A Little Known Case For Redress Railroad and Mine Workers

              jjikkejJHeritgge^-. Spring 1998
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Written evidence in most railr0ad
and mining cases has been evasive
J Pacific Railroad yard,
1928. Courtesy of Kay OgasaWara/Mas Hatano.
Minutes from a Dec. 8, 1941 meet
mg of the White Pine County Council
shows that workers in Ruth, Nev   a
company town  owned by Nevada
Consolidated  Copper  Corporation,
had introduced a resolution demanding the immediate confinement of
Japanese workers. The minutes state
that guards "will be posted and an
attempt will be made to hold the
Japanese    together    until    further
notice... them did not want wholesale
discharges or dismissal since the federal
agency didn't want Japs to spread."*
A D^ n, 1941 ktter wit
H.M.  Peterson   (an  official  of the
Nevada Northern Railroad)  stated:
Mr W. Howard Gray, [the attorney
for Nevada Consolidated] and reprieve [of the] FBI gave me [the] fallowing   instructions:   All   Japanese,
German and Italian aliens in our service
must receive no pay after today in any
form until we are so advised by Mr
Gray"
Union   Pacific   President   Jeffers
seemingly requested and got the "green
lightto lay off Japanese workers from
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. A letter
on Feb. 11, 1942 stated: «J talked with
Mr. Hoover of the FBI and...  with
Attorney General Biddle and... I was
gtven to understand that they saw no
objection."
On Feb. 13, Union Pacific fired all of
its Japanese workers, and by Feb. 18
other railroad companies did so as
well According to Russell, during the
week of Feb. 18, 1942, "most of the
Nevada newspapers reported the Japanese railroaders were all fired, and that it
looked hke a government firing.
„ Does Russell's research provide the
smoking gun"? As of January 1, i998
officials at the Office of Redress
Administration, who distribute redress
payments, didn't seem to think so "It
^ not compelling enough," said
DeDe Greene, administrator for
redress.
"We look at the totality of evidence "
said Joanne Chiedi, deputy administrator for redress. "Unfortunately, I
think the 'smoking gun' might be in
the employer's private files. We can't
get access to them."
According to Chiedi, ORA had conducted "extensive research" into the
railroad and mine workers, cases. "We
want to pay them," she said. "The problem we have is we have letters from the
presidents of the railroad companies
that said it was their 'own actions'. You
can t ignore this."
Russell, although downplaying the
significance of his research - which
was limited to certain communities in
Nevada - thinks that it does have
major relevance" to the overall picture
of government involvement. He is sure
that  there  are  untapped  company
records which would emphasize such
involvement in the firings.
"I think there's probably more than
a   50/5°   chan«   [the   government
ordered the firings]," said Russell.
Personal Stories
Shimada  vividly remembers  FBI
agents searching her house in Sparks
Nev., coming up empty-handed. Her
tamily was  fortunate in that they
owned their own property, and they
were fairly self-sufficient. Shimada's
mother sold chickens and other produce, and her father, a hunter, ate what
he could catch.
"We had to stick it out, "she recalls.
Her family was restricted to a five-
mile radius and an 8 p.m. curfew. "We
d^tely felt like an enemy," Shimada
said. I feel we would have been better
oil in (internment) camp."
Immediately after the war ended,
Shimada s father was rehired by the
railroad.
Ida Nishiguchi Otani, who was 19 at
the time, said her father, Sam Masaichi
Nishiguchi, was a section foreman with
Western Pacific Railroad in Gerlach,
Wev. A 15-year employee with the
company, he was abruptly fired in
February of 1942.
'The family was given 24 hours to
move off the railroad property," said
Otani. Her family was living in railroad
housing, and they were subsequently
restricted to outside of a two-mile
radius. Upon finding out the family's
Plight, friends gave them a trailer that
they set up in the middle of the desert.
"It was hardest on my dad, he was in
a state of shock," said Otani. "He was
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