Executive Order No 9066 Essay Research Paper

Executive Order No. 9066 Essay, Research Paper

EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 9066

The President

EXECUTIVE ORDER

AUTHORIZING THE SECRETARY OF WAR TO PRESCRIBE MILITARY AREAS

WHEREAS the successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection

against espionage and against sabotage to national-defense material, national-defense

premises, and national-defense utilities as defined in Section 4, Act of April 20, 1918,

40 Stat. 533, as amended by the Act of November 30, 1940, 54 Stat. 1220, and the Act of

August 21, 1941, 55 Stat. 655 (U.S.C., Title 50, Sec. 104);

NOW, THEREFORE, by virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United

States, and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, I hereby authorize and direct the

Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders whom he may from time to time designate,

whenever he or any designated Commander deems such action necessary or desirable, to

prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate

Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with

respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject

to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may

impose in his discretion. The Secretary of War is hereby authorized to provide for

residents of any such area who are excluded therefrom, such transportation, food, shelter,

and other accommodations as may be necessary, in the judgment of the Secretary of War or

the said Military Commander, and until other arrangements are made, to accomplish the

purpose of this order. The designation of military areas in any region or locality shall

supersede designations of prohibited and restricted areas by the Attorney General under

the Proclamations of December 7 and 8, 1941, and shall supersede the responsibility and

authority of the Attorney General under the said Proclamations in respect of such

prohibited and restricted areas.

I hereby further authorize and direct the Secretary of War and the said Military

Commanders to take such other steps as he or the appropriate Military Commander may deem

advisable to enforce compliance with the restrictions applicable to each Military area

hereinabove authorized to be designated, including the use of Federal troops and other

Federal Agencies, with authority to accept assistance of state and local agencies.

I hereby further authorize and direct all Executive Departments, independent

establishments and other Federal Agencies, to assist the Secretary of War or the said

Military Commanders in carrying out this Executive Order, including the furnishing of

medical aid, hospitalization, food, clothing, transportation, use of land, shelter, and

other supplies, equipment, utilities, facilities, and services.

This order shall not be construed as modifying or limiting in any way the authority

heretofore granted under Executive Order No. 8972, dated December 12, 1941, nor shall it

be construed as limiting or modifying the duty and responsibility of the Federal Bureau of

Investigation, with respect to the investigation of alleged acts of sabotage or the duty

and responsibility of the Attorney General and the Department of Justice under the

Proclamations of December 7 and 8, 1941, prescribing regulations for the conduct and

control of alien enemies, except as such duty and responsibility is superseded by the

designation of military areas hereunder.

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

THE WHITE HOUSE,

February 19, 1942 Commentary by Roger Daniels

On February 19, 1942, a "day of infamy" as far as the Constitution is

concerned, Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which was the instrument by

which just over 120,000 persons, two-thirds of them American citizens, were confined in

concentration camps on American soil, in some cases for nearly four years. Yet the

document itself is strangely reticent. It mentions no ethnic or racial group by name, nor

does it specify place. President Roosevelt delegated to the Secretary of War and to

"the Military Commanders whom he may . . . designate" the authority to name

"military areas" from which "any or all persons may be excluded" and

indicated that transportation, food, shelter, and other accommodations" may be

provided for such persons "until other arrangements are made." All this was in

the name of the "successful prosecution of the war," which lawyers later

shortened to "military necessity."

This elliptical legal language was not intended to fool anyone. The press was given

guidance by military and civilian public-relations officers, so that the American public

was immediately informed that the Japanese, because they posed a threat to national

security, were going to be removed from California and put somewhere else under guard. A

few, including the President himself, publicly used the words "concentration

camp" to describe the places where the Japanese were sent. Later, after the discovery

of the Nazi death camps, many shied away from using the term "concentration

camp" to describe the sites where the American government confined 120,000 persons

who were guilty of nothing other than being ethnically Japanese. The American camps were

not death camps, but they were surrounded by barbed wire and by troops whose guns were

pointed at the inmates. Almost all the 1,862 Japanese Americans who died in them died of

natural causes, and they were outnumbered by the 5,918 American citizens who were born in

the concentration camps. But the few Japanese Americans who were killed

"accidentally" by their American guards were just as dead as the millions of

Jews and others who were killed deliberately by their German, Soviet, or Japanese guards.

The reasons for the establishment of these concentration camps are clear. A

deteriorating military situation created the opportunity for American racists to get their

views accepted by the national leadership. The Constitution was treated as a scrap of

paper not only by McCloy, Stimson, and Roosevelt but also by the entire Congress, which

approved and implemented everything done to the Japanese Americans, and by the Supreme

Court of the United States, which in December 1944, nearly three years after the fact, in

effect sanctioned the incarceration of the Japanese Americans.

The Court has always held that the "war power" and the right of national

defense could stretch the limits of federal authority, and Roosevelt and the lawyers in

the War Department who drafted Executive Order 9066 appealed to that power. But was there

a "military necessity" for EO 9066? As noted, the general staff officer charged

with assessing the West Coast situation did not think so, and the army’s G-2

(intelligence) reported to General Marshall, on the very day Roosevelt signed the order,

that its analysts believed that "mass evacuation [was] unnecessary."

From Prisoners without Trial: Japanese American in World War II. New York: Hill

and Wang, 1993. Copyright ? 1993 by Roger Daniels.

All of that portion of the City of Los Angeles, State of California,

within that boundary beginning at the point at which North Figuerosa Street meets a line