OUR HAWAIIAN AMERICANS

The tragic episode around Honolulu on December 7, certainly has placed Japanese residents and Americans of Japanese ancestry in a trying situation, but we hope the public will delay judgment until the facts are available. Those people in the islands have for years been protesting their loyalty to the American flag, and the opportunity is now here for them to show whether it was merely idle talk.

The Territory of Hawaii has for some time been seeking statehood, and one objection advanced has been on account of the large Oriental population, particularly the Japanese. These people have replied that they would prove their loyalty when the time came. The time has arrived.

Protestation of loyalty on the part of the Japanese in the islands has not been confined to them. Samuel W. King, delegate in Congress from Hawaii, has time and again voiced his confidence in the Americans of Japanese ancestry. We undertake to say that the Delegate has been diligent the past ten days seeking to ascertain the facts.

Last Summer a United States Army general who had been in command of the department in the Territory, and was retired, was asked on his arrival at the Mainland about the young Americans of Japanese ancestry there. He replied that in his opinion they would prove loyal to the soil, and not to the blood. We trust his forecast was correct.

Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox did the second generation a great service when he included some of them in his list of heroes. We think the full report will show there were many more.

In the light of evidence presented in the past, we hope the public will defer judgment on our Hawaiian Americans until the story is fully known.