Court Opinion

ID: 9550888
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:44:22.426802+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:22:39.015297
License: Public Domain

CARTER, J.
I concur in the judgment of reversal.
The sole justification of the statute barring Japanese aliens from owning or occupying property in California is that such persons will not be legal citizens familiar with American concepts and will use the property to the detriment, rather than the welfare, of the nation. Authority for that conclusion is a similar statement made by Mr. Justice Butler in Terrace v. Thompson, 263 U.S. 197 [44 S.Ct. 15, 68 L.Ed. 255], in 1923, who, in turn, took it from the decision of the judge in the lower court. There was not then, much less now, any basis for it. Regardless of what may have been the popular concept when our present immigration, naturalization and alien land laws were adopted and upheld by our courts, the trend of thought influenced by subsequent events is diametrically opposed to the philosophy underlying those laws and the decisions upholding them. The basic fallacy of the argument advanced in support of the validity of the alien land laws is in making ineligibility for citizenship the postulate of the classification of persons who are prohibited from owning land.
Mr. Justice Schauer, in his dissenting opinion, charges the majority of this court with refusal to perform its judicial duty by the rendition of its decision declaring the California Alien Land Law unconstitutional. Our decision, he says, stems “from the strong social views of the justices who write it and from their desire to make the law what they think it should be,” and is based on the conjecture that the Supreme Court of the United States “which has previously upheld the law may eventually reverse itself.”
For my part in participating in the decision, I deny the charge. I have always considered that the decisions uphold*739ing the alien land laws were based upon a false premise and that those laws were never valid because they contravened constitutional mandates. I did not join with the majority of this court in People v. Oyama, 29 Cal.2d 164 [173 P.2d 794], which was reversed by the Supreme Court of the United States (see Oyama v. California, 332 U.S. 633 [68 S.Ct. 269, 92 L.Ed. 249]), and I dissented in Takahashi v. Fish & Game Com., 30 Cal.2d 719 [185 P.2d 805], which was likewise reversed by the Supreme Court of the United States (see Takahashi v. Fish & Game Com., 334 U.S. 410 [68 S.Ct. 1138, 92 L.Ed. 1478]). I took the position when those eases were before this court that the statutes there involved violated constitutional mandates and should be stricken down. I took this position without regard to the conclusion which might finally be reached by the Supreme Court of the United States. While the majority of the Supreme Court of California upheld the statutes involved in those cases, its decisions were reversed by the Supreme Court of the United States. I can see no distinction in the disposition of those eases by this court and the case at bar. In my opinion this court has the right to say at this time that the statute here involved is unconstitutional even though the former decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States appear to have upheld it as constitutional. What conclusion that court may ultimately reach in this particular case cannot change my view with respect to what the decision of this court should be. I am fully cognizant that this position may be in conflict with the following declaration in the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Schauer: “Justice is pictured as being blind but not in the posture of an ostrich, and judicial duty is not performed when a court refuses to follow a law because it conjectures that a higher court which has previously upheld the law may eventually reverse itself.” Contrary to this expressed belief of Mr. Justice Schauer, it is my view that the judge who closes his mind and refuses to apply constitutional principles in the light of present day concepts confuses the ostrich which hides his head when danger approaches with the mythical Goddess of Justice whose blindfold is depicted to illustrate her impartiality and freedom from external influences.
My philosophy of the law is and always has been that it is the duty of a judge, in construing the Constitution, to give effect to its provisions and strike down legislation in contravention thereof. (Werner v. Southern Calif. etc. Newspapers, 35 Cal.2d 121, 137 [216 P.2d 825, 13 A.L.R.2d 252]; Perez v. *740Sharp, 32 Cal.2d 711, 732 [198 P.2d 17] ; In re Blaney, 30 Cal.2d 643 [184 P.2d 892] ; Rescue Army v. Municipal Court, 28 Cal.2d 460 [171 P.2d 8]; Gospel Army v. City of Los Angeles, 27 Cal.2d 232 [163 P.2d 704] ; County of Los Angeles v. Southern Calif. Tel. Co., 32 Cal.2d 378, 393 [196 P.2d 773] ; Palermo v. Stockton Theatres, Inc., 32 Cal.2d 53, 66 [195 P. 2d 1] ; Takahashi v. Fish & Game Com., 30 Cal.2d 719, 737 [185 P.2d 805]; Hollman v. Warren, 32 Cal.2d 351 [196 P.2d 562]; Lockard v. City of Los Angeles, 33 Cal.2d 453, 468 [202 P.2d 38, 7 A.L.R.2d 990] ; Sandstrom v. California Horse Racing Board, 31 Cal.2d 401, 415 [189 P.2d 17, 3 A.L.R.2d 90] ; Del Mar Canning Co. v. Payne, 29 Cal.2d 380, 384 [175 P.2d 231] ; Ferrante v. Fish & Game Com., 29 Cal.2d 365, 375 [175 P.2d 222].)
