...will feel about your coddling of the Japs on your farm...?'

This was in an article entitled GROUP DEMANDS ICKES RETURN JAPS TO CAMP in the Granada Pioneer issue of May 5, 1943.

The May 15, 1943 issue of the Grnada Pioneer covered yet another California hate group and its demands.

PACIFIC COAST-MOVE TO PREVENT RETURN: (Los Angeles)Under the sponsorship of the Americanism Education League, a campaign designed to enlist the cooperation of all Pacific coast cities and counties in a movement to block the return of the Japanese to the coastal area was launched here.

The program which the league is asking Coast cities and counties to support has the following objectives:

1. To prevent the return of Japanese to any coastal area for the duration.

2. To transfer control of all Japanese in America to the U.S. Army.

3. Abandonment of the idea of creating Japanese combat units.

4. Place every able-bodied Japanese male in agricultural work in the interior, under strict Army control.

5. Release all Japanese farm implements, cars and tires on Cost for wartime use under the law of 'eminent domain.'

6. Release impounded money (nearly 200 million) belonging to the government of Japan for use in above projects.

7. Create a commission to study the economic and sociological factors involved in the postwar disposition of the Japanese.

The same article was run in the Minidoka Irrigator of May 22, 1943, but with a slightly different title.

Let's see what they didn't think of. Say the males composed about half the internment camp population, maybe 50,000 or so. That's a lot of guys. Now, just how many Army personnel would be required to watch over them, scattered all over the place on different farms? These would be Army personnel who were sorely needed at the time for the fight in Europe against the Nazis, and the battles in the Pacific ocean against the Japanese.

How much money would such a program have cost? I'm sure it was cheaper to do things the way they were done with the camps and with the workers, on a volunteer basis, going out from there to help farmers harvest their crops.

Time for another specific city to state it's position. That city – Los Angeles itself.

LA MAYOR WOULD BAN CITIZENSHIP: Mayor Bowron in his weekly radio address said that he hoped that when the war ends it would not mean that Los Angeles' former Japanese would return.

'By that time,' said the Mayor, 'some legal method may be worked out to deprive the native-born Japanese of citizenship.'

The Mayor said that the Japanese could never be assimilated as American citizens; that they were a 'race apart' and could never be Americans in the true sense.

Next we have an interesting statement from San Francisco. This would involve granting the Japanese Americans in the U.S. a psychic ability; bilocation, the ability to be in two places at exactly the same time.

The article was from the Gila News-Courier of June 3, 1943.

S.F. 'EXAMINER RANTS, RAVES': .. In an accompanying article, Frederic Woodmen, chairman of the Alien Problem Committee of the Pacific League was quoted as saying that he “Japanese' had received all the advantage according American citizens, and in return had bombed Pearl Harbor.'

Excuse me, oh great and mighty chairman, but are you really saying that the Nisei in the U.S. were the ones that bombed Pearl Harbor? Unless my understanding of World War II is totally off, it was the Japanese Military, and not the Nisei, who attacked Pearl Harbor. I don't believe that the Nisei, or the Issei in the U.S., for that matter, possessed carriers and carrier planes, went out to bomb Pearl Harbor, and then came back to California. And they did this while they were all still in California? Still under examination by the FBI who had been working on the 'Japanese problem' since before the war actually started? My, what abilities they have.

There was yet another way to express one's prejudice against the persons of Japanese ancestry in the U.S. If you had to be around them while working, then STRIKE! From the Granada Pioneer of June 16, 1943:

NISEI SOLDIER CAUSES STRIKE: The presence of a Japanese-American soldier caused a sit-down strike at the Nash-DeCamp company warehouse.

Fruit pickers refused to work when Wilson Makabe, Loomis-born Japanese and a private in the U.S. Army, visited the plant while on a furlough.

The packers did not protest Makabe, but Sheriff's deputies took the soldier into protective custody and the work was resumed.

The Granada Pioneer of June 19, 1943, ran an article entitled COMBA TEAM, JAP RETURN OPPOSED. It listed other cities in California that did not want the Japanese back.

Marysville, California: The district Chamber of Congress protested the return of the Japanese and vigorously opposed the incorporation of American-born Japanese into the U.S. Army.

Vallejo, Calif. Deportation of all persons of Japanese ancestry after the conclusion of the war was urged in a resolution adopted by the Vallejo City council.

Auburn, Calif.-Lowell Sparks, secretary of the District Attorneys Association of California, made public a resolution adopted by the state prosecutors opposing the return of Japanese alien and American-born to the Pacific Coast.

Grass Valley, Calif. The City Council adopted a resolution unalterably opposing the return of the Japanese.'

So city-by-city, the state of California lined up against the evacuees. The Granada Pioneer of June 26, 1943, ran an article about J.W. Buzzell, secretary of the Los Angeles Central Labor Council, who testified to the Dies committee.

'All Japanese look alike,' Buzzell said. 'If they are permitted to return here, what is to prevent a Japanese submarine from landing saboteurs who could easily change places with the evacuees?

Many of the Japs are in Army uniform. This uniform could be donned by Japanese so landed, giving them access to our Army camps.

There is no way to judge their loyalty or disloyalty,' he said, 'and we are strongly opposed to taking chances with any of them.'

By this time in the War, the Japanese advance in the Pacific had been stopped at Guadalcanal and the Japanese military machine was beginning to be pushed back, closer and closer to the home islands. His statement also brought up the bugaboo about Japanese sabotage, of which none was found.

Another route of hate propaganda was to attack the centers themselves. In an article in the Granada Pioneer of July 3, 1943, Representative Contello of California said that disloyal Japanese had taken over the camps. This, I am sure, would have been of great interest to the various camp administrations who were still in control of every camp. Granted, Tule Lake presented a fairly major problem for a short while, but it still remained under the control of the administration. Eventually the disloyals were all put into Tule Lake, but they never actually ran the place.

Still, if you are going to tell a lie, why not tell a big one?

Not every single organization in California hated the Japanese. The Minidoka Irrigator of September 18, 1943, ran an article about the San Francisco CIO backing the return of loyal Japanese whenever the military authorities said it was okay for them to return.

Time to add another California city to those wanting to ban the Japanese. The Granada Pioneer of September 29, 1943, ran this article.

SALINAS WOULD BAN JAPS: Salinas, a California community high on the list of those which suffered most from Japanese aggression appealed to President Roosevelt to prevent the return of the so-called 'loyal' Japanese on the Pacific Coast, according to a recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle.

The plea was in behalf of 142 Salinas boys who fell into Jap hands on Bataan, and, said E. M. Siefert, acting chairman of the Bataan Relief Committee, 'feeling against Japanese is bitter on the West Coast and bloodshed cold be expected if any Japs were returned to the Salinas area.'

Now, what would happen if only a very, very small number of people from an internment camp were to go to California, say to see their ill father in the hospital? And then went under WRA escort?

Nothing good, as this article from the Granada Pioneer of December 1, 1943 shows.

TAKAHASHIS FACE HOSTILITY IN RECENT WEST COAST VISIT. Japanese find it uncomfortable to visit California just now when under military permit and escorted by WRA.

