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DH: I'm talking with Walt Woodward, who was the publisher, he and his wife, were the publisher of The Bainbridge Review from 1935 to 1963. And we're talking in his home on Bainbridge Island and today is May... 11th, 1998. Now before, before the war, I noticed that there were a lot of articles written about the Japanese American community on the island. Do you remember those stories? They were just part of the beat that you covered? Do you remember any of them, particularly? Elections of the JACL and... do you remember some of those stories that you were writing about the Japanese community before the war?

WW: Yes.

DH: Can you tell me about some of them? Did you have to go down and cover them yourself?

WW: You want to talk about the, what?

DH: Well, before...

MW: Well, about the Japanese American community, their, their... the stuff that they did. How did you cover those? Did you send a reporter down? Did you go yourself?

DH: Those are all...

MW: Did somebody report to you?

DH: Those are all people that you knew.

WW: I'm, I'm sorry.

DH: When Mr, Mr. Nagatani was elected the president of the JACL, those were all people that you knew and yet, those were just columns that you just, articles that you ran in the newspaper at that time, right?

WW: Yes.

DH: Do you remember that?

WW: Yes.

DH: Uh-huh, uh-huh. And then, I did notice and we couldn't remember this when we talked the last time, but you did do a special or a special report the day, the day after Pearl Harbor, I believe. And you had written a editorial then. And then, I noticed as I was going though some of the articles, that they, they started having the Japanese report their dynamite and guns were seized, and radios were seized. And you sort of get a sense that the Japanese, here on the island, were in some trouble and that's when you started writing some of the editorials.

WW: Yeah.

DH: Did you and Milly... how did you and Milly come to make a decision about what kind of editorials to write about those issues?

WW: Well, I... I pushed the envelope as far as I could.

DH: It says in one of these things that there were some rumors that the Japanese here on the island, had planted their strawberries in rows that pointed to Bremerton.

WW: Yeah. Oh, sure, sure. Yeah.

DH: Is that... those kinds of rumors, are those kinds of rumors the things that helped you to decide to write in support of the Japanese community here?

[Interruption]

MW: Well, you didn't really ever answer the question I'm wondering about. How did you and Mom come to a decision, to take the stand that you did? Did you talk about it?

WW: Well, sure. We were the only ones that were talking that way.

MW: Yeah. [Laughs] But I'm just curious about how you and Mom, did you sit around in the dining room one day and...

WW: No.

MW: No.

WW: It kind of grew.

MW: [Laughs]

DH: It just kind of grew on you?

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.