Frances Perry
Position Paper
Mislan/Chiumento
December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was attacked and 2,402 people were killed; 57 of them
were civilians. Our peace of mind in our country was rattled and we were forced to fight back.
We didn’t want to be attacked again nor have our military plans leaked to the Japanese. The way
we, the United States, thought would help was to put the Japanese Americans into internment
camps.
Many Californians thought that their state would be invaded, they were always paranoid.
General John Dewitt is my strongest witness in this Korematsu vs. United States case. General
Dewitt was a part of the military and was well aware of the spies from Europe and Asia from
within the United States. He has read reports on Japanese living in Hawaii taking part in the
surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. He was urged to remove all Japanese Americans from the West
Coast because of the signals from the coast to enemy naval vessels a sea. In Article 1, Section 9,
Clause 2, it states that the Habeas Corpus would be suspended. This means that a person would
be taken to court to see if their imprisonment was lawfully right. When the Japanese were placed
into Internment camps, Habeas Corpus was suspended. While General Dewitt was ‘removing’
the American Japanese it wasn’t unlawful or unconstitutional.
Since there was so much urgency getting into the war we weren’t able to analysis
everything. We didn’t have time to look at each individual Japanese American case, to find or
not to find evidence. Our national security was put in danger and this was all a part of the
immediate danger. Mayor Fletcher Bowron had no idea who was loyal to America and who
wasn’t. Threats against The Japanese on the West Coast, and the protection of them would
weaken the war effort. In the time of war you have to sacrifice all citizens, not just soldiers, there
has to be a give and take. The Internment wasn’t even ordered by the Mayor it was ordered by
the army after the President gave them authority. Some might argue that Executive Order 9066
Frances Perry
Position Paper
Mislan/Chiumento
was “unconstitutional”, what they don’t know if that Executive orders aren’t apart of the
Constitution, it’s just a rule change or it modifies a law. Executive Order 9066 was
‘constitutional’ because it was necessary to remove the Japanese at the time. This Order doesn’t
specifically say American Japanese, it is refered to as ‘any persons’, it just happened to be that it
would pertain to American Japanese citizens.
Another one of my witnesses is Philip Smythe. He was in a relocation camp as an
employee, there he heard about the American Japanese refusing to sign loyalty oaths. The
internees were starting riots, problems, and disturbances, they cause problems, just imagine what
they would have started on the coast. Mr. Smythe had left his job because he feared his safety
while in this camp. This is how every other person would have felt if the Japanese Americans
weren’t placed in internment camps. We didn’t want our people to be in a state of panic,
everyday looking over their shoulder.
The United States did what was right for the country as a whole. They didn’t examine
ever little detail in cases. We were attacked first and we wanted to insure the people of our
country that they would be safe. In no way, shape or form, were we wrong. If anybody was
wrong it was the American Japanese for previously sending signals to Japan from the coast
which led us to believe that they were enemies also.
Frances Perry
Position Paper
Mislan/Chiumento
Work Cited
1. "The United States Constitution." - The U.S. Constitution Online. Web. 28 Feb. 2012.
<http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html>.
2. "Things That Are Not In the U.S. Constitution." - The U.S. Constitution Online. Web. 29 Feb. 2012.
<http://www.usconstitution.net/constnot.html>.