Opinion of the Court. 320 U.S. the danger of espionage and sabotage to our military resources was imminent, and that the curfew order was an appropriate measure to meet it. Where, as in the present case, the standard set up for the guidance of the military commander, and the action taken and the reasons for it, are in fact recorded in the military orders, so that Congress, the courts and the public are assured that the orders, in the judgment of the commander, conform to the standards approved by the President and Congress, there is no failure in the performance of the legislative function. Opp Cotton Mills v. Administrator, 312 U. S. 126, 142-46, and cases cited. The essentials of that function are the determination by Congress of the legislative policy and its approval of a rule of conduct to carry that policy into execution. The very necessities which attend the conduct of military operations in time of war in this instance as in many others preclude Congress from holding committee meetings to determine whether there is danger, before it enacts legislation to combat the danger. The Constitution as a continuously operating charter of government does not demand the impossible or the impractical. The essentials of the legislative function are preserved when Congress authorizes a statutory command to become operative, upon ascertainment of a basic conclusion of fact by a designated representative of the Government. Cf. The Aurora, 7 Cranch 382; United States v. Chemical Foundation, 272 U. S. 1, 12. The present statute, which authorized curfew orders to be made pursuant to Executive Order No. 9066 for the protection of war resources from espionage and sabotage, satisfies those requirements. Under the Executive Order the basic facts, determined by the military commander in the light of knowledge then available, were whether that danger existed and whether a curfew order was an appropriate means of minimizing the danger. Since his findings to 81 DOUGLAS, J., concurring. that effect were, as we have said, not without adequate support, the legislative function was performed and the sanction of the statute attached to violations of the curfew order. It is unnecessary to consider whether or to what extent such findings would support orders differing from the curfew order. The conviction under the second count is without constitutional infirmity. Hence we have no occasion to review the conviction on the first count since, as already stated, the sentences on the two counts are to run concurrently and conviction on the second is sufficient to sustain the sentence. For this reason also it is unnecessary to consider the Government's argument that compliance with the order to report at the Civilian Control Station did not necessarily entail confinement in a relocation center. MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, concurring: Affirmed. While I concur in the result and agree substantially with the opinion of the Court, I wish to add a few words to indicate what for me is the narrow ground of decision. After the disastrous bombing of Pearl Harbor the military had a grave problem on its hands. The threat of Japanese invasion of the west coast was not fanciful but real. The presence of many thousands of aliens and citizens of Japanese ancestry in or near to the key points along that coast line aroused special concern in those charged with the defense of the country. They believed that not only among aliens but also among citizens of Japanese ancestry there were those who would give aid and comfort to the Japanese invader and act as a fifth column before and during an invasion. If the military 1 Judge Fee stated in United States v. Yasui, 48 F. Supp. 40, 44–45, the companion case to the present one, "The areas and zones outlined in the proclamations became a theatre of operations, subjected in DOUGLAS, J., concurring. 320 U.S. were right in their belief that among citizens of Japanese ancestry there was an actual or incipient fifth column, we were indeed faced with the imminent threat of a dire emergency. We must credit the military with as much good faith in that belief as we would any other public official acting pursuant to his duties. We cannot possibly know all the facts which lay behind that decision. Some of them may have been as intangible and as imponderable as the factors which influence personal or business decisions in daily life. The point is that we cannot sit in judgment on the military requirements of that hour. Where the orders under the present Act have some relation to "protection against espionage and against sabotage," our task is at an end. Much of the argument assumes that as a matter of policy it might have been wiser for the military to have dealt with these people on an individual basis and through the process of investigation and hearings separated those who were loyal from those who were not. But the wisdom or expediency of the decision which was made is not for us to review. Nor are we