Densho Digital Archive
Frank Abe Collection
Title: James Omura Interview I
Narrator: James Omura
Interviewers: Frank Abe (primary); Frank Chin (secondary)
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: December 9, 1990
Densho ID: denshovh-ojimmie-02-0007

<Begin Segment 7>

FA: What happened next? Did you have contact with the Fair Play Committee or... oh, you read the documents and then what, did you write about, write about it?

JO: Yes. I didn't exactly write about the main document which was a twenty-nine-page proclamation to Attorney General Biddle. But, among the document was this little information about the formation of a Fair Play Committee, and I thought that was important news. And so I wrote an article about it, and, and about the people that headed it. And I featured that in the Rocky Shimpo Monday morning.

FA: What was it about this Fair Play Committee that you, that struck you?

JO: Well, they were on the identical path as I was on the restoration of constitutional rights. What interested me particularly was the fact that they were going to challenge the United States government in a legal manner and that they had acquired a attorney in Denver for that purpose. And, of course, my stand was that if... if anyone challenged the government on the legal or legislative route, that I would support. Now, I stated that in that first editorial, that I would support anyone who sought in a legal manner. And these people were, declared themselves as using legal measures, so that's why I supported them. I kept my word. [Laughs]

FA: Were you aware of the impact those editorials had in camp, especially in Heart Mountain?

JO: Well, in Heart Mountain, we did get feedback. We had represented the newspaper as, representative up in Heart Mountain who were going back and forth, and two of 'em returned and told me that the Rocky Shimpo was being snapped up so fast they're waiting for its arrival. Then, of course, we know that substantial increase in subscription resulted.

FA: So you knew you were on to something?

JO: Well, I wasn't so much concerned with that as the basic constitutional questions. The economics was not something that was a feature of my efforts. [Laughs]

FA: Well, how did you feel about that? That you had editorialized, called for this, and then here comes the Fair Play Committee and the constitutional idea was being responded to. How did you feel? How did you feel about that?

JO: Well, that's good question because I worried about the fact that the Japanese Americans accepted their eviction from the West Coast passively, and bothered me a great deal. And when I arrived in Denver, because of my concern about that, I tried to, to form a... I guess you could say a redress campaign, and I, and when I arranged with a prestigious Washington, D.C. firm to handle the case. And then I communicated with whatever communication I had with the various camps to mostly writers that had connection with, that to pass it around in their various, well, many were assembly centers. In fact, I think all of them were assembly centers at that time, this was in April of 19', well, April or first part of May of 1942. So unfortunately, I received not a single response to my letters, to writers like Toshio Mori, Toshio Mori and in Chicago, Tom Masamori or something like that. He was editor of the Chicago newspaper, Chicago Shimpo.

FA: Who else?

JO: He's a strong JACL leader there.

FA: Who else did you write to?

JO: Oh, I can't remember all of them. The reason I could remember these is because I have copies of the letters to them.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 1990, 2005 Frank Abe and Densho. All Rights Reserved.