That's the statement of Mrs. Yoshiko Takahashi, 56, Japanese alien, formerly a resident of Oakland, who has asked for immediate return to the WRA camp at Topaz, Utah, on the ground that much hostility has been shown her.

Mrs. Takahashi, who lived in Oakland for 25 years before being excluded from the defense area, came to Oakland with her two sons, Frank 21 and Yeneo, 19, under a permit from Western Defense Command to visit her husband, Chiyazaimon Takahashi, ill in a hospital at Sal Leandro since 1939.

Mrs. Frances M. Farrell of the WRA accompanied the Japanese family. Mrs. Farrell complained to WRA in San Francisco that hotel accommodations which had been reserved in advance by WRA were denied at San Leandro, and that the Japanese felt that in general so much hostility had been displayed that they wished to return to Topaz at once.

Notice it was not the Japanese woman who made this statement, but the WRA escort woman who made it.

Not every single city in California was so prejudiced, though. Martinez was one of these. The article is from the Heart Mountain Sentinel of February 5, 1944. Note; by this time, the Battle of Guadalcanal was almost totally over.

MARTINEZ RESIDENTS PROTESTING DISCRIMINATION AGAINST NISEI: Six Martinez residents signed an open letter in support of Mrs. June Terry, 22, American-born Japanese wife of Horton Terry, a Caucasian construction worker, when she was forced to vacate her home following violent protests by her neighbors.

Mrs. Terry is the former June Azil, graduate of Martinez schools, who was evacuated from her home after the outbreak of the war. She was given permission to join her husband by Lt. Gen. Deloe C. Emmons, commander of the Western Defense Command.

The article noted that her brother had been inducted into the U.S. Army.

The Manzanar Irrigator of February 5, 1944, ran an article titled LAUNCH DRIVE TO DENATIONALIZE NISEIS that was about California legislators launching a drive to strip 'hostile' Japanese Americans of their citizenship. They wanted all the 'disloyals' arrested and offered in exchange for Americans held by Japan.

On the same day the Granada Pioneer ran an article on a conference of West Coast mayors that were opposed to the return of Japanese to the Pacific Coast area and were working on a letter to Gen. Emmons stating their opposition to any such move.

Some churches tended to support the Japanese. An article in the Heart Mountain Sentinel of Feb. 19, 1944, noted that members of the Los Angeles Presbytery were 'urged to oppose through their local and national legislators all legislation proposing to cancel or deny to loyal citizens of Japanese ancestry the rights and duties of their citizenship...'

Los Angeles was in the news again in the Gila News-Courier of May 18, 1944. Note: by this time in the war the U.S. had attacked the Solomon Islands, the Gilbert Islands, the Marshall Islands, the Caroline Islands and New Guinea and had driven the Japanese from the Aleutian Islands. The Emperor of Japan had announced that Japan's position was 'truly grave.'

ANGELENOS PROTEST RETURN OF JAPANESE AT MASS MEET. In a protest mass meeting held in the Philharmonic Auditorium in Los Angeles Sunday it was declared that the return of Japanese to the West Coast will poise economic and social problems unprecedented in California history, according the the L.A. Times....

James J. Barrett, executive of the shipbuilding Corporation, called for 'Americanism first, last, and always.'

The Gila News Courier of June 29, 1944, noted that a John Phillips, a Republican representative from California, presented the House of Representatives with a petition from people in his district asking it to 'take the necessary action' to prevent the return of Japanese and people of Japanese ancestry who were removed from California after Pearl Harbor.

There were various organizations opposing the Japanese, and we'll look at some of those later. One of them, though, we'll examine now, and they are the Grangers. The Gila News-Courier of August 22, 1944 (by this time the Marianas Islands had been retaken).

GRANGERS OPPOSE RESETTLEMENT. George Schlmeyer, master of the California State Grange, said Friday he would ask a conference of State Grange masters at Portland, Oregon, to support the California Grange in opposing resettlement of Japanese in the West, the U.P. reported.

Schlmeyer said the conference was called to discuss the infiltration of Japanese who he said were buying land at premium prices for resettlement purposes.

States which are to be represented at the conference include California, Oregon, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Washington and Wyoming.

Another visit went wrong when George Malteno, who had owned a nursery near Palo Alto, revisited. His two former employees, both of who were Filipino, 'treated Makane coldly and, as an aftermath were muttering that there might be another dead Jap if he came again.' They also happened to be carrying guns.

So far those protesting the Japanese seem to have admitted, even indirectly, that at least a few of them were loyal, but in an article in the October 11, 1944 issue of the Manzanar Free Press, entitled ASSEMBLYMAN R. DICKEY SLAMS NISEI IN SPEECH, it turns that that said Dickey, speaking before the Lions Club, claimed that was not a single loyal American of Japanese ancestry. He also denied that any Japanese Americans had fought loyally for the United States during the war. He apparently had not heard of the 100th and 442nd, and how they were basically spearheading the attack through Italy.

(By this time the U.S. was bombing Okinawa.)

Another way to keep a group of people from returning is to make sure they can't buy a place to live on. An article in the October 18, 1944 issue of the Granada Pioneer covers this:

TO FORBID POSTWAR LAND SALE TO NISEI; About 1200 farmers in Santa Maria and Lompoo valleys signed a pledge to forbid sale or lease of lands in the northern part of the county to Japanese after the war.

The committee also seemed to be working with the American Legion to enlighten the people of California about the Japanese problem.

So, that takes of places they can live. Now, how about barring them from working. The Gila News-Courier of December 20, 1944, ran this article:

HOSPITAL BARS NISEI NURSES. the country hospital advisory committee in San Diego, Calif. opposed the acceptance of Nisei girls for training in the hospital's nursing school last Tuesday...

A similar article was run in the Granada Pioneer on the 23rd of December.

So, nurses out. Now, how about fishermen?

PROTEST ATTEMPT LICENSE RESTORATION TO NISEI FISHERMAN. Reported attempts of WRA Director Dillon S. Myer to restore commercial fishing licenses to Japanese operating out of California ports were protested recently by Senator Hugh P. Donnelly of Turlock, according to the L.A. Daily News.

That was from the Manzanar Free Press of January 27, 1945. (By this time the attack on the Philippines had begun.)

Now it's time to add yet another city to the California anti-Japanese group. This time the article is from the Manzanar Free Press of February 3, 1945.

TELL TULARE COUNTRY AGAINST NISEI RETURN: Strong feeling against the return of Japanese to Tulare county was reported this week by Tulare sheriffs, the Los Angeles Times stated.

The story revealed that a delegation of 30 to 34 men paid a night-time 'visitation' to Orosi-Cutler district where the Japanese occupied and assertedly urged the Japanese to stay out of the area until after the war.

John Yamamoto and K. Tashiro asked for time to harvest their crops while Yo Katayama, whose brother Sho is in the U.S. Army, reportedly joined the Army after being advised to stay away.

So, now it's sort of door-to-door 'get the heck out of here' approach to bigotry.

Now, let's assume you want to show disrespect towards someone, but someone who isn't going to turn around and thrash you at the same time. How do you manage that. Why, the answer is easy. Disrespect a dead person.

