◆ SpookStack

ere ee -in the arrests which had already been made of the Japanese, German, and f{talian alien enemies, factual cases had had to be prepared on cach one of them prior to their arrests and that these had to be approved by the Atlorney General, and that of course citizens of the United States were not being included in any arrests as the authority to make arrests was limited to alicn enemies and unless there were specific actions upon which criminal complaints could be filed, you had not approved the ar- resting of any citizens of the United States. The Secretary then called you... and you were in accord that the matter should be further considered and that certainly no action should be taken [ast night of the character recommended by the Treasury Agents in San Francisco .. . But the snowball had started. With (he hysteria there were the cold calculations of men who wanted the Japanese moved for economic reasons and because of racial prejudices. The decisions for the move- ment were made in the upper reaches of the Administration, And so it was that tens of thousands of loyal Japanese-American citizens made the sad journey from their homes aftcr a directive was issued giving the Army authority for the roundup. Hoover put his finger on the real reason for the evacuation when he told Biddle in a memorandum: The necessity for mass evacuation is based primarily upon public and political pressure rather than on factual data. Public hysteria and, in some instances, the comments of the press, and radio announcers, have resulted, is a tremendous amount of pressure b he eing brought to beer on Governor Olson and Earl Warren, Attorney General of the State, and on the mili- UNR. //-2.§- S$ =< oe tary authoritics. It is interesting to observe that little mention has been made of the mass evacuation of enemy aliens. This was a case in which the FBI, after many months of investiga- tion, had tageed and arrested 733 Japanese aliens in al{ parts of the nation by 6:30 a.M., on December 8. Those were the Japanese con- sidered by the FBI. be dangerous to the nation’s security. The evacu» ation swept up some 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry—the great majority of then citizets—on the West Coast alone. In this hysteria, Hoover turned aside a flood of offers from citizens’ and civilian groups across the country who wanted to resurrect the o} American Protective League of World War I. The FBE Director sy no place for vigilantism in World War I. Page 189 of "The FAI Story, .A Report to the People" by Jon #httehead 153