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land and all judges take an oath to support it. In my opinion.this oath is violated when courts permit laws to stand or acts to be done in conflict with its provisions. See People v. Rochin, 101 Cal.App.2d 140, 143 [225 P.2d 1, 913], reversed by the Supreme Court of the United States (Rochin v. California, 341 U.S. 939 [71 S.Ct. 997, 95 L.Ed. 1366]).
Convinced as I am and always have been that this statute violates basic constitutional guarantees, it is my plain duty to so declare. Even conceding that the Supreme Court of the United States has not overruled Porterfield v. Webb, 263 U.S. 225 [44 S.Ct. 21, 68 L.Ed. 278], Webb v. O’Brien, 263 U.S. 313 [44 S.Ct. 112, 68 L.Ed. 318], Frick v. Webb, 263 U.S. 326 [44 S.Ct. 115, 68 L.Ed. 323], Terrace v. Thompson, 263 U.S. 197 [44 S.Ct. 15, 68 L.Ed. 255], or Cockrill v. California, 268 U.S. 258 [45 S.Ct. 490, 69 L.Ed. 944], it has reversed this court on the only recent cases which have considered the problem here involved. Furthermore, that court has recently declared in Oyama v. California, 332 U.S. 633, at page 646 [68 S.Ct. 269, 92 L.Ed. 249] : “There remains the question of whether discrimination between citizens on the basis of their racial descent, as revealed in this case, is justifiable. Here we start with the proposition that only the most exceptional circumstances can excuse discrimination on that basis in the face of the equal protection clause and a federal statute giving all citizens the right to own land. In Sirabayashi v. United States, this Court sustained a war measure which involved restrictions against citizens of Japanese descent. But the Court recognized that, as a general rule, ■ Distinctions between citizens solely because of their *741ancestry are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality. ’ 320 U.S. 81, 100 [63 S.Ct. 1375, 87 L.Ed. 1774] (1943).” The foregoing declaration is clearly out of-harmony with the basic philosophy announced in the decisions of that court hereinabove cited upholding the alien land laws.
The fundamental principle enunciated by the equal protection clauses of our Constitutions, both state and federal, means equality for aliens within our country, as well as for citizens. It has both antiquity and sanctity for its background. “And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself.” (Leviticus 19:33, 34.) And recently this admonition has been fostered by the United Nations Charter as an international policy. Any curtailment of equality must necessarily, therefore, be carefully scrutinized.
After Pearl Harbor, one of the chief arguments advanced for the evacuation from California of the Japanese was, as has been expressed: “Economic practices made Japanese undesirable competitors, and their productive contribution to the nation’s economy was negligible.” (Grodzins, Americans Betrayed, p. 401.) If the impact of the Japanese on agriculture shortly after 1941 was “negligible”—of no importance —then it cannot be said to be now so important as to justify depriving them of their constitutional rights. Indeed, even less importance now exists, for they were placed in detention camps and since their release have been-widely dispersed.
In March, 1951, hearings were conducted by Subcommittees of the House and the Senate Judiciary Committees on measures revising the laws on immigration, naturalization and nationality. One of the basic features of the proposed revision was the elimination of discrimination on the basis of race for both entry of aliens into the country and their eligibility for naturalization. Many people representing various organizations testified at the hearings. Some of those organizations have heretofore actively participated in sponsoring and fostering the Alien Land Law of California. Yet no one opposed the departure from race as a basis for denying citizenship, and most of them expressly endorsed it. Although not representing any organization, Congressman Judd’s statement is typical. He said: “To me, this [the elimination of the racial discrimination] is a matter of simple justice. These people are here. They are legally here. They are entitled to stay *742here the rest of their lives. Their average age is above 50. They pay taxes; they are good, law-abiding members of their communities. They have proved through their conduct during the war, and especially through the conduct of their children who served with heroism, distinction, and valor in our Armed Forces, that they are loyal to the United States and fully worthy of American citizenship. From the standpoint of our own society, it would be better to have them fully ineorporated as citizens than as alien residents.