And this is just what was done as was reported in the Manzanar Free Press of March 31, 1945. (By this time Manila in the Philippines had been retaken, along with Corregidor, Bataan, and B-29's were laying mines off Japan's shoreline while other B-29's were bringing burned out fifteen square miles of Tokyo in one raid.)

VANDALS DISTURB JAPANESE GRAVES IN FRESNO AREA. Grave stones of 16 persons of Japanese ancestry and of four persons of German ancestry buried in Mountain View Cemetery were toppled recently by vandals...At the same time, the sexton disclosed that attempts to disturb the ashes of nearly 100 Japanese were made.

The Sheriff said that the weight of the stones indicated that the damage could not have been done by children. The Granada Pioneer of April 11, 1945, reported that a 10-year-old boy had been implicated in the desecration of the cemetery. Whether there were any other boys involved was not clear at the time.

The time went on and some labor unions still wanted nothing to do with returning Japanese Americans. The Granada Pioneer of May 23, 1945, ran an article about the Longshoremen and Warehousemen's Union (CIO) that had voted to refuse to work with returning nisei. Three Nisei had been removed from a warehouse where they had been working in order to prevent a work stoppage.

In San Francisco, bus mechanics threatened to strike when a Nisei was hired, as reported in the Gila News-Courier of Sept. 1, 1945, this being after the two atomic bombings and the actual end of the war.

III. Colorado

I only found one article dealing with prejudice in Colorado, and it was from a group of people that I didn't really expect to act that way. It was from a group of authors. The article is from the Granada Pioneer of April 10, 1943.

MARY OYAMA SPURNED BY AUTHORS LEAGUE. The Denver Authors League was brought face to face with a crackup when many members canceled reservations to a luncheon in honor of Mary Oyama, Nisei writer, arranged at the suggestion of Frank Clay Cross, connected with the national relocation commission.

Miss Oyama was presented to the league by Cross as a star attraction, who is as American as any of the erst of us.'

Objected Mrs. Bessie W. Ruble, one of the league:

'We have three sons in the services (all on active duty)..so not yet, after all our sleepless nights and heartaches and tears, can I do homage to a Japanese, even though she may be American-born.'

William E. Barrett, president of the league, stated that 'the fact that a woman of the Japanese race was to speak should not commit the league to any course but that of the open mind.'

'We must hold no hatred against persons because they happen to be born in anotehr land, or are representatives of another race from our own.

The honor guest ...is American and I understand her relatives are fighting for America. This is an opportunity to prove the breadth of our spirit and the sincerity of our claim that justice shall be for all.'

IV. Idaho

As with Colorado, I only found one relevant article, this one exhibiting prejudice on the part of unions, who, as we have already seemed, were supportive of the Asian Exclusion League. The article is from the Minidoka Irrigator of October 2, 1943. The Pocatello Central Labor union, passed a resolution to try to stop Japanese from working there.

'Whereas, these Japanese are a detriment to the American standard of living..are not inducted into the armed forces, but travel around the country at will..are being employed in business houses in Pocatello and in the state of Idaho in jobs vacated by our workers, now therefore

Be it resolved, that the members of the Pocatello Building and Construction Trades coucnil de hereby voice our disapproval.

Be it further resolved that we request all members of organized labor to refrain from patronizing any and all business establishments employing Japs.'

V. Nebraska

The first article is from the Manzanar Free Press of April 18, 1945, and notes that farmers in the Shelton Nebraska area successfully petitioned operators of the farm there to get rid of his Japanese American families who were working on the farm.

In what is apparently a separate action but in the same place, a petition was developed and signed by 91 people to 'discourage the migration of Japanese Americans into Platte River Valley, according to the Gila News-Courier of April 21, 1945.

The WRA arranged a meeting there to work things out and a lot of the people who attended had nothing against the Japanese Americans at all.

According to the Manzanar Free Press of April 25, 1945, a guy that spoke out against this prejudice happened to be a U.S. Navy veteran.

NAVY VETERAN PROTESTS ATTEMPT TO OUST NISEI: Protesting against attempts of some Nebraska farmers to oust persons of Japanese ancestry, Ralph C. Nash, Navy veteran, declares in a letter to the Omaha Evening World Hearld that they had read about such attempts 'with disgust.'

Nash spent three years of his service in Honolulu, saw Japanese Americans there working 'hard' to repair damage at Pearl Harbor and was on a ship with 3000 Nisei soldiers who raised funds for a non-Nisei sailor's visit to his sick wife.

One other article, against from the Manzanar Free Press, the May 9, 1945 issue, repeated the events that had happened and noted this:

As son as news of the petition appeared in the Nebraska newspapers, Caucasian committees formed to defend the Japanese Americans. They offered employment and places for boarding from every part of the state.'

It's interesting to note that as it got closer to the end of the war there were more efforts made by average citizens to counter the hate and prejudice still being directed against the Japanese Americans.

VI. New Mexico

There was only one article about New Mexico, that from the Manzanar Free Press of May 23, 1945.

NEW MEXICO GOVERNOR VOICES VIEWS ON 'JAPS'; 'New Mexico has no Japanese, never has had them, and we don't want them now,' Governor John J. Dempsey of New Mexico stated in Fresno, basing his feelings toward the Japanese on conservations with boys in the Oak Knoll Hospital in San Francisco.

Remind you of one of the governors of Arizona?

VII. Oregon

Maybe because Oregon was right next to California it seemed to have the second-highest number of anti-Japanese articles. The first article was from the Gila News-Courier of September 25, 1943, and noted that a Republican representative from Oregon was complaining that people from the relocation centers were buying land in Oregon, and that such land was basically planned for the young Oregon farmers who were then in the Army.

Perhaps the oldest group to oppose the Japanese were veterans of the Spanish-American war. This was covered in the Granada Pioneer of July 29, 1944.

As happened once before, a Japanese cemetery was targeted by vandals. The Manzanar Free Press of August 12, 1944, ran this article:

VANDALS DESECRATE JAPANESE CEMETERY: Juvenile court officers have blamed adults for the recent desecration of the Japanese cemetery at Portland, according to the Pacific Citizen. It reported this was the second to occur within the year.

'Ponderous gravestones were broken and tossed into heaps at the cemetery fence like a child's set of blocks-so scattered that officer George J. Clauss said he doubted that graves and monuments could ever be rematched, the Citizen said.

It also reported that wooden markers were splintered and set ablaze and that a nearby resident came to the cemetery to extinguish one fire with a hose.

The cemetery has been practically abandoned since the evacuation of persons of Japanese ancestry from Portland in 1942.

The Gila News-Courier of August 10, 1944, noted something quite interesting. A group of Portland church people had said they would keep the cemetery clean, but they were prevented from doing that by a group of American Legionnaires.

The Manzanar Free Press of August 26, 1944, had an article concerning a group of garage men.

GARAGE MEN SAY 'NO JAPS WANTED': Federal government was asked this week to keep all Japanese in confinement and prevent them from returning to the Pacific coast after the war, stated the Los Angeles times. The request was made by the State Garage Master representatives of Oregon, Washington, California, Idaho and Montana.

