MRS. SISK SPEAKS

A forthright lady, Mrs. E.L. Sisk, highly respected resident of our Island, took us to task last week in "The Open Forum" for publishing a news article pointing out the financial loss which the Island will suffer when Japanese aliens and Japanese-American citizens are evacuated.

Her letter was the first in opposition to the stand The Review has taken in behalf of Japanese American citizens, although it was directed at a news story and not an editorial. The news story contained facts as we found them and wasn't intended to reflect any personal feelings on our part. We of The Review attempt to speak our mind in this, the editorial column, and in no other section of the paper. Yet Mrs. Sisk's letter was most welcome, for we want Islanders to feel that "The Open Forum" is theirs to use at any and all times without censor on our part except as to libelous statements.

It is too late, of course, to continue an argument to prevent evacuation. Federal orders have been given on this subject. The Review, and those who think as it does that Japanese-American citizens have as much right here as the next citizen, have lost. The issue is closed. Yet we can't let Mrs. Sisk's statement about our "playing sob sisters to our enemies" go unchallenged.

Since when is a Japanese-American citizen an enemy? We have seen no action by Congress or any order by the President declaring such to be the case.

While we're on this subject, we wonder if our readers would be interested in the following quotation from the "New Yorker," sent in by one of our Islanders who sympathizes with the predicaments of the Japanese-American citizens? The quotation, part of a poem by Phyllis McGinley, follows:

CASUALTY LIST

"Not by the bomb alone
Nor by the bullet from the rattling gun,
Nor by the missle[missile] launched from under the sea,
Shall all the hurt be done.
There is always the rumor rising out of the dust
The killing whisper, the word like a sabre thrust,
"There are always the little people who have no voice,
No knowledge, and no choice.
"Yes, hard for them all like makers of bamboo frames,
Little knickknack sellers, and tillers of lettuce farms,
And stooping hairdressers wearing their German names,
And Italian waiters with napkins over their arms.
There are always the little people who have no voice,
No knowledge and no choice.
"Oh let them remember, when the bread of kindness sours,
It was neither their fault nor ours."