11 Certainly it is better to have them a part of our country than a foreign body in it. I cannot believe there can be substantial objection to allowing them to become naturalized citizens, as they want to. . . .
“I think that, both from the standpoint of our own conscience and from the standpoint of the respect we want the rest of the world to have for us, this is an injustice which should be corrected. It is merely good sense to naturalize those of that group who want to become full-fledged American citizens, as almost every one of them does. That is, everyone, so far as I know.” (Joint Hearings before the Subcommittees of the Judiciary, Congress of the United States, 82nd Congress, March 6-April 9, 1951, p. 31.)
It is clear, therefore, that there is not now and never has been any rational basis for excluding the Japanese from land ownership. Even in the field of naturalization and immigration, where Congress may act without constitutional restriction, reason appears to prevail over prejudice. Since there is no logical reason for excluding aliens from naturalization on the basis of race, there is even less reason to exclude them from land ownership when they legally reside here.
Milton R. Konvitz, Associate Professor, Cornell University, had this to say in 1946: “The Japanese were pioneers who reclaimed the San Joaquin Valley from the desert. They turned this land ‘from its unhealthy barren state of wasteland into the richest and most productive district in the state of California. ’ Through sheer perseverance they gained control of the berry, potato, flower, and truck-garden markets. Organized labor and the corrupt politicians, having put the Chinese ‘in their place,’ turned their attention to the Japanese, who became the scapegoat for every misfortune. The anti-Japanese agitation, it has been said, was predominantly motivated by economic factors; though it has been suggested that the fear of racial intermarriage was not absent.
“ ‘Man for man, the Japanese immigrants compared very *743favorably with the European immigrants of this period, ’ Treat has observed. ‘They were generally literate, almost always law-abiding, industrious, and ambitious to rise in the world. ’ The Chinese were hated because they were ‘servile’; the Japanese were hated because they were industrious and ambitious. The Chinese were hated because they lived in urban ghettos and worked in cities rather than on farms; the Japanese were hated because they preferred agriculture and worked on farms.
“As early as 1907 attempts were made in the California legislature to pass bills to drive the Japanese from the land (and ultimately from California). Owing to the efforts of President Theodore Roosevelt the bills did not then pass. The animus of the persons behind this anti-Japanese drive in the state legislature is well illustrated by the following passage from an address by one of them: ‘I would rather,’ he told an audience, ‘every foot of California was in its native wilderness than to be cursed by the foot of these yellow invaders, who are a curse to the country, a menace to our institutions, and destructive of every principle of Americanism. I want no aliens, white, red, black or yellow to own a foot of land in the State of California. ’ . . .
“The facts show that there is no relationship between the character of the Japanese in the United States and the prohibition on ownership of land by them, in so far as concerns the public health, morals, or welfare. The record of the Japanese in California is today an open book, and anyone who wants may read it. The record shows them to have been a law-abiding group, loyal to American political institutions, industrious, economically self dependent. They have not used the soil of California to plant in it mines to blow California to the heavens; they used it for the cultivation of vegetables and berries which were the delight of the consumer. They offered economic competition to members of the white race; but can the law be used to compel a racial group to give up its habits of industry and skills, and fundamental human rights, and assume a position of economic and social dependence ?
“The Supreme Court has said that the differentiation between aliens eligible for citizenship and ineligible aliens is a rational one, for the ineligibles cannot be assumed to have a great interest in the welfare of the people. The facts concerning the Japanese and Chinese and other Asiatics in this country do not bear out this judgment of the court. These people have never hindered the development of our national *744policy in the furtherance of the public welfare; they have built railroads for us; they have made berries grow where thistles grew before; they have contributed less than their ‘quota’ to our prison population. Despite economic handicaps, and placement in positions of social inferiority, they have managed to shift for themselves without leaning on others. How, then, can it be said that their ineligibility for citizenship is a rational justification for depriving them of fundamental human rights?” (Konvitz, The Alien and the Asiatic in American Law, pp. 157, 168.)
