SAKAMOTO RAPS INTERNMENT BILL

A Senate bill, which would empower the War Department to take all Japanese in the United States into custody, would "put 100,000 American citizens in concentration camps without hearings," James Y. Sakamoto, a leader of the Japenese [Japanese] in Camp Harmony at Puyallup, declared in a mimeographed letter he was circularizing yesterday.

Sakamoto was editor of The Japanese-American Courier before all Pacific Coast Japanese were evacuated last spring.

The bill, introduced by Senator Tom Stewart, Democrat, Tennessee, provides "for the taking into custody during the continuation of the war between the United States and Japan of any or all Japanese residing in or found in the United States."

Bill Declared Vicious

"You will readily see the vicious, un-American nature of the bill, I am sure," Sakamoto wrote. "As Senator Ball, Republican, Minnesota, put it, the measure would have the Senate agreeing to 'put 100,000 American citizens in concentration camps without hearings or anything else.'

"We Americans of Japanese descent evacuated in a loyal and cooperative spirit, not because we wanted to, but because we felt we were helping our country to victory by ... disappearing for a short while from the American scene so that national unity and freedom from fear may enable our country to expend its fullest efforts. ...

Would Infringe Rights

"But now here is an obvious attempt to infringe on the rights of a defenseless minority with a bill which has been given a minimum of publicity. We request you, as fellow Americans, to do everything in your power to prevent this un-American practice. Please spread the word to other thinking Americans, and write to your congressman opposing this unfair measure."