Why Internment? Early Justification

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The internment of Japanese people in America began with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s drafting and putting into action Executive Order 9066. With this order, and within the exact wording of it, Roosevelt says that the country required, “every possible protection against espionage and against sabotage to national-defense material, national-defense premises, and national-defense utilities” (Roosevelt, 1942) This order was signed into effect February 14^th, 1942, just two months after the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. A foreign country without warning had attacked his country, the one he was supposed to lead. After he put the situation under careful consideration, and a few months deliberation, he decided that this was the best course of action. It was not an immediate act that could spew from the hate and an overreaction to the attack. This was carefully planned out as means of protection from an enemy with whom the country was at war. In hindsight people wonder how the government, and civilians could have allowed this, but they were told repetitively that the country was simply trying to protect itself.

The fact that they weren’t the only ones definitely doesn’t hurt their rationale. Their Canadian neighbors to the north were also taking action against the Japanese to protect themselves from the danger that they believe the Japanese-Canadians posed. They had seen what happened to America and did not want to be brought into the war, and had a fear of attack, the same way The United States did. Over 22,000 Japanese-Canadians, 14,000 of whom had been born in Canada were removed from their homes, had their personal belongings confiscated, and sent to be confined in internment camps across Canada. Canada hadn’t been attacked. Not only had they not been attacked, but throughout the war they were barely involved, yet they worried of attack and sabotage, and the danger of the Japanese people, the same way as The United States did. Ian Alistair Mackenzie, a Canadian parliamentarian was quoted saying of the situation, “"It is the government’s plan to get these people out of B.C. as fast as possible. It is my personal intention, as long as I remain in public life, to see they never come back here. Let our slogan be for British Columbia: ‘No Japs from the Rockies to the seas” (Mackenzie, 1945). It makes it much easier to rationalize the internment of Japanese people when an American citizen can look to the calm, peaceful Canadian nation and realize they are not only doing the same thing, but some of their congress men like Ian Alistair Mackenzie want to take it to a whole new level. The Americans had the idea and notion that once the war was over and they were presumably safe from Japanese attack, the interned people would be free to live as they were. John L. DeWitt stated, “ The evacuation was impelled by military necessity. The security of the Pacific Coast continues to require the exclusion of Japanese from the area now prohibited to them and will so continue as long as that military necessity exists.” Canada on the other hand, at least in Mackenzie’s mind, felt that Japanese should never come back, and Americans were able to think at least they weren’t that hateful.

            The United States government had no way of knowing who was and who wasn’t an enemy and argued that it precautionary to defend themselves against all Japanese who may or may not be dangerous to American safety. American civilian opposition to internment wonder why it was only the Japanese that were treated this way when America was at war with other Axis powers like Italy and Germany. While this could be simply answered by the fact that the Japanese were the only ones to attack the United States on their soil, as well as the difficulty to identify Italian or German-Americans, the fact remains that, while to a smaller scale, individual Italians and Germans were removed from their homes. Title III of the Smith Act, required all people, “who is fourteen years of age or older, ... and remains in the United States for thirty days or longer, [is] to apply for registration and to be fingerprinted before the expiration of such thirty days” (United States Congress, 1940). Using this registration, over 3,200 Italians were arrested and approximately 300 were interned, and over 11,000 Germans were arrested and 5000 interned. The Japanese, having already attacked American soil proved the biggest threat, causing the United States government to take action, however, all action wasn’t just taken against them. This fact helped rationalize the Japanese internment. If it were truly only the Japanese that were being treated this way, it would be easy to see how Americans might question this acts legitimacy and true reasoning behind it. However, with the internment and arrest of many Italians and Germans, citizens were able to see that anybody who was an international enemy may have people working on American soil.