Eugene V. Rostow, Professor of Law, Yale University, with comprehensive citations of scientific authority has this to say: ‘‘. . . the Supreme Court’s doctrine of ethnic disloyalty belongs with folk proverbs—‘blood is thicker than water’—and the pseudo-genetics of the Nazis. It is flatly contradicted by the evidence of the biological sciences, of cultural anthropology, sociology, and every other branch of systematic social study, both in general, and with specific reference to the position of Japanese groups on the West Coast. The most important driving urge of such minority groups is to conform, not to rebel. This is true even for the American minorities which are partially isolated from the rest of society by the bar of color. The desire to conform is stronger than resentments and counter-reactions to prejudice and discrimination. Insecure and conscious of the environment as a threat, such minorities seek to establish their status by proving themselves to be good Americans.” (54 Yale L.J., 489, 506.)
The late Dudley 0. McGovney, Professor of Law, University of California, made a searching analysis of the entire problem in 1947, and said: ‘‘In what respect does the ownership of some of the farm lands in a state by persons who owe no allegiance to the United States affect the safety of a state, either in time of peace or of war? Has this ancient idea by which early English law writers rationalized the exclusion of all but the King’s subjects from certain feudal land tenures any validity in our time ? Tenure by knight service, or military tenure, was then conceived of as something that none but persons under allegiance to the King might owe. But ‘by the end of the thirteenth century, tenure by knight service had ceased to provide either soldiers or their pay. ’ Maitland says that if it had been abolished in 1300 the military strength of the realm would have been unaffected. When the statute of 1660 completely abolished military tenure it was merely clearing away what had long been a dead letter so far as military *745service was concerned. A connection between tenure and military service had existed only in theory when Coke saw ‘destruction of the realm’ in landholding by aliens. In our time liability to military service is not dependent upon allegiance. Resident aliens are now subjected to compulsory military service even in international warfare, and nothing but legislative policy exempts enemy aliens. An alien is not exempt from draft because he owns farm land. So also Coke’s Trojan-horse idea, that aliens owning land ‘might fortify themselves in the heart of the realm,’ never had any validity in the United States, certainly not since 1798. Congress then passed a statute, ever since in force, authorizing the arrest, confinement, or removal of enemy aliens in wartime. It also authorized the President ‘to direct the conduct to be observed, on the part of the United States, toward’ enemy aliens. During the war of 1812 with Great Britain, orders by the President and other officials acting under his authority directed all British nationals, fourteen years of age and over, residing within forty miles of tidewater to surrender to United States marshals and be retired further into the interior of the country or to be kept in close confinement. . . .
“The fact that an enemy alien owns farm lands in nowise affects his liability to evacuation.- Indeed the ownership of any property by an enemy alien in the United States is an asset to us, rather than a liability or a handicap, in view of the authority given the Alien Property Custodian to seize it, hold it, sell it or otherwise 'deal with it in the interest, and for the benefit, of the United States.
“Coke’s Trojan-horse now lives only in law books or in the minds of persons who unthinkingly accept antiquated ‘reasons’ for the ancient discrimination that the common law made against aliens with respect to landholding.
“Turning to peacetime, how does alien landholding then affect the safety of the state ? I think the complete answer was given to that question by Chief Justice Redfield of Vermont in 1853. The question before the Vermont supreme court was whether the common law against landholding by aliens had been received, or had survived, in the state, and in particular whether Vermont law contained any procedure for the forfeiture of estates of aliens. The court held ‘no,’ the Chief Justice saying, ‘it must, I think, be regarded as questionable how far any such procedure could ever be enforced, for the mere purpose of escheating to the State the lands of a quiet resident or non-resident alien, in time of profound peace, *746where no danger was apparent, imminent, or even remotely threatened. ’
“If the allegiance of farm owners is of ‘highest importance’ and the alienage of farm owners affects the safety of the state, the legislators of forty-one of our states are lacking in statecraft, for by their laws the allegiance of those who own farm lands is regarded as of no significance whatever. Rightly included in the forty-one states are the nine ‘ineligible alien’ land law states for they also regard the allegiance of landowners of no significance except in case of the small numbers of aliens racially ineligible to naturalization. So California lawmakers see no reason for denying to a half million alien residents the privilege of owning land without limit, though denying that privilege to less than thirty thousand other alien residents because of their race.
