740.00115 Pacific War/844
The Spanish Embassy to the Department of State
No. 333
The Spanish Embassy has the honor to inform the Department of State of the following complaints received from the Imperial Japanese Government through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Madrid, regarding the removal of Japanese nationals inland from the Pacific Coast:
According to information received by the Japanese Government, General DeWitt, Western Defense Commander of the United States, issued a proclamation on March 3rd [2nd] of this year,76 establishing a military zone from which Japanese aliens and second-generation Japanese were to be evacuated. A Reuter dispatch from San Francisco, of the same date, reported that the mentioned zone covered the entire Pacific seaboard within 150 or 400 kilometers from the coast line.
Subsequent information from different news dispatches from neutral sources and communications from the Spanish Embassy in Washington revealed that compulsory removal of Japanese nationals to inland places was being effected in every locality. According to a news dispatch from New York on March 25th, 600 Japanese families who had been living in Los Angeles were transferred in motor trucks [Page 1047] and under military guards to upland districts in the Sierra Nevada, about 400 kilometers from said city. They were only permitted to carry their own clothes, A news dispatch from Washington, of March 26th, further disclosed the fact that Japanese nationals thus compulsorily removed en masse, were to be employed in the cultivation of wild lands, receiving as a monthly payment from $50.00 to $90.00 from which a deduction of $15.00 for food and clothing, was to be made.
In view of this information, the Japanese Government has been forced to conclude that the policy of the United States is apparently designed to eradicate all Japanese communities, under pretense of instituting military zones covering vast areas, thus depriving the great majority of Japanese nationals on the Pacific Coast of the very basis of living, and in utter disregard of their invaluable contribution to industrial activities.
All of them are deported to wild inland districts and forced to engage there in hard tasks such as the cultivation of the soil, while all their property and belongings left behind are being confiscated by the enemy property custodian. This policy is obviously contrary to the humanitarian principles applied by civilized Governments in the treatment of civilian nationals of belligerent countries. The employment of these Japanese nationals in the reclamation and cultivation of wild lands, with a meager monthly salary of from $50.00 to $90.00 after they have been deprived of their means of subsistence, is tantamount to compulsory labor since they have no choice but to engage in the prescribed work. On March 24th, 1942, the United States Government through the Swiss Minister in Tokyo,77 notified the Japanese Government as follows:
“The United States Government did not contemplate and had not made use of the provision of Article 27 of the Geneva Prisoners of War Convention78 to compel Japanese Civilians detained or interned by it to labor against their will.”79
In taking note of the above statement, the Japanese Government understands that it expresses the intention of the United States Government to subscribe to the well-established international usage, which forbids the subjection of enemy civilians to any kind of forced labor. Under any circumstances, therefore, the Japanese Government finds it impossible to reconcile the measures taken by the United States Government with regard to Japanese nationals on the Pacific Coast, with its formal declaration conveyed to the Japanese Government through the Swiss Minister in Tokyo.
[Page 1048]The Japanese Government enters hereby its protest to the United States Government for its unwarranted action and requests said Government to explain these measures, as well as to state whether any steps have been taken for the protection of these Japanese nationals compulsorily removed from their places of residence.
In the opinion of the Japanese Government these steps should include provision of living quarters in places where they may engage in different occupations, adequate protection and assistance to families with women and children, and to the aged and infirm, and any other measures tending to ameliorate the situation, and alleviate the effect of the sudden change in mode of living.
The Japanese Government would also be obliged to the United States Government for information, as soon as possible, regarding the number of Japanese transferred and their respective places of removal.
The Spanish Embassy will deeply appreciate an early reply from the Department of State that can be transmitted to the Japanese Imperial Government.
- War Department Public Proclamation No. 1, 7 Federal Register 2320.↩
- Camille Gorgé.↩
- Signed July 27, 1929, Foreign Relations, 1929, vol. i, p. 336.↩
- See telegram No. 712, March 19, 1942, to the Minister in Switzerland, ibid., 1942, vol. i, p. 804.↩