Note: The term “fifth column" refers
to people who engage in espionage or sabotage within their own
country.
SAN FRANCISCO—The enemy alien problem on
the Pacific Coast, or much more accurately the Fifth Column problem,
is very serious and it is very special. What makes it so serious
and so special is that the Pacific Coast is in imminent danger
of a combined attack from within and from without. The danger
is not, as it would be in the inland centers or perhaps even for
the present on the Atlantic Coast, from sabotage alone. The peculiar
danger of the Pacific Coast is in a Japanese raid accompanied
by enemy action inside American territory. This combination can
be very formidable indeed. For while the striking power of Japan
from the sea and air might not in itself be overwhelming at any
one point just now, Japan could strike a blow which might do irreparable
damage if it were accompanied by the kind of organized sabotage
to which this part of the country is specially vulnerable. This
is a sober statement of the situation, in fact a report, based
not on speculation but on what is known to have taken place and
to be taking place in this area of the war. It is a fact that
the Japanese navy has been reconnoitering the Pacific Coast more
or less continually and for a considerable length of time, testing
and feeling out the American defenses. It is a fact that communication
takes place between the enemy at sea and enemy agents on land.
These are facts which we shall ignore or minimize at our peril.
It is also a fact that since the outbreak of the Japanese war
there has been no important sabotage on the Pacific Coast. From
what we know about Hawaii and about the Fifth Column in Europe
this is not, as some have liked to think, a sign that there is
nothing to be feared. It is a sign that the blow is well-organized
and that it is held back until it can be struck with maximum effect.
In preparing to repel the attack the Army and
Navy have all the responsibility but they are facing it with one
hand tied down in Washington. I am sure I understand fully the
unwillingness of Washington to adopt a policy of mass evacuation
and mass internment of all those who are technically enemy aliens....
There is the assumption that if the rights of a citizen are abridged
anywhere, they have been abridged everywhere. Forget for a moment
all about enemy aliens, dual citizenship, naturalized citizens,
native citizens of enemy alien parentage, and consider a warship
in San Francisco harbor, an airplane plant in Los Angeles, a general's
headquarters at Oshkosh, and an admiral's at Podunk. Then think
of the lineal descendant, if there happened to be such a person,
of George Washington, the father of his country, and consider
what happens to Mr. Washington if he would like to visit the warship,
or take a walk in the airplane plant, or to drop in and photograph
the general and the admiral in their quarters. He is stopped by
the sentry. He has to prove who he is. He has to prove that he
has a good reason for doing what he wishes to do. He has to register,
sign papers, and wear an identification button. Then perhaps,
if he proves his case, he is escorted by an armed guard while
he does his errand, and until he has been checked out of his place
and his papers and his button have been returned. Have Mr. Washington's
constitutional rights been abridged?