“. . . Even if the allegiance of farmers had significance why is it of significance with respect to the less than thirty thousand ‘ineligible aliens’ in California but of no significance with respect to a half million other aliens in California who may never seek or acquire citizenship ? Moreover, the statement smacks of Coke’s exaggeration when he said that if aliens could hold land in England, there would not be enough British freeholders to man the juries. If all the ‘ineligible aliens’ in California were to exhaust themselves in share cropping, there would be millions of acres of farm lands left for the citizens and other aliens. The same exaggeration is found in a statement with which Justice Butler said he agreed: ‘If one incapable of citizenship may lease or own real estate, it is within the realm of possibility that every foot of land within the state might pass to the ownership or possession of non-citizens. ’ Even if that were a possibility the evil inherent therein is not specified. . . .
“If some evil condition in farming existed in any state, the state might set up a licensing system for farmers and prescribe qualifications deemed essential to overcome the evil, and the Supreme Court would doubtless pay deference to the local judgment on the rationality of the discrimination made thereby. Thus if tillable land were scarce in California relative to the food needs of her population, the state might prescribe qualifications for farming that would exclude all not well qualified as productive operators. If such was the purpose of the California law it fits ill with the fact that the chief charge against ‘ineligible aliens,’ and the Japanese in particular, was that they were especially skillful and unduly industrious—par*747ticularly in intensive cultivation, involving hard personal labor. It would take a high degree of judicial deference to local judgment to believe that Japanese were the worst offenders in nonproductivity.” (Italics added.) (35 Cal.L.Rev. 7, 39.)
Further, it has been said: “They [the Japanese] possessed a remarkable knowledge of soils and of how to treat soils for the production of certain crops; an expert knowledge of the use of fertilizers and of fertilizing methods; a great skill in land reclamation, irrigation, and drainage; and a willingness to put in the enormous amount of labor required in intensive farming operations. They pioneered in the production of many crops. They reclaimed vast areas of the West, including the cut-over timber lands of the Northwest and the valuable delta lands in California. . . . the San Francisco Chronicle readily conceded that ‘the most striking feature of Japanese farming in California has been the development of successful orchards, vineyards, or gardens on land that was either completely out of use or employed for far less profitable enterprises.’
“It was George Shima, an immigrant, who taught the Californians how to develop a good potato seed. It was Japanese farmers who developed berry production in the West by increasing the yield four or five times over what it had been (planting strawberries and grapevines at the same time so that when the strawberries were replanted three years later a profitable vineyard would be in production). It was the Japanese who took over the semi-abandoned community of Livingston and made it a profitable farming area, and who succeeded in the mountain-fruit section in Placer County after other groups had failed. ‘In the Imperial Valley and the Delta country,’ observed Robert Welles Ritchie, ‘the Japanese never displaced white men, for white men would not work there; and in the mountain fruit .district, the Chinese and after them the Japanese came in, after nearly every white man had quit, and made a go of a crippled industry.’ In later years the Californians contended that the Japanese were monopolizing the best lands; but candor should have compelled the admission that most of these lands were originally marginal in character.
“. . . Their most important contribution to the economy of the West, however, was the manner in which they organized produce production on a year-round basis so as to provide a steady flow of produce to the markets.” (McWilliams, Prejudice, p. 79.)
*748In a recent article by Mr. Blake Clark published in The Freeman on July 16, 1951, he states: “Mrs. Nawa Munemori is the mother of an American World War II hero. A grateful nation bestowed the Congressional Medal of Honor on her son Sadao for wiping out two machine-gun nests and throwing himself on an exploding hand grenade to save his fellow soldiers. The United States Army transport, Pvt. Sadao Munemori, which brought his regiment home from Europe, bears his name today. Yet Mrs. Munemori, his widowed mother, is denied citizenship by the country for which her son sacrificed his life.
“Mrs. Munemori symbolizes the plight of victims of our outmoded immigration and naturalization laws, which discriminate against worthy people purely on the basis of their race. These antiquated statutes give the Communists in the Far East a powerful anti-American propaganda weapon, and damage our relations with the people of Asia.
“The situation of some 85,000 aliens in this country demonstrates the unfairness of the position we have taken. About 80,000 are Japanese; 5000 are Koreans and Polynesians, with a sprinkling of other nationalities. These residents legally entered this country before 1924. The Immigration Act of that year permitted them to remain here but continued to deny them the rights of naturalization that were granted to European immigrants. The sole consideration affecting our treatment of these long-time settlers is their race.
