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The Wartime Handling
of Evacuee Property

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
WAR RELOCATION AUTHORITY

0 7 'flf

The Wartime Handling
of Evacuee Property

\
United States Department of the Interior

J. A.

KRUG,

Secretary

War Relocation Authority
D.

MYER,

Director

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents
U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington 25, D . C.

Price 35 cents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LEGAL PROVISIONS FOR CONTROLLING THE ASSETS OF ENEMY NATIO:til-

.ALS IiJ TitvfE OF WAR................ ......................

PROPERTY PROBLEMS CREATED BY THE EVACUATION OF JAPANESE
AME,RICANS. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • . • . • . • • • • • . • • •

PRELIMINARIES TO THE MASS EVACUATION OF JAPANESE AMERICANS..

ESTABLISHMENT OF PROCEDURES FOltPTIOTECTING EVACUEE PROPERTY.

THE EVACU.!!..'E PROPERTY PROGRAM OF THE WAH R.!£LOCATION AUTHORITY

Early Problems Relating to Movable Property.............
Problems Inherited by WRA from FSA.................. ....
Some Results of the Collection Policy of FSA............
r,Jorthern Farms, Inc. . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . •

Farm Manaeement, Inc., of Sumner, Washington........
The Nishimnto Farm in San Joaquin County, California

46
47
58
59

6J
65

REGULATIONS AND PROCEDURES GOVERNING WRA 1 S HANDLING OF EVAClJEE PHOPERTY. • • . . . . • • • • • • . • • . • • . . . • • . • . • • . • . • . . . . . • • • . . •

Legal Aid to Evacuees. • . . . • • • . • . . . • • • • . . . . . • • . • • • • . • . . • •
Adaptations of Procedures fnr Procerty Supervision to
the Various Phases of the Relocation Program........
Property Problems Arising from the Segret;ation Program..

74
80

S01/"E OUTSTANDING INSTANCES OF PROPERTY LOSS AND DAMAGE. • • • • •

The Story of a Blocked National............ .............

'I'he Case of Mr. Hideo .Mori. • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Evacuee Farms in the Fl0rin Area.. • • . • . . • . . . • . . • • . • • • • • •

The Higashi Property and its Legionnaire Custndhn......

93
98

Pilfering of the Nichiren Buddhist Church in Los Angeles
Vandalism in Guadalupe, California: Today's Fish Market
Difficulties of Peter Tsuchiyama in his Dealings with
Caucasian Operators on his Poultry Farm at Downey,

98
100

California . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

101

The Case of Nobu Miyamoto of Seattle ••••••••••••••••••••
The Case of Kenneth Kitasako ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Arson on Vashon Island: the Case of the Miyoshi Brothers
The Case of Thomas Ishimoto of Seattle ••••••••.•••••••••
The Mismanagement of Mrs. Yano 1 s Property in Seattle ••••

103
104
104
105
106

CONCLUSION ••••••••••• ,......................................

108

REFERENCES QUOTED; Key to Citations •••••••••••••.•••••••••••

110

LEGAL PROVISIONS FOR CONTROLLING THE ASSETS
OF ENEMY NATIONALS IN TIME OF WAR•
The right of a country at war to safeguard its interests by seizing property of enemy nationals has never been open to question. Article
I of the Constitution of the United States provides for the exercise of
this right by Congress. Section 8 of that article, listing the powers
of Congress, includes as the eleventh item the power of Congress "To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water. 11
In 1917, six months after the United States had declared war upon
Germany, Congress implemented this Constitutional provision with the
Trading with the Enemy Act of October 6. While the immediate purpose of
the act was the prevention of any utilization of German assets in the
United States which might further the Ger.man war aims or obstruct our
own, it was, as amended, "always regarded as an act of permanent legislation which could be applied in the event that the United States was
again involved in war." l The act authorized the President and the
Alien Property Custodian to seize and control any property in the United
Gtates which was owned by, or for the benefit of, a person in an enemy
country or a person within the United States who was proclaimed by the
President to be an enemy. 2 Section 2(c) of the act authorized the
President to include, by means of a proclamation, among "enemies" any
resident aliens, thus implying that without special presidential proclamation aliens of enemy nationality are not enemies within the meaning of
the Trading with the Enemy Act. Various State courts and the Supreme
Court of the United States have taken the position that in the absence
of a presidential proclamation to the contrary,legally resident aliens
of enemy nationality are not to be considered enemies. 3

On April 10, 1940, because of the Nazi invasion of Norway and
Denmark, the President by authority granted by section 5(b) of the
Trading with the Enemy Act (dealing with the suspension of economic relations with allies of the enemy) issued Executive Order No. 8389, initiating "freezing" control. This order "prohibited transactions involving No:n~egian and Danish property within the United States except as
authorized by the Secretary of the Treasury. As other countries were
invaded or dominated by the Axis, the Control was successively extended
during the summer and fall of 1940 to the assets of the Netherlands,
Belgium, France and the Baltic and Balkan States. In June 1941 the
Control was extended to Germany and Italy and to the rest of continental
Europe. On July 26, 1941, when Japan overran Indo-China, the Control
was invoked against Japan. At the same time, freezing control was extended to China at the specific request of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek
in order to assist China in the control of its economy and in order to
prevent Japan from usin~the occupied areas in China as a loophole for
evading the freezing control. 11 4 .
•Prepared by Ruth E. McKee, WR! Historian.

(1)

The First War Powers Act, of December 18, 1941-just 10 days
after the United States declared war upon Japan~-amended Section 5 (b) of
the Trading with the Enemy Act, granting the President. "broader authority
over all foreign-owned property, including the power to vest such property," 4-a and authorizing him to operate through any agency he might
designate. On February 12, 1942, the President addressed to the Secretary
of the Treasury a memorandum which transferred to the latter the powers
which Sections 3 (a) and 3 (b) of the Trading with the Enemy Act had
conferred upon the President. On ~arch li, 1942, the President signed
Executive Order 9095, which created the Office of f~ien Property Custodian
and delegated to him the powers conferred upon the President by Sections
3 (a) and 5 (b) of the Trading with the Enemy Act, as amended. Executive
Order No. 9193, signed July 6, 1942, amended Executive Order No. 9095,
spelling out specific policies in regard to the handling of property of
persons within countries at war with the United States and property of
persons within countries occupied by the enemy. According to one
authori:tY, in his article, "Law and Contemporary Problems 11 :
"The powers of supervision, control and vesting of these two
types of foreign-owned property are divided between the Alien
Property Custodian and the Secretary of the Treasury. 1Vhile
defining in detail the specific powers and duties delegated
to each agency the order provides that no person may challenge
the validity of any act of either the Alien Property Custodian
or Secretary of the Treasury on the grounds .that the authority
for such act was specifically delegated to the Alien Property
Custodian or the Secretary of the Treasury or vice versa. 11 5
The Alien Property Custodian, in an Annual Report, said:

"In contrast with the method of handling enemy property that
was followed during the last war, a distinction has been drawn
this time between two broad classes of property. Cash, and
investment securities not involving control over specific
productive assets, have been placed within the jurisdiction
of the Treasury Department. Other types of property, particularly productive assets, which must not only be kept from the
enemy but which also must be positively controlled if they are
to continue as parts of our economic system, have been placed
under jurisdiction of the Office of Alien Property Custodian.
"Property with which the Office deals falls into five
main groups:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Business
Patents,
Real and
Ships.
ProRerty

enterprises.
trade-marks, and copyrights.
Personal Property.
in process of judicial administration."
(2)

The first obligation of the Alien Property Custodian, the
identification of foreign property interests within the United States,
was considerably simplified by the fact that the Treasury Department
had taken a census of foreign-owned property as a defense measure prior
to the opening of hostilities viith the Axis powers.5-a

"In terms of ownership, the manufacturing enterprises, patents,
and miscellaneous properties were predominantly German, the
trading companies, banks, and insurance companies ~ostly
Japanese. 11 6=-a
PROPERTY PROBLEMS CREATED BY THE EVACUATION OF JAPANESE AMERICANS
The foregoing has described the provisions of the United States
Government for WRging economic warfare and protecting t he interests of
the United States in wartime. Before the war was long underway another
property problem demanded Federal attention and laid obligations upon
the government to protect the property int erests of a special class of
its own citizens and their alien parents, whom no presidential proclamation at any time throughout the war designated as enemies within the
meaning of the Trading with the Enemy Act. These citizens were the
Americans of Japanese ancestry, who were excluded by military order from
their hooes and sources of livelihood on the Pacific Coast.
For roughly two and one-half years, more than 100,000 people were
exiled from their homes. After January 2, 1945, the majority of them
were permitted to return to the West Coast and pick up the raveled ends
of the life they knew before the forced evacuation. December of 1945
found the last of the War Relocation Authority's Relocation Centers
closed and the population of Tule Lake, the segregation center, rapidly
dwindling. At the close of the year it was estimated that half of the
evacuees had returned to the West Coast. The remainder have been scattered throughout the country or, in the case of the thousands in the
Armed Forces of the United States, are serving with the °1rmy of Occupation in Europe or Asia. It is too early yet for any sort of final
estimate to be made of actual financial and property losses sustained by
the Japanese Americans because of the enforced evacuation, but it is
recognized that their losses have been heavy. Some lost everything they
had; many lost most of what they had.
It is desirable to consider the factors which combined to make a
considerable loss inevitable.
First of all, under stress of wartime fears and hatred, the prevailing sentiment of the West Coast population was opposed to any recognition of the rights and privileges of this little known and habitually
misrepresented minority that was racially associated with the enemy across
the Pacific.
(J)

Second, with the evacuation a foregone conclusion, the Federal
Government was slow to set up machinery for safeguarding the property of
the people who were to be evacuated, thus allowing an interval of golden
opportunity to swindlers and tricksters who had a terrified group of
people at their mercy.
Third, when Federal provisions
with unsolved property problems, they
loss or steadily mounting loss to the
when the Exclusion Orders remained in

were made for assisting evacuees
were inadequate to prevent initial
absentee owners during the period
force.

Fourth, responsibility for safeguarding evacuee property bounced
from agency to agency, finally coming to rest in the War Relocation
Authori~y after evacuation was an accomplished fact, well after the
period when strong measures might have prevented nruch hardship. In
August of 1942, after the evacuation had been accomplisHed, the War
Relocation Authority had transferred to it not only the responsibility
for evacuee property protection but also all the problems which had
developed in the period when two other agencies had shared the responsibility. WRA was handicapped at the· start by the necessity to finish work
begun by other agencies operating under different policies.
Fifth, most of the local and state law enforcement authorities of
the West Coast, throughout the years of the exclusion and to a great extent for some time after the Exclusion Order was rescinded, have shown a
considerable indifference to vandalism and even to arson commi~ted upon
evacuee property and have put up effective passive resistance to requests
to conduct investigations which might lead to arrest and prosecution of
offenders.
Sixth, the Western Defense Command, after ordering and conduc.t.,;i.ng
the evacuation, took no direct responsibility for safeguarding physically
the ·property which the evacuees were obliged to leave behind them, although that responsibility was very clearly assigned to the Western Defense Command in a memorandum of February 20, 1942, addressed by Assistant
Secretary of War McCloy to Lt. General DeWitt.
These factors have contributed heavily to the failure of the
Government's attempts to protect the property of the evacuated Japanese
Americans and have made the wartime handling of evacuee property a sorry
part of the war r ecord. Whether it is possible for the Federal government to prevent heavy property loss to any group of persons excluded
with emotion and in time of war from the region which contains their property is highly problematical. ½hether the evacuees will receive remuneration for losses depends upon the will of Congress to acknowledge Federal
responsibility for losses sustained.

(4)

PRELIMINARIES TO THE MASS EVACUATION OF JAPANESE AMERICANS
In spite of rather conspicuous writing on the wall, the fact of
war with Japan came as a shock to the greater part of the American public.
For months after the outbreak of hostilities people on the West Coast
lived in momentary expectation of attack by the air and sea forces of
Japan. Wild rumors of what had happened in Hawaii on December 7 flourished and were accepted so whole-heartedly as fact on the West Coast that,
when they were officially denied, some months after the attack on Pearl
Harbor, little publicity and less attention were given to the official
denials, and the majority of the people continued to cherish fantasy as
fact.
During the entire period between the 7th of December 1941 and the
official announcement of the Western Defense Command that all people of
Japanese ancestry would be excluded from the coastal area--March 2, 1942the Japanese American population was suffering the effects of a severe
war of nerves. Rumors were rife, crowding radio programs and the news
sheets, flying from person to person. The West Coast was zealous to get
rid of everyone with a drop of Japanese blood in his veins, and to do it
in a hu ,.'ry, but such practical details as what should be done with more
than 100,000 displaced people and the responsibility of a non-fascist
government to a dispossessed segment of its population were not being very
realistically considered in the early part of 1942. ·
The attack on Pearl Harbor having occurred on a Sunday., and the
Government having frozen bank accounts of all enemy nationals at once, the
heads of the resident Japanese families were stranded with whatever cash
they had in their pockets or homes over that week end. Business establishments of the Issei-and the vast majority of the Nisei were too young
to have business establishments-were closed on government order and put
under armed guard. Many Issei and Nisei workers in Caucasian homes or
businesses were promptly discharged by panicky employers. Many people of
good will and ordinary sense were so confused by the suddenness of war
and so unaware of the meaning and jurisdiction of the Trading with the
Enemy Act that they were afraid to buy a bunch of carrots from a Nisei
vegetable man for fear of, making themselves liable to prosecution.
Many alien fathers of families were picked up by the FBI and taken
away, some of them to be detained for months pending hearings, some to be
interned for an indefinite period, leaving their families in want. With
the press and radio commentators and politicians clamoring for the removal
of all Japanese, with some officials of the Federal Government promising
tacitly that the reraoval would be accomplished and others promising that
it would not,and with Nisei soldiers being discharged without explanation
by many commanding officers, there was every condition favoring mass
panic on the part of the Japanese .Americans. The utter insecurity of
their position, their bewilderment, their frequent lack of money to buy
food, all conspired to make them the victims of bargain hunters.
(5)

On January 29, 1942 the Attorney General, acting upon recommendations made by General DeWitt, began designating prohibited zones, small
areas which surrounded electrical plants, dams, or other vital installations. These areas were known as "spots." In the course of a few days,
99 such spots were designated as prohibited zones for aliens of enemy
nationality. '!he largest of the spots were along the water fronts of
San Francisco, San Diego and Wilmington. '!he last named imcluded
Terminal Island, the Japanese fishing village. During the first few days
of February the FBI gave special attention to Terminal Island, removing
three hundred or more of the alien fishermen in dawn raids. When the
prohibited spots were posted, the deadline for evacuation by aliens was
given as February 15 except for a few of the larger and last designated
areas, conspicuously a 40-square-mile area which embraced a goodly portion
of Los Angeles City and County. These exceptions were to be cleared by
February 24.
At that time it was considered sufficient if the aliens simply
left the prohibited spots. '!hose who had friends or relatives over the
line moved in with them, but many were without any place to go and were
by this time destitute. A study of any West Coast city newspaper for the
month of February 1942 reveals the general confusion that prevailed at that
period, the conflicting ideas and r'ecommendations that were geysering
from various civic and offici~l groups, and hov1 little action of a constructive or practical kind was being taken to remedy a bad situation.
Destitution among Japanese American families had been increasing
steadily with the_ frequent FBI raids and removal of alien family h~ ds.
With the announcement of clearance of prohibited spots, second-hand
dealers and thrifty housewives began to work on a terrified segment of
the population to sell anything of value for far less than it was worth.
Verbal assurances of the Government's intention to help the destitute
were made through the press, but substantial losses had been sustained
before actual machinery for giving assistance was set up, and extraordinary hardships were experienced by the Japanese Americans because of
the failure of the Government to make specific arrangements for shelter
and care for the dispossessed who could not finance their own removal and
subsequently because of the failure of the C-overrunent to publicize
adequately such provisions as were made.
A consideration of the items which appeared in the Los Angeles
Times during February 1942 on the subject of resident Japanese and their
citizen children conveys some idea of the confusion surrounding the issue
and of the complete sense of insecurity such confusion inevitably inflicted
upon the Japanese Americans.
What comfort the Japanese American population might have drawn
from Attorney General Biddle's nation wide broadcast over CBS on the eve
of the alien registration carried on in the first ·week of Februe.ry must
have been wiped out by an editorial appearing in the same issue of the
(6 )

Times that reported the Attorney General's message. The Attorney
General warned the nation against persecution of aliens, promising that.
the Department of Justice would "continue to be on the alert in protecting the internal security of our country," concluding: "I want to point
out that the persecution of aliens-economic or social--can be a twoedged sword. Such persecution can easily drive people, now loyal to us,
into fifth column activities.'' 8-c The editorial, titled "The Question
of Japanese-Americans," by W. H. Anderson, warned in a different vein:
"A viper is nonetheless a viper wherever the egg is hatched.
A leopard's spots are the same and its disposition is
the same wherever it is whelped.
"So a Japanese-American, born of Japanese parents,
nurtured upon Japanese traditions, living in a transplanted Japanese atmosphere and thoroughly inoculated
with Japanese thoughts, Japanese ideas and Japanese
ideals, notwithstanding his nominal brand of accidental citizenship, almost inevitably and with the rarest
of exceptions grows up to be a Japanese, not an
American, in his thoughts, in his ideas and in his
ideals, and himself is a potential and menacing, if
not an actual, danger to our country unless properly
supervised, controlled,and, as it were, hamstrung." 8-d
The next day's issue of the Times was virtually an all-Japanese
number, with the front page reporting in detail the first of a new
series of FBI dawn .raids upon Terminal Island and also the fact that the
Los Angeles County Defense Council was urging internment of "all dual
citizens"* and recommending that interned Japanese should be put in
temporary camps in Antelope Valley.8-g
The Washington correspondent of the paper reported that the West Coast Congressmen were pressuring for mass .e vacuation. The California
State Attorney General, Earl Warren was forwarding to Washington the
request of California law enforcement officers for immediate removal of
all alien Japanese within 200 miles of the Pacific Coast for the duration of the war, and he was launching a campaign to seize the land purchased by Japanese aliens for their citizen children, by escheat

The Defense Council was doubtless unaware that internment of "all
dual citizens" would have pretty well depopulated the coastal states.

(7)

proceedings.8-i~side by side with the report on the state attorneygeneral's conference with district attorneys and sheriffs, was a report
of another meeting from which the Governor of California emerged to state
that he and his conferees hoped to "avoid the extreme action of removing
all adult Japanese to and concentrating them in the interior of the
United States for the duration of the war. 11 8-j
From day to day the papers carried conflicting reports and rumors
and proposals for dealing with the Japanese Americans. Some officials
were promising that there would be no mass evacuation; others were promising that a mas·s evacuation was imminent. Senator Downey of California
delivered a nation-wide broadcast defending the policy of the Department
of Justice in regard to the Japanese problem on the Pacific Coast;
Representative Costello of Hollywood took issue with the Senator's contentions. '!he fanciful and garbled conclusions of the Dies Committee's
then unpublished "Yellow Paper" were released to the press and presented
sensationally to a public that was already inclined to see a Black Dragon
behind every grass blade.

~- In the 'Twenties California had lmown an epidemic of suits brought
against Japanese farmers at the instigation of Attorney General U. s.
Webb, author and sponsor of the restrictive statutes. Many Japanese who
had purchased land for their citizen ~hildren, vesting title in these
children, lost their farms by escheat proceedings. However, in 1928 the
Superior Court of Sonoma County ruled in the Fujita case: "Children
born in California of Japanese parentage are citizens of the United States
and of California, and are entitled to the same rights of property, real
and personal, as other citizens, irrespective of their racial descent; a
Japanese father though incompetent himself to acquire real property may
furnish money in good faith for the purchase of real property for his
minor children, who are citizens of the united States; minor children
have the same right to acquire real property as adults, and if a gift of
real property is made by deed to minors, delivery and acceptance will be
presumed; Japanese aliens are entitled to the possession of real property
for residential and commercial purposes under Article 1 of the Treaty of
1911 between the United States and Japan; a Japanese alien parent otherwise competent is entitled to be appointed guardian of the. person and
estate of his citizen child and the citizen child has the right to have
his alien Japanese parent appointed as such guardian." The enthusiasm
of the State attorney general for escheat proceedings was dampened by
this decision and other supporting ones, and until war with Japan occurred, little more was heard about fraudulent ownership of farm lands
by Japanese.9

(8)

The Times of February 7 headlined General Dewitt's sabotage alert
order.
11-:-, ➔~ ➔~ Army spokesmen said the sabotage alert was Statewide, but would not elaborate on reasons for the warning.
They said, however, it did not concern an air-raid
possibility.

"The alert came
istrator in San
300 citizens of
written notices

after Tom Co Clark, alien control adminFrancisco, announced that between 200 and
Japan, Germany and Italy will receive
by next Monday to leave prohibited areas.

"He said other groups totaling 10,000 in California and
including 1,800 in the Los Angeles area nrust obey the
Federal ouster order by February 24. Clark said that while
it was not intended to impose additional evacuations from
agricultural areas after February 24, the Army is resurveying city territory, indicating possible further movement
from those zones.
"The notices the aliens will receive through the mail will
instruct them to go to the Social Security Board offices in
their comrmmities. They will be given information and access to attorneys to learn their civil rights, if they
desire, and will receive funds if they cannot finance their
enforced moves.
"Efforts will be made to get them jobs in the interiorperhaps in Utah, Clark said.
"Possibilities of detaining alien and other dangerous
Japanese in the County's string of mountain road camps and
the jail honor farm at Castaic were explored yesterda~ by
Supervisor Roger Jessup and Sheriff Biscailuz." 8-w LThe
idea of using the jail honor farm, it was explained, could
not be developed unless the Army would accept all the current
honor system prisoners for service, thus vacating the honor
farmJ
A continuation of the front page story, found on an inner page is
the first sign of public awareness of the fact that the Japanese
residents were being victimized:

"Determined to halt assert.ed racketeering by junkmen and
secondhand furniture dealers upon the confused and panicky
families of alien Japanese seized by ~he Federal Bureau of
Investigation at Fish Harbor, Captain Basil Starkey of the
San Pedro police division assigned a detail of five men to
the Terminal Island area.
(9)

"Starkey quoted K. Higashi, president of the JapaneseAmerican Citizens' League, as complaining junkmen, and used
furniture dealers were telling wives of arrested aliens that
the Federal government intended to seize their household
belongings.
"Through this technique they were buying refrigerators,,
radios, stoves and other furniture costing from $50 to $200
for from $4 to $5, loading their purchases on their trucks
and driving away, Higashi complained.
"The police were instructed to aid Higashi in warning his
people not to sacrifice their belongings.
"Higashi was aiding Y. Sakamoto, head of the Southern
California Japanese Fishermen's Association, to register
aliens at the local postoffices. They also were attempting
to prevent hunger or destitution among families of aliens
now in custody.
"Sakamoto said he was obtaining power of attorney from
alien owners of jigboats to permit their sale to provide
funds to support the fishermen's families pending receipt of
Federal aid. About 45 of the small fishing boats are
involved. 11 8-l"l
The Terminal Islanders as a group were perhaps more thoroughly
victimized than was any other group of Japanese Americans. Terminal
Island began to develop as a fishing village in 1901. After 1907 it's
population was enlarged only by parents, wives, and children of the
fishermen. These immediate family members of resident fishermen were
allowed passports to the United States under the provisions of the
Gentlemen's Agreement. By 1917 Terminal Island had reached its maxiIIll.ll'Il
development. By 1942 the aliens of the colony had been in the United
States for a long time.13 Suddenly, with the outbreak of war, they and
their only means of livelihood were suspect. Hundreds of the immigrant
generation men were snatched from their families and taken away by the
FBI. The aliens left behind were not permitted to operate their boats,
and since most of the boats were operated by the cooperative labor of
fathers and sons, with the fathers' presence and superior skill essential,
the citizen sons were unable to continue fishing and all means of livelihood ceased. Unable to ply the only craft they !mew, these people read
or heard one half-fledged plan after another for the disposal of the
Japanese population. It became increasingly certain that they were
going to have to leave their homes, but where they were to go remained
an unsolved problem for large numbers of them. There was every reason
for them to be bewildered.

(10)

On Tuesday, February 10, 1942, posters were put up on Terminal
Island by Department of Justice order, warning all aliens that the deadline for their departure from the island was the following Monday,
February 16. However, on February 11, without warning, a presidential
order transferred Terminal Island to the jurisdiction of the Navy, and
Secretary Knox instructed Rear Admiral R. S. Holmes, Commandant of the
11th Naval District in San Diego to notify all residents of Terminal Island that their dwellings would be condemnedand that they would be
evicted within 30 days. 8-y This arrangement cancelled the order of the
Department of Justice, and on the face of the matter it seemed to constitute a reprieve of eviction sentence. Before a ·week had passed, the
residents of Terminal Island were ordered to be out within 48 hours of
notification.

The Terminal Islanders suffered special confusion and handicap
because of the changes in jurisdiction, changes in instructions, and the
omission of individual mail notices of eviction which aliens living within the areas designat.ed by Justice as prohibited spots received. These
individual notices instructed the recipient to go to his local Social
Security Board-and gave him the address of the office-where he might
avail himself of further instructions and such assistance as he needed
and could be provided by the Government.
The Federal Government, using Tom Clark as coordinator, had arranged with the Social Security Board that the latter would loan to the
Department of Justice, personnel from the Bureau of Public Assistance to
register and assist aliens affected by the designation of spots prohibited
to aliens of enemy nationality. These people functioned in the USES offices within each country, theoretically at the same time that the Department of Justice was conducting alien registration at the post offices,
from February 2 to 9. The Los Angeles office, however, did not open
until February 9.

By authority of the Alien Registration Act of 1940, all aliens 14
years of age or over, whatever their country of origin, had been registered
in that year. The 1942 registration was confined to aliens of enemy
nationality, and it was conducted under authority conferred by Presidential Proclamation No. 2537 issued January 14, 1942. Each enemy alien who
was 14 years of age or older was again required to fill out a questionnaire, to provide photographs, and to be fingerprinted.
Aliens required by pepQrtment of Justice orders to move out of a
prohibited spot were told. that they could get assistance from the Social
Security Board, but no pressure was put upon them to go to these offices
set up within USES offices. 'vtlen an alien went to his local Social
Security Board, he was asked to show his registration card, and if he
could not produce one, he was sent at once to the post office and told to
return with his card. The Social Security Boards registered all aliens
(11)

who called with a view to determining who needed assistance and what kind
of assistance. These boards were provided with a special fund and with
authority to provide vans for moving possessions, to make small cash
grants and to provide grocery orders on request. According to reports of
those who worked on this program, comparatively few requests for assist~
ance were made by Japanese alie~s. In the majority of cases, during this
phase of exclusion movements, only the alien members of a family left the
prohibited zone. In many instances the father of a family was alien and
the mother a citizen, in which case only the father moved across the line.
In other instances, both parents might be alien, but if one of the citizen children was old enough to take over the home and business, the chil~
dren would stay and the parents would move out. In general, only in
cases where both parents were alien and the children too young to be left
alone did the entire family move. The Social Security offices functioned
for the benefit of Japanese, German and Italian aliens up to February 19,
when Executive Order No. 9066 was approved. After that they confined
their attentions to the Japanese; no more Germans or Italians were moved
out. With General Dewitt's Proclamation No. 1, of March 2, 1942, Department of Justice orders were cancelled in favor of arrangements devised by
the Commanding General of the Western Defense Command. During the period
of March 2 to March 29, Japanese aliens who had been evicted under Department of Justice orders were legally in a position to return to their
homes, if they had chosen to do so-until the military moved all persons
of Japanese ancestry into assembly centers some weeks later.
To return to the plight of the Terminal Islanders, on 48 hours'
notice and without any direct information on where they might turn for
help from the Government, the Japanese residents, citizen as well as
alien, aged and infant, had to leave. Certain church groups, the
American Friends Service Committee, and a group known as Friends of the
American Way-organized in Pasadena to oppose persecution of the
Japanese Americans-went to work to help the uprooted people.
A large building at 506 North Evergreen Street in the Boyle Heights
district of Los Angeles was converted into a temporary hostel. Previously the building had housed a language school and had served as a community center for the Japanese residents of the neighborhood. In
emergency it could shelter 600 people. As need arose with the clearance
of "spots," churches and other language schools were converted to use as
hostels-at Compton, Saratoga, Norwalk, Blue Hills and El Monte. However,
the castouts from Terminal Island found haven, for the most part, in the
Forsyth Hostel in Boyle Heights. The friendly groups worked at high
speed, begging, borroviing and renting delivery and farm trucks to carry
families a.nd such of their possessions as had not fallen into the hands
of junk dealers to the hostel or to relatives or friends with room to
accommodate the homeless outside the prohibited area. Time was short,
and in spite of the efforts and good vdll of the helpers, much property '
had to be abandoned because there was not time to load it onto the trucks
and get it off the island within that 48-hour period allowed.
(12)

ESTABLISHMENT OF PROCEDURES FOR PROTECTING EVACUEE PROPERTY
Formal procedures for protecting evacuee property and the rights
of the owners were slow in being established. General DeWitt in his
recommendations of February 14 to the Secretary of War included as a
final item:
"Pending further and detailed study of the problem, it is
further recommended: (1) That the Commanding General,
Western Defense Command and Fourth !a-my, coordinate with
the local and State authorities, in order to facilitate
the temporary physical protection by them of the property
of evacuees not taken with them; (2) That the Commanding
General, Western Defense Command and Fourth Army, determine the quantity and character of property 1'ihich the
adult males ➔:- ➔:- ~-:- may be permitted to take with them; and
(3) That the Treasury Department or other proper Federal
agency be responsible for the conservation, liquidation,
and proper disposition of the property of evacuees if it
cannot be cared for through the usual and normal channels." 7
On February 19, 1942, acting on the recommendations of the West
Coast Delegation and his Cabinet members, the President of the United
States, invoking the extraordinary powers granted the Chief Executive in
time of war, signed Executive Order No. 9066, authorizing the Secretary
of War to prescribe military areas. The first two paragraphs of the
order set forth its justification and particular purpose:

"WHEREAS, The successful prosecution of the war requires
every possible protection against espionage and against
sabotage to national-defense material, national-defense
premises and national-defense utilities -)} * *
"NOW THEREFORE, By virtue of the authority vested in me as
President of the United States, and Commander in (}lief of
the Army and Navy, I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders whom he may from
time to time designate, whenever he or any designated Commander deems such action necessary or desirable, to prescribe
military areas in such places and of such extent as he or
the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from
which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect
to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or
leave shall be subject to whatever restriction the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion. The Secretary of War is hereby authorized to provide for residents of any such area who are
excluded therefrom, such transportation, food, shelter,
and other accommodations as may be necessary in the judgment
698705 0 - 46 - 2

(13)

of the Secretary of War, or the said Military Commander,
and until other arrangements are made, to accomplish the
purpose of this order. The designation of military areas
in any region or locality shall supersede designations of
prohibited and restricted areas by the Attorney General
under th e Proclamations of December 7 and 8, 1941, and shall
supersede the responsibility and authority of the Attorney
General under the said Proclamations in respect of such
prohibited and restricted areas."
In authorizing the Military to exclude i•any or all persons" whom
the Military might see fit to designate from home and source of livelihood, the Chief Exe cu tive was giving the military power over civilian
life that was unprecedented in the United States except under conditions
of martial law; also he was incurring an obligation on the part of the
Federal C-0vernment to protect the property rights of such persons as
should be excluded by military order.

