WAR RELOCATION AUTHORITY
WASHINGTON
February 27, 1943
Mr. John J. McCloy
Assistant Secretary of War
War Department
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. McCloy:
Since we agreed to accept several thousand evacuees from Hawaii, conditions and circumstances have changed greatly and, as a consequence, I want to ask that you contact General Emmons and request him to suspend any further evacuation, at least for the time being.
Our experience at Jerome, where the Hawaiian evacuees are located, has not been good. They have proved to be unwilling workers and about half of them have answered no to the loyalty question number 28 in the selective service registration form. They definitely are not the kind of people who should be scattered among the West Coast evacuees.
At the time we agreed to accept Hawaiian evacuees we had been granted by the War Production Board priorities for schools. Since then, owing to the shortage of construction materials, the War Production Board has withdrawn all priorities for elementary schools, which has forced us to continue to use barracks buildings for school purposes. Therefore, we do not have the space now available which at that time we anticipated we would have.
We have arranged to accommodate the group now on board ship at our Central Utah Project. Each time we open a new project to Hawaiian evacuees it is necessary to remove all those who are likely to be repatriated. We are sending these people to the project at Rohwer. We find this constant shifting from project to project is very harmful to proper relocation center administration.
If it is necessary for General Emmons to continue his evacuation program, and I sincerely hope he may feel that he can abandon it, I suggest that a new and separate center be constructed. You are, of course, aware of the difficulties
In view of these considerations and others which I have mentioned to you from time to time, I hope that the War Department will reconsider the proposal of bringing to the mainland several thousand more people of Japanese ancestry.
Sincerely yours,
[Signature] D.S. Myer
Director