Garage spokesmen said the weekend conference (in Portland) represented approximately 125,000 Grange members.

The resolution hit the WRA for 'conducting a propaganda campaign to arouse public sympathy for persons of Japanese ancestry.' It charged further that the Japanese have failed to assimilate themselves and can never be absorbed into American community life.

So, the Japanese cannot assimilate themselves. Let's see. Groups wanted them out of California and the west coast; they didn't want them buying or renting any land, they didn't want them conducting business there, and they didn't even want them buried there, apparently. They didn't like them in the public schools, or the restaurants, or the laundries. Exactly is a group suppose to 'assimilate' when faced with that kind of opposition?

In addition, such groups seemed to fail to notice that many Japanese and Japanese Americans, particularly in the Eastern part of the U.S., had done a fine job of assimilating.

Oregon managed to come up with its own anti-Japanese group, called the Oregon Anti-Japanese Inc. They are discussed in an article in the Granada Pioneer of December 9, 1944, that noted the group was composed of 26 farmers and professional and business men. They wanted an amendment to the State constitution that would keep the Japanese out of Oregon.

The Gila News-Courier of January 20, 1945, noted that anti-Japanese signs were appearing in Oregon, such as 'no Jap trade' and 'no Japanese trade solicited for the duration.'This is in the same area as the Hood River American Legion post that removed the names of Japanese Americans from a memorial. The article notes that a Methodist Church group was trying to get the Legion to restore the names.

An article in the Manzanar Free Press of the same day was entitled ANTI-NISEI FEELING HITS COAST STORES, and mentioned the 'no Jap trade' sign, the appearance of other signs, and that repair shops, groceries, filling stations and hardware stores were joining in the sign movement.

Another anti-Japanese group that Oregon came up with is talked about in the Manzanar Free Press of April 4, 1945. It's the Oregon Property Owners Protective League. They were pushing for a nationwide movement to get a Constitutional amendment to 'send all Japs back to Japan.'

VIII. Utah

Utah did not seem to have a lot of trouble with prejudice. There was only one article and that was from the Manzanar Free Press of March 15, 1944.

RACIAL PERSECUTION HITS SALT LAKE CITY. the city, founded less than a hundred years ago by a people seeking sanctuary from religious persecution today is a hotbed of racial persecution, stated William Flynn, San Francisco Chronicle reporter.

American Federation of Labor unions in Salt Lake City...are fighting entrance of Japanese-Americans into the community....

The Utah AFL unions are fighting the resettlement trend because, the leaders state frankly, they fear their competition for jobs.

The CIO opposed the AFL, though. The Salt Lake City Council refused to take a stand on an AFL demand that business licenses be denied Japanese American applicants.

IX. Washington

The first article relating to the state of Washington is from the Granada News-Pioneer of May 26, 1943. A senator Wallgren said that he would oppose any plan to permit any Japanese, American-born or not, to return to the West Coast. In a July 31, 1943 article in the Minidoka Irrigator, the same guy said he opposed the enlistment of American Japanese in the U.S. Army. Wallgren was a member of the Senate Military Affairs Committee. His solution to the problem was to put the Japanese to work on agricultural projects under strict supervision.

The Mayor Seattle made his position known in the Minidoka Irrigator of February 5, 1944, when an article noted that he and others had sent a protest to Lieut. Gen. Delos Emmons, Western Defense Command chief, 'against any return of Japanese to the Pacific Coast.'

The AFL in Washington spoke out against the Japanese in an article in the Granada Pioneer of August 30, 1944.

TEAMSTERS OPPOSE NISEI EMPLOYMENT. AFL International vice president of the Teamster's Union Dave Beck pressed for 'unrelenting war' against the employment of Japanese Americans in the western states at the western regional conference of the Teamsters last week.

The conference delegates stated that any employer attempting to hire persons of Japanese ancestry would be courting 'trouble' with locals and members of their organization.

Now, why does this seem sort of familiar? Well, some guy named Adolph Hitler wanted to drive the Jews out of their businesses, and his goon squads went around smashing up the Jewish businesses and homes and, no doubt, making sure no one else would be so foolish as to hire them.

One of the things about a bigot is his or her consistency. We find this with our old friend Wallgren who by this time was Governor of the state of Oregon. He again stated his opposition to the return of any Japanese to the Pacific coast. He claimed there had been 'highly serious developments having to do with espionage that compelled him to take such a stand.'

Beck, of the Teamsters, made his own reappearance in an article in the Manzanar Irrigator of April 25, 1945, when he announced 'that no commission merchants or trucking firms will handle the wares of returned evacuees.'

Apparently many Seattle produce firms were refusing to handle the produce grown by Japanese Americans. It's covered in an article in the Granada Pioneer of July 21, 1945 (which was getting very near to the end of the war.)

TELLS PRODUCE FIRMS TO CORRECT SITUATION. In sharply censuring the refusal of Seattle, Wash,. produce merchants to deal in produce grown by Japanese Americans a 'unjustified discrimination,' Clinton Anderson, recently appointed Secretary of Agriculture, called on the Northwest Produce association at Seattle to correct the situation.

Anderson last week sent the following telegram to Mr. Adwin, secretary of the produce association:

'This department is receiving numerous complains against refusal of Seattle produce firms to handle produce grown by Japanese Americans. In view of present food situation, we believe such discrimination cannot be justified and urge your cooperation in correcting situation.'

Asiatic Exclusion League

The first bit comes from the book Alien Americans, published in 1936.

'In February 1908 during a period in which relations between the United States and Japan were dangerously tense because of Manchuria the Central Labor Council of Seattle sponsored the first international convention of the Asiatic Exclusion League of North America, which had a membership in California alone of 110,000. By May 1909 the League consisted of 238 affiliated bodies, mainly labor organizations. In March 1908 an Anti-Japanese Laundry League was organized which attempted to prevent the issuance of licenses to the Japanese, to reduce their patronage by skilfully appealing to race prejudice, and to prevent Japanese from securing laundry equipment.'

Actually, the group started out as the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League, but altered there name so they could include Hindus, Malays, and any other Asiatic grouping they didn't like.

Various Japanese associations were formed for protection, according to the writer, and were recognized by the Japanese government.

'The semi-official status given to the Japanese associations by their home government stamped them in the eyes of the public as tools of Japanese imperialism. Every Japanese was readily believed to be conniving with the Japanese Government for the ultimate destruction of America. This spectre made California pass the discriminatory land law of 1913, despite the opposition of President Wilson.'

In other words, it was the fault of the Japanese that the Americans had to try to keep them out, and it was there fault that they had formed organizations to protect them from the various anti-Japanese organizations that had come into being.

Blame the victim.

Yet more complaints against the Japanese

“Labour organizations, military and patriotic organizations (the American Coalition of Patriotic Societies with its affiliated societies), and retail merchants' organizations combined in their attack on the Japanese. The Japanese were undesirable aliens; cultural and biological assimilation was impossible. Their patriotic self conceit was an obstacle to amalgamation. Their low standard of living threatened the American workingman; their birth-rate was a danger to California as a white man's country. They introduced pagan cults into Christian America. Racial undesirability was emphasized, rather than racial inferiority. Ineligibility to citizenship was made the motivation for discrimination.'