Assistant .S ecretary of War McCloy under whose supervision Executive Order No. 9066 bad been drafted immediately upon his return to
Washi.ngton from West Coast conferences with the Commanding General of
the Western Defense Co~~~nd, did not include in that document any ins truction as regards the protection of eva cuee property . However, in a
memorand.wr. wh:lch the Assistant Secretary foniarded to Lt. General DeWitt
on February 20, 1942, a memorandum nontaining recommendat·ons based on
the Assistant Secretary's survey of the West Coast situation, Mr. McCloy
stres s ed the necessity of safeguarding the property of evacuated persons:

•

"It will, of course, be necessary that your plans include
provision for protection of the property, particularly the
physical property, of evacuees. All reasonable measures
should be taken through publicity and other means, to encourage evacuees to take steps to protect their own property.
½'hen evacuees are unable to do this prior to the time when
it is necessary for them to comply with the exclusion orders, there is always danger that unscrupulous persons
will take undue advantage or that phys i cal property unavoidably left behind will be pillaged by lawless elements.
The protection of physical property .from theft or other
harm is primarily the res ponsibility of state and local lawenforcement agencies, and you will doubtless call upon them
for the maximum assistance in this connection. Where they
are unable to protect physical property left behind in _military areas, the responsibility will be yours, to provide
reasonable protection, either through the use of troops or
throt1gh other approp_riate measures.~~ The appointment by you
Italics not in original.

(14)

of a property custodian and the creation by him of an organization to deal with such property in military areas may
become necessary. The provisions of the Executive Order and
the necessity in each given instance are such that you have
authority to take such action, either directly or through
another federal agency. In the development of your program,
it is desired that you accomplish it with the mininnun of
• individual hardship and dislocation of business and industries
consistent with safety." 7-a
It was certain, after February 19, 1942, that a mass evacuation
of the people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast would take place.
On March 2, General De1.Vitt issued Public Proclamation No. 1, in which he
designated Military Area No. 1, consisting of the western halves of the
Pacific Coast States and the southern portion of Arizona, and Military
Area No. 2, consisting of the remaining part of those States. He followed the proclamation with a press release in which he stated that the
Japanese nationals and all persons of Japanese descent would be the
first to go and in which he advised all persons of Japanese ancestry to
go voluntarily. It was also announced at this time that clearance of
Military Area No. 2 was not anticipated. The delay in setting up any
procedures for safeguarding the property of the excluded people is
emphasized by the following passage contained in General De':\'itt' s final.
report:
"Between March 2 and March 10, 1942, the discussions as
to evacuation procedures were general in nature and
specific planning had not emerged. The voluntary movement
did not gain momentum because means had not been provided
on the ground for aiding evacuees in the solution of personal problems incident to their voluntary exodus.
Prior to March 10 the General Staff of the ~\Testern
Defense Command and Fourth Arm:y had not engaged in any
extensive planning or preparation for the program. The
tactical duties imposed upon it were such that it was
unable to do so and at the same time meet the responsibilities imposed on the Headquarters by the essentially
military aspects of, its mission. Accordingly, on March 10,
by General Order No. 34, the Commanding General established
the Civil Affairs Division as an addition to his general
staff. On the day following,by General Order No. 35, he
created the Wartime Civil Control Administration, an operating
agency of his Command to carry out assigned missions involving
civil control." 7-b
11

(15)

A little further along the report states:
11 As an initial step in the facilitation
of voluntary
emigration, 48 Wartime Civil Control Administration
offices w.ere established, one in each important center of
Japanese population in the affected area. 'Ihese offices
were staffed by representatives of the cooperating Federal
agencies which had agreed to undertake certain specific
responsibilities in the program. 'Ihe Federal Reserve Bank
and the Farm Security Administration had undertaken to
provide property protection, under the direction of the
Wartime Civil Control Administration--the former, primarily
as to business and personal property; the latter primarily
respecting agricultural property. The Federal Security
Agency, through its various associated agencies, had agreed
to provide necessary social services. The 48 Wartime Civil
Control Administration offices (which became lmown as 'Wartime Civil Control Administration Service Centers')* were
staffed by a team with one or more representatives from
each of these agencies." 7-c

Responsible citizens and some officials had been concerned about
the lack of provisions for safeguarding property of the people selected
for evacuation. 'Ihe Fourth Interim Report of the Tolan Committee on its
Findings and Recommendations on Evacuation of Enemy Aliens and Others
from Prohibited Military Zones, May 1942, was emphatic in its criticism
of this lack.
tWitness after witness, appearing before the committee,
deplored the fact that no provision was being made for protecting the propert y of the persons who had already been, or
were about to be evacuated. Evidence that there were numerous
instances of sales of personal property at great sacrifice
appear throughout the record. In addition to the unanimous
demand for appointment of some agency with authority to take
custody of property, both personal and agricultural, suggestions were made that other minor but important details, such
as tax deferments and mortgage moratoriums should be given
serious consideration." 14
1

The report refers to and quotes from the testimony of
lawyers, the regional director of the Social Security Board,
regional director of the Farm Security Administration, State
generals, welfare workers, educators, and representatives of

ministers,
the
attorney
benevolent

The average busy person referred to them more simply as "Control
Stationso 11
(16)

societies, pointing to specific instances of widespread preying upon a
frightened segment of the popul~tion. It quotes at length from the
testimony of Carey McWilliams, then chief of the division of immigration
and housing, California Department of Industrial Relations, given ' in
Los Angeles in early March-the hearings took place from February 21
through March 12, at San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle.
"There is ample evidence that social and economic vultures
are already preying upon the unfortunate aliens who expect
to be evacuated. They are told to dispose of their property
and are frequently offered ridiculous sums which in panic
and desperation the evacuees are inclined to accept. Stories
are also being circulated which indicate that unless great
care is exevcised, and that immediately, we shall have a
repetition here of what transpired in Germany and in other
countries as the result of large-scale evacuation. People
have been threatened that unless they dispose of their
property to those who are eager for it, they will be reported
to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and their property
will be confiscated. In the absence of a statement from
high Government authorities to the contrary, the aliens who
are at the mercy of rumors and rumor mongers have no choice
but to accept what they are told at the moment. The immediate
creation of an Alien Property Conservator or a bure_a u for
its conservation, with an immediate announcement that transactions under duress will not be recognized and that the
interests and property of aliens will be protected in every
way, would not only give the unfortunate victims a sense of
needed relief, but make them feei that they are living in a
country where human dignity and human values are more than
mere phrases mouthed by politicians. It is absolutely
essential that the problem of alien property conservation
be handled as an integral part of the entire program. In
other words, alien property conservation should constitute
a function of the authority proposed, and should not be
handled in an unrelated and uncoordinated manner.

" A1 so a moment I s reflection will suffice to indicate that
there are literally hundreds of minor but important problems
involved, such as the possible necessity for working out
ways and means to defer payment of taxes and contractual
obligations. All of these problems should be centralized
in the Authority, because of their intimate connection with
the problem of welfare, maintenance, property conservation,
preservation of morale, etc.

(17)

"The foregoing program will, no doubt, require modification
from time to time as the situation develops. But if put _
into · execution promptly with scrutinizing attention to the
selection of personnel and the elimination of the usual interdepartmental difficulties and jurisdictional conflicts it
would, I am confident, meet all the requirements set for it.
It would above all demonstr~te that democracy can work
efficiently, effectively, afid with that consideration for
the welfare of the people who brought it into being, which
differentiates it from autocracy and makes it worthy of any
sacrifice." 14-a

The committee at the close of the first hearings-in San
Francisco--had sent a telegram to Speaker Rayburn, the President, the
Secretary of the Treasury, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of
war.
We urge the imr.tediate establishment of a regional alienproperty custodian office for the Pacific coast area. We
have learned of numerous sacrifice sales by aliens; this
office should have existed before the evacuation of
February 15. It must be functioning before additionalprohibited areas are evacuated. Many witnesses before this
committee have urged this action.
11

"Citizens who may be evacuated will require similar protection for their property, and legislation may be needed
to set up such custodianship.
11 It is our impression
that the need for an alien property
custodian on the coast is but one example of a general need
for advance planning for the civilian problems which are
accompanying the evacuation of aliens and will accompany
any future evacuations. The Army, after designating
strategic areas, needs the planned assistance of the
civilian agencies of the Federal Government in handling
tne actual evacuation and in resettling the evacuees. The
need for advance planning and coordination of all civilian
agencies concerned with evacuation problems exists now." 14-b

The telegram was despatched orf' February 23. On February 26, the
committee received a reply from the Secretary of the Treasury:
"Your telegram of February 23 has been carefully studied
by this Department. We are in agreement that there is a
general need for careful planning with respect to the
resettlement of persons, both aliens and citizens,
evacuated from strategic areas and that the P!oblem is
(18)

one in which the Federal Government should assume a
major responsibility. mine the Treasury Department
stands ready to handle any problems within its proper
sphere of operation, I am sure that you will agree that
the problems involved in national defense migration are
primarily social problems envisaeing the uprooting of
a large segment of populations from an area and the
transplanting of this group to a new locality. The
problem is ver:r similar to that of the Dust Bowl migration
or in the resettlement of families moved from submarginal
land. As we see it, the same problem would be raised if
the Army decided to clear a subste.ntial area of all of
its inhabitants in order to use the ground for maneuvers,
munitions dump, or a firing range. In any such case the
inhabitants of the area on short notice would have to be
resettled in ne1N areas, find new employment, and liquidate at forced sale their immovahle property. As we see
it, vesting title in the United States Government of the
property of the groups bein13 resettled would only further
complicate an already aggravated social problem. Moreover, as you pointed out in your telegram, the problems
are not confined to aliens but undoubtedly will involve
United States citizens as well. It is the view of the
Treasury Depart~ent that the social problc ~s involved in
any such resettlement problem should be handled b;y one or
more departments of the Ferl eral Government handling similar
social problems or •if need be, a new agency- created for the
purpose of dealing vii th the problems of national defense
migration." 14-b
However, hetv1een February 26 and 'hrch 5, the Secretary of the
Treasury bad altered his views to the point of sending the following
telegram, bearing the latter date, to the Federal Reserve Bank of San
Francisco:
"Sugge sted :proeram for the Fe<:leral Reserve Bank of San
Francisco and other :!)Ublic agencies to deal with property
of evacuees fro:n Pacific Coast rrd.litary areas. 'l'he success of the proposed proeram will depend upon placine
complete responsibility for its execution in a responsible West Coast aeency acting under the general rlirections of the local military authorities.
11

I - Scope of Problem:

"The evacuation on short notic::e 0f tens of thousands of
persons from militarJ areas on the Pacific Coc.~s t raises

(19)

serious problems in connection with the liquidation of
their property holdings and the protection of the property of such persons against fraud, forced sales, and
unscrupulous creditors. Obviously the emergency will
cause financial loss to the group involved. However,
the following program is intended to accord to this group
reasonable protection of their property interests consistent with the war effort.
"II - Legal Authority:
"Since the program is one basically to assist the
evacuee in the liquidation of his property, it is expected
that in most instances the evacuee will voluntarily avail
himself of the facilities afforded by this program.
Government sanctions will be necessary to deal with creditors and others who seek unfair advantages of the evacuees. There is ample legal authority now vested in the
military authorities and in the Treasury Department which
can be delegated to such West Coast agency to deal with
this problem without necessity of obtaining further
legislation or new executive orders.
"III - Administration of Program:
"The nature and urgency of the situation, coupled with
the large volume of transactions that will require prompt
handling, necessitates the program's being administered
by an agency on the West Coast cloaked with full authority
to act without reference to Washington. The over-all control of all aspects of the evacuati.on rrrust obviously rest
in the military authorities. Subject to this over-all
control by the Army, the direct responsibility for the
execution of the property aspects of the program should
be placed in the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco,
which has branch offices in Los Angeles, Seattle, and
Portland. The Federal Reserve Bank will be in a position
to obtain the cooperation of other Government agencies
and of well-known and experienced individuals and institutions in the various communities throughout the West Coast
area. This cooperation, together 1i:ith the established
integrity and ability of the Federal Reserve Bank, will
enlist the confidence of all of the affected groups and
discourage gouging by creditors or other self-seeking
interests. The Federal Reserve Bank will also work in
close liaison with the Federal Security Agency, the United
States Department of Agriculture, and other Federal, State
and local public agencies that can be of assistance in
(20)

dealing with the property during the course of its
liquidation. These agencies will undoubtedly be called
upon by the military authorities to handle other aspects
of the evacuation problem, such as the transportation
and resettlement of the evacuees, and their re-employment
in new areas.
"The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, which is the
Fiscal Agent of the Treasury pepartment, will be clothed
with ample authority to execute the program. The
Treasury Department will lay down the broad principles
and objectives of such program$ as well as the general
procedure to be followed. The Department \'!ill also
furnish the San Francisco Bank by airplane with the
requisite number of trained experts to assist in working out the details of the program in the field and to
participate in its execution. If need be the Department is in a position to provide the San Francisco
Federal at once with 100 or more men for this purpose.
The keynote of this program is speed. It is believed
that it can be put in operation by Monday, March 9, 1942.
"·IV - Outline of Program:
A.
tion
will
from
11

Properly staffed offices under the direcof the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank
be opened at once in the local communities
which evacuees will be moved.

"B. Announcement will be made throughout the
area by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
that its representatives in these offices are
prepared to assist evacuees with the problem
of liquidating their property and protecting them
against those seeking to take unfair advantage
of their plight.
"C. These representatives will assist in putting the evacuees in a position to obtain buyers,
lessees, and other users of their property on
fair terms. In cases where the evacuee is ,unable
to select his own agent to dispose of his property, the Federal will be prepared to act as
agent for the evacuee under a power of attorney
or similar arrangement and take steps to liquidate the property on fair terms.

(21)

"D. Evacuees threatened by creditors will be
encouraeed to come to the representatives of
the Federal for advice and guidance. The
Federal representatives ·will also discuss the
matter with the creditor with the view to
working out a fair settlement and limiting the
remedies that may be pursued by the creditor
who threatens unfair action. By and large the
mere existence of this proe~run of helping
evacuees will eliminate or forestall most of
the sharp practices that are now feared.
"E. In some cases the property of the evacuee
may be such that its real value can only be
realized at a future time, e.g., Japanese
novelties. In such cases the bank's representative will assist the evacuee in arranging for
the storage of such property if that is the
wish of the evacuee.
"F. On agricultural properties the bank's
representative, with the assistance of representatives of tl":e United States Department of
Agriculture, will attempt to arrange for the
leasing or sale of such property or if need be
for the growing of the crops, with a view to
preventing their loss through inattention.
"G. '!he Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
and its representatives will be cloaked with
adequate authority to cope with the problems
arising on the basis of existing circumstances.
The program will· be flexible and at all times
the bank will attempt to keep matters on a
voluntary basis, satisfactory to the evacuee.
Where these efforts fail it may be necessary
for the bank's representatives to step in and
take the property over for the purpose of obtaining a fair and reasonable liquidation.
"It is expected that the setting up of this
program and the accordance to the evacuee of
facilities for the liquidation of their property
should greatly expedite the departure on a
voluntary basis of the evacuees from the i:tllitary area." 13

(22)

On March 9, the Secretary of the Treasury addressed the Tolan
Committee in a telegram which duplicated the one which he had sent to
the Reserve Bank of San Francisco on March 5, and which contained these
two additional paragraphs:
"'l'his program is beine put into effect at the request of
the Secretary of War and will be carried out under the
general direction of the local military authorities.
Full a1.1.tllority has been delegated to the Federal Reserve
3ank of San Francisco to carry out such a program.
"I am as}cing John W. Pehle, assistant to the Secretary,
who is in San Francisco for the purpose of helping the
Federal Reserve Bank to put this proe;ram into effect,
to communicate with you and keep you aovised as to the
progress of the program." 14-c
On March 11, 19/.i.2, the President signed Executive Order No. 9095,
creatine the Office of Alien Property Custodian within the Office for
Emercency Management. On the day following the newly appointed Alien
Property Custodian, by means of a statement which he issued at a press
conference hel~ jointly with the SecrRtary of the Treasury,
➔:- ➔:- * deL,gated to the Secretary of the Treasury all
power and authorit:r under sections 3 (a) and 5 (b) of
tho Trodir.g with the .::":ne:n? _\ct , as amended, conferred
upon me b~r the Presir:lent ➔:- -::- ~'" pending the staffing and
ori:_;anizatfon of the Office of th ,.:i :'.lie!l Property
Custodian ,:- ➔~ -r.-rr lli-c
11

On March 12, 1942, General DeWitt addressed the Federal Reserve
Bank of San Francisco in a letter which contained the authorization and
directions of the military authorities:
11 ➔c -;:- ➔:I am familiar with the contempluterl program dealing
with the problem of evacuees and I find that the prompt
execution of such a proera~ri is essential to the successful
prosecution of the war and the performance of my dut;y
under Executive Order No. 9066. Accordingly, I hereby
authorize 2nd direct you to take all steps which in your
judgment are necessary or desirable in order to carry out
the objective of the program.

"You are authorized and requ8sted to employ such personnel
and set up such offices within the Western Defense Command as you may consider o.c1visable, necessary or expedient for the purpose of carry:i ng out ·the program of dealing

(23)

with the property interests of said evacuees. You are
further authorized to employ such personnel and appoint
such sub-agents as you may see fit in connection therewith.
"You will be reimbursed for all necessary and proper
expenses incurred in connection with the carrying out
of this program. Furthermore, you are directed to
perform any and all acts incident to the accomplishment or furtherance of this program and as such you
are, of course, entitled to be reimbursed for all
necessary and proper expenses and obligations arising
out of such agency, for which under law such an agent
would be entitled to reimbursement.
"It is understood that in executing the foregoing no
warranty of my authority is included nor is any personal liability imposed upon or assumed by the undersigned. 11 13-a
The Secretary of the Treasury had by telegram on March 7 delegated to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco "Full authority to
exercise any and all powers delegated to the Secretary of the Treasury
under Section 5 (b) of the Trading with the Enemy Act, as amended by
Title III of the First War Pov1ers Act, 1941, together with all other
powers vested in me, for the purpose of carr;'1.ng out this general
program." 13-b
Thus authorized, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
established the Evacuee Property Department under the general supervision of a vice president at the head office, and under the direct
supervision of an assistant cashier. The San Francisco office opened
on March 9, a second principal office opened in Seattle on March 12,
and the third and fourth principal offices opened on March 13 in Los
Angeles and Portland.13-c Field offices were established as needed at
various points in the three coastal States and one in Phoenix to provide services to the Japanese forced to evacuated from the southern
third of the State of Arizona. At the peak of operations, in May 1942,
184 persons were employed in the Evacuee Property Department. In addition to its own offices and field offices, the Evacuee Property Department maintained personnel in each of the WCCA control stations that
operated during evacuation movements.
March 18, 1942, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of
San Francisco issued Special Regulation No. 1, wh-ich provided the
authority to "freeze" evacuee property and made provision for a licensing system to effect transactions involving blocked property.13-d The

(24)

president of the bank on the previous day had given a release to the
press for publication on the 18th to publicize the freezing power of the
bank.
"In order to protect Japanese and other evacuees, the
Fede~al Reserve Bank of San Francisco as Fiscal Agent
of the United States, today issued regulations designed
to bring about equitable settlements between creditors
and West Coast evacuees.

"The new regulations are intended to forestall unfair
action by unscrupulous creditors which would be detrimental to the interests of the evacuee and to minimize
his losses in connection with the disposition of his
property.
"It is anticipated that this will be accomplished to a
large extent by direct appeal to the creditors• sense
of fair play and the obvious necessity for complete
cooperation in the administration of the evacuation
program.
"'We want any Japanese or other evacuee who· finds that
he has difficulty in reaching an equitable settlement
with his creditors to come to the nearest office of the
Evacuee Property Department of the Federal Reserve Bank.
At the bank we can discuss his case and take the necessary
steps to protect the evacuee from unjust losses,' William
A. Day, President of the Federal Reserve Bank, stated.
"Bank officials warned that the initiative under the new
regulations will rest with the evacuee. After the evacuee
has attempted to make an equitable settlement with his
creditors and has failed, he should go to the nearest
office of the Evacuee Property Department of the Federal
Res erve Bank and lay all the facts before one of its
representatives.*
"The bank will call in the creditor and hear his side
of the case and make every effort to bring about an amicable settleoent of the matter. If the creditor is
unreasonable and insists on taking unfair advantage of
the evacuee, the Federal Reserve Bank may freeze the
evacuee property by designating it as Special Blocked
Property.
➔~

Italics not in original.

The press emphasized the points indicated.
(25)

Following this step the bank will either post a notice on
or near the property of the evacuee stating that the property
described in the notice is Special Blocked Property, or will
notify the person holding or having possession of the property, or persons having an interest in it, that such property
is Special Blocked Property. Federal Reserve Bank officials
stated that persons dealing with evacuees may assume that
their property is not Special Blocked Property unless they
are affirmati,,ely on notice to the contrary.
11

"After the property has been declared Special Blocked Property,
any acquisition, disposition, or transfer of that property is
subject to a license issued by the Federal Reserve Bank.
Applications for such licenses may be filed with the nearest
office of the bank.
"Because the bank wishes to protect the evacuee not only in
t,ransactions involving real property but also in those
involving all kinds of personal property, the regulations
make it possible for any kind of property to be designated
as Special Blocked Property.
"By these broad provisions the regulations enable the bank
to protect the evacuee in such typical transactions as conditional sales, instalment purchases, or any other type of
dealing in any kind of property, if the evacuee will first
undertake the simple step of petitioning the bank to declare
his property Special Blocked PropertJ'•
"The bank made clear that it will be on guard for any attempt
on the part of evacuees to avoid the payment of reasonable
creditors' claims through today's regulations." 13-e
The report of the Federal Reserve Bank on the preformance of its
Evacuee Property Department contains the conunent:
"Special Regulation No. 1 provided a forceful weapon for
discouraging inequitable action on the part of creditors
and others dealing with the property of evacuees. Potentialities of this regulation were recognized by creditors
and that recognition was an important factor . in the
settlement of numerous problems which other1~ise vmuld hav~
been subject to long dispute. Although the regulation was
of immense value,.. there was no occasion to make direct use
of its power." lJ-e

(26)

The head office of the bank cautioned
in Instruction Letter No. 2, dated March 19,
not eA-tended to the field offices, and field
make recommendations to the head office.13-f
dated March 28, warned further:

its field representatives
1942, that the power was
representatives could only
Instruction Letter No. 6,

"The only cases in which the power of freezing control
covered by Special Regulation No. 1 will be exercised are
those in which it clearly appears either that the evacuation program ·will be delayed unless the power is exercised
or the evacuee is being taken advantage of by reason of the
fact that he is or may shortly be under orders to leave the
cornmunity.

"Generally speaking, the only cases' in which the. freezing
control, in relation to a situation v1hich might be settled
by litigation, would be justified are those in which the
rights of the evacuee are clear and, by reason of indigence
or the necessity for immediate departure from the community,
the evacuee is not able to have his rights determined in
ou;r: courts of law. 11 13-g
The Federal Reserve Barlk of San Francisco had one more delegation
of authority before the end of March. Milton S. Eisenhower, Director of
the newly created War Relocation Authority, addressed the Secretary of
the Treasury in a letter which included the following:
I -::- ➔, 1~ as Director of the War Relocation Authority and to
the extent of my authority to do so, delegate to the
Treasury tepartment and its agencies, including the Federal ·
Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the authority vested in me
under Executive Order No. 9102 of March 18, 1942, to assist
ersons removed under such Executive Order No. 9102 or under
Executive Order No. 90
of February 19 1942., int e management and disposal of their property." 1 -h
11

Business or commercial property and movable property-with the
exception of farm machinery which became the responsibility of the Farm
Security Administration--were the proper concern of the Federal Reserve
Bank. However, "All property problems were handled on a purely voluntary
basis and the evacuees were encouraged at all times to make such arrangements as they might desire with respect to their properties. 1113-i The
principal result of this pol1cy was the extreme reluctance of the
evacuees to seek assistance of the Federal bank. The great majority of
those .,~ho did ask help were people who had been unable to make . any sort
(27)

of arrangement before registration at the control station for entrainment. At the control station, in the course of processing, he was
asked pointedly, "Have you disposed of your property?" If the answer
were, "No," the representative of the appropriate agency exerted himself
to assist the evacuee. The contents of Instruction Letter No. 19, dated
April 10., 1942, addressed to field representatives and signed by the
vice president of the bank at San Francisco are significant:
"We have every reason to believe that evacuation in re~ining
areas will be carried forward in a comparatively short time.
Experience indicates that the actual evacuation is greatly
facilitated when property problems have been satisfactorily
adjusted prior to notice of evacuation. We therefore urge
that every effort be made to contact potential evacuees in
your area to the end that a solution be found to any property
problems they may have.
I

wish to reiterate that it is dur responsibility to see
that such settlements are carried through on an equitable
basis. It is not sufficient merely to advise the evacuee to
settle his affairs or consult his creditors. You should., in
each instance., go sufficiently into the details of the problem
to satisfy yourself as to the character of the problem and
then follow through until you have definite knowledge that it
has reached a satisfactory conclusion.
11

'/'l~

"We further request that you review your interview files and,
in instances in which advice was given but you do not lmow
the final disposition, that you endeavor to contact the
evacuee and learn from him the results of his efforts. This
will then enable you to complete your file.
"Your reports and records should fully set forth a complete
history of the case so that in future the file will reflect
fully the problem presented and the solution arrived at.
Remember, undoubtedly cases will be found in the future in
which we shall be called upon to defend our actions.
"That we have not had referred to us more critical cases
raises a question in our minds as to whether field representatives are getting close enough to the problems presented, and
being thorough enough in their investigations. V;e of course
do not welcome the use of the freezing power; nevertheless.,
such power is available and, as previously instructed, you
should promptly contact the office of the Federal Reserve
Bank of San Francisco in your zone if its use seems desirable. 1113-j

(28)

During the period when "voluntary" evacuation was encouraged, the
Federal Reserve Bank did not consider it necessary to provide facilities
for storage of movable property or for the disposition of evacuee owned
motor vehicles. However, after controlled evacuation emerged, at the
end of J:farch, the ban.k was inst:ructed by the military authorities "to ·
provide warehouse facilities in a manner ~-1hich trould not exhaust or burden facilities of that character already in existence ➔~ * -l',. Every effort
v1as made to keep the number of viareh,)uses at a minimum to limit guarding
costs." :E vacuees living in remote com::mnities or rural 2:reas were advised, in order to guard against vandalism and pilferage, to concentrate
their gaods 11 i:1 depositories of their own choice," and "on a voluntary
basis." If the evacuees acted on t his suggestion, which was ~fter all
in line with what they had been doing all along , and decided to store
their goods in a church or a store, then the Federal Heserve Bank provided drayage facilities "in connection with each controlled evacuation
operation." 13-k At the close of the Federal Reserve Bank's program of
evacuee property handling, it turned over to the Relocation Authority
Government warehouses with contents totaling "2i983 family, units of property, made up of 38,693 individual parcels. !'* 3-1
By late March, when controlled evacuation emerged, tha Federal
Reserve .3ank worked out V.'ith the militar:r ::nithorities e. plan for bandling
evacuee-owned automobiles and trucks. "Under this plan, evacuees had
three alternatives: they could sell, store or other,dse dispose of their
automobiles privately; they could store them in the custody of the b&nk;
or they could sell them to the Army through the bank's facilities." 13-m
As an evacuee reported at a control center after the area in which he
lived had been posted for exclusion, he was handed the Western Defense
Command and WCCA Instructions to Evacuees Re_g arding Disposition of Motor
Vehicles. To the evacuee who had not yet disposed of his car or truck,
either because he had been offered too little for it or because he had
hopes of being allowed to reestablish himself in the interior where he
would need his motor vehicle, these _instructions offered little hope or
reassurance. They began:
"Evacuees will not he permitted to take their motor vehicles
to reception centers. No assurance whatever can be given that
evacuees will be enabled at some future time to have the motor
vehicles now owned by them returned for their individual use.
"The Unitee States AJ'my is authorized, in its discretian, to
purchase motor vehicles fro~ evacuees.

