<Begin Segment 12>

CO: All right, so let's pick up where, how you got this, the job on the New World Daily.

JO: When I arrived at the New World Daily, this friend was long gone. And a fellow named Yasuo Sasaki was the editor. And he was scheduled to leave in two weeks for, to continue his studies at Cincinnati University in biochemistry. So he suggested that I take over after him. And immediately set about getting me a job there, the machinery, and as a result, I was hired. And I'm two weeks ahead of time so I went on to Seattle and then spent a vacation and came back and assumed the job.

CO: So this was not a job as a reporter?

JO: As an editor. I've never been a reporter.

CO: Now, somewhere along the way here, the Japanese American Citizens League is...

JO: You're coming to it, eventually.

EO: Okay. What kind of newspaper was the New World Daily?

JO: New World Daily was, again, a lot like any vernacular newspaper, similar to the Hokubei Mainichi and the Rafu Shimpo.

EO: You were the sole...

JO: Oh, I had an assistant this time. [Laughs]

EO: Were you interested in sort of political or other issues at the time?

JO: I was interested in all sorts of issues.

[Interruption]

CO: What year is this?

JO: 19-, August, 1934. In my opinion, my tenure at the New World Daily during this period, I would consider San Francisco as the golden age of Nisei journalism. Nowhere else has rivalry been so strong between the three newspapers. And, of course, the New World Daily was right in the middle of everything. [Laughs] One day, I think it was somewhere around October, I wrote an essay on leadership. It was titled, "Leadership." And I was thinking in general terms. At that time, the Japanese American Citizens League had meant nothing to me. It meant very little to the Japanese American society. And however, when I wrote this editorial, I got a quick response from the national JACL, which was centered in San Francisco. And they didn't like it. They thought that I was targeting them and criticizing their leadership. I wasn't aware of this, but the third bi-annual convention of the Japanese American Citizens League was held in SoCo, or San Francisco, as you call it. It was SoCo to us, SoCo Town. And at that convention, I became aware of the fact that the JACL had attempted to pass a resolution to censure, not censor, but to censure the New World Daily for criticizing the JACL. That censure died on the floor. But as a result of which, Tokie Slocum named me, came over and named me as his confidante in the campaign for Oriental citizenship. Afterwards I thought it over and the fact that the JACL had attempted to pass a censure movement against me bothered me a great deal. So I decided to look into the JACL to find out what really made it tick. And as a result of which, I determined that the organization was a political organization. Now that started another brouhaha in that the national JACL sent Tomotsu Moriyama to Walnut Grove, California, and proclaimed the JACL is not a political organization. They also sent Walter Tsukamoto to southeastern Idaho, an intermountain district, on the same mission. That debate lasted to the middle of December of 1935 when Saburo Kido confronted me and said that I was right. That the JACL had made a mistake. That they really meant non-partisan, not non-political. And I took his statement on face value, thinking that he would alert other members of the JACL leadership to the fact. But unfortunately, he just kept it to himself, apparently. So that even as late as 1942, January 1942, a Sacramento newspaper reporter wrote -- this was a hakujin, not a Japanese paper -- wrote that the JACL was non-political. Also at the 1942 Tolan hearing, Masaoka made a statement that the JACL was not political, and when quizzed by the chair he admitted that he had made a mistake, that he meant non-partisan. So that those incident points out to me that Saburo Kido did not send the message down the line. About this time, in early February of 1935 we got into another confrontation...

[Interruption]

CO: So, do you know why?

JO: Yes, I know why.

CO: Why did they pick on this issue?

JO: Well, because when I assessed the JACL, I pointed out to them that because they were handling the Takahashi's fishing case in Monterey, they were taking care of the San Pedro fishermen's union in Sacramento, they were pushing for the campaign for Oriental veterans and they sent a observer to Washington, D.C. to view the Cable Act amendment, all of them represented to me that they were a political organization, and for that reason I called them a political organization, which they came back and said they were not.

CO: Why do you think this angered them?

JO: Well, I can't speak for them, because in my opinion, my opinion at that time was that the leaders of the Japanese American Citizen League were a bunch of confused people. That they didn't know what their goals were or what their policy was. And that they jumped from one end to the other, and this is one of the things, that they didn't know they were political organiz-, they couldn't assess it themselves.

CO: Who were they?

JO: Saburo Kido, Mike Masaoka, all the top leaders of the JACL. Walter Tsukamoto.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 1994, 2003 Densho and Emiko Omori. All Rights Reserved.