<Begin Segment 6>

FA: Well, since we're there, let's talk about the Rocky Shimpo newspaper. As editor of the Rocky Shimpo, you wrote editorials.

JO: Yes.

FA: What kind of editorials did you write?

JO: Well, I wrote a great variety of editorials. It is incorrect to say that all I concentrated was on the Fair Play Committee, which is not true. If you went back and looked them up, there are very few. In fact, half a dozen or so. But I wrote about discrimination, nationwide, about, about the wrongs of this action of evicting us from the West Coast, about the very facets of that, about detaining the Japanese in the concentration camps. In fact, I mentioned, I called these so-called relocation centers concentration camps in 1944. No one else was calling it then, but I, in my conversation with Lee Casey, vice president of Rocky Mountain News, I discussed it as a concentration camp and compared it with, with people in the... well, let's say the convicts at Canyon City.

FA: What is the name of your most famous, your most well-scrutinized editorial at the Rocky Shimpo, and what was the point of that editorial?

JO: Well, it so happened that on Feb. 28, 1944, I wrote the first editorial and I titled it "Let Us Not Be Rash." The reason I wrote that is because at the time, there were five young Nisei at Amache center who were picked up for refusal to report for induction and they were spouting out about loyalty, that they were disloyal, or they were loyal to Japan and stuff like that. And I felt that they were taking the wrong approach, because they weren't disloyal, but out of frustration were making these wild statement. And these wild statements was actually making the rest of the Japanese Americans look bad. You know, their image... they were walking right into the exact thing that the newspapers were accusing them of, "disloyal to the United States," and at the same time, thirty boys at Minidoka camp in Idaho, in order to avoid induction, asked for renunciation, which I felt was a bad move. On the same basis as these boys at Amache, they did that out of frustration. So I thought to myself that the JACL, instead of giving guidance, was accusing people who took this different path, and I felt that these, someone should throw out what I felt was an anchor that these people could use that would be substantial. It wasn't easy to arrive at that. But since I was, I thought there might be, in fact, I worried about it over the weekend and then I wrote this editorial feeling that the Constitution was the only basis they had to object. So I sat down and wrote it with the idea that possibly some people could, some of the others who would be coming up later would have a basis to, to reason why they were not reporting. As far as reporting was concerned, I knew that there be others.

FA: And as it turns out, I'll talk to Frank Emi and he'll say, "We read that editorial in camp and we responded." Or Kiyoshi Okamoto read it, or I don't know who read it, but you got the response, right?

JO: That's right. Quickly.

FA: How did it come?

JO: [Laughs] On March 3rd -- here I wrote this on February 28th -- on March 3rd, a young woman walked into the editorial office and announced that she was Sylvia Toshiyuki. I didn't recognize the name, of course, and then she says, "My husband operates the San Quo Low Cafe on Curtis Street," and I'd seen the sign, and I knew what, that the San Quo Low sponsored a Nisei basketball team. So...

FA: How did she behave? What was her behavior when she came to your office?

JO: Well, I was watching her come up the steps and she seemed to be very fearful. Looked behind her, looked to her sides, and she was very nervous when she approached me, see. And then she told me that she was a very good friend of Kiyoshi Okamoto and that he had written these documents which she held in her hand and she says, "I think he is a genius." Well, I didn't know anything about Kiyoshi Okamoto or I didn't even know that there was an organization in Heart Mountain. This was, this was the first intimation that I had of such a thing. Then suddenly she shoved her documents into my hand and said, "I want you to read this." And she says, "I'm double-parked outside and I'll have to go," and she turned around and disappeared.

FA: Do you think she had a car?

JO: No, I don't think she has a car. I never saw it. And I don't think she was in a position where she would require a car.

FA: Looking back on it now, what was she afraid of?

JO: Well, she was afraid of the FBI.

FA: Why?

JO: She thought they were tailing her.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 1990, 2005 Frank Abe and Densho. All Rights Reserved.