In honor of Martha's conference today, here's part of Fischer's chapter on the subject in Liberty and Freedom:
In the Hawaiian Defense Command, Air Corps General Delos Emmons decided differently for a much larger population of Japanese Americans. Nearly 2,000 aliens and citizens were arrested for cause in Hawaii, but Emmons ordered that nearly 175,000 Issei and Nisei should remain free. Emmons used many arguments, among them that the labor of Japanese Americans was necessary for the economy of the island and important to the war effort. He also spoke of civil liberties, decency, and fair play. As a consequence, a majority of Japanese Americans in the United States and the territories were not interned — a story that has yet to find its historian. It was an act of courage and conscience by Emmons. He defied the United States Navy, top leaders in the War Department, and many western politicians, at heavy cost to his career. We remember the story of 120,000 Japanese Americans from four western states who were cruelly confined during the war. But we have forgotten the story of a larger number of 175,000 Japanese Americans who remained free. Mainly these decisions came down to two men. General John DeWitt yielded to panic and hysteria on the West Coast. General Delos Emmons found the courage and wisdom to go another way in Hawaii.Posted by Ben Brumfield at June 2, 2005 04:21 AM
Yep.
Interestingly, I met a man during an Internment commemoration event in 2002 who had lived most of his life in Hawaii. He was of an age to have been in one of the U.S. camps had he lived here. He suggested he felt badly about that, and he said he had attended a number of the commemoration "pilgrimages." When it was time for the group photo -- in which even utter outsiders like me were invited to stand -- this man declined to participate. I don't know if others feel the way he does.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at June 2, 2005 09:37 AMCol. Harry Fukuhara, Retd., talked about Emmons in some detail this afternoon. He said General Emmons received the same orders as DeWitt on the mainland but managed to avoid a mass roundup. He said Emmons had backing from the local heads of the FBI and of military intelligence -- the latter man being also in charge of ROTC at a local high school -- and also a chief of police who afterwards became governor of the state of Hawaii. Another speaker today noted that even in Hawaii many community leaders were imprisoned. But it sounds as though, just possibly, with different people in charge on the mainland West Coast, the results of Executive Order 9066 might have been less oppressive.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at June 2, 2005 07:37 PMWith all due respect to the merits of General Delos Emmons, I think we'd better remember that practical as well as moral considerations loomed large in his decision. Interning the Japanese-American population on Hawaii just wasn't a serious proposition from the beginning. The island would have collapsed from such a demographic upheaval. That wasn't the case in California etc.
Posted by: Alan Allport at June 3, 2005 05:07 AMYes, it was easier for him. But it's still a rebuke to the people who claim there was no other way to act at the time.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at June 3, 2005 10:02 AM