In other words, since they were not eligible to become citizens, it was okay to discriminate against them, even though the rulings that made it impossible for them to become citizens were, themselves, results of discrimination.

So, discrimination became the motive for discrimination.

The writer does note some groups opposed to exclusion, and these included the Federal Council of Churches of Christ (exclusion would interfere with the work they were doing overseas), the California Fruit Growers, and the California Farmers Co-operative. The cannery business also opposed blocking Japanese fishermen from fishing.

Fortunately I was able to find some of the League's publications, although not many. This is one of the things about history; it really needs to be preserved. It would be really interesting to be able to go through all the League's publications and especially what they called their 'clipping service' which apparently resulted in a number of scrapbook-type books of clippings relating to the Japanese and other Asians. I don't know if those exist any more or not but, if they do, hopefully they'll be put in some library that historians will have access to.

Now, this has all been what someone else wrote about the League. Now let's let the League speak for itself.

First, from a publication and Japanese and Korean Exclusion League of August, 1906.

This issue examines the 59th Congress record on immigration and exclusion. In the Good of the League section, it talks bout some delegate discussing '...the inroads that the Japanese are making in the restaurant industry, which was affecting the white people engaged in that industry.' He's asking that the League 'discourage patronage as much as possible of such places.'

This group went after the Japanese in any occupation that they found, and that included working in a restaurant and even in a laundry.

From the September 1906 issue comes the following:

There's the usual stuff about roll call, credentials and minutes. There's a part that says 217 organizations are affiliated with the league, and then there's a confusing part about Endorsements, which total 4,377,000. I think it's the total members in each of a number of labor groups, apparently making the assumption that every single member of each group supports the league.

Then there's a rather ominous section which examines a particular district and then lists the number of Japanese and their occupations in the district. This is done in more than one of the proceedings papers, by the way. It's like they are spying on them or something.

The data had been obtained by the Police Department. However:

'Owing to the wily ways and the cunning in the nature of the Orientals the Police Department experienced great difficulty in obtaining this data.

The February, 1907 issue sees the League attacking President Teddy Roosevelt for his opposition to the San Francisco board of education trying to force all orientals into a single school. One of the sections of the issue deals with 'Coolies on Panama Canal'. The League didn't care for anyone who was Asiatic, period.

Next is the March, 1907 issue. It notes that there were 225 organizations affiliated with the League at the time. Generally around 85 to 90% of those were labor organizations. One of the things the League really seemed to enjoy doing was sending petitions to Congress. The publication notes that they had sent 102 petitions for immigration restriction and 76 against the employment of 'coolies' on the Panama Canal.

Then they display one of the weird leaps of logic that strange groups like this one can come up with. It refers to Japanese wanting to attend regular public schools.

'This insistence in demanding that they be allowed to attend white schools proves their unfitness to enjoy such a privilege.'

So, because they want very much to attend regular public schools, they are unfit for attending them? What sort of off-the-wall thinking is that? What I read in the bulletins I did find indicated, though, that the same 'logic' would apply to Blacks since the League didn't seem to care for them very much either.

Things then changed, as the League changed its name to the Asiatic Exclusion League. they explained the decision in their February 1908 newsletter.

'One of the chief reasons for the change of name of this League from 'Japanese and Korean' to that of 'Asiatic' was the knowledge that we have of the great number of Hindoos that are looking toward the Pacific Coast, especially California, as a field for exploitation.'

So the Hindoos (their spelling, by the way) were also unacceptable. As with most organizations of this type, it eventually comes out that they hate basically everybody who is not white. Equal-opportunity haters, basically.

Then there's always the argument that, one you allow 'them' into a neighborhood, the neighborhood is inevitably going to deteriorate. How many groups has this thinking been aimed at?

'The Florin District of Sacramento County affords one of the most convincing examples of the bad effects of the Japanese invasion. Formerly it was inhabited wholly by white men and their families, who built up a large strawberry industry and planted numerous small vineyards. ... But gradually the Japanese crept in, first as laborers, then as renters, until nearly all the white growers of berries either rented to the Asiatics or sold out entirely...The result has been a great change for the worse..Their wretched, unsightly shacks are blots on the face of the country were there should be flower-decked homes of American families.'

This is a perfect example that this type of thinking simply does not change over time. Only the target of the thinking changes.

Another article deals with a Mr. Levy who fired all his Japanese workers, and how that 'is a step in the right direction and should be followed by other restaurant and hotel proprietors of our city.'

An article on Monrovia orchardists and fruit-growers noted 'The insolence of the Japs' and how 'many small growers were coerced into leasing or selling their holdings to the aggressive Asiatics.'

Then there's an article from the Los Angeles Times which gave a foretaste of the thinking of people that led to the internment of the Japanese Americans during World War II.

'But, if Japan and the United States were to go to war tomorrow, or at any time beyond, almost every man Jap in the land would hie himself away to Nippon to shoulder a gun against us. Everybody knows this to be true; there is no denial of it from any source.'

Although there were some Japanese that wanted to repatriate to Japan, the vast, vast majority of them preferred the U.S. Many of them did fight-against Japan. the 442nd Infantry Battalion became the most decorated battalion in the military. They fought the Nazis in Italy, France, and Germany. They suffered a very high rate of casualties because it seemed they were almost always put out on the front lines to attack the hardest positions to take.

Yet they succeeded and were proud of the service they were able to render to the United States.

Another article in the same issue deals with the biology of the Asiatics.

'As Mr. Manson has shown, the different between the Caucasian and the Mongolian or the Malayan races amounts to a difference of species, and that nature herself puts a ban upon the assimilation of different species throughout the whole animal kingdom of the world.”

This, of course, was exactly the same type of argument used against Blacks; that there were not really human.

Let's make something perfectly clear. THERE IS ONLY ONE SURVIVING HUMAN SPECIES. PERIOD.

There were species of humans that died out along the evolutionary tree, yes. But there is only one single species of human being today. Every man, woman and child came from this species which arose in Africa, and them migrated out to Europe, Asia, and eventually the Americas.

Now, what is a species? It's a group of living organisms that can have sex with each other and produce an offspring that will survive (barring some kind of disaster/illness/ etc.) If any two persons of opposite sex of any race, be it Black, White, Asiatic, Native American, or Brown, have sex, and both parents are healthy, there is a chance they will have a child that will grow up and be able to reproduce when it gets old enough.

That is the mark of a species. If any of the races were actually of different species, then they could not reproduce, period. But the fact is they can reproduce, SO GET OVER THE SPECIES ARGUMENT!

It is interesting to see the number of books and other written materials in the first couple decades of the 1900's that referred to an eventual war between the United States and Japan. Not all of those were written by Japanese haters, either.

The League, in its June, 1908 publication, figured on such a war happening.

'On the 15th, during a discussion of the bill in the House, Mr. Hobson of Alabama called attention to the invasion of the Pacific Coast by the Japanese and the imminent danger of a clash between the races, which may be precipitated through assaults by Japanese upon white women.'