A grand piano was counted as four parcels, its body being one, and each
of its three legs an additional piece.
698705 0 - 46 - 3

(29)

"Prior to evacuation, motor vehicles may be stored, sold or
otherwise disposed of by the owner privately, without governmental interference or assistance."
ls alternatives to storage or sale, the instructions offered to
the evacuee:
"Alternative I. To deliver his motor vehicle to Federal
Reserve Bank of San Francisco, as Fiscal Agent of the United
States, for storage at owner's risk, without insurance;
which storage will, in Most instances, be in open are:1s (at
Assembly Centers or other designated places) and must of
necessity be of a character which will subject motor vehicles
to a more or less rapid deterioration.
"Alternative II. To offer his motor vehicle for sale to the
United States on the following basis:
"The motor vehicle will be appraised by two disinterested
appraisers and, in its discretion and at its option, the
Army may buy the motor vehicle at the appraised price ,vhich
shall not, however, exceed the Blue Book wholesale value in
the locality where the purchase is consummated." 13-n
The ruling that evacuees could not take their cars to assembly
centers was relaxed in the first weeks· of the evacuation movements, so
that evacuees who had retained their cars were permitted to drive themselves and their families to such centers as were then in existence,
chiefly to Santa J\nita and to Manzanar. On arrival, these cars ,vere
placed in the custody of the Federal Reserve Bank. The cars were kept
under guard in the open at these centers, and the rapidity of deterioration was easily perceived by the evacuee owners.
"It was apparent that storage of evacuee automobiles under
the conditions which existed ivould result in considerable
economic waste,. and hence in a loss to ~he evacuee. In the
case of vehicles tendered for storage, therefore, when the
appraised value of a given vehicle was determined, the bank
extended an offer of purchase to the evacuee. The written
offer was followed by personal oontact i·;ith each evacuee.
* -r, 1:- Of the 1,905 motor vehicles received into the custody
of the bank, 1,469 11ere sold to the Army and 319 released
in accordance with the directions of the evacuees.
"Late in the Fall of 1942, 117 cars remained in the custody
of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. At that time
the military authorities, in consideration of the national
interest during wartime, and in the interests of the evacuej s
(30)

themselves, decided to requisition these vehicles. Pending
completion of the requisitioning procedure, voluntary sales
to the Army continued in accordance with the procedure outlined above." 13-.o
Statistics furnished in regard to the handling of residence,
business and income property of evacuees in the Report of the Federal
Reserve Bank seem to be incor:iplete. There is mention of 200 hotels in
the Seattle area, the prevalence of hotel, market and drJr cleaning
establishment problems in the Portland branch zone, dry cleaning establishment and nursery problems in the head office zone, and residence
property, hotel, apartment and market problems in the Los Angeles zone.
Figures for the nwnber of cases handled at the peak of operations for
the head offi ce zone are quoted, and typical or outstandh1g cases are
described in the appendix, but no over-all figures are presented. 13-p
The total cost of the Federal Reserve Bank's participation in the
evacuee property program to December 31, 1942, was $315,694047. At this
time it was considered that the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
had "no further official responsibility in the Japanese evacuation
program. 11 13-q
The Federal Reserve Bank had been concerned ·with alien property
from April 1940. At that time the Foreign Funds Control had been established to administer the po~vers of the Secretary of the Treasury as
conferred by Executive Order No. 8389, which was issued under the
Tradfo.g with the Enemy Act as amended, and Foreign Funds Control operated through the Federal Reserve Banks of the country. Immediately upon
the outbreak of war) Foreign Funds Control froze banking and business
assets which involved foreign exchange. Thus, when the question of
evacuee property protection began to receive the ·serious attention of
the general ,~ho ordered the evacuation, there was no confusion involved
in the delegation of authority and placing of responsibilities with the
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco as fiscal agent of the United
States, subject to the control of the War Department. The same could not
be said of the way in which the services of the Farm Security Adnunistration were procured for assistance with the evacuee property progrrun.
In a letter of March 15, 1942, Lieutenant General De-;"Jitt addressed
Lawrence I. Hewes, Jr., Regional Director of Farm Security Administration
in San Francisco:

"By virtue of and pursuant to the authority vested in me as
CoI!llilanding General, Western Defense Command and Fourth Army,
and in order to effectuate the rerooval of any enemy aliens
and other persons designated by me, engaged in farming
operations, who evacuate from restricted and prohibited areas
lying ,~ithin my Command, you are hereby ordered and authorized
as follows:

(31)

'l.

To institute and administer a program which will insure continuation of the proper use of agricultural
lands voluntarily vacated by enemy aliens and other
persons designated by me, and which ~ill insure fair
and equitable arrangements between the evacuees and
the operators of their property.

"2.

To incur the necessary administrative expenses, including the payment of personnel and necessary traveling expenses, to carry out the purposes of this order,
such expenses to · be reimbursed by me upon presentation
of reimbursement vouchers.

n3.,

From funds made available or to be made available by
me, to. make, service and collect loans, including the
provisions of necessary farm manaeement advice and
guidance.

"4. To redelegate to such officers and employees of the
Farm Security Administration as you may designate,
any part of the authority herein contained." 11
Actually General DeWitt was cutting corners in "ordering and
authorizing" an official of another department of the Government to do
any of these things. The First War Powers Act, of December 18, 1941,
had amended Section 5 (b)' of the Trading with the Enemy Act, granting the
President broad and sweeping powers. The President in a memorandum of
February 12, 1942, transferred powers affecting property-control to the
Treasury Department. By Executive Order No. 9095, March ll, 1942, the
President conferred similar powers upon the Alien Property Custodian.
Thus the Secretary of the Treasury or the Alien Property Custodian might
with propriety have delegated authority to the Secretary of Agriculture
to delegate that authority in turn to the Federal Security J\dministration
or to the U.S.D. A. War Boards. General De~-'!itt was technically in a position to do no more than recommend such a course to the proper department
of Government. A few formalities had been overlooked, and the Secretary
of Agriculture, in whose jurisdiction the Farm Security Administration
was, had not been consulted. FSA was left in an awkward situation until
its delegation of authority could be legalized--an achievement \'1hich required several weeks.,
Conferences were held in Washington, memoranda were exchanged; the
Solicitor of the newly created War Relocation Authority was active in
Washington and made recommendations to WR.A Director Yilton S. :'.!:isenhower,
who was in San Francisco learning what nature of problem he had to cope
with. In a letter to Mr. Eisenhower., dated April 1, 19L~2., the Solicitor
of WRA described a meeting which had been held two days earlier in the
office of the General Counsel of the Treasury Department; it had been
attended by the Special Assistant to the Secretary of Agriculture., the
( 32)

Assistant Solicitor of Agriculture, the Solicitor of WRA, and representatives from the Farm Security Administration and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration; these officials had met to discuss the problem
of freezing power and property management with regard to the Farm
Security Administration.
It developed in the course of this meeting that the Secretary of
the Treasury was prepared to delegate the necessary power to the Secretary of Agriculture "provided that the Secretary of 1,griculture submitted a written statement that such a delegation was necessary to enable
the Secretary of Agriculture to provide for continuous agricultural production on the lands of the evacuees. Foley's !J,he General Counsel of
the TreasuriJ point was that the exercise of this power is an important
Government responsibility, and, therefore, that the Secretary of the
Treasury should have before him some document indicating that the delegation of so important a power is necessary in the public interest~"
The .same letter explained that the Secretary of Agriculture was
indisposed to request the Secretary of the TrA&sury to effect such delegati_on of authority anci continued in that frcime of mind for a week,
durine which interval the regional director of FSA in San Francisco remained in an anomalous position.
Following the advice of his Solicitor, Mr. Zisenhower called the
Secretary of Agriculture--whose department Mr. Eisenhow~r left to become
Director of WRA--by long distance and immediately addressed him in
writing:
"This letter contains no request but a set of facts. Apparently the situation here in California has been reported to you
by so many persons in so many ways that the true situation
must be elusive, to say the least.
"You will recall that, after a day and a half of grilling, I
told Harold Smith I y11ould accept the job as head of the War
Relocation Authority. The follov1ing morning Assistant
Secretary McCloy came in to see me, and a;aong other things
said that General De'.'! itt ·wished Agriculture to be represented on his Civilian Committee on Evacuation. I, knowing
that I would have to rely heavily on FSA for help in relocating the Japanese, suggested Larry Hewes. Naturally I
should have consulted you, but in the pressure I did not.
A day later I was on my way to California.
"Appa.rently Secretary McCloy wired Generc..l DeWitt to the
effect that Larry Hewes was officially designated by the
Department, therefore General DeWitt placed Mr. He11Jes on
his committee.
(33)

"General De'.'litt placed two responsibilitie s upon Hewes:
To aid in recruiting farmers to till over the farms of
evacuees and to aid in maintaining production. The
General made this assignment to Hewes as a representative
of the Department as a v:hole.
"When I returned to Washincton, I learned -!:- -l:- ,~ that
Hewes' designation had mixed up other plans, and I therefore offered to straighten the matters out by having the
General .,, -::- .,, designate someone else. However, after
consultation with 2d Dodd [In charge of the Western
Divisinn of the Agricultural Adjustment Administratio!i7
it seemed better to send two telegrams to California-one to He-wes 8mphe.sizing that he wns serving as a
Departmental representative and that he should cooperate
with the ·war Board in meeting all responsibilitie s; a
second went to ~ave Davidson, asking the War Board to
help get the job done.
"Ed Dodd and I then came to California .:i.nd found things in
a turmoil. A few evacuations had taken place, and these
showed that the Japanese would suffer losses and production
would decline unless the efforts already under way were
backed up by some real authority.
"The perishable nature of truck crops almost invites a
stalling on the part of prospective purchasers ,vho may
hope to get the property on the equity of the Japanese at
a fraction of its true value. There's no need to review
all the possibilities. The long and short of it is that
the Japanese are selling for what they can get. Consequently, everyone agreed that the power to freeze property and to operate the farms until fair value could be
received should be vested in the Department of Agriculture.
"This power exists now in the hands of the Federal Reserve
Bank, which is acting as the agent of the Treasury. This
means that the agency which is recruiting people to operate,
buy, or lease farms nrust, if it runs into any type of unfairness, appeal to a representative of the Federal Reserve
Bank who is not on the ground and who knmvs little about
farming and farm vnlues.
"It soon became evident that the power to freeze property
would not be delegated directly to F.S.A. here in San
Francisco, so Ed Dodd and I recommended that such power be
delegated to you, and by you to the War Boards. Everyone
here--General DeWitt, Federal Reserve, and all others-(34)

approves the purpose. In my judgment it is a necessary
step and one which in all justice to many innocent people
should be exercised by a responsible Federal agency, which
is not only familiar, with the problem but has a definite
responsibility for maintaining production.

•

"Now, I m sure you know that General DeW'itt has no authority
to delegate any authority of the type I'm discussing. The
greatest amount of authority rests with th·e Treasury * ➔~ -*
The President gave me authority to assist with the property
problem under limited circumstnnces and I do delegate this
autharity to the Treasury. This was -all done in the initial
belief that a single agency could best handle the situation.
I still think that's true. But the Treasury should use a
competent agricultural aeency for agricultural property
➔~ 1:- -:-, as it is using a banking agency for other property.
1

"Most of the Japanese farmers have maintained their farms
in excellent condition. ~'fuen they leave at the rate of two
to three thousapd a day, however, production is going to be
a bit retarded. Evacuees must leave their household goods
behind, with only a storage receipt 111hich disclaims all
responsibility; their cars, trucks, tractors, and other
machinery are impounded. They move to assembly points and
then on to reception centers where, starting with sand and
cactus, they hope to make a living.
"I feel most deeply that when this '.'! ar is over and we consider
calmly this unprecedented migration of 120,000 people, we
are as Americans going to regret the avoidable injustices
that may have occurred.
"I hope very nruch that this explanation may dispel any
notion that you or Carl /earl Hamilton, Special Assistant to
the SecretariJ may have "[if you do) that General De:'!itt has
attempted to determine agricultural policies or action. Here
on the ground thin6 s are moving fast and are greatly confused.
Consequently, our judgment may not always be sound. 11 12
On April 3, 1942 the Secretary of Agriculture formally requested
the Secretary of the Treasury to delegate the proper authority to him.
He received reply on April 7 in the form of a letter of transmittal and
a memorandum formally delegating authority. The former read:
"Reference is made to your letter of April 3, 1942, requesting that I authorize you, in accordance ·with the provisions
of subdivision (b) of Section 5 of the Trading with the
Enemy Act of October 6, 1917 (40 Stat. 411), as amended by
(35)

the First War Powers Act, 1941 (Public Law 354, 77th
Congress), to freeze property and transactions therein and
to vest, manage, operate and dispose of property when the
property or any interest therein is held by an evacuee
engaged in farming operations who has been evacuated or is
about to ev~cuate a farm located in a military area within
the Western Defense Command.
"Enclosed is a memorandum delegating the authority you request for the purpose of enabling the Department of
Agriculture to carry out the agricultural aspects of the
evacuation program for the West Coast military areas in
designated zones in order, in appropriate cases, to protect
an equity of an evacuee from grasping creditors or in order
to prevent the loss of agricultural production."
The memorandum read:
"For the purpose of enabling the Department of Agriculture
to carry out the agricultural aspects of tqe evacuation
program for the West Coast military areas and designated
zones, there is hereby delegated to and conferred upon the
Secretary of Agriculture full authority to exercise any and
all powers delegated to the Secretary of the Treasury under
section 5 (b) of the Trading with the Enemy Act as amended
by Title III of the First War Powers Act of 1941, v,ith the
power to redelegate these powers to such field and other
agencies in the Department of Agriculture as the Secretary
of Agriculture may from time to time designate. 'Ibis
delegation shall not be construed as a limitation upon my
authority to exercise such power and authority at any time
or as a limitation upon the authority of the Federal
Reserve Bank of San Francisco to exercise the power and
authority conferred upon it as fiscal agent of the United
States."
On April 8, tl:.e Solicitor of WRA was able to vlire Director
Eisenhower: "Secretary Wickard has delegated freezing and management
powers direct to Faro Security Administration rather than to :'!ar Boards. 11

By the time this question of authority and jurisdiction was ansv1ered to the satisfaction of all agencies concerned, the exclui,ion orders
were raining down upon a thoroughly bewildered people, and trains and
buses were carrying the evacuees-who were permitted to take with them
only what they could carry in their two hands-to half-constructed camps
at Santa Anita and at Manzanar. Throughout the rest of April and during
Hay, 15 other assembly centers were desienated in former race tracks or
fair grounds in the coastal States and one in Arizona, to receive the
remainder of the 1'Yest Coast Japanese American people.
(J6)
'

' l ' r•'''.t

The worst consequence of the Government's dela:? in creating
machinery for the handling of evacuee property w2s the tendency of the
evacuees to make any arrangements they could, privately, to sell, lease
or salvage something of what represented their life's labor and thrift.
Those who could make no arrangement at all for themselves, or the few
who had sufficient hardihood to hold out against outrageous pressures
to sell or lease for a pitta.11ce lest they lose all, reported to the WCCA
control centers after the notices of exclusion were posted and utilized
the available assistance of Parm Security or the Federal Reserve Bank,
according to need.
The paragraphs quoted below from the FSA report of May 1942 describe the general manner in which FSA carried out the instruction of
the Secretary of the Treasury to "protect an equity of an evacuee from
grasping creditors or in order to prevent the loss of agricultural production." The Secretary of the Treasury put first the protection of
the evacuee's equity; while General DeWitt reversed the order in his
letter of March 15, 1942 to Mr. Lawrence Hewes, he did include in his
first paragraph the instruction to protec the evacuee's rights.
On June 5, 1942, Mr. Hewes, as regional director of FSA charged
with the responsibility of this phase of the ev~cuation progr~m submitted a Final Report of the Participation of the Farm Security Administration in the Evacuation Program of the Wartime Civil Control Administration, Civil Affairs Division, Western Defense Command and Fourth
krmy, Covering the Period March 15, 1942, through May 31, 1942. This
report. was presented to Colonel Karl R. Bendetsen, General DeWitt 1 s
Assistant Chief of Staff, who headed the WCCA. On May 31, the last
evacuees from M:ilitary Area No. 1 were behind the barbed wire of assembly centers, and except for finding operators for a fevi farms, FSA
had accomplished its work. It had registered 6,664 farms in :-1ilitary
Area No. 1, comprising well over 200,000 acres. It had made some
interesting discoveries about the ~alue and characteristics of Japanese
farming.
"The nwnber of farms operated by Japanese in the Pacific Coast
region comprised only 2 percent of all farms, and their
acreage involved only .3 percent of the total farm acreage.
These percentages 1 •however, give an entirely misleading indication of the importance of Japanese farming enterprise in
the area. The average value per acre of all farms in 1940
was $37.94 1 whereas that of Japanese farms was ~279.96. This
difference in value is due prLrnarily to the fact that
Japanese agriculture has been a highly intensive and productive
enterprise. Three out of every four acres of Japanese farm
land were devoted to actual crop production, ~hereas only
one out of every four acres of all farm land in the area
was planted in crops. The avera~e size of the Japanese farms
was 42 acres, and 85 percent of them contained less than 50
acres.

(37)

"The estimated value of crops grown by Japanese farmers in
1940 in California was $32,317,700. The values for certain
specific crops were: lettuce, $5,942,100; celery, $4,667,250;
tomatoes, $4,182,000; cantaloupes, $2,720,000; carrots,
$2,326,000; and strawberries, $2,181,600.
fu1 analysis of Japanese farm enterprises showed that the
types of crops grown were largely inter-tilled trnck,
fruit, and specialty crops, and often each acre was planted
and harvested several times during the same year. These
crops were invariably of an in~.ensive type such as strawberries, tomatoes, lettuce, onions, celery, nursery stock,
peas, beans, fruit, cranberries, melons or sugar beets. A
report of the estimated percentage of the major vegetable
crops produced in the Pacific Coast region by Japanese
farmers clearly shows the importance of their agricultural
production. For example, in California Japanese operators
grew 90 percent of the strawberries, 73 percent of the
snap be ans, 75 percent of the celery, 60 percent of the
cauliflov1er, 70 percent of the lettuce, 60 percent of the
spinach, and 50 percent of th e tomatoes.
11

"The specialization J apanese f 2rming is very significant
·and presented an important problcrr, t o an agency which cont emr1la ted the removal of the Japanese farm oper ator s .
Floriculture, greenhouse operati0n, and oyster farwing are
other exan~les of specialized opera tions in which many of
the Japanese are engaged.

"In summary it may be fairly stated that the Japanese
people were the most important racial minority group
engaged in acriculture in the Pacific Coast region. Their
systems of farming, types of crops, and land tenure conditions~'- were such that their replacement by other farmers
would be extremely difficult. Highly technical personnel
would be required to handle such a transition, a credit
program would have to be adapted to the peculiar problems
presented, and some shifts in the future use of land
would undoubtecily be involved." 11-a

Beginning on March 17, 1942, FSA offices regi stered only those
farms whose owners voluntarily approached the FS!,, but on order from
Washington to conduct .a systematic survey and registration of all
-~ Refers to certain shadowy arrangements for occupancy of land by
Japanese r e sulting from the terms of the Alien Land Laws.

evacuee operated farm property in the week ending March 27, FSA undertook a large job, which was 80 °pere en t complete by the deadline and was
continued throughout the period of evacuation movements into assembly
centers, by checkup at the control stations which processed all evacuees
affected by the various exclusion orders. This matter attended to, FSA
set about registering prospective non-evacuee operators, but at first
fe,~ materialized. Doubts of venturing into this specialized sort of
farming, a large-looming labor problem, and various other factors made
potential operators hesitate. FSA inaugurated a campaign of advertising
opportunities, going into localities and putting pressure on possible
operators and at the same time publicizing the federal loan policy;
eventually the agency registered about 5,000 possibilities.
Because of the nature of Japanese farming, it was found most
practicable in many instances to encourage the formation of corporations-often connected ,~ith growers I and shippers I organizations--to
operate a group of farms and to make loans of considerable size to such
corporations. By June 1, 722 loans totaling $3,120,243 had been
approved. 11-b
FSA operations were financed in part by the War Department; in
part from the President's Ernergency Fund:
"On !larch 18, 1942, the Army allocated to the Regional Director
(of FSA) $1,000,000 for use in making 1'VFA loans. ➔~ * -r~ By the
middle of April, this sum had been exhausted, chiefly by the
making of loans in excess of $900,000. In anticipation of
this situation additional funds were requested on April 9, 1942.
On April 24, 1942, $5,000,000 of additional money was received
from the President's Emergency Fund with which to continue
operations.

"By the end of May, a total of $3,584,025.42 had been expended
either for loans or administrative costs. Of this sum,
$3,434,008.08 was for loans and $150,017.34 for administrative
costs." 11-c
In only one instance had FSA seen fit to use its freezing power
to protect the equity of a Japanese American owner. The fact that the
agency had such power was presumed to have had a salutary effect upon
A Farm
those Americaz,s who v,ere over-zealous bargain-hunters.11-d
Security Administration instruction, dated April 10, 1942, warned: 11 The
extraordinary character of the oower presupposes that it will be used
with the greatest of reserve." 14-d In a communication of the same date
addressed to his staff, Regional Director Laurence I. Ee',s1es, Jr., spelled
out the warning in more detail:

(39)

"As pointed out in ,·~artime Farm Adjustment Instruction
952.1, the freezing power imposes upon the Farm Security
Administrat ion duties and responsibil ities v1ith reference
to its use, which are commensurate with the extraordina ry
character of these po~ers. It is absolutely imperative
that these powers be used sparingly and rith the greatest
of caution to insure against any possible abuse. '!he
Administr~t or of the Farm Security Administrat ion has repeatedly ir.1pressed upon me the need of avoiding hasty and
ill-conside red action. I believe it is unnecessary for
me to advise you that the improper use of the freezing
power will not only occasion considerabl e embarrassme nt to
and invite serious criticism of the Farm Security Adr1inistration but, of rrruch greater importance, will defeat the
very purpose which the Farm Security Administrat ion seeks
to accomplish- -namely, the continuatio n of agricultura l
production.
"The abuse of the power may result either from its improper
exercise or from careless references to the existence of
the power and the ability to make use of it. I ITD.lst, therefore, advise you that under no circwnstanc es whatsoever may
any of you indicate to an evacuee or to any person in the
relation of landlord, lienor, or creditor of an evacuee,
that any particular act or failure to act on his part will
result in the exercise of the freezing power. In other
words, you may not under any ci~cumstanc es threaten or imply
that the freezing power will be exercised. In any situation
in which it appears to you that the freezing power should
be exercised, the proper procedure to follow is that set
forth in ~Vartirne Farm Adjustment Instruction 952. 1. * · You
are expected to adhere strictly to that procedure ar.id not
deviate therefrori. I 'feel very deeply the responsibil ity
which is placed upon the Farm Security Administrat ion and,
therefore, wish to advise you that the failure of any
emplo~ree to exercise the proper degree of restrcint and
caution in connection with the use of the free?.ing power
will be the subject of prompt and full investieatio n. '' 14-d

By the terms of this instruction the evacuee owner had to take the
initiative in instigatine use of the freezing power. The evacuee had to
file a formal petition to have his property design2ted as Special
Blocked Property and the situation which had produced the petition had
to be thoroughly investigated by the Government agents before the
freezing power c0uld be invoked.

(40)

In the evacuation of Bainbridge Island-in Puget Sound--the first
area to be evacuated under the military power of exclusion, shortage of
time made it necessary for the FSA field agent to accept 13 powers of
attorney~ The California Evacuated Farms Association was a corporation
formed within FSA to exercise supervisory and managerial rights at need;
it took over the Bainbridge Island property.ll-e
FSA had additional responsibility to prevent unnecessary junking

of evacuee-owned farm machinery and to keep it available for use.
policy statement contained four major provisions:
11

To the extent necessar~r for the continued operation of
evacuated farms, farm machinery was to be retained upon
the land for ·which it was normally used. A separate
sale of the farm rn.achinery to persons other than the
substitute operator was to be discouraged unless the
substitute operator possessed the necessary machinery
to continue orerations under a satisfactory farm
program.

·where machinery was to be sold off of the farm it was
to be retc>.ined in the community or locality.

"3.

The storage of farm machinery which ·p•oulc remove it
from use during the war period was to be discouraged
in view of the difficulty experienced in obtaining
farming implements and equipment.

"4.

Farm machiner~, still suitable for use or capable of"
being repaired was not to be sold to junk dealers for
ultimate resale as scrap metal. 1111-f

The

A report from all FSA· field aeents, of May 8, 1942, showed that
only 13 farms in the evacuated area had any undisposed-of machinery.
The approximate value of this machinery was $1l,655.ll-g
On August 1, 1942, the rasponsibility for disposal by sale or
lease of ·real property and for storage or transfer of movable property
of evacuees became that of ·.m.A. The Authority at that time set up an
l!.vacuee Property Division in what was then the San pj,~encisco regional
office, with branches staffed by an agricultural property officer and n
commercial property officer at Seattle and at Los i,ngeles. The Farm
Security Administration retained jurisdiction over its UFA loans a.nd
collections, but otherwise stepped out of the picture,·having referred
to ~\RA 53 cases requiring action. The Federal Reserve Bank turned over
businesses numbering 1,325 in California, 185 in the Portland area, and
1,277 in Washington.

(41)

The Director of the War Relocation Authority had written from San
Francisco on March 30, 1942-on the eve of enforced evacuation movementsto James Rowe, Assistant to Attorney General Biddle:
"The hardest battles so far are about the property of
evacuees. I am fearful that the voluntary system is going
to bog down badly in spots. Colonel Bendetsen and I are
tryine to fix things up as best we can and on the whole,
perhaps, justice will be done the Japanese. But there's
no denying that there will be difficulties.

