Welcome to Spring

It was a long winter, but spring is finally here. How do I know? Four ways.

The first is the buds on the trees outside my office window. The second is all the birds I encounter on my morning walks. Most are robins, but it is the cardinals that make me wish I had my camera along.

The third sign of spring is the road kill on U.S. 30 as I drove to and from Ft. Wayne on Saturday. One carcass even looked like a young deer.

But for Roland and me, the key proof came yesterday when we launched Freizeit for another sailing season. We battled the wind and did not emerge unscathed, but in the end we were the victors.

Spring is here. Finally.

Gethsemane

I had a busy eight days that included singing in the choir at five services (two on Easter morning). So I’m going to take the lazy way out for this week’s blog post and use a poem that I wrote in 1974. It might have seemed timelier last week but is appropriate all year round. Here it is:

 

Gethsemane

 

I often wonder if God understands

When I feel deserted and all alone;

But then I remember three sleeping men

As Jesus knelt on the garden’s stone.

 

And does God understand my anguish

When from life’s cares I want relief?

“Let this cup pass” were my Savior’s words

As He voiced His anguish and His grief.

 

And sometimes it’s hard to follow God’s will

When He asks for a sacrifice from me;

But Christ was giving so much more

When He followed God’s will to Calvary.

 

So whenever I wonder if God understands,

I remember Christ’s love for me;

How, because of that love, He has felt what I feel,

As He had His own Gethsemane.

 

By Kathryn Page (Camp)

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The picture of Gethsemane is from a slide taken by my father, Oliver S. Page, in 1957.

 

The poem is ©1974 by Kathryn Page Camp.

 

Time Stops Here

I bet you can’t guess my favorite research site from the past month. It isn’t one that comes immediately to mind.

 

But now that I’m working on a historical novel, I’ve found that eBay is a great tool for discovering what life was like back when.

 

Several weeks ago, I was researching the types of picnic supplies people used in the 1920s. My novel takes place in the early 1940s, but my main character’s father would have bought the picnic basket in the 1920s when he was courting her mother. So I needed to know what type of equipment people used in the 1920s and what material the plates and cups would have been made of.

 

I started with a Google search for “1920 picnic baskets.” The results included eBay and other auction sites that sold vintage picnic baskets. By looking at the pictures and reading the descriptions, I was able to gather most of the information I needed.

 

In my second experience, I used eBay the way it was intended. I participated in my first auction and purchased a 1942 Montgomery Ward Spring & Summer Catalog.

 

My main character has to do her shopping by mail order, and I wanted to know what was sold in the catalogs of the time. Naturally, I started with the free resources. First, I looked online for a scanned copy of either a Montgomery Ward or a Sears Roebuck catalog from the period. When that didn’t work, I checked the card catalog for the Harold Washington Public Library in Chicago, hoping to find something in the library’s extensive microfilm collection. No luck there, either.

 

But I did find a current auction on eBay. It took several bids to win the prize, but my 1942 Montgomery Ward catalog will be worth every cent I spent on it.

 

Because a catalog is both a time capsule and a great way to get a feel for the period.

What Are They Playing For?

After finishing my series on the Japanese American incarceration, I was at a loss for a subject for this week’s blog. Then a regional office of the National Labor Relations Board decided that Northwestern University football players with athletic scholarship are employees. Actually, that decision was made on March 26, but it’s timely enough for me.

For those of you who haven’t been following the controversy, it all started when a union wanted to represent football players at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, which is a private university located just north of Chicago. The union argued that the football players are Northwestern employees because the scholarships should be seen as wages paid for services (playing football). It’s actually more complicated than that, and it doesn’t affect a lot of college football players—including scholarship players at public universities. But this isn’t a legal blog, and that should be enough information to understand the point I’m going to make.

First, two quick disclaimers. I’m not at expert in labor or employment law, and I haven’t read the decision at issue here, so I’m not going to comment on its legal correctness. Also, the regional director’s decision will probably be followed by a lengthy appeals process, and the result may well change.

Regardless of whether the decision is legally correct, I think the result is stupid. But I place a significant amount of the blame on the National Football League’s training system, which never made sense to me. Well, maybe it does economically, but it isn’t rational.

