Franklin Roosevelt, who was a great President in so many ways, made a terrible mistake

[pnwmom]

with his order for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War 2.

I hope we've learned at least two things from this. Even a great President like Roosevelt can make a grievous mistake. And mistreating our citizens in a frenzy of fear was wrong.

Then and now.


http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/roosevelt-ushers-in-japanese-american-internment

On this day in 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issues Presidential Proclamation No. 2537, requiring aliens from World War II-enemy countries–Italy, Germany and Japan–to register with the United States Department of Justice. Registered persons were then issued a Certificate of Identification for Aliens of Enemy Nationality. A follow-up to the Alien Registration Act of 1940, Proclamation No. 2537 facilitated the beginning of full-scale internment of Japanese Americans the following month.

While most Americans expected the U.S. to enter the war, presumably in Europe or the Philippines, the nation was shocked to hear of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. In the wake of the bombing, the West Coast appeared particularly vulnerable to another Japanese military offensive. A large population of Japanese Americans inhabited the western states and American military analysts feared some would conduct acts of sabotage on west-coast defense and agricultural industries.

SNIP

Ostensibly issued in the interest of national security, Proclamation No. 2537 permitted the arrest, detention and internment of enemy aliens who violated restricted areas, such as ports, water treatment plants or even areas prone to brush fires, for the duration of the war. A month later, a reluctant but resigned Roosevelt signed the War Department’s blanket Executive Order 9066, which authorized the physical removal of all Japanese Americans into internment camps.

[MichMan]

1. Ignored by so many

FDR despicable actions towards Japanese Americans are glossed over by the vast majority of DU'ers who think he deserves sainthood.

He also had the perfect opportunity to integrate the armed forces and refused to do so.

[notadmblnd]

3. Let's not just tell half the story

Official relations between the governments of Japan and the United States had soured in the 1930s when Japan began its military conquest of Chinese territory. China, weakened by a civil war between nationalists and communists, represented an important strategic relationship for both the U.S. and Japan. Japan desperately needed China’s raw materials in order to continue its program of modernization. The U.S. needed a democratic Chinese government to counter both Japanese military expansion in the Pacific and the spread of communism in Asia. Liberal Japanese resented American anti-Japanese policies, particularly in California, where exclusionary laws were passed to prevent Japanese Americans from competing with U.S. citizens in the agricultural industry. In spite of these tensions, a 1941 federal report requested by Roosevelt indicated that more than 90 percent of Japanese Americans were considered loyal citizens. Nevertheless, under increasing pressure from agricultural associations, military advisors and influential California politicians, Roosevelt agreed to begin the necessary steps for possible internment of the Japanese-American population.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/roosevelt-ushers-in-japanese-american-internment

He was oh so evil, giving into pressure from the right, just as many Dems do to this very day.

[geek tragedy]

14. You're making excuses for racist concentration camps.

You're not making FDR look better, you're just making yourself look unprincipled.

[notadmblnd]

15. What is with the personal attack?

I made no excuses what so ever. I posted an explanation as to why FDR did what he did and circumstances surrounding it.

I made no judgement at all in regards to what was right or wrong or racist and I refuse to carry the burden of guilt for things that happened before I was even born. Despite his imperfections, FDR was a good president and you attacking my principles because I posted a paragraph or two from history was totally uncalled for.

So please, pardon me for not attaining the level of humanity you have obviously attained. I just guess you're a better human being than I.

Have a good evening.

[madaboutharry]

2. He also refused entry into the country

of Jews fleeing Nazi occupied Europe, even after there was intelligence of the concentration camps. The story the government put out about not knowing until after the war was a lie.

[notadmblnd]

4. Again, not quite the truth.

United States Policy Toward Jewish Refugees, 1941–1952

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How to cite this article

American military police admit a father and daughter, both displaced persons, to the refugee shelter at Fort Ontario. Oswego, New York, United States, after August 4, 1944.

American military police admit a father and daughter, both displaced persons, to the refugee shelter at Fort Ontario. Oswego, New York, United States, after August 4, 1944.

— National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Md.

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Although thousands of Jews had been admitted into the United States under the combined German-Austrian quota from 1938–1941, the US did not pursue an organized and specific rescue policy for Jewish victims of Nazi Germany until early 1944.

While some American activists sincerely intended to assist refugees, serious obstacles to any relaxation of US immigration quotas included public opposition to immigration during a time of economic depression, xenophobia, and antisemitic feelings in both the general public and among some key government officials. Once the United States entered World War II, the State Department practiced stricter immigration policies out of fear that refugees could be blackmailed into working as agents for Germany.

It was not until January 1944 that President Franklin D. Roosevelt, under pressure from officials in his own government and an American Jewish community then fully aware of the extent of mass murder, took action to rescue European Jews. Following discussions with Treasury Department officials, he established the War Refugee Board (WRB) to facilitate the rescue of imperiled refugees. With the assistance of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the World Jewish Congress, as well as resistance organizations in German-occupied Europe, the WRB helped to rescue many thousands of Jews in Hungary, Romania, and elsewhere in Europe.

In April 1944, Roosevelt also directed that Fort Ontario, New York, become a free port for refugees. However, only a few thousand refugees were allowed there and they were from liberated areas, not from Nazi-occupied areas. They were in no imminent danger of deportation to killing centers in German-occupied Poland.

Ultimately, Allied victory brought an end to Nazi terror in Europe and to the war in the Pacific. However, liberated Jews, suffering from illness and exhaustion, emerged from concentration camps and hiding places to discover a world which had no place for them. Bereft of home and family and reluctant to return to their prewar homelands, these Jewish displaced persons (DPs) were joined in a matter of months by more than 150,000 other Jews fleeing fierce antisemitism in Poland, Hungary, Romania, and the Soviet Union.