"Colonel Bendetsen and I ·had hoped that Ennis or someone
else keenly interested in this whole problem could come
out here and observe impartially the functioning of the
property-handling system. It may prove to be the darkest
part of a pretty dark picture."
The May 1942 report of the Tolan Co:nmittee indicated both understanding and concern with regard to the handling of evacuee property.
"With respect to the present program of protecting personal
property rights, the committee herewith records several
observations. It should be emphasized that property protection, particularly with regard to household goods and personal effects cannot be disassociated from any plan for
resettlement. -::- ➔~ ~:- It is obvious that, with the rapid
curtailment in the manufacture of household goods and
appliances, it will be impossible in many instances to
supply articles of furniture, and other household items,
when resettlement projects have assumed definite shape.
It is i.rnpr3.cticable, therefore, to urge upon the evacuees
the hurried sale of these articles, v1hen they will undoubtedly be needed badly at a later date.
"It appears to the committee that, although momentarily
likely to involve additional detail work, a plan for the
storage of all generally recognized useful household articles
should be instituted, rather than the present system of
mRking such storage optional to the evacuees. Storage
should be insisted upon. If this is not done, the committee
believes the War Relocation Authority vdll find itself
severely handicapped in any resettlement effort, with
evacuees arriving at reception centers and resettlement
sites without even the bare necessities for a new beginning. The following sur.1':lary, submitted by the F8deral
Reserve Bank of San Francisco on April 20, 1942, indicates
how few evacuees were t:i.king adYantaea of th-9 opportunity
( 1..2)

to store property. [rhe summary showed that of 2,506 heads
of families processed through control stations, only 679 had
discussed movable property problems rrnd only 498 had at their
request been provided with government storage in warehousesJ
"The committee considers the present .0olicies of the Federal
Reserve Bank in handling property matters to be deficient in
the following particulars: Although the bank, under the
authority of the Secretary of the Treasury, apparently has
ample authority for assuming powers of attorney and otherviise
controlling the disposition of property, it appears to have
emphasized a policy of immediate liquidation. The conditions
under which the bank will accept property for storage have
thus far been cautious in the extreme. The principle of
owner's risk laid down as a condition of accepting property
for storage, including automobiles, also nrust be regarded as
a bad psychological factor.
''The committee recognizes that there are few, if any, precedents for dealing -with the endless number of problems raised by
the enforced evacuation of aliens and citizens from strategic
military areas in this country. ***However, a farsighted
policy of resettlement demands that future negotiations point
more in the direction of salvaeing useful household items and
other property effects consistent with future activities of
the l'Tar Relocation Authority, rather than toward undue encouragement of liquidation.
"The committee also recommends that Congress consider whether
some extension of war-damage insurance is feasible for property accepted for storage. In this connection, the committee
calls attention to language appearing at the bottom of the
personal property inventory list supplied by the Federal
Reserve Bank to evacuees which reads as follov.,s:

"'If the property herein claimed to have been delivered,
and which actually was delivered, is lost, damaged, or
destroyed as the result of negligence while it is in the
possession or custody of the United States, or of any
agency acting for it, the Coneress of the United States
will be asked to take appropriate action for the benefit
of owners. 1
"H&ving in mind that the majority of the present evacuees are
American citizens, it is not inconceivable that law suits may
be instituted at the close of the war in the event negligence
or damage to property is suffered by individuals affected by
the evacuation.
(4.3)

"The reticence to assume responsibility v:hich has characterized the handling of personal property has also been present
in the disposition of automobiles ➔~ ➔:- -:i-. The official instructions to evacuees would indicate that present arrangements do not take full stock of the straightened economic
circumstances in which this country now finds itselr * * *•
"It is clear that before this war is concluded our Nation
will have acute need for every automobile, battery, and
tire it can secure. It is, therefore, urged upon those
responsible for property protection that they husband these
assets." 14-e
On the subject of the protection of evacuee-owned rural property
and continuance of agricultural production, responsibilities of the
Farm Security Administration, the committee commented:

* * As the committee pointed out in its preliminary
report on evacuation problems, the Japanese have been
responsible for a considerable volume of certain crops
grown in Pacific Coast States, particularly in California.
This factor, plus the slender margin of time allowed for
the completion of property transfers, has already led to
several unfortunate consequences for the evacuees ~- ➔~ *•
11-i:-

"While supporting the exhortation of the Wartime Civil
Control Administration to the evacuees to continue farming operations up to · the time of evacuation as a demonstration of loyalty, the committee is nevertheless constrained
to point out that this policy has frequently worked to the
economic disadvantage of the evacuees or has proved beyond
their economic means to carry out. Utilization of farm
implements to the last moment makes it difficult to effectuate equitable settlements when the order comes for
evacuation. Moreover, ➔:- -r, -::- it may be well for the War
Relocation Authority~ to weigh carefully possible
alternatives to this course, such as storage of implements
which are growing scarcer daily, until resettlement projects
assume more tangible outlines. In transfers of lease or
title, where the implements are considered an integral part
of the transaction, this alternative may not be feasible.

Reference is to instructions quoted on pp. 29-30

of this report.

-lp,}The committee was anticipating future events: it was not until
August of 191,2 that the ".Var Relocation Authority inherited the property
problems ~hich the mass evacuation had posed.
(44)

The committee must emphasize, however, that conservation
is to be encouraged rather than wholesale dispersion of
machinery which may be difficult, if not impossible to
replace.
"Again recognizing that urgency has operated at all times
as a qualifying circumstance against a perfected evacuation
plan, the committee observes that the delay in delegating
to the Farm Security Administration the power to 'freeze'
properties similar to that held by the Federal Reserve Bank
has represented a hindrance to Farm Security Administration
in its work as overseer of agricultural properties owned or
leased by Japanese * -l(- ~:-.

"In the interest of formalizing procedures, the committee
recommends that the Farm Security Administration, through
its field agents currently engaged in the transfer of
agricultural properties, be ~elegated to perform a continuing check upon the terms of all leases and other
arrangements entered into by the evacuees. By this method,
the Farm Security Administration could act as agent for
returns due evacuees for crops planted and growing prior
to the evacuation; it could also receive and forward
property payments to the Japanese, since the new operators
may find it difficult to keep in touch with the various
resettlement projects. This must be done to assure the
property rights of the evacuees. Orderly accounting
procedures instituted now merely would. reflect sound
business sense and serve to avoid endless litigation in
the post-war period.

"The committee further recommends that the Congress give
immediate attention to such other property items as conservation of equities in mortgages, as well as the possibility of delinquencies in taxes on property vacated or
abandoned by evacuees * -i:- -r.-. 11 14-f

THE EVACUEE PROPERTY PROGRAM OF THE WAfl RELOCATION AUTIIORI'I'Y
Gathering a small staff from the ranks of the Farm Security Administration and California Land Bank personnel, the War Relocation
Authority set up the Division of Evacuee Property within the San
Francisco Regional Office of the Authority in August of 1942, establishing small branch offices in Seattle and Los Angeles, prepared to
offer eight types of services to any evacuee who requested such s~rvice:

698705 0 - 46 - 4

(45)

To secure tenants or operators for both agricultural
and commercial properties.

To negotiate new leases or rene,•1als of existing leases.

To obtain buyers for real or personal property of all
kinds.

To effect settlement of claims for or against an evacuee.

To adjust differences arising out of ines.uitablis, hastily
made or indefinite agreements.

To obtain an accounting for amounts due, and to
facilitate collections.

?. To ascertain whether property was being satisfactorily
maintained or whether damage or viaste was occurring.

To check inventories of goods and equipment, and to
recommend utilization of material for the best interests
of the evacuee and the nation.
Early Problems Relating to _Movable Property

At the time when WR.A assumed responsibility for evacuee property,
the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco assigned to ·:,'RA the leases for
the 19 warehouses l'Jhich the bank had tabn for storage of household goods
and personal properties of evacuees until such possessions could be
transferred to relocation centers. Hov,;ever, having been encouraged to
make arrangements for private storage v·herever possible, the evacuees had
in general utilized the bank's services only as a last resort; in all,
only 2,867 families had stored their :::,ossessions in the bank's warer,ouses. 15 The others had left th0ir possessions stored in vacant stores,
churches, houses, garages or other outbuildings on their own land; many
had reserved a room in a house rented for the duration to a tenant, with
only a verbal agreement that the reserved room in ·which possessions of
the absent owner were stored should remain unmolested until the owner
cculd recover his property.
The Federal Reserve Bank had agreed to ship, free of charge, to
relocation centers such household and other personal goods as had been
stored in the bank's warehouses. WR.A assumed this obligation in August.
Throughout the summer and early fall the evacuee population was being
moved from '.lCCA assembly centers into the WRA relocation centers, where
the majority of the people anticipated living for the duration of the
war. In the barrack shelter of the relocation centers, a large family
occupied a single room 20 1 x 25', a small one received a room 16 1 x 20'.

Cots and blankets were issued to the occupants. Heating stoves were installed as soon as transportation facilities permitted. Anything beyond these basic essentials of living equipment had to be contrived or
provided by the evacuees. Understandably they wanted such items of
furniture and equipment from storage as could be utilized in the limited
space of their barrack apartments. Those who had stored their goods in
Government warehouses could check inventories for wanted items and receive them at the center in a reasonable length of time, Yiithout cost.
Those who had left their goods in an abandoned church or in a shed on a
farm which might be untenanted, or in any privately arranged accommodations were not eligible for free service. Throughout the first few
months of WR.A's jurisdiction over evacuee property matters, regulations
p~ovided that WRA would transport to the owner such goods as the evacuees at their own expense had transferred from private storage to
Government warehouses. It soon became evident that the majority of the
evacuees had so depleted their savings in the course of the evacu;:-,tion
that they had not means to pay for getting their possessions collected
and transported to a Government warehouse. It was becoming increasingly
apparent, too, as WRA representatives made requested check-ups on
evacuee personal property, that goods stored in vacant stores, churches,
and left with neighbors were not adequately safeguarded. Losses from
fire, flood, theft and vandalism were mounting steadily. 16
In recognition of this situation, the Authority established procedures in January of 1943 which permitted the collection of movable
property and the transportation of such evacuee property to Government
warehouses at Government expense. This service was offered to an~•
evacuee who wished to avail himself of it, and as requests streamed in
from the centers for transfer of household goods and equipment to this
safer kind of storage,warehouses were leased at various points where
there was a concentration of evacuee property.

It is unfortunate that· the evacuees W':!re encouraged to arrange
for private storaee of their goods at the time of their removal from the
West Coast. Time and experience have demonstrated that padlocks and
bolts on isolated farm buildings and deserted churches or stores afforded
little protection to absentee owners against the lawless. Prejudice
against the evacuated people ran high during the war years throughout
the evacuated area, and this prejudice was reflected in the indifference
of many local law enforcement agencies toward the depredation of evacuee
property and in their professed inability to find or identify vandals,
arsonists and thieves.
Problems Inherited by WR.A from FSA
Not long after WRA had taken over the·responsibilities of the
Farm Security Administration with regard to evacuee property, a major
problem emerged as an outgrowth of the FSA policy of collections on
(47)

Wartime Farm Adjustment loans made to operators who took over evacuee
farms. A memo from Victor L. Furth of the Evacuee Property Division to
the regional director of WR.A, San Francisco, dated November 9, 1942,
summarized the problem as it was recognized by WRA at that time:
"The Evacuee Property Divison has been called on to assist
in property problems involving loans made through the· Wartime Farms Administration ffidjustment Prograi/, which was
supervised by the Farm Security Administration. As you
know, FSA has turned over to the War Relocation Authority
all of the other evacuee agricultural problems but still
has the responsibility for servicing and collecting WFA
loans. It is already apparent that a number of these loans
are not likely to be repaid within the period of twelve
months for which the loans were made, so that it becomes
essential to the protection of evacuee interests to find
out just what the collection policy of FSA will be with
respect to requests for renewals or extensions of tune.
In conversation- with Mr. L. I. Hewes, Jr., Regional Director
of the Farm Security Administration in San Francisco, we have
learned that his agency expects to exert 'a firm collection
policy'. However, it was indicated that due consideration
would be given to each case and that some concessions mieht
be made if circumstances justified them. The policy as
stated appears reasonable but a serious problem arises from
the fact ttat many operators need assurance right now as to
whether or not they can obtain an extension of time so that
they can plan their operations for next season's crops in
ample time.
11

"Mr. Hewes has expressed the belief that the Farm Security
Administration took on the financing program for the 1942
season because no other agency was available but he feels
that it was more or less of a temporary arrangement to
carry through the crop season that was already under way,
and he believes that the loans should be liquidated as
completely as possible and that operators needing additional financing should either obtain it from the usual
commercial channels or that some other government agency
should provide the necessary funds.

"In the Seattle area we are already observing cases where
operators of evacuee farms are abandoning the properties,
knowing that they will not be able to repay their loans in
fuLl by the due date and believing that they have no
(48)

opportunity of obtaining extensions of time or renewals of
their loans. It seems to us that if the Farm Security
Administration is willing to consider each case on its
individual merits, some indication of this policy should
be made known to the farm operators so that they will be
encouraged to remain on the farms, start their operations
for next season, and keep the places in production instead
of drifting off to other occupations.
"We believe that if it were possible to do so this entire
situation might be reviewed with representatives of the
F&rm Security Administration in Washington. We are aruci.ous
to see that the evacuees receive all of the money due them
from the operation of their farms and we are likewise interested in providing for their continued operation. Both
of these objectives are adversely affected by the uncertainty
that exists at the present time."
A memo of November 26, 1942, from Lieutenant Colonel Claude B.
Washburne, Civil Affairs Division, Chief, Inspection and Fiscal Division,
to Colonel f~rl R. Bendetsen, Assistant Chief of Staff, Civil Affairs
Divisio~, Wartime Civil Control Administration, gives a military analysis of the situation in the following numbered paragraphs:

"3. A conversation with Mr. Hollingberry ffiollenber,i7 of Farm
Security Adcinistration reveals the following pertinent information. Maturity date of crop loans and extensions thereof do not in any case run beyond the end of fiscal year 1943.
Extensions of loans are not made unless Farm Security Administration feels confident that a greater portion of the
loan can be collected if an extension is granted. These
cases are few. The policy in general is that these loans
were made to cover the emergency need of evacuating Japanese
and insuring harvesting of growing crops, that the obligation of the borrower is positive and that the loans will
be collected from any monies available from the crop and
equipment chattels notwithstanding it may work a hardship
on the borrower and possibly mean the other creditors,
including the Japanese, may get nothing. Under this procedure the borrower must refjnance through normal credit
channels. In many cases the Japanese have agreements with
the borrowers whereby the Japanese are to receive 50% of
the net proceeds of the sale of crops. In the event the
Farm Security Administration takes all proceeds under their
first liens, it means tha Japanes e gets nothing. The likelihood of charges that the evacuees have been robbed of their
equipment and interest in leases becomes obvious.

(49)

"4. As a result of the strict compliance of credit terms,
it has been necessary for Farm Security Administration to
sell under their supervision farm equipment of Japanese and
borrower on which they held chattels. Considerable and
bitter criticism is directed at them as a result of their
collection procedure.
"5. The statistician at Farm Security Administration estimates they will collect between 70% and 90% of the total
loans made.
6. , Farm Security Administration has pursued this policy
feeling that the matter of a fiscal year 19Li.4 loaning
program to insure production from these lands and the
protection of the property interests And leases in connection therewith of the Japanese are now functions pertaining to the War Relocation Authority. They feel that
their job will be completed upon collection of present
loans unless called upon by the proper branch of the
Government to perform additional services.
11

"7. They wish that above inforIIl3.tion be in the hands of
the Assist2nt Chief of St ff, Civil Affairs Division, to
determine if th0ir policy is satisfactory.
0

8. In this connection it might be assumed that the crop
problem is settled BS follows:
11

"a.

War Relocation Authority being charged with duty
of protecting J~panese 1 s interest in farm machinery and leases.

"b.

Farm Security Administration cleaning up the
emergency growing crop loans.

11c.

Future refinancing of borrowers and replanting of
lands being left to normal channels which are
available to the general public.

"d.

War Production Board and U.S. Department of
Agriculture War Boards to take the matter up in
the event the lands lie idle to the extent it
might become serious. However, there the War
Relocation Authority and the Farm Security Administration are engaged in a controversy regarding the justness of Farm Security Administration's
collection as it concerns property rights of evacuees. It appears they and their attorneys have
(5 0 )

reached.an impasse. War Production Board and U.S.
Department of Agriculture War Board are not particularly interested at t he present moment.

"9. The matter has been talked over with War Production
Board, Farm Security Administration, and War Relocation
Authority and it is the recommendation of the Inspection
and Fiscal Division that the attendant problems beyond
that of the present crop loans be guided into normal and
more permanent channels. This might be effected by a
meeting in the very near future between Mr. Dillon Myer
(now in San Francisco), Mr. Laurence Hewes and yourself
or your representative. "
A copy of this memo was sent to Mr. Fryer, WRA regional director,
who responded in a brief memo addressed to Colonel Bendetsen on
December 3, 1942:
"***You are aware of adverse public reaction to the
policy of Farm Security Administration designed to collect V!FA loans irrespective of the consequences upon
evacuees or substitute operators. You are no doubt also
av~are that evacuees are going to view such action very
seriously. We understand that Farm Security Administration considers it mandatory that they follow this procedure in order that their obligat i ons to the War .Department be fully met.
"The War Relocation Authority has given this matter
serious attention, and an effort to work out a program
satisfactory to both War Relocation Authority and Farm
Security Administration is being undertaken in ;~7ashington.
I<far Relocation Authority accordingly requests that all
action designed to liquidate such loans b'3 withheld pending the outcome of the conferences above mentioned. Will
you please indicate to us what action you will take toward
this end?"
WRA I s problems v;ere further complicated by the difficulty of getting essential information concerning farms which were caught in the
meshes of the loan policy. On November 30 Mr. Russell Robinson, WRA
chief of evacuee property (formerly a Farm Security Administration man),
called his former assistant, Mr. Eager of FSA, and asked him to prepare
a list of all persons receiving WFA loans from FSA, the date of such
loans, amounts, and indication of which, in the judgment of FS·A would be
collectible only through legal procedure. This oral request was followed by a formal request in writing to \fr. Ralph W. Hollenberg,
assistant regional director of FSA. In a memo of December 3, 1942,

(51)

Mr. Robinson described to Mr. Fryer his attempts to procure this information.
"Each day I have contacted Mr. Eager to ascertain the
progress of the assignment. I learned this morning that
the material is ready for us. However, Mr. Eager has been
instructed to channel it through the Regional Director's
office of Farm Security Administration and there appears
to be reluctance on the part of that office to release it
directly to us. I have accordingly just been to the
Regional Office of Farm Security Administration and learned
that Mr. Hewes is in Washington, Mr. Hollenberg is in
Denver, and Mr. Anglim is Acting Regional Director. I explained to Mr. Anglim precisely ,~hat I had asked for, and
indicated that this information was necessary to us in
order that we might arrive at a conclusion vJith regard to
the future disposition and handling of our responsibility
in the matter.

"Mr. Anglim, after considerable discussion, stated that
inasmuch as he was unfamiliar with the entire problem,
he felt he could not do other~ise than adhere to the following procedure: He will transmit the information so
gathered to Mr. Baldwin in Washington, by airmail today,
with a letter indicating the nature of our request and
the suggestion that if in the judgment of Mr. Baldwin it
should be transmitted to WR.~, that Mr. Baldwin do so. He
is sending an extra copy for that purpose. He is also
asking to be informed by Mr. Baldwin if it will be permissible to transr!lit a copy to the : <: v acuee Property
Division locally.

"Throughout my conversation ,,,ith Mr. Anglim and Miss Ruth
Wilson (Mr. Hewes' secretary), there was a thread of
thought revealed which indicates that Farm Security does
not care to release anything concerning the handling of
the funds made available to them by the War Department
except upon the specific direction of Colonel Bendetsen. 11

Mr. Robinson set forth his further opinion of the farm property ,
situation in a memo bearing the date of December 4, 1942; this, too, was
addressed to his regional director, Mr. Fryer.
"The present approach of Farm Security Administration, as
announced by themselves, is that of a 'firm collection
policy.• All other considerations are subservient to
( 52)

collecting every dollar loaned by them in the ~'!FA program.
It is difficult for me to comprehend how our announced
policy of 'maximum utilization of evacuee property in the
national interests and protection and preservation of the
interests and equity of the evacuees' can be adhered to
under the present Farm Security a·)proach. I am .convinced
that the evacuees may, at the termination of the war, have
many just claims against the government unless we chart our
course in such a way as will insure following our own
announced policy. As a nation we are striving to prove to
the world that the democratic processes are the enduring
ones. Any action which savors of confiscation or deliberate
waste of a citizen's interests wilf not enlist the wholehearted support of the principles we are presumed to be
upholding. ➔~ ➔:- ➔,
"For some five years I have had a considerable part in
assisting to determine policies, procedures, and the training of people in a loanin3 program. I am fully aware of the
complications which are involved in such a program. It is
not clear to me how the Evacuee Property Division can fulfill
its functions without having control of the financial assistance required to operate evacuee property. Because of
developments which have taken place, I am satisfied the only
way in wh:i:ch we can completely fulfill our obligations to
the evacuees is to remove all other interests from the picture. Only in this way can the principles and policies upon
which vie operate be assured of successful administration."
During his November visit to San Francisco, the National Director
of the War Relocation Authority had talked to Colonel Bendetsen and to
FSA representatives on the subject of the collection policy, but Colonel
Bendetsen had been vague in his pronouncements and Mr. Hewes was adamant
on his "firm collection policy. 11 Upon his return to Washington Y.r. Myer
discussed the problem with the National Director of FSA and forwarded a
request for carefully thought out answers to three questions to the
chief of evacuee property in San Francisco. Mr. Robinson's memo of
December 17, 1942, sets forth clearly 'NRJ, attitudes and interpretations
of obligations laid upon FSA in this matter.
The first question was: What policy should be followed in serv1.c1.ng existing TJ\'FA loans? In replying, Mr. Robinson quoted Lieutenant
General DeWitt 1 s letter of March 15, 1942, which instructed first, .in a
list of four considerations, that the regional director of FSA should
"administer a program which will insure continuation of the propez:- agricultural lands*** and which will insure fair and equitable arrangements between the evacuees and the operators of their property." 'Ihe
third consideration was the making, servicing and collection of loans.

(53)

At the time when these functions were assigned to FSA, Mr. Robinson had been an official of that agency. On December 17, 19h2, as the
War Relocation Authority's chief of evacuee property, Mr. Robinson
wrote:

l recall very distinctly, while I was in the WFA program,
calling to Mr. Hevies' attention the fact that in the speed
with which we were charged to execute the order, there were
apt to be some unsound loans made and I felt this should be
made clear to WCCA. I am sure this was taken up with
Colonel Bendetsen and that it was made clear t o Hr. Hewes
that the most important thing was the fulfillment of the
order to insure continuity of production and equitable
dealings; loan collections were secondary to this.

11
· •

"On July 6, 1942, Golonel Karl R. Bendetsen, Assistant Chief
of Staff, Civil Affairs Division, Wartime Civil Control
Administration, issued the following instructions to Farm
Security Administration:
'l.

Upon the completion of evacuation of /.\reas Nos. 1
and 2, the responsibilities of the Farm Security
Administration relating to the protection of evacuees' property will be accepted by the ' Tar Relocation Authority, exclusive of cases ,~herein loans
were made to substitute operators.

'2.

In order to enable War Relocation Authority
effectively-to service individual problems arisine
out of transactions effected through you, as an
agency of the Wartime Civil Control Administration,
it may be necessary for certain data pertinent to
these transactions now in your files to be made
available for perusal and copying by that Authority.
It is desired that appropriate arrangements be made
between you and WRA for enabline the Authority to
have such access to such pertinent records.

'3.

In addition, it is suggested that a representative
of your administrati~n familiar with the program
and who can devote sufficient time to the task, be
assigned to assist WRA in a liaison capacity until
that Authority is able to carry out fully the responsibilities imposed upon it by reason of the
transfer above mentioned.'

"The underscoring is my own. If the wording of the first
paraeraph is carefully scrutinized, you will note that Farm
(54)

Security Administration is not completely relieved of all
responsibility. If I interpret this correctly, Farm
Securi_ty Administration is not relieved fro :n the order
contained in paragraph (1) of General De':;i t t I s letter of
March 15. In my opinion, they still hold a continuing
responsibility to see that all terms and conditions under
which the transfer of evacuee property to substitute
operators was made are lived up to. I think this is
especially true where a loan was made to the substitute
operator for the specific purpose of paying an evacuee
for his labor, or crops, or chattels, or ·whatever else
his equity might have been.

"In light of the above, it is my judgment that the policy
which should be followed in servicing existing 1.·'TFA loans
should be one which lives up to the orders given to Farm
Security .Administration and 'l\hich, to the best of my knowledge, have never been changed, except as indicated herein. I do not believe that a 'firm collection policy' is
the only responsibility of Farm Security Administration.
Additional time and addi tlonal money sh,'Juld be granted to
WFA borrowers who are unable to pay their loans out in the
original loan term, if their outlook is good. In many
instances substitute operators undertook to purchase large
quantities of farm equipment. In fact, I know of a number
of instances where the amount allocated to this purpose in
the loan was by tar the greater percentage. It should be
recognized that more than one year will be required to pay
off large capital investments.
"We also feel that provision should be made to finance new
borrowers able to take over evacuee property. Many such
loans will exceed the Farm Security Administration's present limit of $2,500 per individual. Such borro,1ers would
not necessarily qualify for loans from commercial channels
due to their limited equity and lack of resources. Where
evacuees leased their farms to substitute operators on a
share basis, the evacuees should receive their share of
crops produced under any circumstances, and the WFA lien
should extend onl;r to the operator I s share."
The second question to be answered was: What is our !Jm,A•i]
conception of the policy of Farm Security Administration toward the servicing of these loans? To this question Mr. Robinson replied as follows:
"On more than one occasion I have attempted to have a conference with Mr. Hewes to discuss their policy regarding
WFA loans and its effect upon our responsibility to the

( 55)

evacuees. Each time I have been referred to Mr. Hollenberg
with the statement that this matter has been placed in his
hands. I have held several conversations with Mr. Hollenberg.
He has made it very clear to me that Farm Security Administration's policy is now to collect every dollar possible under
their mortgages. He frankly admits that this will result in
injustices to evacuees; for example, leases were made by substitute operators wherein the substitute operator agreed to
pay to the evacuee fifty percent of the net operating income.
It is the contention of .Farm Security that they hold a mortgage on the entire crop and therefore Im1st insist upon the
entire net income first being used to repay their mortgage
in full. If there is a deficiency existing, the evacuee will
be entitled to nothing.
"A second example is a case where the substitute operator
purchased the farm equipment of an evacuee. This farm equipment was included in the crop and chattel mortgage. If the
substitute operator does not have sufficient net income to
repay the WFA loan in full, it will be necessary for Farm
Security to foreclose on this farm equipment. They, in turn,
may then sell it to the highest bidder. This may well mean
that the equipment will go out of that locality. As a
consequence, equipment will not be available to operate
this farm and the interests of the evacuee are thrown into
jeopardy.

"Mr. Hollenberg has justified this approach on their part
by saying that he felt, unless his organization did everything in their power to collect all of the money due to the
War Department or the government, they would be remiss in
their duties and subject to severe criticism. Regarding
the possibility of extending the period for repayment, Mr.
Hollenberg has also informed me that this will not be done
unless, in their judgment, the chance of collecting a
greater proportion of the loan is assured. Obviously, with
the labor situation for the 1943 cropping season very uncertain and the transportation problem increasing in severity, there is little likelihood that an extension of a repayment period can be viewed with much optimism. Here
again, however, this approach is justified on the premise
that they ,,,ould be remiss in their duties if they failed to
collect the amount now in sight, rather than extending the
loan, and then succeeded in recovering a lesser amount.
Recentl4 Mr. Coverley, while acting as regional director
{of WR.lj, telephoned Mr. Hewes and discussed this matter of
policy approach with him. It is my understanding that Mr.
Hewes expressed himself in this way: that, although he did

•

not like the program, if he were directed by higher authority to proceed with a loaning program, and money was made
available to him for his purpose, he would do so. 11
The third question wns: Vt.here are these two policies in conflict
and \~hat adjustment needs to be made to make them conform? The answer
reads:
"It is my belief that the two policies differ as to the
fundamental purpose of the WFA program. It goes without
saying that the taxpayers' money must not be loaned without careful consideration of all the factors that make for
security in the case of any loan made by public agencies.
Also, the loans made must be -watched, and every effort
must be made to collect as close to one hundred per cent
as possible. I believe it is very clear that the national
interests require, and that in establishing the progr~m
General De.Vitt ordered, that there be continuation of proper use of agricultural lands vacated by evacuees and that
fair and equitable arrangements ·between the evacuees and
substitute operators be maae and carried out. It is apparent that a cold, rigid collection policy will frequently
run counter to this. In order to adjust these differences
it must be recognized that production of essential foods
is more important than one hundred per cent recovery of
the funds that were loaned through WFA.
"In addition, evacuees are likely to present and press
claims against the government for losses incurred by them
due to failure on the part of governn~ntal agencies to live
up to their responsibilities. It is entirely possible that
any savings made in collecting anywhere near one hundred
per cent of the loans made will be offset by having to examine, defend against, and perhaps make payment on such
claims. The agency charged with servicing the loans should
be able to handle all cases requiring adjustment, whether
evacuee interests still prevail or not.

"We feel there should be a high degree of cooperation between FSA and \'lRA, and a ready exchange of information between the two agencies. Despite paragraphs (2) and (3) in
Colonel Bendetsen 1 s directive of July 6, each time we have
requested data pertinent to transactions now in the files
of FSA, we have had to appeal to ?!CCA to make it available
to us, or the matter is referred to Hr. Baldwin ["in '.'Jashfor decision.
ington, D.

c.J

(57)-

"To summarize, I believe the following steps will result in
a solution of the problem:
11

Agreement as to the fundamental purpose of the WFA
program.

"2.

Recognition of the fact that the WFA program cannot
necessarily be concluded twelve months from its
inception.

"3.

Acceptance by Farm Security Administration of its
full share, legally and morally, of the obligation
imposed upon it.

'~.

A decision as to who will carry on refinancing
where it is reasonable, taking into consideration
the national interests and the evacuees' interests,
in addition to the collectability of as large a
part as possible of the outstanding loans.

A definite understanding, by both agencies, as to
how such program will be executed.

''6.

Free and unimpeded interchange of information between FSA and WRA."

