With very few exceptions the press has accelerated and intensified this feeling until the announcement that one is to speak on the subject brings veiled threats and warnings that he is dealing with “a hot potato.” If anyone ought to be tolerant and understanding, even in the heat of war propaganda, it ought to be one who calls himself Christian.  Yet we are finding it difficult to reconcile the so called Christian attitudes of some folk with the mind of Christ , though it is a source of inexpressible satisfaction to know that thousands of Christian men and women have kept their sense of balance and fair play in relation to this delicate Japanese relocation problem. 

At this point I am asking you to do something extremely difficult.  For some it may require patience, for others the exercise of genuine will power.  I am asking you to set aside your prejudices for the next twenty-five minutes.  Even forget, if you will, that we are at war. That is not easy to do with sons fighting in the Pacific War area.  Dismiss from your mind the propaganda you have read on the subject, and permit me to paint a picture for you solely in terms of human values and human beings.

It is unfortunate that so many Americans see no difference between the Japanese war lords and soldiers who have been trained to kill, and the Japanese who have lived peaceably in our midst for a generation.  It is assumed that there is inherent in the Japanese character an element of distrust, sadism and brutality that is not to be found in any other race. This assumption, of course, is based upon propaganda or the statements of so called experts, rather than upon the testimony of science.  Anthropologists have long said that there is no basic differences between races, that the 1,000 most brilliant men in the world would include representatives from every race and creed.  It is assumed that God put something vicious into the Japanese character that is found nowhere else. Do not misunderstand, I am offering no defense for Japanese militarism, brutality or sadism. The thing I am saying is that this is a product of training and environment, and is no more true of every Japanese than it is true that every American is a criminal.  Kagawa has long been recognized as one of the world’s outstanding Christians.  Our enemy has taken great pains to understand us. It is now our task to understand him if we are to win the war as well as the peace. 

The history of Japan is one of a Feudal System in which the chief end of man has been loyalty. The emotions that other people discharge in occasional anger, grumbling and brawling, the Japanese people store up and discharge all at once.  There is very little in Japanese life, in Japan, that permits the harmless diffusion of emotion; rather, everything locks it in, represses it, frustrates it, and chokes it. For instance, it is poor taste in Japan to disagree with someone else’s ideas, it is good taste to agree and to keep your thoughts to yourself.  Life is weighted down with the precise observance of ceremonies, and one must continually honor those of higher social standing or caste, thus the Japanese people have very little opportunity for self-expression, simply because they do not exist as individuals at all.  They exist only as a family unit as an object of loyalty to the state.  The entire social fabric goes back to Confucius who said that younger sons should obey older sons, that sons should obey their fathers, and fathers their fathers. The psychologist will tell you, then that the very simplicity and severity of Japanese life seem to be the forces that produce such powerful explosions of pent-up emotion.  Men who carry themselves with dignity when sober, go mad when drunk. War likewise provides an outlet for this emotion. It intoxicates the mind so that disciplined soldiers will go berserk when put on their own and commit atrocities that stagger the imagination. Mr. H. G. Bouvenkirk, our host at Manzanar, spent 16 years in Japan as a Missionary for the Presbyterian Church.  He was on a boat heading for America when Pearl Harbor came.  The ship returned to Japan and Bouvenkirk was imprisoned. He was transferred from one prison to another and says that it is not possible to generalize concerning Japan’s treatment of prisoners of war.  In one prison the treatment is fine.  In another fair, in another bad, depending upon the personnel and their background experience. 

This is likewise true of the Philippine camps.  Poor conditions in one camp may be counteracted by gracious treatment in another.  Mr. Bouvenkirk stated that the common people of Japan are beginning to break the strange hold of this Feidal System and its controlling war party.  Thousands of common people in Japan are as horrified over Pearl Harbor as we were, which is the reason they have smuggled food, etc.  to American prisoners of war in pain of death. I have been undertaking to say we must not be blinded by sheer prejudice to the fact there are many good, yes Christian, people in Japan, just as there are in Germany and Italy.  If when Japan is defeated, we can help these people to do away with the Feudal System and change the character of the nation’s educational system, life, liberty, and happiness will be within reach of the common man.  And a generation or two from now we shall find a national character in Japan comparable with our own.