The NFL uses colleges and universities as its training ground. I’m not familiar with its eligibility rules, and it may be possible to go straight from high school to the NFL. But college football programs have many players who—at least by appearance—don’t care about getting an education. They are there simply because the chances of being drafted by an NFL team are much higher for a player who enters college and plays three or four years at that level.

For a player who wants an education, a football scholarship is a means to obtain a degree that might otherwise be beyond his financial grasp. The degree is the motivation, even if he hopes for a professional career afterwards. And if he works hard, he is likely to achieve his primary goal.

But not everyone is college material, and even some who have the potential don’t have the motivation. For those players, college is solely a means to a professional career. And that’s an outcome that is by no means assured.

I prefer the baseball system with its minor league teams. Players who want an education can go to college and enter the draft after obtaining a degree. But players who aren’t college material or aren’t motivated to get an education can go straight into the baseball workforce and earn actual wages right away. Even if they don’t make it to the major leagues, at least they were paid for their years in training.

Do I think that treating college football players as employees is the right result? No.

But I can understand it.

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The picture shows a 1906 football game between the Canton Bulldogs and the Massillon Tigers. The photo is in the public domain because of its age.

Reparations and Apologies

Is there any way we can make up for what we did to our fellow Americans during World War II? Even if we reimbursed them for their financial losses—their homes and businesses—how do you put a monetary value on family heirlooms? More importantly, how can we make reparations for taking away freedom and dignity?

 

We can’t.

Still, America has a responsibility to do what it can. Several years after the war ended, those affected by the forced move were given the opportunity to file claims for damage to or loss of property, with a $2,500 limit. The Federal Reserve Bank estimated the losses at approximately $400 million, but less than a tenth of that was paid out as a result of the claims process.* Even those claiming less than the $2,500 limit received only a fraction of what they asked for.

In 1981, Congress established the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians. The Commission held 20 days of hearings all around the country and heard more than 750 witnesses. It concluded that Executive Order 9066 and the subsequent events were not justified by military necessity but resulted from “race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership.” It recommended that the United States issue an apology and make payments of $20,000 to each of the survivors. This was still a miniscule sum compared to the actual losses, but the Commission may have been concerned about the affect that larger amounts would have on the U.S. Treasury.**

Congress accepted these recommendations in what became the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which President Reagan signed into law on August 10, 1988. The formal letters of apology came from President Bush and accompanied the payments that began in October 1990 but were made—as recommended—only to those who still survived.

To me, the apology is worth more than the money. But there is a better way to show that we are sorry for what America did to its Japanese citizens and permanent residents.

It’s easy to say that we would never do the same thing today. But wouldn’t we? Human nature doesn’t change, and living in a country that extols freedom and diversity doesn’t make us immune. In my opinion, the best reaction to our past is to know it, to realize that what happened to the Japanese Americans could occur again (although probably to a different group), and to work hard to keep it from happening.

Because complacency ensures that it will.

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*    My resources agreed on the Federal Reserve Board estimate and the $2,500 limit, but they were not consistent as to the amount that was actually paid. I have used the higher amount of “less than $40 million,” but it might have been significantly less.

**  Based on the CPI Inflation Calculator from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, $400 million in 1942 dollars would have been $2.4 billion in 1982 dollars. By 1990, when the payments began, that amount had risen to $3.2 billion.

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The photograph at the head of this post was taken at Manzanar War Relocation Center on July 3, 1943. If you look closely, you can see a dust storm in the background. Dorothea Lange took the picture as part of her official duties as an employee of the United States government. Because it is a government document, the photo is in the public domain.

Everything Was Gone

Beginning on December 17, 1944, the Japanese Americans were allowed to return to their homes and businesses on the West Coast. The war hadn’t ended yet, but by that time it was clear there was no threat—at least not from the Japanese Americans. More cynically, FDR had just won another presidential election (eliminating the political pressure), and the government probably anticipated losing two U.S. Supreme Court cases that were scheduled for decision on December 18. As it turned out, they lost one case and won the other. But even in the case the government won, the decision implied that the state of emergency that justified the original evacuation order no longer existed.*

Now that they could go home, the Japanese Americans should have been thrilled, right? Wrong. Many were afraid to return. America was not in danger from the Japanese Americans, but the Japanese Americans were in danger from the bigots on the West Coast. Although the vast majority who returned did so without facing physical violence, beatings and murder were not unknown.