11 Sir Peter Buck, for example, a former professor of anthropology at Yale University, is one of the world’s outstanding scientists in his field. England was proud to knight him, but he is refused the privilege of U. S. citizenship. Sir Peter is the son of an Irish father and a Maori mother. The fact that he is half-Maori—and that alone—bars Sir Peter from citizenship in his beloved adopted country.
“Before his recent appointment as Korean Ambassador to the United States, Dr. Y. C. Yang was a prominent Honolulu physician, and had practiced in this American community for half a lifetime. He was educated in the United States, is married to an American, and is the father of an American daughter. Dr. Yang would have welcomed American citizenship long ago had it been possible.
“When Pearl Harbor was attacked, Dr. Yang responded immediately to an emergency appeal for medical volunteers to treat the wounded. He worked indefatigably to save the lives of many American seamen, He then volunteered in the *749Hawaii National Guard. After being commissioned a captain and serving two weélcs, he was notified that his service could no longer be accepted. As a Korean, he was classified as an enemy alien. He could not serve his chosen country—because of his race.
“The Japanese, the largest group affected, have probably contributed more to America than any other Asiatics. Their sons formed the famous 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which probably received more decorations and suffered more casualties than any unit of similar size in the entire U. S. Army. Yet these parents cannot become citizens.
“The abuses against those of Japanese origin are compounded in California, where many of them live. There state laws forbids an alien ineligible for citizenship from owning a farm. Men who have turned acres of desert waste into green, producing fields can cultivate the land only as hired hands.
“The California law makes it a crime for a Japanese alien to ‘enjoy, use, occupy, be or remain on the land, or have a beneficial interest in the land, its crops or proceeds. ’ Temporarily in abeyance pending court decision on a case, this prejudiced law has been so strictly enforced in some counties that families cannot live together. California filed a suit to seize the property of Mrs. Roy K. Hirata, born an American citizen and mother of three citizen children, because her alien husband had helped her cultivate her farm and lived on it. Hirata had to leave home and watch hired strangers gather the crops he had planted.
“Akira Iwamura was eager to get home after two years with Army Intelligence in the Pacific. His father had bought 60 acres of good Fresno grape land in his citizen son’s name in 1938, and had been taking care of it for him. California Avelcomed Akira home from war service with a demand that he forfeit his land—because his alien parent had a beneficial interest in it. Akira’s laAvyer advised him to settle out of court. In exchange for the state’s ‘quieting the title,’ Akira had to pay half the assessed value of the land to buy back his OAvn acres.
“California is not alone in making the racially ineligible alien run a stiff obstacle course for his livelihood. Nowhere from the Pacific to the Atlantic can he be a lawyer or certified public accountant. Despite shortages in important professions, 26 states prohibit his making a living as a dentist; 25 as a physician; 18 as a teacher. Some 500-laws passed by various *750states bar him from such work as a real estate or insurance agent, pharmacist or civil servant. In some states he cannot even accept an old-age pension, although money toward it may have been withheld from his wages!
“The Immigration Act of 1924 was passed to prevent a horde of foreigners from flooding our shores and depressing our wage scale. Legislators worked out an equitable system, as far as the nations of the Old World were concerned. It was agreed that America could readily assimilate 150,000 immigrants a year, about one sixth of one percent of our population as reported in the 1920 census. A quota was assigned to each nation, based on the number of residents each had contributed to our population.
“But, with the exception of Persia and parts of Afghanistan and Russia, Oriental nations received no quota at all. Instead, they were described as constituting the ‘Asiatic barred zone,’ and were told to keep out. According to Joseph C. Grew, former Ambassador to Japan, it was perhaps the worst mistake we ever made in our relations with the Orient. This gross insult placed a potent weapon in the hands of the Japanese militarists. They used it to promote ‘Asia for the Asiatics’ throughout the Far Bast.
“During the war the folly of asking aid from the Chinese while barring them as racially inferior became so obvious that in 1943 we exempted them from the excluded groups. Later the bans against India and the Philippines were lifted. It is time to wipe our record clean of the remaining blots which mar our relations with potential friends and allies.
“On a recent trip around the world I heard repercussions of this short-sighted race prejudice at every stop. In Bangkok a newspaperman said that Communist editors in the Far Bast constantly told their readers that we consider Orientals racially inferior and despise them. An American official in Rangoon declared that the Burmese ask constantly if the status of our ‘outcast law’ has been changed.