He's referring, of course, to the immigrants being the 'invasion' force. He then brings up the argument about Japanese attacks on white women. Sound familiar to the argument about attacks by Blacks upon white women? That was enough to get a black person killed in the Old South. Once again the hate-filled argument remains the same, only the target differs.

The issue also refers to the Anti-Japanese Laundry League.

Another topic the League liked to talk about was intermarriage. From the October 1908 issue:

'It is not possible to contemplate with complacency any intermixture of our own people with those of Japan. Not only is intermarriage between the two races sure to be resented, but the admission of Japanese to citizenship will be fought if ever proposed.'

Does this idea of 'keeping the race pure' sound familiar? Perhaps you've heard of Adolph Hitler and World War II. It's exactly the same kind of hate-filled claptrap that he used against the Jews. Yet once again, the argument is the same, only the target of the hate is different.

The same issue had a piece from the Fresno Republican that said 'Just because the two races are unequal they must be kept physically apart.' The Mountain View Register said 'The Japs are undeniable energetic and good workers, but they are also undesirable citizens. We do not, we cannot, and we will not assimilate with them socially.'

Now, let's see. One of the arguments against the Japanese was that they could not be assimilated. How can a culture assimilate with another culture if the first one openly refuses to assimilate at all? It doesn't make sense. Then, again, arguments from such groups rarely do make sense.

The January, 1909 issue cleared up what the purpose of the white man was.

'While we, who have been placed as sentinels and guardians of the Caucasian civilization, on the west coast of American, at times become apathetic and indifferent to our task, the brown and yellow races are coming like a swarm of maggots, worming and burrowing and eating the substance out of the land.'

So, that's what white men are for! They are sentinels against the barbarian hoards that threaten to overwhelm us at any minute.

The February, 1909 issue helps to clear up just why the name is the Asiatic Exclusion League. It points out the dangers of specific groups of Asians.

'But the Japanese are only the scouts-the vanguard-of the vast Asiatic army> There are Koreans, Chinese, Manchurians, Manchus, Mongolians, Malays and Hindoos numbering OVER ONE BILLION.

Allow then to secure a foothold in the United States and they will, within a few generations, sweep like an avalanche of death from the Himalayas around the group.

The Japanese, with all his politeness and pretenses, is only a corrupted Chinaman. He is a Malay-Mongolized mongrel.'

One of the things that gets interesting is when the League bothers to enumerate it's actual objections to the Japanese. The March, 1909, had such a list, in which they pointed out some bad things about the Japanese:

1. Disgusting habits, made of living and general characteristics.

2. Possessing no regard for republican institutions, they maintain an intense loyalty to the Mikado.

3. That as a class (with few exceptions) they are contract laborers and are furnished at rates which do not supply a white man with the common necessities of life, much less enable him to maintain and educate a family.

4. That Japanese will, within a brief period, cause great distress and misery to white labor.

5. That they contribute nothing to the growth of the state, but are a blight on its prosperity.'

In reference to number 2, for you youngsters out there, the Mikado is another name for the Emperor of Japan. The Japanese considered the Emperor to actually be a divine being. At the time they held an awe of the Emperor and would do anything he would say. This type of thinking was used during the second world war to get their troops fired up to kill Americans.

The Japanese that had migrated to this country, though, did not have the same types of feelings about the Emperor, especially those who had been born here like the Nisei. They were more in awe of the President of the United States and considered themselves Americans first, which is why so many volunteered to fight for the U.S. in the war.

The concept was actually 'Emperor worship.' During the war, for example, if a Japanese ship was sunk during a fight, it was the obligation of someone to save the Emperor's portrait which hung somewhere in the ship.

The different in attitudes between the Japanese who lived in Japan and those who lived in the U.S. was considerable, and only grew with further generations.

In archeology, it's always interesting to find old tablets and papers that have lists on them of things that were bought and sold. It helps figure out what the culture was like at that time. The League actually does a lot of the same thing. They often have lists of how many organizations support them, how many members they have and what groups they come from, and so on.

One of the lists they have relates to their expenses for their publications and other activities. In the May, 1909 issue, there is such a list. It reveals that the League had published some 10,000 pamphlets of 36 pages, 4,000 monthly proceedings, 2000 constitutions, 1000 Asiatic problems & American opinions, and 1,500 letter heads.

The same month they had 238 affiliated organizations, 202 of which were labor groups. The percentage of labor groups behind the League stayed pretty much the same.

The June, 1909 issue quotes the Jackson Ledger as saying: 'It requires no particular gift of foresight to predict that the Mongolian race, whether Chinese or Japanese, must eventually be excluded from America.' The Los Angeles Evening News wrote: 'Underlying this Japanese problem is the fundamental proposition that this is a white man's country-and will remain so.'

Look over those two things again, then try to balance them with this statement by the President of the League that: '...it was never the purpose of the League to speak, ore entertain, any prejudice against Japanese, Asiatics or any other race, that the League was founded on the broad lines of patriotism, and that great admiration was shown for the Japanese, but that our admiration extended a distance of 8,000 miles, and that we preferred to see them in their own country and not in ours. We do not hate them..'

Talk about speaking out of both sides of your mouth at the same time. There is absolutely no way in the world, through any form of logic at all, that they can say that and still run the articles they do and make the other statements that they do.

The September, 1909 issue had a note about reducing the white patrons to Japanese laundries of this city by at least 50%, and similar action had been taken in other cities.

Now, don't think that the Asiatic Exclusion League was just against Asians. It's already been established that they don't care for Blacks. In the November, 1909 issue they added to this list of people they don't like the Turks, Syrians and Arabs. So their range of hate was spreading to cover a wider area of the globe.

Here again is a problem of history, and that is the loss of printed materials. From the destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria on through history, narrow-minded bigots like the Nazis, along with the normal passage of time and things getting lost, have resulted in a loss of much information to the present-day world. The League itself had many publications, and I don't imagine that many have survived. the December, 1909 issue refers to one of their publications which would be interesting to read: 'Japanese Conquests of the Domestic Occupations, and Some of the Remedies that Might Be Applied.' (Back then a lot of publications had very long, very windy titles).

The same issue noted the Central California Anti-Jap Patronage League, and the San Francisco Anti-Jap Laundry League.

The March, 1910 issue added the Armenians to the list of people who the League disliked. Then there's another reference to the pure-blood (Aryan race) type of argument:

'To fulfill our obligation and accomplish this result, it is essential that the blood of the American-Europeans of this country, who together with their ancestors developed civilization to its present state, should be kept pure and free from the taint of the decadent Orientalism of China, Japan, and India.'

The May, 1910 issue lists specific reasons for exclusion of Asiatics from this country.

'1st. We cannot assimilate with them without injury to ourselves.

2nd. No large community of foreigners so cocky, with such distinct racial, social and religious prejudices can abide long in this country without serious friction.

3rd. We cannot compete with a people having a low standard of civilization living and wages.

4th. It should be against public policy to permit our women to intermarry with Asiatics, and laws should be passed prohibiting it.

