The Ypsilanti daily press. (Ypsilanti, Mich.) 1928-1962, 1942-01-31

A1AN6N19 tA 11~
ny m l d S [, W h o
Admiral Kimmel probably hate
the countries
they fed from worse than we do.
President Roosevelt already has
appealed to employers not to fire
workers in these classifcations.
Mrs. Roosevelt also has spoken in
their behalf. Attorney General
Biddle has served notice that he
won't permit 'em to be prosecuted.
Such warnings are well timed.
World War No. l was a period of
nightly tough times throughout
the United States for lots Of first
class citizens who happened to be
afflicted with the wrong kind Of
foreign names.
Right now / know plenty Of folk
Of German extraction and a few
Italians who are as anti-Axis as
I am.
Australia, organizing to resist
the Japs, reports its recruiting Of
fees literally patronized by volun-
teers with Nazi and Fascist mon
ickers, and they're described as
exceedingly welcome.
Too Much Atmosphere
Now, what I'm wondering is
Doesn't one reason for the cir
cumstance that Lieutenant General
Walter c. Short and Admiral Hus-
band z. kimmel were so badly
fooled as to the possibilities Of a
Japanese attack on Hawaii-as pes
the Roberts investigating commit
tees report-lie in the fact that
Short and Kimmel we're too much
in the Hawaiian Japanese, but
anti-Japanese Coward the Hawai-
ian Japs' original home realm at
mosphere?
Years ago, on my way to China,
l stopped of for a few weeks in
Honolulu.
OF course. I'd passed through
San Francisco, where Japs are
pretty numerous, and our Pacific
coast vas fully awake to what it
considered the Japanese peril.
l assumed that, naturally, Ha-
wall would be still more %apprehen-
sive, being vastly nearer to Nippon
and with a Jap population many
times in proportion, the mainland's
Pacific coast.
Yet, arriving there, I didn't find
Hawaii perturbed a bit.
Among others, l talked with
Territorial Governor Walter F.
Frear,. who, I take it, was entitled
to be considered a first-rate judge
Of the situation, as seen locally.
"Our Hawaiian Japanese" he
said, ARE about 100 per cent anti
the empire they came from. They
or their parents or grandparents
migrated to these islands because
they couldn't stand the conditions
they'd been living under at home.
They not only don't want to be
dominated by Toxic again; they're
hostile to il. In case of a clash
they'd fight or our side"
/ don't allege that he necessarily
was right, but that was Hawaii's
dope. It was Governor Frear's and
Hawaiian Americans dope gener-
ally, though, and it also appeared
to be the dope of any number Of
Hawaiian-ized Japs with whom l
c~onversed. l know, the proposition
is that you can't believe a syllable
that a Jap utters, but if I was
fooled by EN-, the Hawaiian Amer
leans, who ought to have known
better. il it was pure hot air, were
fooled, too.
Hornswaggled
1t seems to me possible that a
couple Of Yankee commanders, like
General Short and Admiral Kim
mel, soaked in that atmosphere,
may have been hornswaggled sim
ilarly.
According to the Roberts report,
washington realized the Jap dan
ger to Pearl Harbor away ahead Of
Short. Kimmel & Co. 1t does look
queer that it should have been
sensed from as far off as the Dis
trict Of Columbia but not by a pair
Of officers as near to Japan as the
Hawaiian islands. Yet Washington
got its information from nervous
sources. but its tips to Short, Kim
mel & Co. unquestionably were
pooh-pooh'd from other sources
right where they were. and for the
Short-Kimmel outfit to have be-
lieved that its advices were more
reliable than distant Washington's
is easy enough to understand.
AS previously remarked, a trans
planted German or Italian can be-
come as tip-top a citizen Of the
country he's t~ransplanted into as
any native Of it. So a a trans
planted Jap. / know Once. H.
Kawakami, a fellow newspaper
man. He's American born. His