“ ‘The Communists,’ said a Korean, ‘accuse America of fighting a colonial war here. If you extend us a quota, it will help show you mean it when you say we deserve equal democratic rights.’ In Japan the chief news over Radio Tokyo for days dealt with the hearings in the House of Representatives on a bill to abolish this racial clause.
“Correcting these abuses would not result in a large flow of foreigners into the United States. Japan’s annual quota would be a mere 185, most of the' other Asiatic areas would *751have 100 each. If every excluded group used a full quota each year, their total would not equal one percent of our 150,000 yearly immigrants. In actual practice, the number of arrivals would be even fewer. Qualifications such as literacy, health and ability to earn a living would keep the number of immigrants from some countries low. In all we could expect each year less than a thousand newcomers, a comparatively infinitesimal number.
“Public-opinion polls show that the great majority of Americans, including Californians, do not want any person denied citizenship because of his race. A bill to this effect, supported by church and civic groups and by our Departments of Justice and State, has three times passed the House by unanimous vote, only to be stopped in Senate committee. Representative Walter Judd, well-known authority on the Par Bast and one of the bill’s sponsors, is convinced that if it could be brought to the floor for a vote the majority of Senators would agree with the majority of other Americans.
“Before the end of World War II, the United States and Nazi Germany were the only two major nations that used race as a test for naturalization. Now, we alone maintain this discrimination. In Asia we face a well-organized minority attempting to unite the East against us. We can show the people of the Orient we stand back of our national pledge of ‘liberty and justice for all’ by welcoming worthy persons and providing them equality under our naturalization and immigration laws. Prom a purely selfish standpoint, wiping discrimination off the books as well as out of our hearts would be worth more to us in the Orient than a dozen army divisions. ’ ’
Numerous other publications and reports have dealt with the impact of Japanese immigrants on the American way of life. I will refer to some of them:
Brown, Francis J. and Roucek, Joseph S., eds. One America. The history, contributions and present problems of our racial and national minorities. Rev.ed. Prentice-Hall, 1945;
Bloom, Leonard and Riemer, Ruth. Removal and Return. The socioeconomic effects of the war on Japanese Americans. University of California Press;
Foote, Caleb. Outcast! The story of America’s treatment of her Japanese-American minority. Fellowship of Reconciliation. 1944;
442d Combat Team. The Album. Camp Shelby, Mississippi.
*752La Violette, Forrest E. Americans of Japanese Ancestry, a study of assimilation in the American community. Toronto ; The Canadian Institute of International Affairs. 1945;
Leighton, Alexander H. The Governing of Men. General principles and recommendations based on experience at a Japanese relocation camp. Princeton, N. J., Princeton University Press;
Redfield, Robert. The Japanese Americans. The problems of divided loyalty; the evacuation. The University of Chicago Press ;
Smith, Bradford. People Prom Japan. The history of the Japanese in America and Hawaii. J. B. Lippincott Co.;
Shirey, Orville C. Americans: The Story of the 442nd Combat Team. From activation to occupation with the 442d Regimental Combat Team. Infantry Journal Press;
U. S. Army. Western Defense Command and Fourth Army. Final report, Japanese evacuation from the West Coast. Washington, U. S. Govt. Print. Off., Pt. I through IX. Signed by Lt. Gen. J. L. DeWitt, U. S. army, commanding;
U. S. Bureau of Agricultural Economies. Japanese farm holdings on the Pacific Coast, by Adoni Poli. Berkeley, Calif. Processed. Detailed tables; and
U. S. Congress. Select Tolan Committee Investigating National Defense Migration.
These publications and reports, like those from which I have quoted above, demonstrate the fallacy of the basic concept underlying the decisions holding that the race or nationality of a person is a proper basis for the classification of those who are ineligible to own land or other property. This concept is based upon a factual background which was assumed at the time our present immigration, naturalization and alien land laws were adopted and upheld by our courts, but which has since been shown to be without foundation. It would seem, therefore, that the maxim that “when the reason for the rule ceases, the rule itself ceases,” should be applicable here.
I am, therefore, of the opinion that the race or nationality of a person is not a proper basis for a classification of aliens eligible to own land or other property, and that the provisions of the California Alien Land Law barring aliens ineligible to citizenship from owning land here are in violation of the equal protection clauses of both the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of California.