720 Chapter 27 War and Peace, 1941–1945
expecting only to preserve what they had. They there-
fore found it easier to tolerate dissent, to view the
dangers they faced realistically, and to concentrate on
the real foreign enemy without venting their feelings
on domestic scapegoats. The nation’s 100,000 con-
scientious objectors met with little hostility.
Internment of Japanese Americans
The relatively tolerant treatment of most Americans
of German and Italian descent makes the nation’s
policies toward American citizens of Japanese
extraction all the more difficult to comprehend.
Generals on the West Coast were understandably
unnerved by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
and warned that people of Japanese descent might
engage in sabotage or espionage for Japan. “The
Japanese race is an enemy race,” General John L.
Dewitt claimed. The 112,000 Americans of
Japanese ancestry, the majority of them native-born
citizens, were “potential enemies.” “The very fact
that no sabotage has taken place to date,” Dewitt
observed, “is a disturbing and confirming indica-
tion that such action will be taken.” This is like
arguing that a driver with a perfect record is all the
more likely to careen into a tree at any moment.
Secretary of War Stimson proposed the relocation
of the West Coast people of Japanese extraction,
including American citizens, to internment camps
in Wyoming, Arizona, and other interior states.
President Roosevelt concurred but weakly sug-
gested, “Be as responsible as you can.”
The Japanese were properly indignant but also
baffled, in some cases hurt more than angry. “We
didn’t feel Japanese. We felt American,” one woman,
the mother of three small children, recalled many
years later. Some Japanese Americans challenged mil-
itary authorities. Gordon Hirabayashi, an American
citizen and senior at the University of Washington,
refused to report for transportation to an internment
camp. After being convicted and sentenced to prison,
he decided to appeal. Previous Supreme Courts had
ruled that the government could deprive Americans
of their freedoms during war only when the “military
necessity” was compelling. By the time the Supreme
Court ruled on his and similar cases, the Japanese
military had been thrown back in the Pacific; no
invasion was even conceivable. Yet the justices wor-
ried that if they declared the internment policy to be
unconstitutional, they would appear, “out of step”
with the nation, as Justice Felix Frankfurter put it. In
June 1943, the Court upheld the conviction of
Hirabayashi. Finally, in Ex parte Endo, it forbade the
internment of loyal Japanese American citizens.
Unfortunately the latter decision was not handed
down until December 1944.
Women’s Contributions to the War Effort
With economic activity on the rise and millions of men
going off to war, a sudden need for more women
workers developed. The trends of the 1920s—more
women workers and more of them married—soon
accelerated. By 1944, 6.5 million additional women
had entered the workforce, and at the peak of war pro-
duction in 1945, more than 19 million women were
employed, many of them in well-paying industrial
jobs. Additional thousands were serving in the armed
forces: 100,000 in the Women’s Auxiliary Army
Corps, others in navy, marine, and air corps auxiliaries.
At first there was considerable resistance to what
was happening. About one husband in three objected
in principle to his wife taking a job. Many employers
in so-called heavy industry and in other fields tradi-
tionally dominated by men doubted that women
could handle such tasks.
Unions frequently made the same point, usually
without much evidence. A Seattle official of the
International Brotherhood of Boilermakers and Iron
Shipbuilders said of women job applicants, “They
don’t understand....Ifoneofthese girls pressed the
trigger on the yard rivet guns, she’d be going one way
and the rivet the other.” Actually, many women wereA Japanese girl in California, tagged for relocation to an internment
camp, clutches her doll.