5th. We cannot extend citizenship to Asiatics without serious danger to our institutions. They will combine and collude and have the political balance of power. If, while Asiatics have not the status of citizens, may not their issue, if born in the United states, become citizens and if so, what will shortly be the status of the Hawaiian Islands? Will we not have a Japanese legislature there? A Japanese Governor and Japanese judges? Will not their status in California be eventually the same if allowed to come here without restriction?

6th. If we permit the Jap to come in, what will ultimately become of our Exclusion Act with China? the Chinese will demand the same privilege, and are we prepared to give it to them?

7th. The evasion of the immigration laws in the importation of Jap women for sinister purposes by so-called picture marriages under the guise of a marriage by proxy in Japan, remarried here as a matter of form, and after a month or a year of so-called married life deserted, or caste into a crib-is another way of getting women into this country for immoral purposes. ...

8th. The United States of America as an independent power has the right to say who shall land on our shores. We do not desire the Mikado to do it for us. The exercise of this sovereign power is founded on the right of self-preservation....

So because the women are being brought here means that they automatically are being brought here for immoral purposes? This type of argument unites racism with sexism.

Unfortunately, I don't have any other issues of the publication to cover.

States East of the Mississippi

The states east of the Mississippi did not show any where near the level of prejudice against the persons of Japanese ancestry as did the states west of the Mississippi. In fact, in newsletter after newsletter I read articles about places in the East who were open to the internees resettling. Numerous hostels in numerous cities were being set up to house the returnees. Various companies, like Seabrook Farms, were actively recruiting workers from the camps to come to their companies.

In Ohio, Cincinnati and Cleveland seemed to lead the way in encouraging the internees to resettle there. New York seemed generally favorable, as did Illinois. Colleges like U.C. in Cincinnati opened their doors to Nisei students.

As to why the attitude in the east was different it may have been due to the fact that persons of Japanese ancestry had been living there for years and had not formed distinct groups. There is a problem when a minority group ends up settling an area and forming its own community. Actually, there are various problems.

One, it creates an easier target to attack. The Japanese who settled in California, for example, largely lived in their own areas, had their own stores, etc. In addition to automatically setting themselves up as an easy target, such an arrangement serves to limit the amount of exposure they had to American culture, and the amount of exposure Americans had to Japanese culture.

This sets up a group as 'the other.' Such a group is automatically a target, because, for many people, what we don't understand we tend to fear, and what we fear we grow to hate.

In the East, though, the persons of Japanese ancestry were largely considered as just regular people. There's a Japanese saying: 'The nail that sticks up will be hammered down.' The Japanese and the Japanese Americans in the East basically didn't 'stick up,' but the ones in the West did, and they got hammered down, hard.

That is not to say that there was no prejudice in the East. There were some examples in the various newsletters. There are some examples of what I would call anti-prejudice.

I. Illinois

The Chicago Tribute takes a very interesting view of the internment of the Japanese Americans, pointing out something which almost no one else had. The article is from the Rohwer Outpose of March 6, 1943.

TRIBUTE VIEWS THE JAPANESE: 'In this country we have 107,500 Japanese locked up in internment camps to which they were removed from their homes in the Pacific coastal area. Two thirds of them are American citizens,' stated a recent editorial from the Chicago Daily Tribute titled 'Japanese in America and Hawaii.'

'Meanwhile, we have in Hawaii 160,000 Japanese, of whom 36,000 are aliens. Lt. Gen. Emmons, the military governor of the territory, says their presence is a definite menace, but they are not locked up. Whether this is because their labor is valuable in the sugar and pineapple plantations and elsewhere, or for other reasons, is not made clear,' continued the editorial.

'Thus, we have a hundred odd thousand Japanese interspersed with close to 10,000,000 white Americans in the Pacific coast states and we have hustled them off and locked them up for fear they will do us harm. We have 170,000 Japanese, constituting a third of the population of the islands that are the keystone of our Pacific defense, and we leave them at liberty. Without committing oneself on whether any one should be locked up, it seems fairly apparent that the locking up, if it was necessary anywhere, started in the wrong place. The procedure is not without a smell of lynch law or vigilantism.'

'Two thirds of the interned Japanese are American citizens. That, also, is something new under our constitutional system. On what theory can an American citizen be locked up, with or without trial, because of his race? It is a matter of concern to all American citizens if any American citizen can be put in a concentration camp.

'The legal questions have yet to reach the Supreme court, it is as hard to see how any court can justify internment of Japanese without either laying all Americans open to the same treatment or justifying discrimination between Americans on grounds of race. The dilemma is referred to the prophets of the four freedoms,' concluded the Tribune.

However, there were, as I said, at least some incidents of prejudice. the Granada Pioneer of May 1, 1943, carried an article entitled MARENGO OBJECTS TO PRESENCE OF EVACUEES, referring to a farm in an outlying district of Chicago. There were three Japanese Americans helping do farm work, but Marengo citizens had objected to their presence.

Another Granada Pioneer article, this time of May 8, 1943, noted that the manager of the Auto Mechanics union, local 701, a Nisei that was a mechanic agreed to quit his job. The guy who owned the actual shop had been picketed for four years.

The Gila News-Courier of August 1, 1944, carried this article: WORKER PROTEST OUSTS JAPANESE. Fifty-nine Japanese American track laborers were withdrawn from the Illinois Central Railroad in the Chicago area to avert a threatened walkout of 800 AFL maintenance of way workers, according to an Associated Press report.

By August 5, 1944, according to the Heart Mountain Sentinel, some 16 unions had forced evacuees to quit jobs in the Chicago area. What I find interesting is that all of this reports center on Chicago, and do not seem to be representing any part of the rest of the state.

Then there are always the true nut-cases, the ones who are obviously looney-tunes. More than a few bricks short of a full load, as this article in the Manzanar Free press of March 31, 1945, shows so clearly:

CHICAGOAN MISTAKES CHINESE FOR NISEI; SERIOUSLY INJURED. Shouting 'I am out to get some Japs', Albert Stritzel, 25, forced his way into a Chinese laundry and attacked the Chinese owner and his helper whom he mistook for Japanese.

The owner grabbed a revolver and shot Stritzel, wounding him seriously.

If this dude was so seriously intent on killing Japanese, THEN WHY DIDN'T HE JOIN THE ARMED FORCES? He could have had himself sent to the Pacific theater and killed all the Japanese he wanted to.

II. Massachusetts

There was only one article for this state. The article is from the Manzanar Free Press of October 6, 1943.

ISSEI'S APPOINTMENT CAUSES CONTROVERSY. The Time magazine of September 20 carried an article on Shuichi Kusaka, 27-year-old mathematical physicist born in Japan who caused a controversy among the people of Northampton, Mass., on his appointment to the staff of Smith College.

'Kurasaka was in Northampton with the approval of the FBI, but some townsmen had found his presence unfair to those who have died.'

Two American Legionnaires supported by employees of the state insane asylum, members of the Hampshire County Grange, the building trades union, and the Hampshire Gazette had threatened to tar and feather Kusaka and dump him into the campus pond.