These recommended steps were never accomplished. As the regional
office of FSA carried on its functions in regard to evacuee farm property under the direction of WCCA, or, to be more specific, Colonel Bendetsen, who was General DeWitt 1 s Assistnat Chief of Staff, it is reasonable to conclude that had Colonel Bendetsen firmly recommended a more
elastic collection policy to be employed in regard to the \'IF'A loans
financed by the Western Defense Command, then the regional director of
FSA might have been less keenly aware of his obligation to ·wipe off the
debt to the War Department at any and all costs to evacuees, operators
and continued production of vitally needed farm produce.
Some Results of the Collection Policy of FSA
The official FSA report of its labors with evacuee farm property
und er the direction of WCCA contains the statement:
"Because of the nature of Japanese farming, in many instances it was found most practicable to encourage the
formation of corporations (connected with growers' and
shippers' organizations, often) to operate a group of
farms, and to make loans of considerable size to such
corporations." 11-b
( 58)

•

In Placer County, a district of deciduous fruit production with
a fairly heavy concentration of Japanese orchardists, various packing
houses and fruit-shipping orga~izations formed subsidiary corporations,
entering into direct lease agreements with the individual Japanese land
owners and lessees. The typical lease contained an agreement that the
evacuee should receive 5 0 per c e n t of the net proceeds from sale of
the crops after operating expenses had been deducted. The corporation
acquired operating capital by means of a WFA loan which was granted on
the basis of crop mortgages. It was customary for a specific corporation
to handle a group ·of farms in a specific locality, the farms often lying
adjacent to each other. Some parcels of land were superior to others
and produced crops which netted a substantial profit, whereas other parcels of poorer land failed to make costs. Whereas the corporations had
leases with the individual evacuee owners, the FSA viewed the entire income from all properties managed by a corporation as subject to the crop
mortgage and accordingly demanded that the full WFA loan be paid before
any lessor's interests could be recognized. Thus an evacuee owner \·-1ho
had every right, according to the terms of the lease 1";ith the corporation, to expect a substantial return from his property, received nothing
at all until deficits caused by poor crops on other persons' property
had been made good. The story of Northern Farms, Inc •.,, offers a concrete
example of what could happen as a result of conflicting views held by
corporation and FSA.

Northern Farms,Inc.
At the time 9f the evacuation in 1942, the Nash-DeCamp Company,
an established marketing corporation for farm produce in Placer County,
Califo~nia, set up a dummy corporation designed to operate groups of
evacuee farms. Like other corporations formed to operate evacuee land,
it had no assets except leases obtained from evacuee owners and it depended upon a WFA loan negotiated with the Farm Security Administration
for operating costs.
"The officers in charge of the Wartime Farm Adjustment
Program knew that the corporations were designed for the
primary purpose of insulating the parent company, which
·was the marketing company, from any losses that might be
incurred as a result of the operation of the evacuated
lands. Northern Farms, Inc .•, was one of such dummy corporations. Its officers were the same as the officers of
its parent company, the Nash-DeC!lmp Company, which is a
company engaged in the marketing of farm products. No
salaries were paid to the officers of the Northern Farms,
Inc., and none of its field men were to be paid ~xcept out
of net profits and their salaries were paid by NashDeCamp Company.

(59)

"Northern Farms, Inc., obtained leases to 20 · farms owned or
leased and operated by American citizens of Japanese ancestry who were subsequently evacuated. After ortaining the
leases Northern Farms,Inc., submitted an application to the
Wartime Farm Adjustment Program Unit of the Farm Security
Administration for a loan to cover operation, management and
the supervision of the evacuated farms. This application
was accompanied by a budget and by the leases obtained from
the evacuees. The leases provided in relevant part as
fc--llows:
1 As rental for said farm, tools and equipment,
NORTHERN FARMS, INC., shall pay to the undersigned
fifty percent ( 50%) of the annual net operating
profit, if any such be made by it in the farming of
said farm. For the purpose of this lease, the net
operating profit shall be considered to mean the
proceeds from the sale of the crops produced on
said farm during each crop year of the t erm hereof
after deductlng all costs and expenses incurred by
NORTHERN FARMS, INC.,in its organization, operation
and maintenance, and the amount of all .such organization, general administrative and overhead expense,
shall be proportioned among all lessors of NORTHERN
FARMS, l '~C., on a planted acreage basis, it being contemplated tha t NORTHERN FARMS, I NC.,will lease,mai ntain and operate other farms in addition. to that
covered by this lease. Operating costs and expense
shall not include depreciation on said farm tools
and equipment, county taxes, payment on outstanding
real estate obligations, or payment on outstanding
equipment obligations.•

"Northern Farms, Inc., as a result of its loan application,
obtained a loan of $98,077.38. Northern Farms, Inc., as
security for the repayment of this loan executed a chattel
mortgage covering all of the crops on all of the twenty
farms. Northern Farms, Inc., further executed an assignment of the proceeds of the sale of these mortgaged crops
and the Nash-Decamp Company v1as notified of the assignment
and an acceptance of the assignment was executed by Mr.
Decamp, President of Northern Farms, Inc., and Vice President of Nash-DeCamp Company. The Nash-Decamp Company, however, did not pay the proceeds from the sale of the crops
to the Farm Security Administration but rather paid them
to Northern Farms, Inc.

(60)

"The financial transactions and position of Northern Farms,
Inc.,is shown in these two statements submitted to the Farm
Security Administration:
Northern Farms, Inc.
Berkeley, Calif.
OPERATIONS
RECEIPTS
Proceeds, Government Loan
Proceeds Fruit Sales
Proceeds State Gasoline Tax Refund

98,077.38
70,247.03
35.69
168,360.10

DISBURSE!&NTS

Repaid on Government Loan
Growing & Harvesting Costs
State Franchise Tax

91,h85.94
74,831.97
25.00

Balance Cash on Hand

166,342.91
2,017.19

FINANCIAL STATEMENT
ASSETS
Cash in Bank, held in trust for Japanese Growers
Net Due from Growers

2,017.19
6,591.44
8,608.63

LIABILITIES
Due to Japanese Growers (50% Credit Balances)
Bills Payable to U.S. Government

2,017.19
6,591.44
8,608.63

"Only five farms had a net operating profit. The $2,017.19
cash on hand is 50% of the net profit on these five farms.
"It is the position of Northern Farms, Inc., that it is not

the owner of these funds but that it is merely holding them
for the citizens of Japanese ancestry. That is likewise the
attitude of Mr. Russell Robinson of the War Relocation
Authority. Other than the $2,017.19, Northern Farms, Inc.
has no assets whatsoever.
698705 0 - 46 - 5

(61)

"The Northern Farms, Inc., has submitted to the Farm
Security Administration a detailed statement of its disbursements. No objection has been made to the manner of
its disbursement of the proceeds of the Government loan .
and the proceeds of the crops. The Nash-DeCamp Company has
not submitted a statement but no one believes that there
has been any unlawful charges or disbursements made by the
Nash-Decamp Company. In view of this belief, and in that
belief I concur as a result of my interview with Mr. Decamp
and Mr. Schnell, I believe that an action for an accounting
on the part of the Nash-Decamp Company would be fruitless.
"11orthern Farms, Inc., will not pay the $2,017.19 to the
United States voluntarily. If an action is instituted for
the foreclosure of the crop and chattel mortgage executed
by the Northern Farms, Inc., in order to recover the undisbursed proceeds of the crops, that is, the $2,017.19,
Northern Farms, Inc., will seek to interplead as defendants
the five evacuees to whom it asserts it owes these funds.
The position of Northern Farms, Inc., is simply that it is
a stakeholder. Inasrm.tch as Northern Farms, Inc., has no
other assets a deficiency judgment '.vould be uncollectible.
"The Farm Security Administration has asserted as its
position, 'It is believed that the claim of the United
States to these funds is paramount to the right of the
Japanese because of the crop and chattel mortgage recorded
for the Government. The United States was not a party to
the leases and the loan was made on the entire acreage,
without segregation according to individual parcels.'
"So far as I can ascertain, under California law a lessor
does not have a lien upon growing crops and a chattel mortgage would ordinarily prevail over the lessor in action to
apply the proceeds of the crops to repa;rment of the secured
loan even though the rent had not been paid the lessor or
sublessor. If the evacuees could be interpleaded, I do not
believe that rule would be applied here, however, because
of the relation that existed between the United States and
the evacuated lessors. The United States evicted the
lessors as a military measure. Defore evacuation the United
States arranged with Northern Farms, Tue., to lend money secured by a mortgage on the crops planted by the lessors
about to be evacuated and required the subntl.ssion of the
leases between the evacuees and Northern Farms, Inc., before
the loan was made. '!he United States thus knew that each
lessor was to be paid as rent 50% of the net operating
profit of his farm. These leases were part of a Government

(62)

caused, instituted and approved program. The United States
owed the evacuated lessors, all of them citizens of the
United States, a duty to protect their interests in their
crops. The United States certainly would not be protecting
the interest of the l lssors if it asserts a right to the
profits of the farms prior to that of the lessors and
particularly if, as here, it asserts that the profits of
these five farms be applied to the deficits suffered by the
other lessors. I believe the United States would fail in a
court o'f equity if the evacuees could be interpleaded. 11 18
In July of 1943, FSA filed claim of the United States against
Northern Farms, Inc., for $7,493.10 plus interest. The Attorney General,
by letter of July 26, 1943, sent the case to the United States Attorney
in San Francisco. This attorney interviewed Nash-DeCamp Company officers, the WRA Evacuee Property chief and the WRA regional attorney, two
attorneys of the Department of 1\griculture I s Office of the Solicitor,
and a representative of the regional office of Farm Security Administration. After conducting this investigation, the United States Attorney
reported to the Attorney General in a letter dated August 31, 1943. The
major part of that report is quoted above.
From August 31, 1943,until the spring of 1946, the present time
of writing, this case has been under discussion among the Claims Division of the Department of Justice, the Farm Security Administration ' of
the Department of Agriculture, and the War Relocation Authority. It is
at this time still under discussion.
Farm Management, Inc., of Sumner, Washington
Farm Management, Inc. was a variant among corporations set up to
operate evacuee farms, in that it was not established within the framework of a shippers' or growers' compar,y. Just prior to the evacuation
a group of five men formed the corporation kno,m as Farm Management, Inc.,
for the purpose of taking over operation of 36 parcels of evacuee farm
land totaling about 300 acres and located in the Puyallup and White
River Valleys in Pierce and King Counties. These farms had grO\~ing
crops at the time when the corporation took over. Each of the individuals who formed the corporation invested $100 in cash. The remainder
of the capital required for operation of the farnIB was procured through
FSA as a ··[FA loan, amounting to $60,500. The agency took as security a
mortgage on the crops and chattels. In accordance with the agreement
between the corporation and the evacuee owners, Farm Management, Inc.,
upon procuring the loan, paid $19,794.65 to the owners for their farm
equipment and $21,643.21 to the owners as a sum representing one-half of
half value of the growing crops; the other half of the owners I share of
50 per cent of crop value was to be paid after the harvest.

(63)

In a report of November 9, l 9h2, to the regional director of .'lRA
in San Francisco, Victor L. Furth of WRA's Svacuee Property Division
states:
1

"The FSA mortgage is due on December 15, 1942, but there is
not the slightest possibility of Farm Management, Inc., being
able to pay its obligation to the evacuees and discharge the
mortgage indebtedness by the due date. The evacuee's claim
to their rental has been subordinated by Farm Management,
Inc.,to the loan made by FSA and it appears that the mortgage cannot be paid in full even if all assets of the corporation were liquidated in payment of the mortgage.
"Mr. Gerald DeGarrno of Seattle, the attorney for Farm
Management, Inc., states that because of the belief that the
mortgage will have to be paid on December 15, one premature
garnishment action has been instituted by an attorney-infact representing three evacuee landlords, and other such
actions are likely to follow. It is his opinion that if
assurance were given that an extension of the mortgage could
be granted, these garnishments could be eliminated. Mr.
DeGarmo has stated that the corporation has sufficient cash
on hand to make a substantial payment to the evacuees as
well as to the Farm Security Administration; however, in
order- to pay out in full they would have to have the use of
some of the funds in order to carry on their operations into
next season. Both Farm Management, Incorporated,and the
evacuee property supervisor in our Seattle field office believe that, given sufficient time, this corporation could
meet all of its obligations and, if allowed to continue
operations, v1ould supply a very substantial quantity of food
products vitally needed in the Seattle market. On the other
hand, if they are forced into either voluntary or involuntary liquidation, the large nwnber of evacuee-owned farms
will be thrown out of production and it will be very difficult to secure other operators as well qualified as the
corporation now farming these lands."
½'hen the loan fell due, FSA took from Farm Management, Inc., all
proceeds on hand, leaving the corporation no funds for disbursement to
the evacuee owners as the balance due them on the price of the 1942
crops. FSA refused a loan to enable Farm Management, Inc.,to operate
the 36 farms in 1943, but the corporation was able to borrow $67,000
from the Regional Agricultural Credit Corporation, the latter taking a
mortgage on the 1943 crop as security. After the 1943 crop was harvested and disposed of, Farm Management, Ine.,had enough money on hand
to liquidate the Regional Agricultural Credit Corporation obligation but
had nothing at all to apply on the debt to the evacuee owners.
(64)

In early 191.J+, being unable to obtain financing through either
FSA or RACC or any private channel, Farm Management, Inc., filed a petition in bankruptcy, and early in the summer of 1944 the referee in bankruptcy ordered the sale of chattels of the corporation, realizing about
$12,000 therefrom. This sum was applied upon the FSA loan balance, but
$25,000 was still owing to FSA at the time when the bankruptcy court
discharged the corporation in bankruptcy.
Some of the evacuee owners who had contracted for the sale of
their crops to Farm Management, Inc.,requested WRA to file claims for
them in the bankruptcy court. This wa s done. A report of October 24,
1945,from the northwestern area office of; WR.A contains the facts of the
later developments of this case.

"A typical illustration is William Shimasald.. His claim
was in the amount of $2,000 and was substantiated by a
bill of sale given by him to Farm Management, Inc., covering the growing berry and vegetable crops to be harvested
at the close of the 1942 season. The crops were purchased
by the corporation for $4,000, half of which was received
in cash by Shimasaki from the proceeds of the WCCA /JiFfl
loan to the corporation. On October 10, 1944, WR.A filed
with O. M. Pitzen, referee in bankruptcy for the district
court of the United States for the western district of
Washington, Shima.saki's claim for $2,000. Shortly thereafter a
final meeting of creditors was held. Inasnruch as the liquidation of the chattels of the corporation amounted to only
about $12,000, no claims other than the claim of WCCA !Jsfj
were allowed. The bankruptcy court awarded all the proceeds
to the government, and the corporation was discharged in
bankruptcy as previously indicated." 19
The Nishimoto{'° Farm in San Joaquin County, California
At the time of the evacuation, Charles Nishimoto and his sister
Sally leased their 694-acre farm to a tenant for a period of three years,
the l ease calling for a cash rent of $9,000 for 1942 and $10,000 for
each of the remaining two years. The tenant procured a WFA loan of
$22,050 through FSA. Of this sum, $16,000 was allotted to the purchase of farm machinery and equipment while the remainder was obtained
to cover the cost of growing and harvesting JOO acres of tomatoes. As
usual, FSA took a crop and chattel mortgage as security. The tenant
stated to WR.A officials that he knew that he could-not possibly repay

. ~f

The names are fictitious.

(65)

the Government loan in one year and had made that condition plain to the
FSA representative. The latter assured the tenant at the time when the
mortgage was being arranged that rent due the Nishimotos would be released from the crop returns at each period when rent was due and payable, and, according to the tenant, the same representative promised
that the loan, although made for a term of one year, would nevertheless
be renewable from year to year if the tenant required this assistance
during the term of the lease.
In the fall of 1942 the tenant called at the -San Francisco office of WRA to lay his problems before the Evacuee Property Division.
Because of an acute labor shortage, he had not been able to harvest his
entire crop and so had not realized the returns which he had anticipated.
FSA had notified him that in view of the impending default in the payment of his loan, no release for the payment of rent to the evacuee
owners could be approved. He had called at the regional office of FSA
and was warned that if he did not pay the loan in full on the maturity
date, the chattel mortgage would be foreclosed.

Since the interests of evacuee owners were involved in this matter, i'IRA conferred with FSA. The loan was not due until early in 1943.
The tenant, if he were given assurance that he could continue to farm
the land in 1943, wa-s prepared to plant fall crops which were badly
needed in the market. However, in the face of FSA's announced determination to seize and dispose of his chattels to make up the deficit in
his payment of the loan before these crops could he harvested, he had
little incentive to go ahead with his fall planting. The evacuee property division representative from WR.A, after discussing the problem
with FSA, reported as follows:
"***The Farm Security Administration states that, under
what they consider a sound collection program, payment of
the loan should be required this year because there is
security available with which to pay it. They contend
that if an additional year were granted and next year's
operations, because of labor difficulties or some other
factor, should prove unprofitable, they would then have a
smaller chance of being paid out in full and would be subject to criticism for not having collected when there was
opportunity. 11 20
·
Farm Security Administration proceeded to foreclose, appropriating all farm machinery and equipment on the land. The Nishirnotos,
having relocated and settled down to farming in Michigan, decided that
they would not return to California when and if the exclusion orders
were revoked. Real estate agents and the Bank of America began to show
interest in the Nishimoto land. An undated report of the summer of 1944
from the evacuee property supervisor of WRA's Sacramento office to his
chief in San Francisco contains the information:
(66)

"* ~.:- *

you mentioned . that ➔:- ➔:- ~- f[he JTu:"lnager for tlie Reclamation district in which the Nishimoto property is
locate37' called on you at San Francisco, and stated that
it would be impossible for the -::- ➔~ ➔:- ffiishimoto y to
carry on and pay fixed charges with a rental of $10,000.00
per year, and that it would probably be possible to sell
the holdings for approximate ly f;l25,000.00 . You further
inquired if this office had received any requests from the
-{:- ➔:- ➔~ ffiishimoto y to assist them in any way with their
property, located near ~.1anteca. '.le informed you that we
have had no such requests.
"We discussed the present market value of this property,
and it was our opinion that this property was ,vorth considerably more than the figure mentioned by*** L[he
manager of the Reclamation distric!:.7. It was our impression that the total Federal land bank loan made on
this property, was for the purpose of paying off the
assessment on the Reclamation district, and it was suggested that you have Hr. Furth contact the Federal Land
Bank for a verificatio n of this, and also, if possible,
obtain the appraised value of this property when the land
bank loan was made. 11
The Sacramento evacuee property office got in touch with Mr.
Nishimoto and was requested by him .to place the farm on the market.
Accordingly , in December of 1944, the property ·was listed with several
real estate firms in San Francisco and in Stockton. Letters describing
the property viere sent to agents and interested individuals . Typical
of these is one to the manager of the Bank of America, Santa Maria,
California:
"***the property in question consists of parts of
sections 26, 27, 34, and 35, T. 2 S.R. 6E., and is located
eight miles southwest of Manteca on the Durham Ferry Road
at a point where the San Joaquin River makes a long horseshoe turn and the property lies within this turn.
"The gross acreage is 694.27 acres. Of this amount approximately 500 acres lie within the levies of the Reclamation
district lmown as McMullin Reclamation District No. 2Cf/5,
and approximate ly 195 acres are outside the levy without
boundary lines, going to the center of the San Joaquin
River.
"The soils of this property are Hanford sandy loam and
Hanford fine sandy loam. The sandy loam is adaptable to
seed crops, carrots, beans and potatoes. The Federal land
(67)

bank had a loan on this property for approximately
There is no bonded indebtedness. The property has been leased for the past several years for
$10,000.00 per year, cash rental. The only improvements
on the property are a small dwelling and several tool
sheds. There is no equipment that goes with the property.

$60,000.00.

"The owners are * * ➔~ ffiharles and Sally Nishimot.i7, who
are now located in :'.fichigan, and have requested this office
to help them in the disposition or sale of this property.
Undoubtedly you have prospects in view who \'1ould be interested in the purchase of this property, vihich can be
shovm at any time. The full pric.e of the property including the commission of 5% and escrow and title charges is

$135,000.00. 11

On May 16, 1945, a letter from the Sacramento office of WRA to
Mr. Nishimoto reads:

"As for your ranch property, may we advise that up to the
present time we have not received any encouraging possibilities of disposing of it for the holding price. We firmly
believe your asking price is in line compared to the way
properties have been selling. We have had any number of
inquiries, but after they have made an investigation they
inform us that they are not interested primarily on account
of flood hazards.

"It is my personal op1.m.on that someone in that -area is
knocking the place. It may be possible to dispose of it,
as suggested in your letter, by subdividing it into
smaller tracts, but before doing this it may be well for
you to make another visit to the area and talk this possibility over first hand with ➔~ ➔~ ~- [the manager of the
Reclamation distric.!J. 11
On June 28, 1945, the Sacramento office ,vrote to :ifr. Nishimoto:
"This will acknowledge your letter of June 24 with reference to the sale of your propert~ near Esparta §nother
small town close to the propertv.
·,:e immediately contacted * ➔~ ➔~ ,Lthe nianager of the Reclamation distric.!:7 * ➔:- -~ on the telphone and were advised that he had a purchaser willing to pay $100,000
cash for your ranch, and it was hi~ opinion that it
would be impossible to obtain any more at the present
time.
11

(68)

"In the past three months we have had three people who
thought they might be interested in handling this property but after investigation they all were fearful of
the flood hazard, and for this reason would not carry on
any further negotiations.
"I personally believe that the property is worth more
than the above offer, but due to the Federal land bank's
attitude, I do not wish to advise you one way or the
other. I firmly believe that if you were here farming
the property as you did in the past, the ranch would pay
large dividends on a Jl00,000 investment.
11
{~ * ~~ Lfhe manager of the Reclamation distric.!:7 was of
the opinion that it 11ould be possible to realize a few
thousand dollars more if the place was to be subdivided.
On the other hand, th e cost of surveying and subdividing
,vould nearly offset the extra money and eventually you
would be left ,vi th only that part outside the levee which
would be very difficult to dispose of.

"Knowing that this ranch has meant a very large investment to you I hate to see you dispose of it at such a
loss. If it were possible for you t~ eather up a crew of
evacuees and had enoueh finances to purchase the necessary
equipment, I am positive that you and your associates
,·wuld make enough money in the next four or five years to
place your land bank loan in a current position.

"If you decide to make the sale through }Ar. Perrin I s sug-

gestions, kindly advise this office in order that we may
be informed of the proposition."
The latest official word on the Nishimoto case reached Washington
by tel~type from Sacramento, dated February 25, 1946. The Nishimotos
had returned to California in the latter half of 1945. They sold their
ranch for $100,000, a sum that netted them $30,000 above their indebtedness. With this capital they purchased a three-story building in Stockton, in which they are operating a hotel and two shops. According to
the report Mr. Nishimoto professes that he is "satisfied with the entire
deal."

(69)

REGULATIONS AND PROCEDURES GOVERNING WRA 1 S HANDLING OF EVACUEE PROPERTY

Having operated the evacuee property program under a tentative
policy for nearly five months after assuming the responsibility, the
Authority established a formal policy in January of 1943, spelling out
in detail regulations and procedures in Administrative Instruction
No. 77, and setting up a system for handling movable property in Administrative Instruction No. 78, both instructions peing ussued on
January 23.
Executive Order N9. 9102, which created the .. -41ar Relocation Authority authorized the Director to "provide for the needs" of evacuated
persons "in such manner as may be.appropriate," and to assist them in
the "management and disposal of their property." The wording of the
instructions in regard to evacuee property reflects the thinking of rnidMarch, when agencies holding responsibility for safeguarding the interests of evacuated persons thought in terms of disposal and liquidation
rather than in terms of preservation. By the time when WRA assumed
responsibility for evacuee property, the losses sustained by the evacuees
in consequence of hasty liquidation of their assets were obvious enough
to make the Authority aware of its obligation to safeguard and preserve
what was left in the way of tangible assets.
The objective of ½'RA in this matter was to make available every
type of assistance which an evacuee required--and requested. The Authority did not solicit business but stood ready to serve. The kinds
of service available were publicized at the centers, and a steadily increasing number of people turned to the Authority for help with prop~rty
problems. The general policy statement contained in Administrative Instruction No. 77 read:
➔, ➔:- it is to be remembered that the Authority operates
only as an intermediary ➔:- -::- .,:- Therefore in no case shall
any representative of the Authority direct what action any
evacuee shall take with reference to his property problems,
the duty of such representative being to furnish such advice and information as may be requested by the evacuee,
and to help the evacuee to put into operation such decisions
with reference to the lawful disposition of his property as
are arrived at by the evacuee of his own free will. In addition -:-, -:, ~- the decisions thus reached by the evacuee shall
not actually be put into operation by any representative of
the Authority, but by a real estate agent, a bank, an accountant, an attorney, or other person in private business
or profession, of the evacuee's own choosing, liaison between such person and the evacuee being provided by the
Authority as requested by the evacuee.
11 -i:-

(70)

"The office ·will make investigations, reply to inquiries,
assist in handling problems of management, operation and
disposition of real and personal property, aid in settling claims held by evacuees, and assist prospective
purchasers, lessees, managers, agents, and others in
contacting evacuees.
"It shall be part of the basic policy of the Evacuee
Property Office that so far as possible and except only
as otherwise specifically set forth in this Administrative
Instruction, it shall serve not as substitute owner, director, or operator of the property involved, but in an
investigational, informational, and advisory capacity, and
as an intermediary and negotiator between the evacuee and
other persons or companies whom the evacuee shall choose
to act for him, represent him, operate his property, or
lease or purchase from him.
"As a corollary of this basic policy it follows that the
acceptance or rejection of the services of a real estate
agent, a bank, an attorney, etc., and in fact of the
services of the Authority, shall be for the evacuee himself to determine in all cases. Likewise the evacuee shall
always make the decision as to acceptance or rejection of a
given course of action (e.g., whether his property should
be leased or sold, whether goods should be stored or disposed of, whether a given price should be accepted or rejected) with respect to all of his property to which he has
lawful right. In all cases it shall be the function of the
office to ascertain the facts, and to make available as
many practical alternatives as possible, in order that the
evacuee may be aided in reaching an intelligent conclusion;
but the advice of any representative of the office shall be
given only when specifically requested and then only upon
making clear to the evacuee that the advice is not a direction and that the evacuee is free to disregard it."
WRA at no time served as a loan agency; as a short-lived war
agency it was not prepared to cope with the problems of collections which
might endure over a period beyond the life of the agency. However, the
Authority established contacts which made it possible for the Nisei to
get loans on the same basis as other citizens.
Freezing power was delegated to the Director of WR.A by the Secretary of the Treasury but was never exercised by the Director. ¥fuile
judicious exercise of the freezing power in the period im.~ediately before
the evacuation took place might well have prevented heavy losses, the use
of such power upon the property of United States citizens--even citizens

(?l)

who were currently suspect because of their racial affiliation with the
enerny:-was considered a dangerous proceeding. It was recognized that
the use of such power to interfere with any property owner's right to
dispose of his own property as he saw fit could well throw a propertyminded nation into a panic, because what had been done before could be
done again; a government that used freezing power to prevent a citizen
of Japanese ancestry from selling his property at a loss viould be establishing a precedent which might lead to Federal action to prevent a
citizen of Irish ancestry from selling his property at a gain.
Legal Aid to Evacuees
General government policy and practical consideration of the effect upon public relations, to say nothing of budgetary limitations,
made it infeasible for :"IRA attorneys to represent evacuee clients in
courts. Government attorneys, with the exception of those in the Department of Justice ·do not appear in court; court litigation is handled by
the Department of Justice. Had it been decided that WRA should provide
the evacuees with free representation in court, the Authority would have
had to persuade United States attorneys to assume a heavy burden of
cases--recognizing the fact that free service invites heavy demands-or
accept a delegation of such responsibilities for its own attorneys. In
the latter and more probable event, in order to handle the case load,
WR.A would have needed a prodigious staff of lawyers and unlimited travel
funds. Assuming that these suggested obstacles could have been overcome,
there would have been a serious disruption of public relations had the
United States Government attorneys represented the evacuees, free of
charge, in local courts of the far west, when local, private attorneys
might reasonably be expected to handle such cases.
Thus it was determ.ined early that evacuees should have free leeal
advice from WRA project attorneys and that it should be a responsibility
of WR.A to make available to the evacuees the services of private lawyers
who would agree to represent the evacuees for a reasonable fee.
As early as lJay of 1942 the Special Bill of Rights Committee of
the American Bar Association was displaying an interest in problems connected with the evacuation, and in a letter of August 6, 1942, Mr. Ross
L. Malone, Jr., of the comr.rl.ttee, made specific suggestions and recommendations to the Director of WR.A; among them, and based on the assumption that 1.'iRA acted as a receiver of property for the evacuees, 'Was the
suggestion that the Government receiver should bring court proceedings to
set aside unfair sales for those Japanese who were willing and able to
repay the purchase price which they had received for their property. The
Solicitor of VvRA replied by letter of September 14, 1942, explaining that
neither WR.A nor any other Government agency was in a position to serve as
receiver and describing what services WRA was prepared to provide. In
the course of the letter the Solicitor advanced a plan whic~ was to prove
(72)

of decided benefit to evacuees whose problems required court action:
"Your letter precipitates a question concerning which I
was planning to.write you in the near future. In connection with the work of the Evacuee Property Division I have
been planning to ask the American Bar Association and the
National Lawyers Guild to work ·with the War Relocation
Authority in the organization of a panel of attorneys in
private practice in each relatively large city and town on
the West Coast to whom the Evacuee Property Division may refer
cases arising out of the viork of that division which require
the institution of private suit by evacuees, or which otherwise require the services of a private attorney. We are
hopeful that the public service nature of these cases will
induce the members of such panels to handle such referred
cases on the basis of an agreed schedule of low but reasonable fees. I should be glad to get your tentative reaction
to this suggestion and hope to be able to discuss it with
you further when our plans are a little further developed."
Throughout the first half of the calendar year of 1943, the San
Francisco field office worked closely with the California Bar Association to establish an attorney referral system in California, which would
permit evacuees needing legal assistance from lawyers in private practice to get qualified attorneys at a ~easonable fee. Letters were sent
to a large number of lawyers who had evidenced interest in \11ar work and
problems arising from the evacuation. Panels were composed of lawyers
who were qualified in the different fields of litigation to which evacuee
problems had reference and who were willing to represent the legal interests of the evacuees under an agreed-upon fee schedule which took into account the impaired financial status of most evacuees. Furthermore,
a system for rotation of names on the panel was inaugurated so that the
evacuees might exercise the privileee of personal selection. At no time
was any evacuee discouraged from making his mm arrangements with any
private attorney he might know or care to use, but the referral system
was operative in California for those evacuees who needed and cared to
use it. On August 5, 1943, formal regulations governing the operation
of the attorney referral system were issued by the Authority as Manual
Release 50.l+o
These regulations provided for the needs of any evacuee who was
unable to pay for the services of an attorney in accordance with the fee
schedule, if it appeared that the attorney representing the evacuee
could not collect the fee out of the probable proceeds of the case. In
such an instance the evacuee made an affidavit clearly setting forth his
lack of assets and the facts which demonstrated his inability to pay an
attorney, whereupon the project attorney made recommendations in his behalf to the free legal clinic in or nearest to the area in which the
services ~ere required.

