Densho Digital Archive
Emiko and Chizuko Omori Collection
Title: Ernest Besig Interview
Narrator: Ernest Besig
Interviewers: Chizu Omori (primary), Emiko Omori (secondary)
Location: San Francisco, California
Date: October 1, 1992
Densho ID: denshovh-bernest-01-0012

<Begin Segment 12>

EO: What was Wayne Collins like? I mean, who was this man?

EB: He, he was quite a character. I hear from his daughter every Christmas time. And she was going to visit my daughter in Cambridge recently, but unfortunately my daughter wasn't going to be around with her family. And Wayne, Jr., he was fashioned after his father. Wayne could speak more rapidly than any person I know. And his mother, he took after his mother, I knew his mother... she had, she could talk, too. His wife, fortunately, couldn't compete with Wayne, Sr. Wayne was a character. And occasionally I had some problems with him. But no doubt he had problems with me. I had problems with Jr. later on. Jr. got married to a German girl, living over in, in the Berkeley area, I believe, last I heard. He doesn't keep in touch with his sister, either. Wayne, he was a, he was a fighter by nature. He'd had problems, I understand, in his background. One can find them if one is looking for that sort of thing. But what else do you want to know about Wayne?

EO: Well, I'm just... this is probably maybe a question you already answered, but it seems that some people have spirit and a sense of justice and others don't... where that comes from.

EB: He's a fighter. Wayne is a fighter. That's why he belonged to the ACLU. Not as much as Wayne. I'm, I'm a peaceful chap, you must agree. [Laughs] I had to get along with people. I had to get along with my board. I had to get along with Wayne Collins and others on the board. The, what's the name of the man from Berkeley, professor?

EO: Mickeljohn.

EB: No, no, not Mickeljohn. I'm talking about the man who was in the...

EO:MacArthur?

EB: No, he had a wife who was a left-winger.

EO: Paul Oppenheimer.

EB: Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer was on my board. And Oppenheimer produced problems for me. And then another chap, who was a left-winger.

EO: Clarence?

EO: No, not Clarence. Clarence was a socialist. He was a decent chap, but I had some problems on my board. And, you know, when you're the director, Executive Director, you've got to get along with people. And generally speaking, I did. Until, when a case came up and the case raised a civil liberties issue, that was my, my beef. And I would go after that because I believed in freedom.

EO: See, the difference is here you went to the JACL, who should have been the ones protesting loudest.

EB: That's right. I can't force them to do it.

EO: Why do you suppose, did you get any feeling of why they were the way they were?

EB: Well, I have opinions about the character of these people. They didn't impress me. They were the guys who were looking out for themselves. That was my opinion. Maybe I'm doing them an injustice, but that was my opinion.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 1992, 2003 Densho and Emiko Omori. All Rights Reserved.