Babies Cost Japanese in Camp 13 Cts.

By NICK BOURNE
United Press Staff Correspondent

TULE LAKE JAPANESE CENTER, Calif., Oct. 18.--Half the 16,000 "dangerous" Japanese held here behind barbed wire for three and a half years were free to leave today, but they are staying and having babies for 13 cents.

The Japanese are getting thicker all the time.

The 4,200 who renounced United States citizenship are receiving alien registration numbers, but the Department of Justice has not announced whether they will be sent to Japan -- a step which has been urged by many Pacific Coast anti-Jap groups, but which has no precedent in American history.

32 Babies Per 1,000

Through August, 1,245 babies were born to the Japanese held behind barbed wire here. The government foots the hospital and doctor bills. It cost a dime to register a little son from heaven at the county courthouse, and three cents to mail the letter.

The 1945 birth rate through August was 32 babies per 1,000 population. The national 140 birth rate was 17.9 per thousand.

Tule Lake has no closing deadline on it and is beset by legal, racial, prejudicial, human and strictly oriental problems.

No Money, No Jobs, No Friends

Roy R. Best, War Relocation Authority project director, gave some of the reason for reluctance of between 7,000 and 8,000 Japanese to leave:

"Some have no money and no job, no friends outside to help them get a fresh start. Some are better off here than they ever were outside."

Young Japanese of this tar-paper village play baseball and tennis, go to school, ride bicycles and listen to the radio.

Old men sit and talk, grow potted plants, and make trinkets from shells found on the ground, for the center is located on a dry lake bed.