(73)

The referral system did not materialize in Oregon or ~'lashington,
but groups of qualified lawyers who were interested in assisting evacuee
owners at a moderate fee were located and identified to the evacuees by
officials of the evacuee property -offices within .those states. '.'ffiA
attorneys have been under obligation throughout the program to cooperate with and provide essential information to such attorneys as have
represented the evacuees in court.
Adaptations of Procedures for Property Supervision to the Various
Phases of the Relocation Program
A~ has been true of the course of every other feature of the

VRA

program, so in the case of evacuee property provisions, basic regulations were established, then reshaped, liberalized, embellished-or
sometimes curtailed--according to the recognized needs of the evacuees
_and of the over-all program at specific periods.
The basic obligations of WR.A in dealing with evacuee property
were two in number:(l) to assist the evacuees to reestablish the~
selves outside the prohibited area, first in some one of the WRA centers
and ' thence in normal life and work at some point outside a center; and,
(2) to give the evacuees all possible assistance in connection with their
properties and holdings in the Pacific Coastal area from which they were
excluded by military order.
As time passed, changes occurring within the agency or changes
superimposed upon the agency by forces and factors external to it
necessitated alterations, usually amplifications, of the services included in WR.A's evacuee property program. Major events which occurred
within the lifet~ne of the Authority and which resulted in alterations
in procedures and regulations governing the evacuee property program
were, in chronological order:
1.

The adoption by WR.A of a leave program under which
any citizen or alien of Japanese descent against whom
the federal intelligence agencies had no count could
reestablish himself in private life outside the
prohibited area;

The reopening of United States military service to
the Nisei;

The segregation of those evacuees who stated that
their future interests lay with Japan rather than with
the United States;

The revocation of the mass exciusion orders by the War
Department together with the Western Defense Command's
(74)

designation of individual evacuees for continu~d exclusion from the military areas of the Pacific Coast;
5.

The termination of hostilities with Japan;

The scheduled closing of the relocation centers.

The basic leave regulations were effective October 1, 1942, but
because leave clearance procedures were at first time-consuming and cumbersome, and also because the Authority's public information campaign to
clear away myths and rumors and general uninformed prejudice in relation
to the Japanese ~~erican people had not yet produced perceptible results,
the relocation of evacuees to private life was inconsiderable for the
first fifteen months of the program--although the movement out of the
centers was gaining momentum by the close of 1943.
Until 1944 adjustments of the evacuee property regulations to the
relocation program were minor. That they were so is best explained in
terms of the kind of people who relocated during the first year of progress toward the Authority's objective of emptying the centers. During
the first year of the established leave program, the vast majority of
the people who left the centers to resume the privileges and responsibilities of American life v1ere the young and unattached; they were a
pioneer group upon whose success or failure in adjustment to the complex
living conditions and pressures of wartime the relocation of family
groups and older people depended.
During 1943 regulations on transportation of evacuee household a
and personal property permitted one move at Government expense in addition to the move from private to Government storage. 'Ihat is, an evacuee could ask to have his goods picked up by the C~verrunent and placed
for safekeeping in a vi.RA warehouse; he could ask to have his goods·, or
part of them, sent to him at the center from the warehouse. If that
request had been made and his goods delivered to him at the center, he
could not have this assortr.ient of possessions moved free of charge to
his relocation destination. However, regulations permitted him to have
personal and household effects totaling not more than 500 pounds sent to
his relocation destination free of charge. Of course, if an evacuee had
left his household things and extra·clothing in a WR.A warehouse on the
West Coast for the duration of his stay in a relocation center, then he
still had the privilege of having the 1"1hole lot shipped to his new
establishment free of charge v1hen he relocated. Since the pioneers in
relocation were the young and unattached, the 500-pound limitation
proved no particular obstacle to their resettlement even if they had
exhausted their one unlimited move privilege.

By the close of the year several factors made it feasible for
WflA to begin urging the Issei and family groups to leave the isola.ted

and unnatural ,wrld of the centers, with the result that policies and
(75)

procedures were altered in 1944 to accommodate the needs of the older
people with family responsibilities.
However, even though regulations concerning the moving of property were fairly stable, the Evacuee Property Office, in common with all
Divisions of WRA, experienced the turbulence and the pressures to which
the Authority was subjected throughout the year of 1943.
West Coast racist groups of long standing who had pressured for
evacuation and had been vociferous in their approval of the Western Defense Comrnand's conduct in ordering and carrying out the evacuation of
all persons of Japanese ancestry from the coastal region were bitterly
opposed to the relocation program and to the Government agency which had
been charged with the obligation to relocate 110,000 people in orderly
fashion. No sooner had the racists learned that evacuees were being
processed out of what the former had hoped would be duration detention
camps than the outcry against WRA began. Resolutions were forwarded to
Congress to prohibit the release of Japanese Americans, to urge legislation that would deprive the Nisei of their citizenship and allow mass
deportation of the minority at the end of the war. On the West Coast
new super-patriotic pressure groups were born to crusade against the
return of the exiled residents at any time. 'lhe Hearst press and the
McClatchy press reported invention as fact and carried the banner for
for the racists in this new upsurge of fanatic prejudice.
On January 28, !943,the War Department opened the armed forces to
Nisei volunteers for the formation of a segregated combat team. The
restoration to the Nisei of the privilege of offering their lives in defense of their country and so of demonstrating in unassailable fashion
their loyalty enraged the racebaiters still further, especially as
liberal presses throughout the country applauded the move.
The year of 1943 was a year of investigations, official and unofficial, beginning with the Senate Military Affairs Committee in
January and soon including the Dies Subcommittee, the latter having
employed an investigator given to releasing conclusions to the press before there were any findings. In January the McClatchy press in California launched a campaign for the seizure of Japanese-owned motor
vehicles and farm equipment which inspired a senator of the State
Legislature who was chairman of the legislature's committee on unAmerican activities to authorize an investigation of the storedvehicle situation that eventually became a Dies-ian sort of investigation of the over-all activities of WRA; whether investigation of the
total program of a Federal agency is a legitimate function of a state
legislature committee was a question which apparently did not occur to
the members of the Tenny committee.

(76)

The McClatchy Bee papers published in Sacramento and Fresno both
ran a long article on January 28, 1943, in which it was charged that from
"20,000 to 25.,000 Japanese-owned automobiles and trucks equipped with
prewar grade tires in good condition are believed to be stored for the
duration of the war in public and private garages" when "OPA investigators .Ye ➔~ * found two buildings in West Fresno owned by Nipponese" which
"housed more than 100 cars in excellent condition all belonging to the
Japanese., and the cars are not for sale ➔~ * ➔~. When the war is over and
the coast states Japanese are permitted to resume their former residences,
they can start motoring again on practically new rubber, while the balance of the state's auto owners will have to get by on the scrap rubber
tires they have been saving and wearing out during the war -r.- ➔~ ➔~ the
tires are useless on the stored automobiles, and that is the way the
Japanese want them, until the war is over." 'Ihe following day the story
appeared in the Hearst papers of San Francisco and Los .Angeles and also
in the San Francisco Chronicle. The San Joaquin Federal clubwomen requested the War Department by letter to distribute Japanese-owned farm
iJ1!Plement~ "to white farmers Vlho can use them now to win the war."
LSan Francisco Examiner, February 5, 194-y. Congressman Gearhart of Fresno
told the press that "federal agencies should fornrulate plans to acquire
thousands of motor vehicles and pieces of farm equipment stored by
Japanese removed from California." /J,os Angeles Times, February 2,
194Y, In the House of Representatives the same Congressman 11 criticized
Rubber Czar William Jeffers for failing to utilize an estimated 100,000
serviceable tires on Japanese-owned automobiles and trucks now in storage," and "announced he is calling on Jeffers to take immediate action
loold.ng to the release of the tires." /Jresno Bee, Sacramento Bee.,
February 1, 194'iJ.
In Salinas an incident of th~t period revealed itself as being
typical of the relation between charges and the facts in this whole upheaval about idle, Japanese-owned farm equipment in the Coastal States.

On January 26, 1943, Fred s. McCarger, Secretary of the Salinas
Chamber of Commerce addressed Senator Downey of California as follows:
"It is estimated that there are 500 pieces of Japaneseowned farm equipment stored in this Valley. This machinery
has been used to farm the Salinas Valley and there is no
new machinery available to take its place. Something
should be done to release it for use if the land is to get_
the maxirrrum production for the War Effort.
"The Salinas Chamber of Commerce, cooperating with the
American Legion and the Monterey County Farm Bureau respectfully request your assistance."
As a result of this letter the WRA evacuee property supervisor
for the area which included the Salinas Valley conducted a survey and
made a report to his chief, dated February 9, 19430
698705 0 • 46 • 6

(77)

"This is a report on a survey made in the Salinas Valley.
to locate the reported 500 pieces of stored Japanese
equipment. This report on the equipment came as a result
of a resolution passed bythe King City American Legion and
also from a letter sent to Senator Sheridan Downey by
Mr. Fred McCarger, Secretary of the Salinas Chamber of
Commerce. This letter Y,as sent on the recommendation of
a group which met as a result of receiving the resolution
from the King City Afilerican Legion. This group was composed of Mr. McCarger, Frank Cornell, Fred Heart and others.
"This survey took in the towns of the Salinas Valley, including Salinas, Watsonville, Soledad and King City; also
th e town of Hollister and vicinity, Gilroy and vicinity
and San Jose and vicinity.
"My first contact was with Mr. McCarger. I asked him who
had definite knowledge as to where this purported storetl
machinery was. He stated that he did not know of the
location of it; that they had sent their letter on the
basis of the resolution submitted by the King City American
Legion. Mr. McCarger suggested I contact Mr. Frank Cornell,
of the Cornell Tractor and Equipment Company, as Mr. Cornell
seemed to have more definite knowledge as to where it was
stored. This company has branch offices in Watsonville and
Soledad. Mi.en I talked to Mr. Cornell, he stated he did
not have actual knowledge as to where any machinery was
located, but that a list had been prepared by his manager,
Mr. Lee Johnson, of the Japanese with whom they had contact.
This list included machinery that had been sold or turned
over to other operators on a loan or lease basis. It appeared that all had been either sold or leased, but that
there were a few cases in which they were in doubt and believed the machinery was stored there. This list was made
available to us. Mr. Cornell took the attitude that this
equipment, which was not sold, was probably not in service,
or, if it was, it was not used to its fullest extent. He
then went into a discussion on how he had heard from reliable reports, as he put it, that in Southern California
there was quite a large amount of stored machinery. In
going over the list with Mr. Johnson, he checked the names
of those who, he believed, might have equipment stored, and
from this list I found that a Mr. E. M. Juhler had one
Caterpillar Tractor Number 22, two John Deere listers; another farmer had a 10-foot ring roller which ,'las new, and
one 6-foot Killifer chisel. 11

(78)

In fact, a thorough investigation, in the course of which the
property supervisor checked with 30 prominent men in the valley-in addition to the ones previously mentioned--amon g ·whom "l'1ere bankers, farnrers, business men engaged in marketing produce or selling or buying farm
machinery, the chairman of the County r!ar Board, and the County Agricultural Supervisor, resulted in the location of not 500 pieces of idle
farm equipment, but five.

The WRA representative 's report concludes:
"Before leaving Salinas I had an interview again with
Mr. HcCarger. He was entirely satisfied with the contacts and stated that he thought that it was a complete
and thorough survey. He then sent, in my presence a
telegram to Senator Sheridan Downey which read as
follows:
ir;:ar Relocation Representatives have cooµerated
with us and we have ma:ie thorough survey of valley
and find very little Japanese owned farm machinery
not being used and that not being used is in process of negotiations to be used. Probably information originated with people ;,,ho are anti-Japanese
returning to this territory. That feeling growing
in this district. Will you notify other members
of the Senate.
Salinas Chamber of Commerce
/s/ Fred McCarger.'
"There were many other contacts made on this trip, but no
one could give me any information or had no knowledge of
where any equipment had been stored." 22
In the spring the Federal Government initiated action to permit

the acquisition by eminent domain of idle farm equipment. To be able to
inform the United States Department of Agriculture State and County ;"!ar
Boards (which agencies administered the regulation) what evacuee-owned
farm machinery existed and where it was, WRA I s Property Division compiled
and forwarded to the War Boards by the end of June, 35 separate inventories.

In July an informal understanding was reached between the 2vacuee

Property Office and the California State War Board regarding procedure
for requisitioning idle farm machinery. The county war boards, after
that time, furnished WR.A with a copy of each letter making a purchase
offer to an evacuee owner of idle equipment. The Evacuee Property Office
then comrrrunicated with the evacuee, cautioning him that he had only 10
days in which to reply to the offer or have his property requisitioned.
(79)

It was the practice of the State War Board to withhold action until receiving word from the ~vacuee Property Office. When WRA was able to certify that an evacuee owner had been granted leave and was negotiating a
farm lease or purchase elsewhene in the United States, the St2.te 1Var
Board granted an extension of time in which the evacuee could apply for
approval of the war board in the county of his relocation, which would
then recommend cancellation of the requisition. At the close of 1943,
evacuee owned farm machinery had been requisitioned in only 38 instances. 23
Property Problems Arising from the _Segregation Program
In the early fall of 1943 WR.A carried out a program to segregate
those evacuees who by word or action had indicated that their loyalties
lay with Japan from those who considered themselves Americans. Tule Lake
Relocation Center was cleared of most of that part of its population
which ,~as relocatable and converted into a segregation center. 'Svery
effort vias made to persuade the Tuleans of good record to relocate rather
than to transfer to another relocation center. Those v:ho relocated from
Tule Lake at this ti.r:ie were granted free transportation of all their
household goods and personal possessions, free of charee, regardless of
whether they had had one movement of their goods previously. In spite of
this inducement, only a few hundred relocated from Tule at that time.
However, the segregation movements taxed the resources of the Evacuee
Property Office to the limit.

Betvieen mid-September and mid-October of 1943, 33 train trips
transported 14,825 persons, 6,250 of them from Tule Lake to other centers
and 8,575 to Tule Lake from other centers. This transfer of thousands of
people required transfer of their household goods. At the same time
steadily increasing numbers of evacuees were relocating and n~eding their
household goods and other eq-qipment in their new hor.ies, v1hich might be
anywhere from the California state line to the Atlantic coast, or from
the Canadian border to the Mexican border. During the latter half of
1943 alone, a total of 1,531 requests for storage and of 3,227 requests
for shipment were received from centers and processed through the San
Francisco headquarters of the evacuee property field offices-these figures representing the needs of relocatin3 people, not of those transferring from or to Tule Lake.
During the segregation movements, the Transportation Section of
Evacuee Property was made responsible for the handling of all matters
relating to segregation program freight shipments; n~n were detailed to
the centers from the field offices to assist in the handling of the personal property to be transferred. The Tule Lake center completed its
outbound shipment of freight in September by forwarding 51 carloads of
household goods and 10 carloads of excess baggage which could not be
moved in the baggage cars that accompanied the passenger trains. By

(80)

the end of November, 59 cars of household goods had been received at the
segregation center from the relocation centers. In all, more than
4,700,600 pounds of freight we11e moved at this time, in connection with
the segregation program.
The year 1943 saw the beginning of an exhaustive land ownership
field survey made by the evacuee property field offices throughout the
evacuated area. This survey was painstakingly thorough, and when it was
completed, in 1945, WR.A field men had searched the County Recorder's
records in every county in the evacuated area, making a record of any
property owned by persons whose name indicated Japanese origin. All
parcels of evacuee-owned land were thus identified, classified, cataloged, and mapped. The survey was of immediate value to the work of the
Evacuee Property Office, but it was realized that its major use might
well be to the Government in connection "With postwar claims and damage·
suits. The figures shown by the survey are set forth below:

STATE

Number of Holdings within the Evacuated Area, 1943-1945
Rural
Urban
No. of Counties
Holdings
Holdings
with J. Holdings

California
Oregon
Washington
TOTALS

3,267
9.3
.382
3,742

39
2

3
44

1,715
130
201
2,046

On October 22, 1943, the War Department issued its first press
release on the performance of the Japanese American 100th Infantry Battalion in action in the Italian campaign. From that time on, the Nisei
in United States Army uniform, fighting in Europe continued to mount up
honors and casualties, till they were the most decorated and cited unit
in the armed forces, and probably one of the most publicized. Their
performance had the effect, not instantaneously but gradually, of quieting the voices of all but the most rabid of the American racebaiters,
and of enlarging materially the ranks of the forces of good will that
were determined to see that the families of Nisei fighters were accepted
as full Americans. Furthermore their performance persuaded the War Department to restore Selective Service to the Nisei, who after March 31,
1942,had been classed 4-C by the Selective Service Boards. Restoration
of the privilege of being processed on individual qualifications rather
than on a racial basis was made by the War Department on January 20, 1944.
Improvement of public opinion concerning the ·character of the
Japanese .Americans and steadily diminishing reserves of manpower for the
nation's industry favored the relocation program of WRA throuehout the
year of 1944. During this year the program was geared to encourage the
older people and families to leave the centers and resume independent
life and work. From January 18 to 20 an evacuee property conference was
(81)

held in San Francisco. Representatives from Washington, attorneys and
property officers froill the centers, transportation and property supervisors from the area offices, and the personnel of the San Francisco
office discussed the needs and problems of the period, and me~sures were
agreed upon to improve property services to the evacuees. Exchange of
visits of property and transportation officers between the West Coast offices and the centers was authorized; more thorough investigation, reporting and documenting of cases of fraud, vandalism, pilferage, fire
damage and serious management lapses were urged upon property supervisors
in the evacuated area; transportation procedures were amended to permit
the cost of packing and crating evacuee property at the projects, and the
500-pound limitation on personal property shipments to points of relocation was eliminated, as of M.s.rch 4, 1944. At the same time a new provision allowed the free transportation of 5,000 pounds of fixtures, equipment, machinery or tools necessary to business enterprise l'lhenever a
family was unable to procure such equipment in the area of relocation.
The closing of Jerome Relocation Center in Arkansas on June JO,
1944, involving the movement of 5,707 people with their household and

personal possessions durine the month of June, necessitated the shipping
of 43 freight car loads of property to one or another of three distant
centers which received the greater part of the Jerome population and 557
truckloads to the nearby Rohwer Relocation Center, -v,1hich accommodated
2,514 of the transfer cases. 24

On December 17, 1944, the War Department announced the revocation
of the mass exclusion orders, effective January 2, 1945. The Western
Defense Command substituted for the mass exclusion orders a system by
which it could designate individuals . for exclusion from the coastal area
or for continued detention by the Department of Justice. with the mass
of the Japanese American minority free to return to the West Coast,
Director Dillon s. Myer announced that all relocation centers would close
not earlier than six months, a~d not later than one year, after the
effective date of revocation.
The return of the evacuees to the West Coast and the liquidation
of the Authority presented numerous problems to the Evacuee Property Office of ¼'R.A. Once the ban was lifted, there was a marked falling away in
property sales. Few sales were consummated in 19h5 except those which
had been determined before the revocation announcement and those requested by evacuees who had decided to continue life away from the Pacif~
ic Coast. In the matter of leases, whether of agricultural, comr:i.ercial
or residence proper~y, the problem changed suddenly from a responsibility to procure substitute operators to an obligation to dislodge those
substitute operators so that the owners could take over. A substantial
nwnber of the substitute operators showed the ereatest disinclination to
be dislodged. Many hastily drawn up leases dating from the spring of
1942 contained the clause "for the duration'J--not even indicating to
what the duration referred; others ce.rried the even more ambiguous wording "for the duration of hostilities," and permitted the tenant to hold
(82)

out for the termination of hostilities with Japan. "Duration of the war"
offered an out because it could be interpreted to include the period following the cessation of hostilities and prolonged until the President
should make official declaration that the state of national emergency no
longer existed. Any lease which set the termination date at the termination of the exclusion of the owner was as rare as it was convenient.
Increasing the natural reluctance of people to move themselves
and their possessions were two factors, both predicated by the war. The
great influx of defense workers resulting from the mushrooming war industries on the Pacific Coast had created an extraordinarily severe
housing problem in all the cities and rost of the larger towns of the
three coastal states. Defense workers had poured into the living quarters of former Japanese districts throughout the coastal area; when the
evacuees began to stream back, they found the tenants determined to keep
such shelter as they had and given to taking refuge in any technicality
which v10uld allow them to stave off the day of departure. In rural
areas the evacuation of the Japanese Americans had created a vacuum
which had sucked in another group of dislocated people, the refugees from
the Dust Bowl states who for years had wandered the ,·rest Coast, an insecure, unpopular migratory people. Farmers without land, as these refugees were up to the time of the evacuation, they became in many instances the logical substitute operators of Japanese-owned farms. Wartime profits from farm produce rose steadily. People who had known the
extreme of poverty and insecurity were suddenly prosperous; the means of
their prosperity was the land owned or leased by the excluded Japanese.
It was understandable that many of these substitute operators were loath
to give up so profitable a venture simply because the owner of the land
or leases was free to resume operations.
Complex and time consuming as problems involving leaseholds, adhesive tenants, evictions, and misunderstandings arising from informal
oral agreements were during the final period of WR.A operations, the
Evacuee Property Office's heaviest labor was that of clearing Government
warehouses, both on the West Coast and in the centers, o:f evacuee household goods and equipment.
Approximately 115,000 people were evacuated. On January 1, 1945,
79,763 of them remained in the centers; roughly 35,000 had relocated to
points outside the exclusion area. Those who had relocated in all probability had goods stored in a coast warehouse and other possessions
stored in center warehouses. Once in the centers, the evacuees commonly
requested that certain items which would fit into the limited space of a
barrack apartment should be shipped to them. Sometimes, because of too
great a similarity in names, a family wanting nothing shipped would have
all their household possessions unexpectedly deposited in the center.
The head of the family might have been Mr. Saburu Yamamoto, who in preevaouation days was a prosperous businessman with a ten room home. It
(83)

had happened that Mr. Satoru Yamamoto, wi.o had lived less am.ply in a threeroom house before the evacuation, had sent in a request to have all his
worldly goods sent to the center for his family's comfort. The simplest
·thing for Hr. Saburu Yamamoto to do was to have his unwanted belongings
stored in a center v arehouse. Later he relocated to New York City,
where he did well to find a three-room apartment. He asked to have certain items from his household furnishings sent to him in New York. The
remainder stayed in the center warehouse. The evacuees ,,,ho had lived
continuously in the centers were most likely to have selected items sent
from the West Coast to the center. They often found that they had not
room in their quarters to accommodate their possessions. The surplus
was put in a center ,"arehouse. Others made furniture, and if the venture were successful, tended to retire olcer pieces to the warehouses
to make room for the new. The evacuees, like other people, tended to
accurrrulate possessions. The following table indicates the gross weight
in pounds of evacuee possessions of the spring of 191+5 that had to be
moved out of the centers within the year:
1

Center
Central Utah
Colorado River
Gila River
Granada
Heart Mountain
Manzanar
Minidoka
Rohwer
Tule Lake
TOTALS

In Project Warehouses

In Barracks

200,000
30,000
140,000
175,000
450,000
100,000
100,000
50,000
950,000

2,800,000
4,000,000
3,000,000
1,515,000
2,175,000
1,887,000
4,760,000
2,145,000
4,350,000

3,000,000
4,030,000
3,140,000
1,690,000
2,625,000
1,987,000
4,860,000
2,195,000
5,300,000

2 1195 2 000

26,632,000

28 2 827 1 000

Total

As soon as the return of the evacuees to the West Coast was
authorized, WRA reshaped procedures in evacuee property handling and
supervision with two objectives: the first was to give all possible as-•
sistance to the evacuees, and the second was to terminate the property
assistance program as soon as possible. As it happened, plans to expedite the liquidation progrnm were frequently altered to meet the needs
of the evacuee population as these needs manifested themselves throughout the year of 19Li.5, when the dislocated people were returning to the
West Coast and the centers were closing.
A manual release /Jll61} of January 20, 194~liberalized procedures to include voluntary evacuees who needed assistance, if they were
to return to their former homes, among those evacuees eligible to WR.A
help with property problems. In the same r elease it was made clear that
(84)

those . persons whom the War Department designated as ineligible for return to the T'!est Coast or as ineligible for relocation elsewhere would
receive full assistance from WR.A with regard to their property problems.
At this time it was stated that those who returned to the coastal states
would be eligible for WR.A's property management assistance for a period
not longer than 60 days after their return. It ,vas stated also, that a
special function of the Authority would be arranging contacts with local
agencies, organizations and firms which 1;1ould take over where WRA left
off in providing necessary s ervices to a dislocated people.
There were always people v,ho relocated, some to the :2ast and many
to the West, Yiho were unable to find living quarters which v-1 ould accommodate their furniture and other household goods. Many of these people
were not in a position to pay storage costs. The Authority kept stressing the fact that no property could be retained in center ,varehouses
later than the center liquidation date for center property, and that the
closing date for West Coast warehouses was February 28, 1946. On November 27, 1945,a teletype instruction to area supervisors announced that
i}RJ\ would no longer accept new requests for storage of property. However, many of the returning people v,1ere obliged to live in hostels or
other temporary housing for considerable periods of time. February 1
was originally set as the final date for receiving applications for shipment of property in private storage or use. The date was extended to
February 28, and by regulations issued on February 4, 1946, it was permitted relocation supervisors on the V!est Coast to make exceptions to
the February 28 deadline for bona fide hardship cases involving persons
living in their areas. Similarly the deadline Jor clearance of West
Coast Government warehouses was extended from February 28 to March 15though the evacuee ovmer was obliged to bear the cost of crating and
shipping and to make his own arrangements if he left his property in the
warehouse beyond the February 28 limit. At the same time the relocation
supervisors on the West Coast were given authority to extend the time as
far as April 15 for genuine hardship cases involving persons living in
their areas. April 15 remained the deadline for getting property out,
but on March 1, it was announced:
1

1➔~ ·:', >,:- where an evacuee owner is still residing in temporary
housing on the West Coast and a further extension is necessary to prevent hardship, the Area Supervisor may on
request store the property with a public warehousernanin
the name of the evacuee and pay storage charges up to
June 30, 1946, notifying the evacuee of his action, and
sending him the warehouse receipt (which shall be a nonnegotiable receipt) by registered mail." 26
1

The same administrative notice made provision for the disposition of unclaimed property in WR.A storage, that property "for which the
owner is unidentified or cannot be located, or v~ho has failed or refused
(85)

shipment by February 28, 1946 (or any extension approved by the Area
Supervisor). 11 Such property ,~as to be moved from the Government v1arehouse floor to a room suitable for conducting an auction, beF,inning
!.farch 15. Sales should take place not earlier than April 15 and not
later than April 30. It was stipulated that West Coast urea ~upervisors
should continue to make every effort to identify ancl locate the owner of
unclaimed property prior to "J.RA disposition, and that:
"Before any such property is offered for sale, as set
forth below, the Area Supervisor shall send a brief
description of the property lots, the respective places
of storage and the names and former addresses of the
evacuees where known, to the bi-lingual papers, namely,
Rocky Shimpo (Denver, Colorado), Utah Nippo (Salt Lake
City, Utah), and Colorado Times (Denver, Colorado), and
to the Pacific Citizen (Salt Lake City, Utah), with a
request that the information be published. The news
release shall state the place and time of sale of all
property uncalled-for and indicate that the proceeds will
where the rightful
be deposited in the U.S. Treasur
mmers may make claim for it. 11 2

On March 4, 1946,a schedule for closing the remaining field
offices of the Authority was published, the West Coast district offices
scheduled for liquidation between April 1 and May 4, and the three area
offices, located at ~eattle, San Francisco and Los Aneeles, as of
May 150
SOME OUTSTANDING INSTANCES OF PROPERTY LOSS AND DAMAGE
Although it is a recognized fact that few tenants lavish such
care on property as would the owner, the neglect and destruction of
evacuee property by substitute operators during the period of the
owners' exclusion from the 'Yest Coast far transcends the ordinary carelessness of tenants. Too, the fact that prejudice against the Japanese
American minority wa s so strong on the ;'.· est Coast during a considerable
part of the war period that the public conscience w2.s highly insensitive
to pilfering and vandalism committed against the stored possessions or
buildings of the exiled people, encouraged the lawless to comr:u.t increasingly bold acts at the expense of the absent owners. The full extent of
damage and loss has come to light only with the return of the evacuees
to their former homes since the rescission of the military exclusion
orders which sent the evacuees into exile.
That the public conscience is awakening where the evacuees are
concerned is evidenced by an editorial that appeared in a Los Angeles
newspaper in January of 1946; under the caption "Restitution for
Evacuee Citizens," it read:
( 86)

"Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes has come out
publicly with a declaration that American citizens of
Japanese ancestry who were moved from their West Coast
homes by the military 'are entitled to and should receive
compensation for any damage inflicted on their property
in California or elsewhere during their absence.• He referred only to stored goods or damaged, and homes or
other buildings burned. This would be most inadequate
justice that can never satisfy a sensitive American conscience. From the standpoint of the individuals, goods
may as well have been burned or stolen as to have been
sold 'for anything you can get,' as advised by the bank
representatives on evacuation boards. These people are
entitled to restitution for losses in business and in
high earning power during the war period. Their removal
was the most un-mnerican episode in American history.
Those who think it was necessary should be the first to
see to it that innocent citizens should not bear the
whole burden of •war necessity.'"
The Story of a BlocY.ed National

Mr. Nonrura* was a prosperous man until the war. For many years he
had lived in Elk Grove, California, with his family. In 1941 he was
manager of the State Farming Company, Dos Palos-a small town near
Fresno-manager and adviser to both the Berry Growers Association of Elk
Grove and the Sacramento Berry E.~change, and president of the State Ice
Company, of Sacramento. He loaned money privately to finance some of
these companies. He had an interest in the Garden City Investment Company from vihich the San Jose Brewery Company leased the property on which
it operated. In December of 1941, Mr. Nonrura had sums of money outstanding which totaled about $62,0QO. Since June of that year he had been
operating under a blocked account.
Immediately after December 7, 1941, according to Mr. Norrrura's
statement, Treasury Department representatives entered his home,taking
all records and account books from his office and from his safe, none of
which had been returned as of November 15, 1944 when the project attorney
at the Central Utah Relocation Center wrote a report on this case. The
following story is told by Mr. Nomura.
On January 13, 1942, four men from the Treasury Department went to
the Nonrura home, showing no authorization except their identification
cards from the Treasury Department, and searched the house. Mr. and Mrs.
Norrrura, not knowing what, if any, their rights were, made no protest.

