What to Do With Japs in Western States Stirs the Bouquet and Brickbat Wielders

In the past week, the question of what to do with Japanese in states along the Pacific Coast has come rapidly to the front. Some there are who favor wholesale concentration of all persons of Japanese birth or parentage; others there are who believe such treatment to be too harsh and who counsel close supervision rather than concentration.

Without taking one side or the other thus far in the argument, The Times has attempted to presentation of the question, assume this to be The Times' views. Examples of this kind, are presented in the following letters, offered as evidence of the wide divergence of public opinion.

TIMES CONSISTENTLY FAIR

Editor, The Times: Henry McLemore admits expecting criticism for his outburst of last Friday. He deserves it. He also admits that the deliberately harsh treatment he proposes for all West Coast Japanese would in most cases be unjustified...

Mr. McLemore has no concern with justifying his position. That he, personally, hates the Japanese ... is to him sufficient justification. Hating them indiscriminately, he can hardly be expected to care whether they are treated fairly.

Those of us who have lived on the West Coast long enough to appreciate the true value of our Japanese population do care. The Times cares: its editorials and news stories have been consistently fair to Seattle's Japanese community.

And The Times shouldn't have let this column get by without comment.

--LOUISE GREGG,
1303 Harrison St.
Seattle.

(Editor's note. It must not be overlooked that Americans in Hawaii thought just about as highly of their Japanese community. Yet many of those Japanese turned on the Americans on a certain December 7.)

LET US HAVE MORE

Editor, The Times: We have just read the article by Henry McLemore, "This Is War! Stop Worrying About Hurting Japs' Feelings."

We just want to say thank you. ... It is gratifying to know there is one newspaper and one reporter who has the courage to say and print what every American should fee.

Please let us have more of the same.

--ELMER AND SYLVIA HUGHES,
2236 Franklin Ave.
Seattle.

'THAT IS A LAUGH'

Editor, The Times: Who bought you out? How much did you get for that whole sheet published in the Saturday edition?

We don't need people like you that would ask the Americans to sympathize with the Japanese in these times. It is evident that you or yours haven't anyone serving in the Army or Navy; you would feel very different if you had. It so happens that two of my family are in service and I can assure you they don't have any such ideas, nor are they taught any.

"Remember Pearl Harbor." That is a laugh when it appears in The Times.

...We aren't dependent on them (the Japs) for our garden products ... We still can raise our own products...

We all know what happened over at Pearl Harbor and you sit behind your desk asking for the same kind of treatment here when you sympathize with the Japanese people, and no doubt you call yourself an American...

--A SEATTLEITE.

(Editor's note. Since men first chipped their measures in stone, man's evaluation of the writers of anonymous letters has been rather low. This letter rates no higher consideration. It is offered here, not because of any constructive thoughts contained in it, but rather as evidence of one of the serious problems of irresponsible and loose talking that confronts America is the effort to present a united war front).

"POTENT PROPAGANDA"

Editor, The Times: If Attorney-General Biddle is right. Henry McLemore's column in The Times is the most potent kind of Axis propaganda.

The attorney-general says: "If we create the feeling among aliens and other foreign-born that they are not wanted here, we shall endanger our national unity. Such an impression could only give aid and comfort to those enemies whose aim it is to infect us with distrust of each other and turn aliens in America against America." ...

While Mr. McLemore screams in the best Nazi tradition regarding race and blood: "Let us have no patience with the enemy or with anyone whose veins carry his blood." That takes in a large number of citizens whose ancestors came from Germany and Italy as well as a very small number from Japan...

Against such an orgy of un-American venom, the attorney-general's words sound poised and sensible and truly patriotic...

--MARY FARQUHARSON,
State Senator
2126 E. 47th St.,
Seattle.