Far more people were affected by financial devastation. As noted in my February 24, 2014 post, the Japanese Americans had only a few days to pack up and store, lease, or sell everything they owned. The government offered to provide storage “at the sole risk of the owner,” and those who took them up on it discovered that the safety of their items depended on the particular facility.

Some Japanese Americans were fortunate to find trustworthy friends to store their goods and honest business managers to run their businesses and collect rent on their properties. But many others returned to find their goods looted, their homes foreclosed after rents intended to pay the mortgage went into the agents’ pockets, and their businesses raided. And they received practically no compensation for their losses.

As my next post will discuss, the U.S. did eventually provide some redress. But was it enough? And why have I spent two months on this subject? I’ll leave you to ponder those questions until next week.

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*    The government won Koramatsu v. U.S., which upheld the original exclusion orders. It lost Ex Parte Endo, which held that the government could not restrict the Japanese Americans’ freedom once they had left the West Coast.

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The May 20, 1942 photograph at the top of this post shows goods stored in a Woodland, California facility. The picture was taken by Dorothea Lange as part of her official duties as an employee of the United States government. Because it is a government document, the photo is in the public domain.

Barbed Wire and Deserts

After spending several months in the temporary camps, the Japanese Americans were sent to more permanent “relocation centers.” There were ten of these permanent incarceration camps, and all were built on land that was isolated and unusable. The easternmost two were built in the Louisiana swamps. The other eight were built in the western deserts. The camps were surrounded by barbed wire fences and guard towers, even though only a fool would have tried to cross the desert to freedom.

The temperature ranged from 120 degrees in the summer at Poston, Arizona to -30 degrees in the winter at Heart Mountain, Wyoming. Yes, even deserts can be cold at the higher elevations. At Poston, the residents dragged their cots outside to sleep during the summer months because the tar-papered barracks retained the heat from the daytime sun. But if a dust storm came up, they fled back indoors. During the spring and fall, the residents at many camps bundled up on their way to breakfast and shed their extra layers in the heat of the day.

In the deserts, the Japanese Americans were at the mercy of violent windstorms. The dust-sized sand particles blew in their eyes and noses and blinded them so that they couldn’t see where they were going. The dust even blew into their homes and the mess hall through cracks in the walls and floors, forcing them to eat and drink it. And in many camps the residents were triply cursed—dust blizzards in the summer, snow blizzards in the winter, and mud the rest of the time.

Housing in these more permanent camps was similar to that of the barracks used in the temporary camps. Each “apartment” was a single room used for sleeping and living, although most of the living occurred out of doors or in the mess hall. As in the temporary camps, residents had to leave their rooms and go to a mess hall for their meals and to another central location to do their laundry, use the bathroom, and take a shower. 

There was some improvement over the temporary camps, however. The food got better as the cooks became more experienced, and the latrines were eventually fitted with partitions between stalls and showers. School opened, and life settled into a routine. But it was a routine lived in deserts or swamps behind barbed wire fences. 

As in the temporary camps, the only furnishings provided by the government were an army cot and mattress (or straw ticking) for each member of the family. The government also provided two army blankets for each person, but those blankets often ended up as privacy walls. People managed to make their quarters livable, but they had to do it on their own.

The camp administration and some of the teachers were white, but the Japanese Americans who were forced to live there held most of the jobs in these newly created cities. At Topaz, Utah, professionals such as doctors made $19 per month, skilled laborers and semi-professionals made $16 per month, and unskilled laborers made $12–$14 per month. This was many times less than they had made outside or than white colleagues made at the camps.

The college-age and young adult residents left as soon as they were accepted into colleges or jobs away from the west coast and could get sponsors. But the older people and the young children stayed until the government forced them to move yet again. Why did they stay in a prison after they were given a chance to leave?

As I will explain in my next post, they had nowhere else to go.

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The photograph at the top of this post shows the interior of a barrack apartment at Manzanar. It is typical of the “apartments” at all of the permanent incarceration camps. Notice the bareness of the room and the cloth partition used by the residents to create a little privacy. The picture was taken by Dorothea Lange as part of her official duties as an employee of the United States government. Because it is a government document, the photo is in the public domain.