Name fictitious.
(87)

Having completed their search of the premises, three of the Treasury
Department men left, but one stayed as guard until he was relieved by
another Treasury Department man. For about a week a twenty-four hour
guard was maintained over the house, with shifts at 8:00 P.M., 4:00 P.M.
and midnight. During this period neither Mr. Norrrura nor his wife v1as
allowed to leave the house for any purpose or to use the telephoneeven to purchase food. When the telephone rang, it was answered by the
guard. The Nomuras rar;i out of food, except for a stock of rice which
they had on hand, within a day or two of the establishment of the guard.
They asked the guard to telephone the grocery store and order food,
assuring him that the grocer would furnish food on credit. The request
was refused. Neighbors were not allowed to enter the honse or to leave
any food for the Nonruras. The guards brought their own lunches.
After a week, the guard was withdrawn, but Mr. No.rnura was warned
against attempting to use his credit in any way or to carry on any business. For three more weeks the family lived on rice except when a
neighbor brought them a loaf of bread. Mr. Nomura lost 24 pounds during
this period. Finally when the rice was about to give out, he went to a
United States Commissioner whom he knew. She made arrangements so that
he could withdraw $100 monthly from his blocked account at the Capital
National Bank in Sacramento. He withdrew his first $100 on February 14,
1942, terminating a month of hunger.
During that period Mr. Norrrura was twice taken to the court house
by representatives of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Each time he
was questioned and then released. After the guard was withdrawn, Mr.
Norrrura was summoned every two or three days to the Sumitomo Bank Building, where he was questioned by from two to seven people, sometimes for
several hours. He was told to be available for such questioning at all
times. Consequently he felt virtually a prisoner and dared not go about
his business operations.
"A neighbor of his was ~:- ~:- -)c the manager of the Butte Farm Land
Company. He told Nonrura that he vias no longer being subjected
to .9,uestioning, etc., because he had arranged with ➔:- -l'r ➔~ /J,wo
me!lf both of whom were connected with the Treasury Department,
to pay them $500.00 per month for handling his business.
Nomura also learned that the Highland Land Company was paying $250.00 per month to the same men for the same services.
The neighbor took Nonrura to the Sumitomo Bank Building in the
early part of April, 1942, to the office of the Highland Land
Company 1'lhere Norrrura met ➔:- ~:- -::- Lf,he two mei/. Nomura knew
both men because they were two of the men who were questioning him from time to time. Nonrura then suggested that he
would be interested in having them run his business as they
were operating other businesses, and that perhaps he could
said that
pay 25% of the monies he would collect. ➔:- * ➔~

l}..J

(88)

perhaps 25% wa.s too much, but that 20% would be right. It
was then agreed that ,e ➔:- ,c
was to eet 20% of all the
monies collected and \'1hen it car'le to making out some written
memo of the arrangement, ➔0 ➔c ➔:-- [A_7 said thc2t he would get a
form of Power of Attorney that had been used in other similar
• cases. He left the office and about ten minute s later he
came back with a form which he gave Nomura and which was later
typed up and signed by Nomura. It appointed -i:- ,,. ,c
agent
and attorney in fact for Norrrura but provided no compensation
to -::- -i:- ➔e
In a separate letter, dated April 10, ad1 In condr e ssed to -i:- ~- ➔:Norrrura agreed as follows:
sideration of the f r.i ct tha t you are ·willing and able to act
as my attorney-in-fact to assist me to conserve my assets for
the duration of the war. I hereby agree that you are to be
compensated for so doing on a basis of (20%) b1enty percent
of the cash recovered on the total assets so being conserved.'
Nomura holds a letter, dated April 16, signed by ➔:- ➔, ➔,
as 1 U.S. Treasury Representative, Foreign Funds Control'
which, of course, indicates that on that date (six days after
the -le
➔c /_Nomura-"ffl agreement) -le -le
was still conr.ected
with the Treasury Department.

ffiJ

ffiJ.

ffiJ,

* ffiJ

11 ➔:-

* ffiJ

-le
himself never collected any money. All the money
was collected by Nomura. Nevertheless, it was all deposited
in the Capital National Bank of Sacramento under an account
entitled ➔'" -r. -le K. Nomura by ic -le -i:attorney in fact, 1
and
➔~
drew checks to his own order to pay himself an
amount equal to 20% of all collections. The check book shows
three stubs numbered and dated as follows: No. Dl in the sum
of ~~1201.47, May 5, 1942, ➔_,- -:,. -l',
•20% of collections to
date as per aoreement 1 ; No. D2 in the sum of !·462. 71, May 11,
1 20% of collections to date as per agreement';
1942, ~- ,,. ,,
No. DJ in the sum of $356.09, July 16, 1942, ~'" 1:- ➔,
'20%
of collections, expenses and mileage'. Nomura also has the
cancelled checks to sho,•1 the payments made by -::- -,, ➔,
to
himself.

ffiJ,

* * {_BJ

ffiJ

[BJ

ffiJ
ffiJ

{_BJ

ri➔,. -l,- ,~
filed a report to the Treasury Department (TFER 1)
for the period from April 14 to August 12, 1942, showing collections and disbursements. The report refers at two or
three points to the fact that -::- -::- -:e
and No;nura had an
agreement by which ~~ -:,- -le
was to have 20% of all collec. tions and it shows collection first paid to 1,- ➔~ ➔~
in
accordance with that agreement. This would seem to indicate
that the Treasury Department !mew about the * ➔~ ~,
arrangement and made no exception to it. Is it possible that the
Treasury Department permits its employees to make such a'rrangements with persons whose accounts are blocked, etc.? At any
-rate, ~certainly made no attempt at the time of

ffi_7

* * [BJ

(89)

ffiJ

ffiJ
{_BJ

making this report to cover up the facts. Also, in applyigg_,
for a license under form TFER 1 on April 10, 1942, ➔l- -i~ * {_B_j
filed a copy of his pmver of attorney and of the agreement
to pay him 20% of all collection. The application was reviewed on April 11, 191~2, by -i~ -le -r.- [A as examiner. 11 27

In August of 1942, when Mr. Nomura was in residence at the Tule
Lake Relocation Center, he was visited by Mr. B, who gave him a release
and discharge of power of attorney, saying that Mr. Nomura no longer
needed such services. However two weeks later Mr. B. returned to Tule
Lake with C, Liquidator of the Sumitomo Bank. Mr. B assured Mro Nomura
that Mr. C was a very "reliable" man and that other Japanese companies
were employing him to handle their businesses. Mr. B told Mr. No.mura
that he would do well to give Mr. C power of attorney. Fearful of offending officials of the United States Government, Mr. Nomura did as he was
told.
"Two items in connection with ➔l- -le ➔e ffi'iJ handling deserve
mention: ~~ -le ➔l- fjiiJ sold Nomura I s automobile either to himself or to -::- ➔:- ➔:- ffiJ. Before the sale, he had the car repaired at Nomura's expense (about $70.00) then sold the
car for $750.00 and then took 20% of that sum or $155.00
as his commission (Oct. 16, 1942).
"On February 2, 1943, ➔e ➔e ➔i- ffiJ drew $407.42 which sum represented a 'collection' from the Garden City Investment
Company. This was merely the transfer of the sum of about
$2,000 from the Garden City account to No.mura 1 s account.
* ➔l- ➔:- [_cJ had already collected a fee of 15% of a larger
sum including the ~~2,000 item when he sold the
building for the Garden City Investment Company." 27
A report of later date, November 15, 1944, from the project attorney of Central Utah Relocation Center, where Mr. Nomura was living
at that time, carried further details of the Garden City Investment
Company sale.

* Here the power of attorney was dated August 22, 1942,
to * -le -i:- ffiJ and the commission specified 15%. Property
left in his care was appraised at $12,000 in November 1942.
On November 14, 1942, ➔l- ➔:- ~"" [c reported the place destroyed
by fire, not in writing but by telephone. He thereupon sold
the property for $3,000, including all machinery, to an unknown through Escrow 137744 San Jose Abstract Company. The
buyer·then promptly resold to Angelo Tersini, 220 Ryland St.,
San Jose, for $8500. Mr. ➔:- ,:- ➔l- [fiJ is sorry but thought
he had a right to use his be&t judgment." 28
11 -r.- -i:-

(90)

On August 11, 1945, tne Director of WRA addressed the Director of
the Foreign Funds Control Division of the Treasury Department, by letter,
enclosing the two reports on the Nonrura case prepared by the project attorney's office at Central Utah, and asking for an investigation. 'Ihe
Director mentioned that he had informed the Alien Property Custodian of
the statements in the reports. On September 18, 1945, the Acting Director of Foreign Funds Control replied to the Director of WR.A as follows:
"Reference is made to your letter of August 11, 1945,
enclosing two reports which make certain charges respecting the activities of former Treasury Representatives.
"We very much appreciate your sending this information
to us. We find, however, that a number of the charges
contained in the reports are unfounded.
"Shortly after ➔:- ~.:- ~"° ffi 1i7 resignation in April 1942,
from his position as Treasury Representative, we undertook an extensive investigation which, among other
things, established to our satisfaction that neither he
nor his colleague ➔~ -r.- ~- [1.J, had solicited the busiNomur~and other Japanese nationals,
ness with ➔:- -re ➔:and that both had acted in good faith, although in a
manner not in accord with Treasury policy. We took
immediate remedial steps to discontinue ➔~ * ➔~ ffi 1i7 activities in behalf of the Japanese, permitting him to
receive certain compensation for services already
performed.

/K.

"During the investigation, it may be noted, Nomura stated
in a signed statement that he had approached {:- ➔:- ~.:- ffiJ
voluntarily and that ➔:- -l'c ➔:- /flJ had in no way used his
position as 'l'reasury Representative in obtaining Nomura 1 s
power-of-attorney. It might also be mentioned that prior
to ➔,- ➔:- -::- ffi 1i7 entering into agreements with Japanese
nationals, he and a number of other Treasury employees
had been advised that their employment by the Department
would soon be termintated."
The Case of Mr. Hideo i.. '. ori-1:This case is best described in Mr Mori 1 s own words, from a letter
which he wrote to the Director of WRA on November 2, 1945, from Parlier,
California--in the San Joaquin Valley.

~:-

Name fictitious

(91)

11 I wrote to the Project Director of the Gila River
Relocation Center and was referred to you for further
action and information.
11 I am an alien and own a ranch ,,.._Purchased prior to the
passage of the Alien Land Law Li.e., prior to 19ljj in
Winters, California-Yol o-Solano Co. Because I was
forewarned of the public sentiment there, I temporarily
relocated here, and from here made trips to Winters to
personally determine the prevailing conditions thereo

"During my years in camp, I rented the ranch to local
Spaniards. They milked it for all it was worth, never
bothering to keep up nor improve it, knowing that during
the term of their lease no one would come to inspect
their viork. Though the entire ranch was supra.marginal
during the years of the war, certain portions that were
poorer than others were totally abandoned. The result
is that the productivity of the ranch is now but a
fraction of its full potential, thereby making it a
poor prospect for sale or lease.
11 When I was evacuated, I was told to leave all equipment
necessary to the operation of the ranch on the ranch or
stand possible charges of sabotage, so I had left them.
Now, what remains are only those that are old and useless;
all the other pieces that I had accu!Illllated during my
thirtf years of farming are gone. Even such things as
water faucets have been stolen, as well as household
equipflent and personal property which I had stored in a
closet, the door of which I had locked. ~'!ere I to return
to again operate my ranch, I would require a greater
initial capital than I could possibly command at my
disposal.

"Besides the negligence in the care of the ranch, there is
also the negligence in the care of the buildings. Not only
are there broken windows and broken doors and broken cabi, nets, but also there ~re nails and boards nailed randomly
on the walls. And around the buildings grass has grown so
thickly that a fire a hal_e mile away could easily reach and
·
destroy the buildings.
"I have been informed by various WR.A officials that I !Illlst
stand the losses myself: that the WRA is powerless in
this issue; that if I chose to I could bring a law suit
against those who rented my ranch, the success of such a suit
being admittedly very poor though the evidence be substantial.
(92)

"We were evacuated as a wartime measure. And as a result
of this evacuation we suffered losses from negligence
that borders on sabotage and looting such as can be
associated with ransacJd.ng hordes of an invading army.
Is it not only fair that restitution for such losses incurred as a result of this evacuation-proper restitution
to put us back on the econc:-'..dc status from which we were
forced--be treated by a measure as forceful as our
evacuation?"
On November 9, 1945, the following letter prepared for the Director's signature went to Mr. Mori:

"This is in reply to your letter of November 1, 1945,
concerning the damage done to your ranch in Winters,
California, during your absence.
"I was deeply disturbed to lP-arn of this damage, and of
the consequent difficulties to be encountered by you in
restoring the ranch to its former level of productivity.
"The War Relocation Authority does not have the authority,
however, to make restitution for losses that may have been
incurred by individuals as a result of the evacuation, nor
does any other Federal agency have such authority. Special legislation would he required to give responsibility
and funds for this purpose to an agency, and to our knowledge no such legislation is being considered by the
Congress. You may, of course, bring suit against your
former tenants, and a competent attorney there would be in
the best position to advise you in regard to the advisability of instituting such legal action."
Evacuee Farms in the Florin Area
The Florin area-near Sacramento in the lower Sacramento Valley
of California-was reclaimed from waste land or in some instances hay
land to use in vineyard and berry culture largely through the labor and
sld.11 of Japanese immigrants in the early days of this century. At the
outbreak of World War II, this area was still populated principallj by
Japanese American farmers, most of \'ihom owned their 'land. In general
the individual farms varied from 15 to 50 acres, the size of the farm
depending somewhat upon the size of the farmer's family, as the necessary labor was in most instances performed by members of the family.
From the average farmer's point of view, the Florin district is
not attractive country. The soil is shallow, varying from 12 inchesor even less-to 48 inches in depth, with hardpan or dense clay subsoil
698705 0 - 46 - 7

(93)

layers underneath. Irrigation has been essential to production of all
crops produced by the Japanese, and the average cost per acre of irrigation for grapes has run $6 per acre for the electric power to utilize
the deep wells which are essential to all farms in this district. In
dry years the cost runs above that figure. Because of the shallowness
of the soil and the need of frequent irrigation, in spite of toil and
ingenuity of the farmers, the yield of Tokay grapes to the acre in the
Florin area is about three tons, an average far below that of more favored areas, for instance Lodi, in the same general section of the valley. Up to the time of the evacuation, the Japanese American farmer, by
working very hard and utilizing family labor, could hope to have above
costs of production and strippings, approximately $32 per acre at the
end of the harvest. Out of this sum he had to pay taxes, interest on a
mortgage perhaps, and repair or replace equipment. In order to get
along, these farmers augmented that basic income from vineyards by growing other crops simultaneously. They discovered that strawberries
planted between the rows of grapes did well and substantially supplemented the income from the grapes. Many of the farmers grew certain
truck crops, too. They learned that a modest profit could be made from
this uninviting land-if enough work and sld.11 were lavished upon it.
The evacuation occurred at the height of the strawberry season.
Unless the owners harvested all or most of their crops, they lost their
only chance of getting immediate cash. When exclusion orders were
posted for that area and the heads of families reported to the control
station for processing, they were told that they should utilize the week
that remained before the enforced departure to gather up their personal
and household goods and store them in some central place or, if none
should be available, in a Government warehouse. If the strawberries
were to be harvested, there was no time to fill out forms itemizing the
possessions and to crate and handle them. Therefore, after working up
to the last possible minute, the farmers boxed up what they could of
their furnishings and equipment and stored the lot in a room of the
farmhouse, or perhaps in a shed or garage on the farm, turned the key
in the lock, and went to tha railway station for entrainment, hoping
for the best. For weeks, in most C8ses, these farms were to all appearances abandoned.
Not many of the Japanese American farmers had been able to find
operators v~illing t~ take over their land. A few IDA.de deals with
neighboring farmers of other races to continue production, with a contract stipulating the owner's share of the selling price of the crop.
Others trustfully made verbal agreements with tenants whereby the tenant
continued production and gave a designated share to the ovmer--providing
that the tenant considered an oral agreement binding. The untenanted
farms became for a time the responsibility of the Farm Security Administration. In January of 1943 the WRA evacuee property supervisor for
the Sacramento district-he h~d been working at the time of the
( 94)

evacuation with the Wartime Farms Adjustment Program within FSA-reported as follows:
"At the time of evacuation the Farm Security Administration attempted to secure substitute operators for the
ranches and met with little success. It was almost impossible to secure operators to farm these ranches in
the way that the Japanese had done. Consequentl y the
strawberry acreage dropped from approximate ly 1600 acres
to probably less than 200 acres. However, in the case
of Tokay grapes, all farms mich did not have individual
operators were taken over by the various operation corporations, which corporation s were formed by the various
fruit shipping companies located in this area. There was
only about a one-half normal crop this year and labor was
very difficult to obtain. This method of operation could
not continue without Government financing and most of
them show a deffoit on their books for the past year I s
operation.
"From a recent survey by the Evacuee Property Division,
it appears at the time this report is being written that
there will be very close to fifty or more of these ranches
without operators. The other ones have been., or are in
the process of being, sold or leased to Caucasian operators." 29
Grape production was dwindling, too, though not so conspicuous ly
as the strawberry industry. The report just quoted contained the information that a check-up made by the Sacramento County Agriculture Commission-at the close of 1942-showe d that about 20 percent of the vineyards in
the Florin area had been pulled out since the evacuation. Mention was
made of the fact that one of the large fruit shipping companies had
pulled out 180 acres of their 610-acre vineyard and planted the land
with Ladino clover for pasture.
The type of farmine, the peculiar skills and heavy toil required
even a little profit from the land, the general confusion and
wring
to
bewildermen t of the evacuees, and the animosity with which many West
Coast residents regarded the Japanese Americans were all factors militating against the preservatio n of these farms in the absence of the
owners. To quote from another report of the WRA evacuee property supervisor:
"It might be well to note here that in several areas, and the
Florin area in particular, the train in which the evacuees
were leaving had not left before people from various parts
of the country began to pilfer their homes and ranches,
breald..ng windows, filling wells with debris, and committing
(95)

other acts of vandalism. The County Sheriff was unable
to do anything about this ?!- iC" ➔~-. " 30
The corporations formed to take over groups of farms that at the
time of evacuation had no other operation planned developed shortly
after the owners had been moved into assembly centers. The farms operated by these corporations lay close to3ether, and thus were isolated,
only an occasional Caucasian-owned or -leased piece of property interrupting a solid block of Japanese-owned farms. Ultimately 125 farms in
this area were taken over by the corporations. Having no tenants in
residence, being isolated, and being deserted when the working day was
ended, such farms and the buildines upon them offered ideal opportunities
to vandals and thieves to commit nuisance undetected. At the request of
the WRA evacuee property supervisor the corporations agreed to hire a
night watchman to patrol the area. This practice continued until the
last harvests were in in the fall of 1942, and during that period there
were no further acts of depredation. However, by January of 1943, the
propert;}' officer reported:
"The corporations are now through with their past season's
operations and are cancelling their leases. This vandalism
is reappearing and will probably become more acute than
before. This will be a difficult situation to handle now
with no one on the ranches and these farms are rather isolated from close neighbors who might be able to stop anyone from causing waste and damage to · evacuee property.
"The present proble=1. is to decide what is to be done to
handle the fifty or more Japanese owned farms in Florin
which are facing partial abandonment. 11 29
Most of the farms were kept in partial operation throughout the
remaining part of the exclusion period. As time went on the lumber,
house fixtures and plumbing parts became increasingly hard to obtain,
the spirit which had governed the earlier depredations, the attitude of
destruction for destruction's sake, changed. Night raiders, who had
descended upon abandoned farm houses to smash boxes of stored dishes and
to break up stored furniture, now went with a view to appropriating anything which their own establishments might lack. Evacuee possessions of
easily movable nature had long since been wrecked or stolen, but doors
could be removed and carried away for use in the marauders' own houses,
window frames were utilized, sinks were appropriated, toilets were uprooted and carried away, and built-in shelves were taken apart and the
boards taken away.
In March of 1945, ·l'lhen the original owners were beginning to return to their farms in this district, the WRA Historian visited Florin
and inspected many of the evacuee farms. The charred ruins of the Fumi

(96)

Mukai Fujimoro ranch house and barn, destroyed in a mysterious night fire
in the owner's absence, were ugly testimony of the hostility of certain
elements to the Government-authorized return of the exiles. The fire
occurred just after the Takeoka brothers had returned to their property
across the road from the Fujimoro place. Viewing the remains of their
former neighbor's farm buildings, the Takeoka brothers decided that
Florin was unfriendly and that they had better leave. As they were
driving away, completely discouraged by this incident, they were intercepted by the WR.A evacuee property supervisor; he talked to- them for
some time, pointing out that these cowardly acts were a desperate attempt to frighten away the first evacuees to return, and that courage to
face these pioneering hazards until more of the evacuee farmers returned
would be worth the effort. The Takeokas by proving that they could remain would encourage others to join them, and when -half a dozen adjoining farms were occupied by their owners, night terrorists would hesitate
to attack, whereas they could be bold when only one inhabited farm in an
isolated district lay before them. The Takeokas turned around and resumed control of their property.
Frank Umida returned to his farm to find that all doors and windows were missing .from his house and that an enterprising raider had
thriftily taken up the floorboards and made off with them. Mr. Umida
moved in with relatives, who had been fortunate enough to have a tenant
to look after their home during their absence, until he could construct
temporary quarters fo1· his family, ingeniously putting up a unit of wartime housing under the roof of an old barn.
Invariably the returning farmers reported that their land had
suffered from neglect of vines, lack of knowledge of peculiar trimming
and training of the Tokays if these grapes were to produce in shallow
soil and be sheltered from the sun, and the unwillingness of substitute
operators to perform the tedious labor necessary to strawberry production. Whereas there had been l,600acres of strawberries in the district
at the time of evacuation, there remained.30 acres in the spring of 1945.
Farm equipment and machinery had been worn down badly by careless handling and also by. the heavy use to which it was put in a day when farm
machinery was at a premium. The men who had returned were resourceful
farmers and vJere figuring out ways to overcome the damage to their
habitual crops. They said that by rotation of other crops, by experimenting, by working a little harder, they could get along-it was good
to be home again, even if they had to start out once again as they had
years ago ~hen they had taken over unimproved or hay land and made it
productiYe.

(97)

The Higashi* Property and its Legionnaire Custodian
Woodrow W. Higashi, up to the time of evacuation, operated a drug
store in Los Angeles. He was unable to dispose of his movable property
before he was obliged to enter the Santa Anita Assembly Center in the
late spring of 1942. A Caucasian acquaintance, who was a man of some
prominence in the neighborhood, called on Mr. Higashi at the center and
offered to assist the evacuee in selling certain property. This man was
a disabled World War I veteran drawing a Government pension. He said
that he could dispose of Mr. Higashi 1 s drug store equipment for $350,
his neon sign for $75, his 1935 Oldsmobile coupe for $100 and offered to
take care of Mr. Higashi 1 s household furniture and goods. Mr. Higashi
gratefully accepted this offer of assistance.
A few weeks later, the veteran, whom we will call Mr. E, visited
Santa Anita again, informing Mr. Higashi that all his apartment furniture and furnishings had been stolen. Mr. E said that he believed that
he Jmew who had stolen the things, but without power of attorney to act
in Mr. Higashi's name, he was powerless to act. Mr. Higashi granted him
the power of attorney. Mr. E went away, and for some weeks Mr. Higashi
waited for some word of his property. The evacuee was increasingly uneasy, especially as he had received no portion of the proceeds of the
sale of equipment which E admitted having made. So Mr. Higashi wrote to
Mr. E and requested an accounting. Neither then nor at any time since
has Mr. Higashi received an accounting or any proceeds.
From the assembly center Mr. Higashi was sent to the Granada
Relocation Center in Colorado. There he consulted the project attorney,
who advised him to place the case in the hands of an at"torney. Again
Mr. Higashi waited, and again nothing happened. On October 27, 1943,
the case was turned over to the WR.A attorney in the San Francisco office. WRA property officers conducted a thorough investigation of the
activities of Mr. E, who about this time was made commander of an American Legion post for the year 1944. The investigation revealed that
Mr. E had no assets which would be reached by attachment, that he was
definitely guilty of misappropriation and !Ilisrepresentation--no t only
with regard to Mr. Higashi but also with regard to other evacuees. The
facts assembled were presented to the Los Angeles district attorney's
office, but that office stated that it was not interested in filing
charges against Mr. E. 31
Pilfering of the Nichiren Buddhist Church in Los Angeles
The Nichiren Buddhist Church, located at 2806 East First Street,
Los Angeles, was used as a storehouse for the h~usehold and personal

Name fictitious
(98)

goods of- its evacuated members. 'I'he parsonage next door was rented to a
woman who was duly appointed as custodian of this church, with power of
attorney. The appointment was made in a name to which she was not
legally entitled, the surname being derived from a man with whom she was
then living.
On June 22, 1943, the Los Angeles police informed the WRA office
that they had, on June 21 at 12:45 a. m., discovered a man who can be
called Fin the Nichiren church and another man, Gin a truck just outside the side entrance to the church., and that they had proceeded to
~rrest both men. Mrs. H, the official custodian of the church, pleaded
for F, declaring that he had a right to be in the church, regardless of
the hour, because he was acting as her "caretaker." According to the
police report, nothing had been removed from the church on that night,
and the two men were subsequently released.
Less than three weeks after this episode, the WR.A property office
was informed by the police that they had been called on July 6, by Mrs.

