Harold Ickes on Japanese American internment camps: The camps are "both stupid and cruel"

(Harold Ickes and his wife Jane Dahlman at their home in Olney, Maryland, 1938. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

Franklin Roosevelt's biggest mistake as president had nothing to do with the New Deal. Instead, his biggest mistake occurred in 1942, when he caved to military, political, and public hysteria, and signing Executive Order 9066, which authorized the relocation of Japanese Americans on the west coast to internment camps. The country had just been stunned by the Pearl Harbor invasion, and there was fear that some Japanese Americans might aid the enemy (or be the enemy). There was also hope on the part of some white Americans that the relocation of Japanese Americans would remove business and labor competition.

Harold Ickes, one of Roosevelt's top men, despised the racially-discriminatory policy of Executive Order 9066 and, as Secretary of the Interior, was aghast that he would have a role to play in it. He called the Relocation Centers, "fancy-named concentration camps," described them as "both stupid and cruel," and told the president that the camps were "turning thousands of well-meaning and loyal Japanese into angry prisoners." Roosevelt replied that he regretted the military necessity of the relocations. (T.H. Watkins, Righteous Pilgrim: The Life and Times of Harold Ickes, 1874-1952, 1990, pp. 792-793)

In truth, and as I wrote in a previous blog post, the country would have been better off requesting help from Japanese Americans on the west coast. For those who might think this naive, they would do well to remember what did happen when we requested help from Japanese Americans, for example, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. This was a volunteer Army unit that earned "9,486 Purple Hearts, 21 Medals of Honor and an unprecedented eight Presidential Unit Citations." The Japanese American Museum in San Jose explains one of their wartime actions: "Perhaps the most famous of the 442nd accomplishments was the heroic rescue of the Texas 'Lost Battalion' which had been caught behind enemy lines. In a ferocious battle, the 442nd suffered over 800 casualties (including 184 killed) to rescue 211 members of the Texas battalion."

(The 442nd in France, 1944. Photo courtesy of NPR and the National Archives.)

Today, there is all sorts of hateful talk about building walls, shooting refugees, and creating a database to track Muslim Americans. We shouldn't respect any of this foolishness. Instead, we should remember the words of Harold Ickes and remember the bravery of the 442nd. Ickes knew (and so should we) that our country is stronger when we bring people in and enlist their skill & labor to make a better world - and weaker when we exclude, stereotype, and demonize. This was true for Japanese Americans during World War II, and it's true for today's excluded and neglected groups, e.g., American Indians, refugees, minorities, and unemployed workers. These groups are an untapped well of greatness that we are failing to see because of fear and hysteria.