warranted where national survival is at stake in insisting that those orders should not have been applied to anyone without some evidence of his disloyalty. The orders as applied to the petitioner are not to be tested by the substantial evidence rule. Peacetime procedures do not necessarily fit wartime needs. It is said that if citizens of Japanese ancestry were generally disloyal, treatment on a group basis might be justified. But there is no difference in power when the num localities to attack and all threatened during this period with a full scale invasion. The danger at the time this prosecution was instituted was imminent and immediate. The difficulty of controlling members of an alien race, many of whom, although citizens, were disloyal with opportunities of sabotage and espionage, with invasion imminent, presented a problem requiring for solution ability and devotion of the highest order." 81 DOUGLAS, J., concurring. ber of those who are finally shown to be disloyal or suspect is reduced to a small per cent. The sorting process might indeed be as time-consuming whether those who were disloyal or suspect constituted nine or ninety-nine per cent. And the pinch of the order on the loyal citizens would be as great in any case. But where the peril is great and the time is short, temporary treatment on a group basis may be the only practicable expedient whatever the ultimate percentage of those who are detained for cause. Nor should the military be required to wait until espionage or sabotage becomes effective before it moves. It is true that we might now say that there was ample time to handle the problem on the individual rather than the group basis. But military decisions must be made without the benefit of hindsight. The orders must be judged as of the date when the decision to issue them was made. To say that the military in such cases should take the time to weed out the loyal from the others would be to assume that the nation could afford to have them take the time to do it. But as the opinion of the Court makes clear, speed and dispatch may be of the essence. Certainly we cannot say that those charged with the defense of the nation should have procrastinated until investigations and hearings were completed. At that time further delay might indeed have seemed to be wholly incompatible with military responsibilities. Since we cannot override the military judgment which lay behind these orders, it seems to me necessary to concede that the army had the power to deal temporarily with these people on a group basis. Petitioner therefore was not justified in disobeying the orders. But I think it important to emphasize that we are dealing here with a problem of loyalty not assimilation. Loyalty is a matter of mind and of heart not of race. That indeed is the history of America. Moreover, guilt is per DOUGLAS, J., concurring. 320 U.S. sonal under our constitutional system. Detention for reasonable cause is one thing. Detention on account of ancestry is another. In this case the petitioner tendered by a plea in abatement the question of his loyalty to the United States. I think that plea was properly stricken; military measures of defense might be paralyzed if it were necessary to try out that issue preliminarily. But a denial of that opportunity in this case does not necessarily mean that petitioner could not have had a hearing on that issue in some appropriate proceeding. Obedience to the military orders is one thing. Whether an individual member of a group must be afforded at some stage an opportunity to show that, being loyal, he should be reclassified is a wholly different question. There are other instances in the law where one must obey an order before he can attack as erroneous the classification in which he has been placed. Thus it is commonly held that one who is a conscientious objector has no privilege to defy the Selective Service Act and to refuse or fail to be inducted. He must submit to the law. that line of authority holds that after induction he may obtain through habeas corpus a hearing on the legality of his classification by the draft board. Whether in the present situation that remedy would be available is one But 2 See United States v. Powell, 38 F. Supp. 183; Application of Greenberg, 39 F. Supp. 13; United States v. Baird, 39 F. Supp. 392; Micheli v. Paullin, 45 F. Supp. 687; United States v. Embrey, 46 F. Supp. 916; In re Rogers, 47 F. Supp. 265; Ex parte Stewart, 47 F. Supp. 410; United States v. Smith, 48 F. Supp. 842; Ex parte Robert, 49 F. Supp. 131; United States v. Grieme, 128 F. 2d 811; Fletcher v. United States, 129 F. 2d 262; Drumheller v. Berks County Local Board No. 1, 130 F. 2d 610, 612. For cases arising under the Selective Draft Act of 1917, see United States v. Kinkead, 250 F. 692; Ex parte McDonald, 253 F. 99; Ex parte Cohen, 254 F. 711; Arbitman v. Woodside, 258 F. 441; Ex parte Thieret, 268 F. 472, 476. And see 10 Geo. 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