H, who asked them to arrest F, whom she at this time accused of stealing
her radio. The evacuee property officers immediately visited the
Nichiren church and found the side door broken open. Inside the church
everything was in a state of chaos: trunks had been broken open and
their contents scattered; most of the crates had been broken into; all
refrigerators, stoves, washing machines, sewing machines and radios had
disappeared. Information was teletyped to all the relocation centers to
residents ·who had stored their possessions in this church; photographs
of the wreckage were taken, and an inquiry was made throughout the
neighborhood. In the course of this investigation it was learned that
Mrs. H, who was actually Mrs. I, had moved out about July 8. Neighbors
reported that whereas she moved in with little or nothing in the way of
furniture, she took two truckloads away with her. The evacuee property
officer on the case managed to locate the woman's husband, Mr. I, in
another section of the city, but Mr. I had no idea of where Mrs. I might
be.
'Ihe property officer recommended to Rev. J. Ishihara, absentee
priest of this church, that a patrol service be installed. This was
done, and military permission was sought and granted for the priest and
three other evacuees of the group affected to return under escort to
attempt to identify the little remaiping property that was worth
salvaging. 31
The following is a statement submitted by Mrs. Cecil Itano, who
was a member of this group which returned with a WR.A internal security
officer to Los AngeLes to identify goods in the church:
"On October 11, 1943, we went to view the Nichiren church. The
catastrophe before my eyes was a hopeless mass of deliberate
destruction. Everything was a conglomeration of unrecoverable
(99)

damaged things. Nothing was untouched. Sewing machines
were ruined, furniture broken, mirrors smashed to smithereens, broken glass from breakable articles, household
goods scattered helter-skelter, trunks broken beyond repair, albwns, pictures precious only to the respective
owners, thrown to the four winds. Standing among this
debris of disreverent damage--my heart was full of unwept
tears and compassion for the people who trustingly stored
their valuables and treasured household belongings. These
things were all carefully packed and separated and divided
into two categories*** necessities of life*** and
keepsakes. While surveying the irremediable damage, I
noticed that things of intrinsic worth were what the
plunderers were searching for and any things that could be
converted into immediate cash were taken and the residue
abandoned regardless of value and preciousness. Electric
irons, sewing machines, refrigerators, washing machines,
radios, Persian rugs, typewriters, were systematically
filched-not one box went by unscathed***•
'lhrough days and nights of endless separating, dividing,
segregating merchandise to the rightful owners, my only
thought was how was I to face these unhappy people again
and report their losses that money could never buy again.
Things that we did gather up carefully were not so ImlCh
of monetary value but for sentimental reasons dear to the
owners• hearts only. '!he other things-those that had
been stolen--were things needed to carry on in the future
the necessities of life.***"
11

Vandalism in Guadalupe, California:

Today's Fish Market

In the spring of 1944 the Transportation Section of the Evacuee
Property Division of WRA, acting on a request from an evacuee that certain personal property of his should be shipped to him, sent a representative to a building known as 11 TQd.ay 1 s Fish Market," in Guadalupe,
where several evacuees had stored their personal property. The WRA man
discovered that the place had been ransacked, and he immediately reported the matter to the Evacuee Property Division. WR.A made an investigation on April 17, 1944. The second floor of this building had
contained a large amount of personal property. All trunks and boxes
had been broken into and ransacked; clothing, furniture, household goods
and splintered crates were strewn about. The investigation took place
in the presence of Deputy Sleriffs Bidwell and Oxford of Guadalupe, and
pictures were taken. At the sheriff's office in Guadalupe, the WR.A investigators found a report dated Fe~ruary 20, 1943, which stated that
Fred Shaffer had reported to the sheriff's .office that the building had
been broken into. The report did not indicate that the sheriff's office
(100)

had made any attempt, in the 14-month period between the date of the report and the WRA discovery of the situation, to comnrunicate either with
the owner of the building or with any governmental agency with a view
to ending such acts of depredation.
Difficulties of Peter Tsuchiyama* in his Dealings with
Caucasian Onerators on his Poultry Farm at Downev, California
At the time of evacuation Peter Tsuchiyama, of Downey, California,
leased his poultry ranch to J. Early in 194.3 Mr. J informed Mr.
Tsuchiyama that he could no longer operate the ranch with profit and
recommended a new lease to Kand L. Mr. Tsuchiyama agreed. At the time
of the change in lease, and, according to Mr. J's statement, Mr. J with
Mr. Tsuchiyama 1 s knowledge,removed two brooders from the Tsuchiyama
property for use on his own property. There followed a somewhat heated
correspondence between Mr. J and Mr. Tsuchiyama about the brooders and
certain other matters, until Mr. J 1 s attorney, Mr. M, wrote to Mr.
Tsuchiyama, instructing the latter to address all future comnrunications
to M.
At some period in 194.3 a windstorm blew the tarpaper from three
of the larger buildings on the Tsuchiyama property. The payment of the
co st of this roofing repair job became an issue between tenants and
owner. WRA served as arbitrator-in the absence of any pro,rision in
the lease to cover a wind storm loss-recommending that the owner and
the lessee split the cost of the repair -work.
By November 19, 194.3, the rent was five months in arrears. On
January 8, 1944,the residence on the poultry farm burned to the ground,
and with it the household goods of Mr. Tsuchiyama. There was no insurance, and the cause of the fire remained a mystery.

On April 17, 1944, a man to be known as N telephoned the WRA
property office in Los Angeles that he would henceforward operate the
chicken farm alone, as sublessee to L, who was leaving. He also informed "WRA that he was taking over operation of the poultry farm because
of a bill for chicken feed which Mr. L was either unwilling or unable
to pay. Mr. N was in the feed business.
In a letter of May 6, 1944, Mr. Tsuchiyarna informed 'NRA that he

Rent continued delinquent, as it had been since Mr. J moved off the premises with the
brooders. By October 26, 1944~the delinquent rent amounted to $900.
While there was evidence that a part of this sum had been spent· on repairs, Mr. L steadfastly ignored Tsuchiyama 1 s request for an accounting.

would henceforward handle this matter himself.

Fictitious name
(101)

On November 27, 1944, Mr. N reported theft and vandalism at the chicken
farm. On December 4, 1944, Mr. L announced that he was filing suit
against N and would turn over any amount collected by way of judgment
against the delinquent account. The suit was filed on December 27, 1944,
and apparently forgotten.
January 5, 1945, L's attorney, o, telephoned the Los Angeles office of WR.A that, in view of the lifting of the ban against the evacuee~
L would cancel the lease and was so informing Tsuchiyama by mail. At
this time the lessees owed Mr. Tsuchiyama well over $1000 in rent and
there was a considerable quantity of equipment missing. No accounting
had ever been rendered Mr. Tsuchiyama.
Early in .March of 1945 a newcomer in the tangle telephoned VilRA,
identifying himself as a minister, and said that at the request of Mr.
Tsuchiyama he was going to attempt to settle amicably the differences
between the various lessees and Tsuchiyama. The attempt failed. Mr.
Tsuchiyama thereupon employed attorneys to file suit. Jl
The final word available on this confused matter came in a letter
from the Los Angeles area supervisor of WRA, dated November 21, 1945:
"There seems to be a legal question as to whether ·or not
Messrs. L and K sublet from Mr. J or whether they
entered into an entirely new lease. J contends that he
acted as an agent. He executed an assignment of his lease.
Tsuchiyama contends, through his present attorney, that he
accepted the assignment for rental payments only and that
J was not released from any of the other provisions.
"It is our understanding that Mr. K is still about and is
fulli involved. It is also our understanding that when
/_f,hy attorneys*** took legal action on Tsuchiyama's
behalf they enjoined all parties, namely, J, K, L, and N.
Furthermore they had the four defendants together at the
same time for a conference but were unable to work out a
satisfactory amicable settlement. At this date only two
of the defendants have a·nswered the complaint and the date
of the trial has not been set. It is the opinion of the
attorneys that all four defendants are financially
responsible." 33

(102)

•

The Case of Nobu Miyamoto* of Seattle
Prior to the evacuation, Mr. Miyamoto was a prosperous greenhouse and nursery operator, conduct1ng his business on his own land in
Seattle. The nursery was operated in a plant comprising about 15,000
square feet under glass. In addition to the nursery the land had a
large house and a small house and various small outbuildings and sheds.
Mr. Miyamoto dealt in cut flowers, potted and bedding plants, greenhouse cucumbers and tomatoes. Before entraining for the Puyallup Assembly Center, the Miyamotos stored all their more valuable personal
property in the small house and locked the building securely. They left
the entire property in the castody of an old friend and family adviser,
an attorney. This attorney, an aged man of good will but poor health,
was unfortunately not capable of giving sufficient attention to the
Miyamoto property. In fact he made neither regular nor irregular
inspections.
In the spring of 1945, after the rescission of the exclusion
orders, the Miyamotos returned to their old home.

"* * * they found that this ,Lthe smal.!7 house had been
completely emptied of the goods they had left there and
that it had been rented to an itinerant war worker for
some time. Many of the items of furniture left in the
house were also found to be missing. The greenhouse
property itself was in such state that it could not be
operated due to broken glass, stolen motors, stolen and
broken pumps, missing pipes, missing parts and missing
tools which are necessary for the operation of such an
enterprise. It was only after }Jr. Miyamoto had secured
new legal representation that the tenant was evicted
from the small house, thus giving him !fir. Miyamoti7 a
place in which to live, but restitution of missing
property still remains to be accomplished. The total
value of this property is set by Mr. Miyamoto at an
estimated $10,000. Detailed lists of missing items in
our files mention such articles as carpenter tools $125,
plumber tools $275, flower shop materials $350, while
one trunk alone contained the finest of Japanese fabrics
valued at over $1500 as well as a diamond ring valued
at $1500." 34
Mr. Miyamoto had left instructions with the attorney that under
no circumstances was the small house to be entered or molested in any
way.

Fictitious name

(103)

The Case of Kenneth Kitasako*

Mr. Kitasako, a master craftsman, arranged with a Mr. P for the
storage of his personal property-including a set of tools valued at
$1,000--in a room on the third floor of the Pioneer Building in Seattle.
In September of 1943 Mr. P reported to the WRA office that the room in
which Mr. Kitasako's possessions had been stored had been broken into.
The WR.A representative visited the room, made a report and reboxed the
remaining property. Mr. P died, and the management of the building was
assumed by a Mr. Q. Mr. Q disappeared from the city, and the management
passed to a third man.
When Mr. Kitasako was preparing to return to Seattle, he requested WRA to investigate the contents of the property stored in the Pioneer
Building, and it was discovered that the room had again been entered and
rifled. Household items had been taken from trunks and boxes and thrown
about the room, and the thousand-dollar tool set was missing. The
building manager reported that the pilfering had been reported to the
police but that no action had been taken. He informed the ~·-:RA representative that a living room set and a dining room set of furniture,
stored by Mr. Kitasako in two other rooms of the building, were also
missing. It was reported that Mr. Q, the second in this series of
building managers had absconded with $1.,500 or $2,000 belonging to a
partnership composed of himself and another man.
Arson on Vashon Island:

The Case of the Miyoshi Brothers

The Miyoshi family of Vashon Island, 'Yashington, were evacuated
to Minidoka Relocation Center in .Idaho. They owned a well-insured home
on Vashon Island, and in it they had stored furniture, clothing, and
agricultural equipment belonging to themselves and also personal property and agricultural equipment belonging to four other island evacuee
families. Not long after the owners had been evacuated, the insurance
company cancelled the insurance policy. Presumably because the property
was not occupied, other insurance companies refused to grant coverage.
From the relocation center Masaru and Glenn Miyoshi, the brothers who
had title to the Vashon property, went into the Arey and both were sent
to the European theatre, Masaru sustaining serious wounds in Italy.
On February 1, 1945, before daylight, the Miyoshi house on Vashon
Island was burned to the ground with complete loss of all property
stored therein. It was established before long that the fire was of
incendiary origin. The Seattle Times of February 28, 1945,carried the
following item:

Fictitious name

(104)

"A mysterious series of house fires on Vashon Island
during the past two months was solved today when three
Vashon youths admitted to Deputy Sheriff Louis Benard
that they set fire to several vacant houses on the
island 'just for the thrill.' The youths, 16, 17 and
22 years old, were arrested yesterday and freely
admitted their part to Benard. 11
The 22-year-old pleaded guilty in the superior court of King
County and was sentenced to pay a fine of $1,000. The other two boys,
as minors, were placed under the jurisdiction of the King County juvenile
court. The boys and their parents entered into written agreement to
make restitution to the Miyoshi brothers in the amount of $1,000 from
each offender. The court gave the three culprits the opportunity of
going into the Merchant Marine and making payments out of their earnings.
The 22-year-old boy acted upon the suggestion, and as of November of
1945, the area supervisor reported that all offenders were up to date on
their payments. 34
The Case of Thomas +shimoto* of Seattle

Mr. Ishimoto, at the time of evacuation, leased his furnished
residence in Seattle to Mr. and Mrs. R. Mr. Ishimoto reserved one room
of the dwelling for storage purposes, placing in the room about ~2,000
worth of personal property including furniture. He locked this room and
departed for the assembly center. Upon his property there was also a
greenhouse, which a Mr. S took over from Mr. Ishimoto at the time of
evacuation and continued to operate.
In 1943, some time prior to July 1, Mr. Ishimoto•s brother, as a
soldier in the United States Army, was permitted to enter the evacuated
area. He visited and inspected his brother's property in Seattle, discovering that the room reserved by his brother for storage of personal
possessions had been broken into and everything removed therefrom. The
greenhouse operator informed the owner's brother that Mr. R had been
moving the missing articles and much of the furniture from the leased
part of the house away from the premises. Mr.Shad questioned R about
his activities, but R informed him that he was shipping the property to
Mr. Ishimoto at the Minidoka Relocation Center. However, Mr. Ishimoto
had not made any request to have his property shipped to him, and no
property ever reached him at the project. By the time that this discovery was made by Mr. Ishimoto I s brother, R had disappeared.

Fictitious name

(105)

WRA files show that R, at the time of renting the Ishimoto house,
was an inspector at Boeing Aircraft Company. In September 1944 he was
employed as a patrolman in the navy yard at Terminal Island, California.
In the spring of 1945 when the assistance of the WRA office was requested
by Mr. Ishimoto, WRA reported the disappearance of Mr. Ishimoto 1 s property to the King County sheriff's office. That office, however, has
professed an inability to locate R.
The Mismanagement of Mrs. Yano' s ➔} Pr0oerty in Seattle
The Yanos ieased and operated as a rooming house a building in
Seattle. All the furniture and furnishings in the house were the property of the Yanos. At the time of evacuPtion they left their affairs in
the hands of an agent, Mr. T, who shortly acquired an operator for them.
On August 11, 1942, the Yanos entered into a written agreement with this
man, Mr. U, who contracted to manage the rooming house, no period of
time being set for termination of the agreement, and to make a written
financial report to the Yanos before the tenth of each month of his
managership. This report was to show the total income from the rooming
house, list the names of all tenants, include a statement of any possible
delinquency in rent payment, and show an itemized account of any expenditures incurred, receipts and statements or invoices to be attached. It
was stipulated that all money te.ken in from the business was to be submitted by U to the Yanos with the report. The Yanos, after auditing the
report and paying any unpaid bills, were to remit to U one-half the net
profits as compensation for his management and operation of the rooming
house.
In June of 1943 U submitted his first and last report, which
covered the months of February, March, April, Hay and June of that year.
With the report he sent the Yanos about f 80, which he said was the
amount of profit due the Yanos for the 5-month period. In this report he stated that it had cost him $20 to have water pumped out of the
basement and $30 to t·epair a broken window. Mrs. Yano stated that the
basement was equipped with a mechanical device which automatically
pumped water out and that she did not believe that U made any such expenditure. In October of 1945 the '.VIlA representative visited the premises and found that the same window reported as mended at a cost of $30
was unmended. This visit was made at the request of :;r.rs. Yano, who had
returned to Seattle. It was discovered that a room reserved for storage
of Yano personal property had been rifled and much of the goods removed.
The more important missing ·items were a sewing machine and a motor used
to operate a large, commercial type of refrigerator, valued by }.:rs. Yano
at $4.00.

Fictitious name
(106)

Great deterioration of the property had taken place under U's
management. The WRA investigator found Mr. U in bed, apparently suffering from a severe hangover and in unpleasant mood. Mr. U stated that he
had more important things to do than prepare statements for the Yanos
but, on being assured that unless ar. accounting was submitted to Mrs.
Yano very shortly, Mrs. Yano was prepared to procure an accounting
through judicial proceedings, he promised to produce one. He stated on
this occasion that he was employed bV the Seattle Transit Company.
The house had been sold earlier in the fall to a woman who wanted
to take possession by November 27, and it was important that 1-lrs. Yano
should sell what remained of her furniture and have it out in time for
the new owner to move in. Mrs. Yano hoped also to g~t some legal action
to recover her vanished possessions and her share of proceeds from the
rooming house before Mr. U disappeared.
A report from the area attorney to the Solicitor, dated November 2, 1945, contained the information that to date U had been "unable
to make any sort of a satisfactory accounting. 11 Mrs. Yano in company
with Hr. T, the friend who had arranged for U to operate the rooming
house, had consulted an attorney. A check with the Seattle Transit
Company revealed the fact that U had left its employment on August 17,
1944~ In view of the amount of time U spent around the rooming house,
it seemed improbable that he could be employed anywhere. Mrs. Yano and
Mr. Thad discovered one of the roomers who had seen U remove the expensive motor from Mrs. Yano's commercial size refrigerator. WRA strongly advised criminal prosecution, for it seemed probable that even though
U was without funds, criminal action might retrieve some of the missing
property.
The WRA area attorney made an appointment for Mrs. Yano and Mr. T
with the prosecutor's office with the deputy prosecutor. The latter
passed the two on to the sheriff's office to report the case. The
sheriff's office refused to investigate, saying it was a matter for the
city rather than for the county to handle, and sending Mrs. Yano on to
the city police department. After hearing her story the police captain
told her that there was no basis for prosecution, but that she might
take civil action in the case. Mrs. Yano mentioned that there was a
witness to the theft of the motor, but unfortunately it developed that
the -witness was so aged and feeble as to be unable to appear in court.
Mrs. Yano returned from her many interviews to report to WRA.
The WRA area attorney called the deputy prosecutor who said that he had
hoped that the police departr'l.ent would investigate the case but that he
could not force such an investigation. The WRA attorney then called the
police captain, who after rrruch argument reluctantly agreed to make an
investigation. 'rhe deputy prosecutor promised to prosecute if the
police investigation produced sufficient evidence.

(107)

With the assistance of the evacuee property office, Mrs. Yano
sold her remaining furniture and had her application to the rent division of OPA for the removal of her property by the purchaser approved,
so that the furniture could be removed in time for the new owner of the
house to take possession on the date set.
The last word on the Yano case came in early December in a report
to the Solicitor from the Seattle area attorney:
"I talked this week with [aJ detective * * * of the Seattle
Police Department who merely informed me that the pawn shop
detail is continuing its search for items of property missing from the Yano rooming house. * 1:- * fjjJ now admits that
he cannot produce sufficient records to give an accounting
of his managership of the rooming house. I have talked
again this week with Mrs. Yano about filing a civjl suit
against him. Her attorney, 3/.• {~ {~ has advised against
has no
filing such a suit because it is obvious that % * ~property against which a judgment could be levied. Furthermore, he has no job and therefore no wages which could be
garnisheed. Mrs. Yano herself feels that a civil action
would be to no avail. I am sorry to report that any satisfactory settlement appears now to be impossible.''
1

/JJJ

CONCLUSION

According to an estimate made by Mr. Russell Robinson, WR.A Chief
of Evacuee Property, in 1942, the evacuated people left behind them
about $200 1 000,000 worth of real, personal and commercial property. It
is known that losses have mounted to many millions of dollars. It is
known that many evacuees who had leaseholds upon farms have lost them
by transfer to operators of other races during the years of exclusion.
It was estimated by Adon Poli and Warren M. Engstrand, of the Bureau of
Agricultural Economics, U..S. Department of .Agriculture, in the fall of
1945 that whereas "farm o~inership by Japanese amounted to about 30 percent of their total prewar farm operations, ownership transfers to nonevacuees during and after evacuation has probably reduced these farm
ownership interests to less than a fourth of the total prewar Japanese
land holdings, including leaseholds. This will amount to roughly
60,000 acrest or less than 0.002 of all of the land in all farms in the
3 States." 3:>
The cases which have been cited arc typical of the kind of losses
that the evacuees as a whole suffered. Many lost their chance of income and security in their old age through inability to keep up payments
on insurance policies. Others have lost property through inability to
pay taxes. Individual losses va.ry in amount from a fey, hundred to many

(108-)

thousand dollars. At the time of this writing, late April of 1946,
there· is no Federal law under which claims of people suffering property
loss and damage because of a Government- ordered evacuation could be paid
by the Government. However, a bill to provide for this lack has been
approved by the Bureau of the Buciget and is being forviarcied to the
Congress.
JJ.Jl
#7Pf

6987ns o - 46 - a

(109)

llliFERENGES QUOTED
KeJr t o Cita tions

Martin Domke. Tradi ng with the £nemy in Wor-ld war II.
Book co·., N. Y. 1943. P. 2.

Tr ading with t h e Ener:iy Act, · october
U. S . C. App.

U.s . .kports. Vol. 317. Ex Parte Ku.':le zo Kawa to. On petition for
':irit of mandamu s , Argued October 12, 1942. Decided November 9,
1942. W;r. Justice Blac k deliYere d the opinion of the Court,

6, 1917.

Central

40 Stat. 411, 50

pp. 70-78,

U,S. 'l're 2,su.r y Departme nt. Foreign Funds Control. Washingt on, D. C•
.Administ ration of the Wartime Financi al and Pro p·erty Controls of
the United State s C,o'rernment. Prepared June 1942 for the use of
delegate s to the Int er-Ame r i can Conferen ce on Syst ems of Economics
and Fi nancial Control.
Lr -

p. 2

4-a p. 3
5.

Paul V. Myro n . 11 Alien Property Custodia n " in Law and Contemporary
Probl ems, School of Law, Duke Univers ity, Winter-S pring 1945;
Vol. XI, No, 1.

5 - p . 78
5-a P• 78

Office of Alien froperty Custodia n . Annu2..l Report for the period
of March 11, 1942, to June 30, 1943.

6 - p. 2

6-a p. J
7.

U.S. War Department. Final Re port Japanese Evacuati on from the
West Coast 1942. G. F . O., Washingt on: 1943,

7 - p . 38

7-a p. 29

7-b p. 41
7-c p. 43

(110 )

8.
8-

Los Angeles Times.

8 8-a
8-b
8-c
8-d
8-e
8-f
8-g
8-h
8-i
8-j
8-k
8-1
8-m

Feb.
Feb.
Feb.
Feb.
Feb.

Feb.
Feb.
Feb.
Feb.
Feb.
Feb.
Feb.
Feb.
Feb.

1942.
8-n Feb. 4, pt. I, P• l
8-o Feb. 4, pt. I, P• 6
8-p Feb. 5, pt. I, p. l
8-q_ Feb. 5, pt. I, P• 6
8-r Feb. 6, pt. I, P• 1
8-s Feb. 6, pt. I, PP• l, 6
8-t Feb. 6, pt. I, P• 6
8-u Feb. 6, pt. I, P• 7
8-v Feb. 6, pt. II, P• 4
8-w Feb. 7, pt. I, P• 1
8-x Feb. 7, pt. I, P• 6
8-7 Feb. 12, pt. I, P• 1
8-z Feb. 15, pt. I, p. 1

2, pt. I, p. 10

2, pt. I, p. 10
2, pt. ll, P• l
2, pt. Il, P• 1
2 1 pt. II, P• 4
3, pt. I, P• 1
3, pt. I, p. l
3, pt. I, pp. l, 6
3, pt. I, P• 6
3, pt. I, p. 6
3, pt. I, P• 6
3, pt. I, p. 7
3, pt. II, P9• l, 2
3, pt. II, p. 4

Ruth E. McKee. California and Her Less FJvored Minorities.
Relocation Authority. Washington: 1943. Pp. 21-24.

10.

War Relocation Authority. Myths and Facts about the Japanese
Americans. Washington: June 1945. P. 13.

ll.

Wartime Civil Control Administration. Civil Affairs Division.
Western Defense Convnand. Final Report of the Farm ~ecuri ty /dminiistration for the Period of March 15, 1942 - May 31, 1942.

11 11-a
11-b
11-e

Exhibit l
PP• 5-6
P• 17
p. 39

ll-d
11-e
ll-f
11-g

12. Letter ot Aprill, 1942, from Hilton
YIU, to the Secretary

Agriculture.

War

P• 35
p. 36
p. 37
P• 38

Eisenhower, Director of

13. Report of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Franci.sco as Fiscal Agent
or the United 3t~tes, on its Operations in Connection with Evacuation Operation■ in Military Areas No. 1 and No. 2 during 1942.
p. 13
-~ibit 47
PP• 14-15
P• 17
p. 17
Exhibit 69
PP• 17-18
pp. ll-12
1.3-q p. 20

13-i
13-j
13-k
13-1
13-m
13-n
13-o
13-p

lJ - Exhibit 12

13-&
lJ-b

13-c
13-d
13-e
13-f
13-g
13-h

E:xhibit
P• 3
P• 6
Exhibit
Exhibit
Exhibit
Exhibit
Exhibit

17
23
29
35
6
(111)

14. 77th Congress, 2d Session. House Report No. 2124.

Fourth Interim
Report of the Select Committee Investigating National Defense
Uigration, House of Representatives i:- -* * Findings and Recommendations on Evacuation of Enemy Aliens and Others from Prohibited
Military Zones. May 1942.

14-d p. 185
14-e PP• 13-15
lh-f pp. 15-16

P• 173
11+-a p. 178
14-b p. 179

14 -

14-c p. 181

15. War Relocation Authority. Second Quarterly Report, July 1 to
September 30, 1942. P. 21.
16.

War Relocation Authority. Quarterly Report, October 1 to
December 31, 1942. P. 26.

17. War Relocation Authority.
January 23, 1943.

Administrative Instruction No. 78,

18.

Report to the Attorney General, Washington, D.C., August 31, 1943.
Re. Claim of the U.S. against Northern Farms Inc. (Nash-Decamp
Company), $7,493.10 plus interest. Wartime Farm Adjustment Program
Loan. Department of Justice No. 136-11-112. Complaint No. 43100.
Submitted by Frank J. Hennessey, U.S. Attorney at San Francisco.

19.

War Relocation Authority. Report of October 24, 1945, from Acting
Supervisro, Northwest Area Office to the Acting Chief of the
Relocation Division, Washington, D. C

20.

War Relocation Authority. Memo of November 9, 1942, from Victor
L. Furth of Evacuee Property Division, San Francisco, to Regional
Director E. R. Fryer.

21.

Philip M. Glick and Leland Barrows, War Relocation Authority, as
told to Luella Gettys Keyl "Administrative Reorganization of a
Federal Agency: Elimination of Regional Offices," in Committee on
Public Administration of the Social Science Research Council.
Case Reports in Public Administration, No. 87. c. 1944. Pp. 2-J.

22.

War Relocation Authority. Report of February 9, 1943, from Wayne
L. Phelps, Evacuee Property Supervisor, Sacramento, to Russell T.
,,
Robinson, Chief, Evacuee Property Division.

23.

War Relocation Authority. Semi-Annual Report, July 1 December 31, 1943. P. 68.

(112)

24.

War Relocation Authority.
July 31, 1944. P. 22.

Semi-Annual Report, January 1 -

25.

War Relocation Authority.
July 31, 1945. P. 22.

Semi-Annual Report, January 1 -

26.

War Relocation Authority.
1946.

Adr.'inistrative Notice Ho. 341, March 1,

- 27.

War Relocation Authority. Memorandum of May 13, 1944, from the
Project Attorney at Central Utah Reloqation Center to Edgar
Bernhard, Principal Attorney, San Francisco Area Office.

28.

War Relocation Authority. Report of November 15, 1944, from the
Acting Project Attorney at Central Utah ~elocation Center to the
Solicitor.

29.

War Relocation Authority. Memo of January 6, 1943, from Wayne L.
Phelps, Evacuee Property Supervisor of the Sacramento Office, to
Russell T. Robinson, Chief, Evacuee Property Division,
San Francisco.

30.

War Relocation Authority. Letter of Dece~ber 3, 1943, from Wayne
L. Phelps, Evacuee Property Supervisor, Sacramento, to Elinor J.
Daumon,_ Documentary Section of the Evacuee Property Office,
San Francisco •

31.

War Relocation Authority.
Los Angeles rtr'ea Office.

32.

War Relocation Authority. Documentation provided by the
San Francisco Area Office.

33.

War Relocation Authority. Letter of November 21, 104.5, from Paul
G. Robertson, Los Angeles Area Supervisor, to Hr.~. Rex Lee,
Chief, Relocation Division, Washington.

Documentation provided by the

34. War Relocation Authority. Letter of October 23, 1945, from Harold

Fistere, Northwest Pxea Relocation Supervisor, to Ottis
Peterson, Acting Chief, Relocation Division, Washineton.

35.

Adon Poli and Warren M. Engstrand. "Japanese Agriculture on the
Pacific Coast," in The Journal of Land and Public Utility
Economics (Quote is from mimeographed reprint, pp. 16 - 17.)

(113)

U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 0-1946

Full text of The Wartime Handling of Evacuee Property

FRASER