Jan. 28, 1942: Buried on the jump of this story is the news that the city of Los Angeles urged all Japanese employees to take a leave of absence “for the duration.” Those who refused to quit were suspended. The Board of Supervisors ordered department heads to fire all Japanese employees.
The Times editorial page added to its lists of embarrassments by endorsing the action as unpleasant but necessary, noting: “There is every disposition to respect civil liberties and to protect members of enemy races from persecution or unnecessary hardship. But this is war.”
For previous embarrassing Times editorials from the 1920s to the 1960s, see: “Don’t Recall Mayor Shaw,” “Don’t Let Jewish Refugees Into the U.S.,” “We Don’t Need a Federal Anti-Lynching Law,” “Good Riddance, Dashiell Hammett, You Commie Hack Writer” and “The Japanese Menace.”
Jimmie Fidler says: “No one is more impatient to get to a backgammon board than Charles Coburn.”
ladailymirror.com 
Still enormously painful to think about.
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yes indeed; not a shining chapter for the greatest generation; even the great civil libertarian Supreme Court Justice William Douglas voted to uphold the exclusion order
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Aside from the idea of depriving many Japanese citizens of the their freedom for security reasons. Think what would have happened to them if the news had told the populace of the atrocities committed at Wake Island and other hot spots. There would have been mass lynching and beatings. If that had happened, to this day we would have been damned for not relocating them. Damned if you do and damed if you don’t.
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I hate to tell Fidler, but Autry wasn’t exactly clean and sincere, as he had both a drinking and lady problem.
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