MANZANAR Historic Resource Study/Special History Study

NATIONAL HISTORIC CONTEXT (continued)

Congressional Investigations

Prior to January 1943, the War Relocation Authority had implemented its evacuee relocation program with only a limited amount of national publicity. During the first half of 1943, however, as relocating evacuees began to fan out across roughly 75 percent of the country, the program attracted increasing attention from the national news media and Congress.

One of the developments that contributed toward making the WRA evacuee relocation program a national issue was the investigation conducted during January - March, 1943, by a special subcommittee of the Senate Committee of Military Affairs. The seven-member subcommittee, chaired by Senator A. B. Chandler of Kentucky, was appointed to consider the advisability of S. 444, a bill introduced for the purpose of placing the WRA under the administrative control of the War Department. The subcommittee opened its investigation in late January with hearings in Washington, D.C. Following these hearings in the nation's capital, Chandler and a special investigator travelled to the field and continued the investigation at a number of the relocation centers. The last formal public hearing was conducted by Chandler at Phoenix, Arizona, on March 8.

From the public relations standpoint, the investigation took on special significance since it occurred simultaneously with the registration program in the relocation centers. Statements attributed to the subcommittee chairman and others regarding the percentage of negative answers at some of the centers to Question 28 were widely published "without any indication of the background of registration or the climate of human emotion in which it was taking place." The impression created in the minds of the American public by these comments was "that a heavy proportion of the people in relocation centers were actively disloyal to the United States and basically loyal to the Emperor of Japan." Thus, a significant portion of the nation's press and public "became increasingly critical of WRA's policies governing relocation of the evacuated people and operation of the relocation centers."

The subcommittee report itself, however, expressed "only moderate disapproval of WRA activities," and it did not recommend placement of the agency in the War Department. In its final report, approved by the full Committee on Military Affairs on May 7 but not released until July 16, the subcommittee made four basic recommendations were :

1. That the draft law be made to apply to all Japanese in the same manner as to all other citizens and residents of the United States.

2. That those who answered 'No" to the loyalty question and those otherwise determined to be disloyal to the United States be forthwith placed in an internment camp, and that such determination should be made at the earliest possible date; and that the cases of those asking for repatriation should be disposed of at the earliest possible date.

3. That the loyal able-bodied Japanese be allowed to go out to work under proper supervision at the earliest possible time, in the areas where they will be accepted, and where the Army and Navy authorities consider it safe for them to go. . . .

4. That the proper, necessary Executive and departmental orders be issued to immediately make effective the policies outlined under Recommendations Nos 1 and 3. [31]

On July 3 WRA Director Myer testified before the Chandler subcommittee in executive session and approved California Senator Sheridan Downey's resolution for segregation of "disloyal" evacuees prior to its introduction in the U.S. Senate. Three days later, the Senate adopted Resolution No. 166, asking the President of the United States to order immediate segregation of "disloyal" persons of Japanese ancestry and calling for a public statement on conditions in relocation centers and plans for future WRA operations. [32]

During June 1943, the House Special Committee on Un-American Activities appointed a subcommittee to conduct an investigation of war relocation centers and WRA relocation and segregation policies, as well as evidence of subversion and disloyalty among the evacuee population. The subcommittee was composed of John M. Costello of California, chairman, Herman P. Eberharter of Pennsylvania, and Karl E. Mundt of South Dakota. Led by Congressman Costello who was determined to prove that the WRA was "coddling" disloyal evacuees in the relocation centers, the hearings began on June 8 with sensational anti-Japanese witnesses. Following its highly-publicized investigation during which it was critical of WRA policies, the committee recommended on September 30, 1943:

1. That the War Relocation Authority's belated announcement of its intention of segregating the disloyal from the loyal Japanese in the relocation centers be put into effect at the earliest possible moment.

2. That a board composed of representatives of War Relocation Authority and the various intelligence agencies of the Federal Government be constituted with full powers to investigate evacuees who apply for release from the centers and to pass finally upon their applications.

3. That the War Relocation Authority inaugurate a thorough-going program of Americanization for those Japanese who remain in the centers.The hearings of the Special Committee, as well as those of the Chandler committee, served as a catalyst to spur WRA efforts, already underway, to segregate the "disloyal" evacuees under its charge into a separate center. [33]