Worthy Japs Should Be Given Jobs--And Soon, Says Mrs. F.R.

By Associated Press

LOS ANGELES, April 27.--Trustworthy American-born Japanese should be given jobs outside relocation centers--and the sooner the better, says Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt.

The President's wife declared at a press conference yesterday:

"I think it's had to institutionalize anybody. I wonder if we didn't go too far that way with the Indian.

"Of course, the citizen Japanese in these camps should be checked carefully, but then I think they should be put to work at locations where they are welcomed, and when government officials are willing they should be.

"The sooner we get the young Japanese out of these camps the better."

Camp Residents Not Idle

Mrs. Roosevelt's comments followed a visit Friday to the relocation center near Gila, Ariz., where from 13,000 to 15,000 Japanese are housed. She said they made no complaints and asked no favors, save one: A ventilator to cool the barracks this summer for the benefit this summer for the benefit of some of the camp inmates who are ill.

The camp's residents, she reported, are living neither in idleness nor luxury.

"They are in barracks something like those we built for migratory workers," Mrs. Roosevelt said. "There are no partitions, and they have rigged up canvas and matting to give each family some privacy.

"They are living in conditions which certainly are not luxurious, as some report. Neither can it be said that they are not decent, although I would not like to live that way.

"They work hard, that is sure. Some are farming, others are on a job I am not able to describe. On this job the supervisors told me they had worked so well it would be done in less than half the time originally estimated."

Mrs. Roosevelt said she was interviewed for the camp newspaper, and spent an hour conferring with the camp staff, all Japanese.

Naval hosptials [hospitals] at Corona and Long Beach were visited yesterday by the President's wife. She chatted with wounded men returned from the Pacific theatre.

"They had no complaint or request of any kind," she said. "They have a wonderful gallantry which defies classification or description."