Title: "Ito Reported Meetings Here to Tokyo, Witness Testifies," Seattle Times, 3/28/1942, (ddr-densho-56-725)
Densho ID: ddr-densho-56-725

Ito Reported Meetings Here to Tokyo, Witness Testifies

Reports of two meetings of a public forum, held at Broadway High School last autumn, were sent to the Japanese Foreign Office in Tokyo, it was disclosed yesterday during the trial of Kenji Ito, Japanese-American attorney, in United States District Court.

Ito, a University of Washington graduate, is charged with the State Department as a Japanese agent.

Hiroshi Yamada, a tall Japanese youth who worked at the Japanese consulate as an operator of a 3,500-character Japanese typewriter until December 7, testified that he had typed two letters about the public forum meetings for delivery to the Tokyo Foreign Office.

Yamada did not state what the letters contained.

Much Evidence Offered

More than an hour yesterday afternoon was occupied by the procedure of offering as evidence numerous books, papers and letters which two agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation confiscated when they searched Ito's Jackson Street office on December 12.

Among the evidence was a business card bearing the name Kadawa Usuda, and the phrase, Bureau of Foreign Trade, Imperial Japanese Government.

Verne Gordon, an F.B.I. agent, testified that he found the card in a desk drawer in Ito's office. The state had made previous attempts to introduce the name of Usuda into the trial, in attempts to show that Usuda was a person with whom Ito had discussed speeches on Japan.

Called Chinese 'Inferior'

Among other evidence offered was a copy of the Japanese Constitution bearing the seal of the Japanese consulate.

Albert M. Ottenheimer, an actor at the Repertory Playhouse, testified that Ito made a speech at a meeting held at the playhouse in which the defendant stated that the Chinese were an inferior race.

"He told a story to illustrate it," Ottenheimer testified. "He said that a boat loaded with wood and a woman passenger tipped over on a certain bay. Other Chinese boatmen picked up the wood and left the woman to drown."

James S. Ching, a Chinese-American citizen, testified that he attended the same meeting and that Ito had stated that the United States policy in the Orient was antiquated. Ching, asked about the story of the woman in the boat, became angry and slightly inarticulate and Judge John C. Bowen finally instructed him to cease discussing that particular phase.

Testimony by Meisnest

Darwin Meisnest, former manager of the Washington Athletic Club, now a lieutenant commander in the Navy, testified that Ito rose during a "Town Meeting of the Air," held in the Seattle Civic Auditorium, and "made a statement instead of asking a question."