Personal Justice Denied

              PERSONAL JUSTICE DENIED
RECOMMENDATIONS
the West Coast, with the consequent loss of property and personal
liberty^
The decision to detain followed indirectly from the alleged
military necessity for exclusion. No one offered a direct military
justification for detention; the War Relocation Authority adopted
detention primarily in reaction to the vocal popular feeling that
people whom the government considered too great a threat to remain at liberty on the West Coast should not live freely elsewhere.
The_WRA cnntpnrlpH that the initial detention in relocation cenr
ters was necessary for the evacuees' safety, and that controls on
departure would assure that the ethnic Japanese escaped mistreai-
Thent by other Americans when they left the camps. It follows,
However, from the Commission's conclusion that no military necessity justified the exclusion that there was no basis for this
detention.
In early 1943, the government proposed to end detention, but
not exclusion, through a loyalty review program designed to open
the gates of the camps for the loyal, particularly those who volunteered to join the Army. This program represented a compromise
between those who believed exclusion was no longer necessary
and those who would prolong it. It gave some ethnic Japanese an
opportunity to demonstrate loyalty to the United States most
graphically — on the battlefield. Particularly after detention, such
means of proving loyalty should not have been necessary. Yet distinguished service of Japanese Americans both in Europe and the
Pacific had a profound impact in fostering postwar acceptance of
the ethnic Japanese in America. It opened the gates of the camps
and began to reestablish normal life for some people. But it did
not grant the presumption of loyalty to all American citizens of
Japanese descent. With no apparent rationale or justification, the
loyalty review program failed to end exclusion from the West
Coast of those who were found loyal.
By the spring of 1943, the highest civilian and military officials of the War Department had concluded that, after the loyalty
review, military requirements no longer justified excluding American citizens of Japanese descent or resident aliens from the West
Coast. The exclusion was imposed through orders based on the
Secretary of War's authority; nevertheless, the War Department
did not act to lift the ban. The extent to which these views were
communicated to the White House is unclear, but twelve months
later\in_Mav  1944   a recommendation to end exclusion was put^
1
I
before the President at a Cabinet meeting. Nevertheless, exclusion ended only after the Presidential election in November~T944T^
Noplausible reason connected to wartime security supports this
delay in allowing the ethnic Japanese to return to their homes,
jobs and businesses—although the delay meant, as a practical matter, that most evacuees continued to be confined in relocation
camps for an additional eighteen months.
In sum, Executive Order 9066 was not justified by military
necessity, and the decisions that followed from it —exclusion, de-
tention, the ending of detention and the ending of exclusion —
were not fomiHerlTipon militaryconsiderations. The broad histori-^
cal causes that shaped these decisions were race prejudice, war .
hysteria and a failure of political leadership. Widespread ignorance
about Americans of Japanese descent contributed to a policy conceived in haste and executed in an atmosphere of fear and anger at
Japan. A grave personal injustice was done to the American citizens and resident aliens of Japanese ancestry who, without individual review or any probative evidence against them, were excluded, removed and detained by the United States during World
War II.
The excluded people suffered enormous damages and losses,
both material and intangible. To the disastrous loss of farms, businesses and homes must be added the disruption for many years of
careers and professional lives, as well as the long-term loss of income, earnings and opportunity. Japanese American participation
in the postwar boom was delayed and damaged by the losses of valuable land and growing enterprises on the West Coast which they
sustained in 1942. An analysis of the economic losses suffered as a
consequence of the exclusion and detention was performed for the
Commission, Congress having extended the Commission's life in
large measure to permit such a study. It is estimated that, as a result of the exclusion and detention, in 1945 dollars the ethnic Japanese lost between $108 and $164 million in income and between
$41 and $206 million in property for which no compensation was
made after the war under the terms of the Japanese-American
Evacuation Claims Act. Afljustine^these figures to account for inflation alone, the total losses of income and property fall between
$810 million and $2 billion in 1983 dollars. It has not been possible
to calculate the effects upon human capital of lost education, job
training and the like.