Kusaka was born in Osaka, left Japan when he was four, received his elementary education in Vancouver schools. He made a brilliant record at the Universities of British Columbia and California, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. He was recommended to Smith College by Miss Chien Shiung Wu, a Chinese physicist.

Tar and feather him? That goes back to the Civil War. And was that employees or inmates of the asylum? As we will see later the American Legion really seemed to have a bug up its rear end about the Japanese Americans.

III. New Jersey

The main problem in New Jersey seemed to center around farming. It can basically be referred to as the Great Meadows incident.

The first article on this is from the Granada Pioneer of April 15, 1944.

NEW JERSEY FARMERS ASSAIL EMPLOYING NISEI WORKERS. Farmers of a small farming community some 10 miles from here in Warren county demanded the immediate removal of five Japanese American workers on a Great Meadows farm at a mass meeting.

Indignation of the citizens reached fever point yesterday with the arrival of four more American citizens of Japanese parentage to join George Yamamoto, who was assigned to the 100-acre farm of Edward Kowalick two weeks ago.

The Warren County Board of Agriculture last night adopted a resolution calling for removal of the five men in the interest of community peace and announced that the WRA, which imported the four men from a center in Arizona, would be asked to comply with this request.

Henry Patterson, of the Philadelphia regional WRA office, who assigned the men to Kowalick's farm at the farmer's request, termed the protest 'a tempest in a teapot' caused by a few 'stubborn and ignorant people.'

The immediate attention of WRA, he said, was to keep the five men on the Kowalick farm. he said he had contacted the sheriff of Warren county and the New Jersey state police and was assured by those authorities that the situation would be kept under control.

This time it was the Methodist church that spoke out in favor of the internees.

GREAT MEADOWS FARMERS TAKE IT ON THE NECK AGAIN. Two hundred New Jersey clergymen at the eighty-seventh Newark Annual Conference of the Methodist Church unanimously passed a resolution Friday deploring the action of Warren County farmers who forced the departure of five Japanese evacuees to work on a Great Meadows farm, the New York Herald Tribute reported Saturday.

So, a group of 200 people spoke out against the prejudice. They did good work that day. It seems, though, that the men ended up being withdrawn from the farm and sent to work on a Pennsylvania farm. The Gila News-Courier had a long editorial on this on April 20, 1944. They quoted one of the evacuees as saying that 'We don't want to stay and cause any trouble for Eddie (their employer). We are not made at these people. We know how they feel. But we are not responsible for what Japan did. We are just Americans and we want to do our part.'

The Gila News-Courier of September 28, 1944, ran a follow-up article on the men, quoting from the Philadelphia farmer who had them working on his farm.

'Within a week after the five men came to work on my far...I know I could depend on them. I have found them to be loyal, hard-working, clean, and pleasant to work with. We like them a lot and have a high regard for them.'

New Jersey's loss, Pennsylvania's gain.

IV. New York

There wasn't much happening in New York as a far as prejudice went, at least as far as is covered in the camp newsletters. In the Granada Pioneer of May 3, 1944, there's an article about Mayor LaGuardia of New York City protesting any Japanese being relocated in New York or any state on the Eastern seaboard.

A second article in the Gila News-Courier of May 18, 1944, talked about some opposition in New York to the opening of a hostel. A family had taken up residence there and a couple of newspapers reported very nice things about them. Feelings were mixed among the people with some speaking against them, and some speaking in favor of them.

V. North Carolina

This is yet another state that there is very little about as far as prejudice goes. It comes from the Rohwer Outpost of February 3, 1943, and refers to some allegations Senator Robert R. Reynolds of North Carolina had made implying that the evacuees had basically a soft life in the camps.

The Heart Mountain Sentinel planned to invite the senator to visit the camp '...with us behind barbed wire under the watchful eyes of sentries who wear the same uniforms our brothers, husbands and sons in the United States forces...'

We should be pleased to share our one-room apartments and the rationed mess hall fare with him, and perhaps walk with him to our 'fine bathrooms' when the temperature is 30 degrees below zero.

The last part refers to the fact that the latrines were part of a communal bathroom and communal shower. There were no individual bathrooms in the barracks part of the camps.

VI. Ohio

Ohio had a few articles about it, but that's all. Most of the references to Ohio that I read in the newsletters were about hostels opening up in Cleveland and Cincinnati, and the type of positive reception most evacuees were receiving when they went to that state.

The Gila News-Courier of August 19, 1943, ran a section in its editorial part.

CINCINNATUS LIFES UP TO NAME. The Ohio state convention of the American Legion recently produced results which remind one too strongly of the California Legion. They seek the return of all released persons of Japanese ancestry to relocation centers.

A Cincinnati Post column, Cincinnatus, which has been consistently just towards loyal evacuees and believes in the worth of the resettlement proram, takes issue with the Ohio Legion. It states in the August 13 column:

'Cincinnatus can't go along with the American Legion (in convention here yesterday) which wants all Americans of Japanese ancestry sent back to concentration camps.

'The Legion, in resolutions, suggested that all people with Japanese blood in them were treacherous and away with them. This is like Japanese saying that all Americans are gangsters, on account of Al Capone, and all Americans should be locked up in Alcatraz.

'Or, it is like saying that since Nazis are awful people, all Americans of German descent should be locked up. Nobody ever thinks of being that absurd.

'A number of Americans of Japanese descent are working here now. Cincinnatus hears that their employers speak well of their fidelity. Their fellow-workers, after being suspicious, have come to respect them. They see that Americans of Japanese descent do not different from other Americans of the many races that make up America.'

One of the interesting things about that editorial is that the column uses the term 'concentration camps' for the internment camps, showing that they felt very strongly about the camps. Their argument about Germans is quite good.

The American Standard Version has a good translation of Matthew 7:16: 'By their fruits ye shall know them.'

How did the Japanese Americans act? Even though the evacuation and incarceration into the internment camps was sudden, a product of prejudice, and done without regard to our legal system, they went along peacefully. In the main they did the best they could in the camps. When the the U.S. asked for volunteers for a Nisei combat unit, the Japanese-Americans replied. They fought and died bravely.

There were a couple of labor problems that Ohio had. The Manzanar Free Press of February 3, 1945, had an article entitled USE OF NISEI IN INDUSTRIAL FIRM MEETS OPPOSITION, which was about the town of Painesville and the the Industrial Rayon Corporation plant. There was a plan to bring in about 150 Nisei women to work there but that got stopped dut to protests from a minority of the plant's workers.

The other problem was in Sheffield, where 'A proposal to bring in evacuees to work on truck farms in this city provoked stormy protests at a meeting of village council.' There was a labor shortage which necessitated more workers.

VII. Tennessee

As far as this state goes, there was only one article and that was from the Denson Tribune of May 14, 1943. It's actually a reply to something a Senator Tom Steward from Tennessee had said in the U.S. Senate. He wanted a bill to put every single person of Japanese ancestry into custody, and he wanted Congress to 'take away every single right of citizenship these people have.'

At one point he said 'I say that where there is one drop of Japanese blood that there is absolute Japanese treachery. ' He went on to make further off-the-wall statements like that. The rest of the article was a response showing just how stupid his statements were.

The above material is written by me.

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