Most sought to begin a new life outside Europe. Palestine was the most favored destination of Jewish Holocaust survivors, followed by the United States. Immigration restrictions were still in effect in the United States after the war, and legislation to expedite the admission of Jewish DPs was slow in coming.

President Harry S. Truman favored a liberal immigration policy toward DPs. Faced with congressional inaction, he issued an executive order, the "Truman Directive," on December 22, 1945. The directive required that existing immigration quotas be designated for displaced persons. While overall immigration into the United States did not increase, more DPs were admitted than before. About 22,950 DPs, of whom two-thirds were Jewish, entered the United States between December 22, 1945, and 1947 under provisions of the Truman Directive.

Congressional action was needed before existing immigration quotas could be increased. In 1948, following intense lobbying by the American Jewish community, Congress passed legislation to admit 400,000 DPs to the United States. Nearly 80,000 of these, or about 20 percent, were Jewish DPs. The rest were Christians from Eastern Europe and the Baltics, many of whom had been forced laborers in Germany. The entry requirements favored agricultural laborers to such an extent, however, that President Truman called the law "flagrantly discriminatory against Jews." Congress amended the law in 1950, but by that time most of the Jewish DPs in Europe had gone to the newly established state of Israel (founded on May 14, 1948).

By 1952, 137,450 Jewish refugees (including close to 100,000 DPs) had settled in the United States. The amended 1948 law was a turning point in American immigration policy and established a precedent for later refugee crises.
Related Articles

The United States and the Holocaust
Refugees
Postwar Refugee Crisis and the Establishment of the State of Israel

Copyright © United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC

Encyclopedia Last Updated: August 18, 2015

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007094

[99th_Monkey]

5. Oh noes!! FDR was an imperfect human being? Under the bus with him.

Agreed. It was deplorable to intern the US Japanese.

[pnwmom]

16. Who said that?

My point is that even great people can make mistakes. And our leaders need to be careful not to make one now.

[99th_Monkey]

17. I said that

I must have forgotten to add this

I totally agree with you, ok?

[pnwmom]

19. Thanks for clarifying.

As you can see from some of the other responses, reaction to the OP is mixed.

[trof]

6. Oh bullshit!

I'm so goddam tired of hearing this crap.
FDR was the right man in the right place at the right time.
For once, the gods smiled on us.
He was no saint, to be sure.

But you cannot judge his actions then in terms of the current culture.
I was alive then in the jim crow south.
It was a different time with much different ideas of 'right and wrong' when dealing with 'people-not-like-us'.

An overwhelming majority of the American populace fully supported the internment camps.
Dirty Japs.

Passions ran high following the 'sneak' attack on Pearl Harbor.
I could write more, but it's time for dinner.
Later.

[Jim Beard]

8. You are right

otherwise it could have been very costly.

[pnwmom]

18. Otherwise what could have been very costly?

Do the costs to all these families lives mean nothing? Do you realize how much was lost to these families that they never got back?

[pnwmom]

9. No one is perfect including FDR. What is "bullshit" about that?

Why don't you think that he could have been the right person in the right place and STILL have made a significant mistake on this issue?

Since when does any President, political figure, or human being have to be perfect?

[pampango]

20. Well said. Even the best president (or anyone else) is not perfect. FDR was a great, perhaps best,

president. We can acknowledge his mistakes and appreciate his greatness at the same time.

[Jim Beard]

7. This adds more to the discussion

Virginia mayor opposes Syrian refugees, citing WWII internment of Japanese Americans

Throughout the debate this week, many on social media platforms referenced the agony of the Japanese internment and the fear of Jewish migrants during World War II as reasons why Americans should not turn their backs on Syrian refugees.

In 1942, America was reeling from the Japanese attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor and was building a war machine to fight its enemies around the world.

In a memorandum to the U.S. secretary of Defense, Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt, commanding general of the Western Defense Command, laid out in stark racial terms why Japanese Americans should be evacuated off the Pacific Coast.

DeWitt described more than 100,000 Japanese Americans as "potential enemies."

"The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken," he said at the time.

DeWitt wasn't alone. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously urged Roosevelt to go ahead with Japanese detention, saying it was difficult “if not impossible to distinguish between loyal and disloyal Japanese aliens.”

In February 1942, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which resulted in more than 100,000 Japanese Americans being uprooted and held in detention camps for several years, along with thousands of people of German and Italian descent.

[pnwmom]

12. Thanks, Jim. n/t

[Agnosticsherbet]

10. We had a long history of such laws.

A history of U.S. anti-Japanese actions
1868: Japanese immigrants arrive in Hawaii to work in sugarcane industry.

1869: Japanese immigrants begin to arrive in California.

1882: Congress passes Chinese Exclusion Act, which stops flow of Chinese workers to U.S. and results in increasing immigration of Japanese workers.

1890s to 1924: Economic hardship pushes farmers and peasants to leave Japan for the United States, where they are sought by mining, logging, agricultural, railroad and fish-canning industries. Kenji Ima's grandfather arrives in Seattle from an island in southern Japan during this era in search of work.

1900: King County (Wash.) Republican Club calls for exclusion of Japanese.

1908: Under so-called "Gentleman's Agreement" between the two countries, Japan stops immigration of laborers to U.S.

1919: Anti-Japanese League formed by Seattle businessmen.

1921: California and Washington pass laws prohibiting Asians from owning land.

1922: Congress passes Cable Act, effectively revoking U.S. citizenship of women who marry Japanese-born immigrants. U.S. Supreme Court upholds prohibition against Japanese immigrants becoming naturalized citizens.

There are more on the list.

[ismnotwasm]

11. An excellent reminder

Thank you.

[egduj]

13. A truly disgusting act.