Japanese WWII Both the Chicago

Japanese WWII

Both the Chicago Daily Tribune and the Los Angeles Times presented the anti-Japanese sentiments during World War Two as being a matter of constitutional protection for citizens of the United States. In "Supreme Court Rules Loyal Nips Held Illegally," Warren B. Francis outlines a series of cases related to the internment of Japanese citizens during the Second World War. Francis's article, published in December of 1944 in the Los Angeles Times, centers on the legal conclusion that detentions should not be based on ethnicity but rather genuine and proven threats. Likewise, the Chicago Daily Tribune editorial "Citizens by Right," published in May of 1943, harshly criticizes the detention of Japanese citizens on the basis of their ancestry alone. Although one is a pithy editorial and the other straightforward journalism, the two newspaper articles both condemn the Japanese internment camps.

Both articles present the issue of detainment as a matter of constitutional protection. In the Chicago Daily Tribune, the author notes that the Supreme Court decision "found that persons of Japanese blood, born in this country, cannot be deprived of their American citizenship." The author comments: "the decision was a sound one and, indeed, no other finding was possible if the Constitution is to be recognized as the supreme law of the land." Citing the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment, the author continues in a sardonic tone: "Mr. Regan was asking the courts to declare the Constitution unconstitutional." The Los Angeles Times article is not an editorial and therefore has a less opinionated tone. Yet anger and frustration are still apparent in the reporter's statements of fact. For example, the author quotes sources that uphold the value of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Citing one source, the author notes, "the President's war powers are definitely limited by the Constitution. The provision that persons cannot be deprived of liberty without due process of law takes precedence over the war powers." Both authors therefore agree that the American Constitution prohibits the unwarranted detention of citizens based on their ethnicity alone.

Only the Chicago Daily Tribune article uses the type of language befitting an editorial. For instance, the author uses terms like "prejudice" and "hysteria" to describe the issue. The Los Angeles Times article necessarily avoids strong language like this, and yet still manages to convince readers that the internment camps were legally and ethically wrong. The author achieves a subtle editorial commentary in the selection of quotations. For example, Justice Roberts is quoted as saying that W.R.A. centers are "euphemism for concentration camps" and along with other dissenting justices on the Supreme Court "denied there was any evidence that exclusion of the Japanese was a military measure." In the Chicago Daily Tribune, the author does not bring up the issue of military measures but still achieves the same core objective. The Los Angeles Times article is longer and offers more in-depth commentary on the Korematsu case, which the Chicago Daily Tribune does not address.