Ouster Means Big Loss For School, Crop

Any evacuation of the Island's Japanese aliens and Japanese-American citizen population which comes before July will create huge financial losses for the Island school system and to the Island's strawberry industry, it appeared this week.

A survey by The Review showed that the evacuation order already has meant the closure of the R.D. Bodle Company's strawberry packing plant at Winslow, which employs scores of workers here every summer.

Whether the Island's strawberry crop--biggest single locally produced revenue on the Island--can be salvaged was doubtful. Timing of the evacuation order will have a great effect on this, R.T. Shannon, an official of the Bodle Company, said. The crop is harvested in May, June and July.

"Efforts are being made to salvage at least part of the crop," Mr. Shannon said. "But what those plans are and whether they'll be effective, I can't say at this time."

Other informed sources urged Japanese farmers to "keep on working."

The Island produced 3,500,000 pounds of strawberries last year, virtually all of them being grown by Japanese farmers.

As to the school situation, any evacuation order which occurs before the expiration of the school year later this spring will mean a dollar-and-cents less to School District 303, P.F. Ruidl, superintendent, said.

The district is paid 25 cents a day per pupil attendance by the state and the Island school system has about 140 students of Japanese ancestry. This means that, for the balance of the school year, every day which Japanese students do not attend will mean a loss in revenue of $37.

This will not hold true next year, Mr. Ruidl pointed out, because by that time the district probably will have been able to adjust its overhead expenditures to meet the loss in revenue.