INTERNMENT OF JAPS CRITICIZED

St. Louis, April 16,--(AP)--Segregation of Japanese-Americans, who were moved from the Pacific Coast to relocation camps by military authorities, was criticized today in two addresses at a meeting of the National Conference of Social Work.

"These people were not, and are not dangerous," said John W. Powell, assistant chief of community services of the Colorado River war relocation project at Poston, Ariz.

Rumors Are Denied

"In spite of rumors, repeatedly denied by all official sources, there is no record of a single act of sabotage either in California or Hawaii, where ten thousand of them have volunteered for the Army.

"In California, their major crime was to have created hundreds of millions of dollars of agricultural wealth which some of their neighbors sought to control by forcing the racial issue under the forced draught of war fears. The government took charge in what is probably the most costly experiment in controlled migration ever made."

Homer Morris, in charge of resettlement work for the American Friends Service Committee, told the conference of the efforts of the War Relocation Authority and private welfare groups to resettle Americans of Japanese ancestry as individuals in communities throughout the nation.

Relocation Held Wrong

"Two thirds of the people at the relocation centers are American citizens," Morris said. "They have been charged with no crime; they are guilty of no offense against the peace and security of the United States.

"Certainly the long-range solution is not the relocation of these people by segregation in these centers as wards of the government. Rather, I is in relocating them as individuals in places where they can make the greatest contributions to the national welfare."