NOT ANOTHER ARCADIA

Not since the Arcadia of which Longfellow wrote in "Evangeline" has a minority group been faced with the forced evacuation which the American-Japanese residents of this Coast feared as late as last Saturday.

That fear has gone now, paradoxically enough, in the President's decree that any citizen, anywhere, may be forced by the Army to move from his home.

That decree--one of the broadest assumptions of power by any president--comes as a welcome answer, The Review feels, to the bigots who have shouted for the evacuation of Japanese only. The President didn't aim his order at Japanese or at those American-Japanese citizens so mistakenly called "Japanese" by the unthinking. He was not moved by an unreasoning passion in his desire to protect military establishments when he directed the Army to move any persons--Japanese, Germans, Italians and American citizens whether white, yellow, or black--believed to be dangerous to the safety of any military post.

This order perhaps will mean the removal of all Japanese, German and Italian aliens from Bainbridge Island. It probably will strike mercilessly at many persons who have failed to complete their citizenship papers. It will ruin business and it will tear apart homes. Chiefly affected will be the Japanese homes here.

The Review hopes that the order will not mean the removal of American-Japanese citizens, for it still believes they have the right of every citizen to be held innocent and loyal until proven guilty.

But whatever the President's order may mean for the Island's residents, The Review is glad that it will strike all fairly without bigotry and without malice.

Our President acted with all the finality of a dictator in making that order, but there isn't a right-thinking American who questions his act. It was necessary, for we are in an all-out war. It is a thrill to note, though, that the very order itself was fair and equal to all. Dictatorship-like though it was, its very content bespoke this nation's continued fair treatment of all who reside within its borders.