In 1861 there was one Japanese in America.  It was not until 1880 that Japan permitted the migration of her people to America.  By 1898, 2,000 had come in response to a west coast labor need, by 1900 this number had increased to 10,000.  They were, of course, received with open arms, though the first anti-Japanese book was published in 1901.  During the First World War there was absolutely no resentment against the Japanese here since Japan was our ally.  Following the war pressure groups began their work, resulting in the Exclusion Act of 1923.  The American Legion, since its founding in 1919, has never once failed to pass an Annual

Resolution against the Japanese Americans, according to a most illuminating article in the April issue of Fortune Magazine.  Says Fortune, “It did not require a war to make the farmers, the legion, the native sons and daughters of the golden west, and the politicians resent and hate the Japanese Americans.”  For decades the Hearst Press has campaigned against the “Yello Peril” within the state—one percent of the population.  When war came Hearst’s campaign of hate and fear broke all bounds.  The motive behind this has been largely economic, as the Japanese grew vegetables on $70 million dollars’ worth of California land, thus competition was keen.

Since 1818 a generation of Japanese has grown up in America which knows no ideology loyalty to Japan.  They have grown up in a Democracy, not a Feudal System. Their education and environment has been different from that of their ancestors.  A friend high in the Consular Service tells me that one of Japan’s greatest disappointments of the war has been in the fact that the Japanese Americans did not rise up to paralyze the war effort on the Pacific Coast.  Someone says, “Well, we didn’t give them the chance.”  The fact is, we did.  It was not until March 29^th, 1942 that our 110,000 Japanese Americans were herded into Assembly Centers.  Within 24 hours after Pearl Harbor, Richard B. Hood, FBI Chief for this area, tells me 3,500 potential Japanese sabateurs had been rounded up, largely in the terminal island area.  These imprisoned were Japanese language school teachers commercial representatives and Government employees.  The personal history of every one of the 110,000 Japanese was personally known to the FBI.  106,000 were judged to be loyal.  The fact that not a single act of sabotage was committed on the west coast prior the evacuation in March indicates the FBI knew what it was doing.  Of the 3,500 locked up a considerable number had criminal records.  106,000 Japanese Americans knew but one loyalty—THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

The army, in 28 days, rigged up primitive barracks in 15 assembly centers to provide temporary quarters.  Each evacuee made his own mattress of straw, took his place in the crowded barracks, and tried to adjust to the new life.  A civilian agency, The War Relocation Authority was created, whose job was to hold the people until they could be relocated in orderly fashioned.  The WRA has taken a terrific beating for thus far having relocated 17,000 Japanese through the midwest and east.  In doing so it is fulfilling the function for which it was created.  Of the 17,000 thus far released, not one has been convicted of Anti-American activity.  Under the pressure of the Hearst and other papers, the general public has closed its eyes to these facts.  The DIES Committee has fumed at the WRA.  Herman Eberharter, a member of the DIES Committee said of its report, “It is prejudiced and most of its statements are not proven.”  The committee wound up by suggesting three policies, all of which the WRA had already adopted.  The committee accused the Manzanar Center of pampering the internees.  To this day not one member of the DIES Committee has set foot within the Center.

At first, the internees were very bitter over their loss of land, homes, money, and freedom.  They knew that German and Italian aliens had not been locked up; in fact, the Japanese in other sections of the United States had not been locked up unless the FBI had reason to suspect them.  This bitterness has largely been supplanted by a hope for the future. Rev. Seiya Sakai, former pastor of the Japanese Church across the street from us, expressed the sentiment of many when he said, “My people now realize that this is a product of war.  As Japanese it was to be expected that something like this would happen to us.  We are not complaining.  We believe in America’s sense of fair play and justice and are living for the future.”