chosen it as a permanent residence. We heartily endorse the principle of equality in naturalization. We desire to see the privilege of becoming a naturalized citizen extended to all immigrants having a legal right to permanent residence, regardless of race, religion, or national origin. We should like to see all Asiatic and Pacific people placed on the same basis in immigration law as those from China and India. Sincerely yours, THE COMMITTEE ON RACE RELATIONS, EMMA R. SIDLE, Chairmen. Mr. ROPERT M. CULLUM, WOMEN'S OVERSEAS SERVICE LEAGUE, Secretary, Committee for Equality in Naturalization, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. CULLUM: The members of the Santa Clara County (Calif.), unit of the Women's Overseas Service League are much inerested in H. R. 5004 and wholeheartedly give it our full support. We feel that we must stand for democracy at home if we wish to have an influence abroad for our way of life. I am enclosing a little leaflet about the Women's Overseas League so that you will understand why we are interested in the above bill. Sincerely yours, SARAH E. CARTER, President, WHAT IS THE WOMEN'S OVERSEAS SERVICE LEAGUE? WHAT IS ITS PURPOSE? WHAT IS IT ACCOMPLISHING? WHO ARE ITS MEMBERS? OVERSEAS WOMEN WHO SERVED IN WORLD WAR I AND II PURPOSE. "To keep alive and develop the spirit that prompted overseas service, to maintain the ties of comradeship born of that service, and to assist and further any patriotic work; to inculcate a sense of individual obligation to the community, State, and Nation; to work for the welfare of the armed services; to assist in any way in their power the men and women who were wounded or incapacitated in the service of their country; to foster and promote friendship between the United States and her allies." During the First World War there was a new element which developed so naturally that the Nation as a whole did not realize its scope, nor its importance. This was the active participation of women, not merely on the home front and in hospitals, but in war zones and in many branches of war service. Thousands of women went overseas with the American Expeditionary Forces to serve under Government orders as nurses with the Army and Navy, and in divers activities in the Ordnance, Quartermaster and Signal Corps; the Treasury Department and Secret Service. Other thousands served with welfare organizations such as the Red Cross, the YMCA, the Salvation Army, etc. The total number of women who served overseas included 10,000 nurses with the Army and 1,000 with the Navy. More than 15,000 women went to serve under the auspices of some 52 American and 45 foreign agencies and organizations. These young women served as hostesses, entertainers, camion drivers, doctors, nurses, dentists, therapists, bacteriologists, secretaries, telephone operators, librarians, medical officers and social workers. They worked in canteens, recreation huts, hospitals, offices, and Army headquarters, in crude barracks, ancient palaces, in city, country or devastated areas; wherever their services were needed. It was these women, who, when the came home, organized the Women's Overseas Service League, "to keep alive and develop the spirit that prompted overseas service." Although these women had shared the hardships of the armed forces and many came back to civil life with impaired health, only the nurses who served under Government orders were entitled to limited compensation. The Red Cross nurses who served beside them in army hospitals were not eligible for any kind of compensation or care. None of the welfare organizations made any provision for their workers after the war. Thus the Women's Overseas Service League found its first opportunity for service in providing aid for overseas women who were ill or in need of financial assistance. For this purpose the league has accumulated adequate funds which are used, not only for its own members, but for any overseas service woman who needs assistance. At the close of the war there were no adequate Government hospital facilities open for women. Largely through the efforts of the Women's Overseas Service League, large and comfortable quarters are now available where they may receive domiciliary or hospital care. The Women's Overseas Service League has shown a natural interest in the activities of women in the present war, by supporting the bill which created the WAC and the subsequent bill making the WAC an integral part of the Army, both of which were introduced in Congress by a league member, Edith Nourse Rogers. At present one of the league's most significant activities is the welfare of all women now in war service, and the special training of those for overseas service. The league is also formulating plans for the welfare of these women when they return to civil life. True to its avowed purpose, the Women's Overseas Service League has cooperated, through its unit activities, in furthering the welfare of community, State, and Nation. Its members occupy positions of trust and authority in every community, and many, like Edith Nourse Rogers, Ruth Bryan Owen Rohde, and Mrs. Herbert Hoover are honored in the councils of the Nation. National headquarters are maintained at 29 South La Salle Street, Chicago 3, Ill. Any woman who served overseas in World War I and has an honorable discharge from the organization with which she served is eligible for membership in the Women's Overseas Service League. KANSAS CITY, Mo., March 14, 1948. Washington 1, D. C. COMMITTEE FOR EQUALITY IN NATURALIZATION, GENTLEMEN: In answer to your letter of February 24, the naturalization committee of the Women's City Club (one committee of the Naturalization Council of Kansas City) heartily approve the bill for equality in naturalization. Wishing you the best of luck, we remain, Sincerely yours, THE NATURALIZATION COMMITTEE OF THE WOMEN'S CITY CLUB, CHAIRMAN OF THE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE, FEBRUARY 10, 1948. Washington, D. C.: RESOLUTION ADOPTED BY THE POLITICAL EFFECTIVENESS COMMITTEE OF THE METROPOLITAN STUDENT CHRISTIAN COUNCIL, STUDENT DEPARTMENT, THE YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK Whereas the right to become naturalized citizens of these United States is now denied to all permanent legal residents of Asiatic or Oceanic birth and origin with the exception of Hawaiians, Chinese, and Filipinos and whereas we believe that it is essential to American democratic practice that all qualified permanent residents of the United States should be made eligible for citizenship by eliminating all racial bars to naturalization, we the Political Effectiveness Committee of the Metropolitan Student Christian Council of New York City recommend the immediate passage of bill H. R. 5004 as proposed by the Honorable Walter H. Judd of Minnesota. ERLING BELLAND, Chairman. DECEMBER 30, 1947. RESOLUTION PASSED BY THE HUMAN RELATIONS COMMISSION OF THE PROTESTANT COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK In 1924 laws were enacted which excluded certain Asiatic peoples from entry into the United States. Prior to the passage of these laws, peoples from such countries were already in legal residence in the United States and their right of residence was not rescinded. However, the right of naturalization was taken away from them. It has since been restored for the Indians, Chinese, and Filipinos, but the people from 11 countries and colonial areas are still denied this right. Believing that citizenship is a basic right which should be granted to all peoples in a country where the democratic principles are established, the Human Relations Commission of the Protestant Council of the City of New York strongly urges the naturalization laws be amended and that the right to naturalization be granted to all persons who have been legally admitted to this country regardless of their race, creed, color, or national origin. Rev. Dr. ROBERT W. SEARLE, Executive Secretary. ROFERT M. CULLUM, SOCIAL ACTION COMMITTEE OF THE Committee for Equality in Naturalization, Washington 1, D. C. Dear Sir: The joint Social Action Committee of the First Christian and First Congregational Churches of Portland, Oreg.. wish you to know they are supporting H. R. 4824, the bill to permit naturalization of those persons who have legal right to permanent residence in the United States. We are asking our Congressmen for their support and doing all we can to promote this bill. Sincerely yours, NORMA MILLER SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF., April 16, 1948. Committee for equality in Naturalization, Washington, D. C.: Dear Mr. Cullum: At the last meeting of the Women's Society of Chrstian Service of Hamilton Methodist Church they voted their support for bill H. R. 5004 and I was asked to write and let you know that we are very much interested in this matter. You have our support and wish you success. Sincerely yours, Mr. FELLOWs. Mr. Mike M. Masaoka. Mrs. A. E. ALEXANDER, Secretary, Hamilton W. S. C. S. STATEMENT OF MIKE M. MASAOKA, NATIONAL LEGISLATIVE DIRECTOR, JAPANESE AMERICAN CITIZENS LEAGUE Mr. MASAOKA. Mr. Chairman, I have a rather lengthy statement, but I will not presume upon your time by insisting upon reading it. I will simply make a few comments and answer one or two questions I think may have been raised in your minds. Mr. FELLOWS. Will you give your name and whom you represent for the record? Mr. MASAOKA. My name, Mr. Chairman, is Mike M. Masaoka. I am the national legislative director for the Japanese American Citizens League. Mr. Chairman, I feel that my testifying today is something I owe to a lot of fellows I fought with overseas. It is a promise I made to a lot of fellows over 3 years ago, and that promise has a long story. It begins something like this; it follows something along the line of the questions Mr. Chelf brought out. When war came, as Mr. Ennis so ably pointed out, persons of Japanese ancestry were asked by their Government to move out, and, as pointed out by a witness before a subcommittee of this same Judiciary Committee last year, the Japanese people in the United States are the only people in its history who have ever been asked to go bankrupt voluntarily and then go to jail, because that is what happened. But, the important thing is this: Because persons of Japanese ancestry, and I was one, two-thirds of whom were American citizens, felt that it was a war contribution to the defense of the United States, we-a great number of us college graduates who believed and lived the American way-went to these barren barracks, virtual prison camps, because we believed fundamentally in the American way. Therefore, even though Selective Service originally turned us down for the draft, we insisted upon the right to fight for the United States, to prove on the battlegrounds of this World War that we believed in America and Mr. CHELF. You believed also that it would not be in vain, did you not? Mr. MASAOKA. Definitely. And that is why I am here today, sir. We urged the Selective Service, and finally they said, "We shall use some of you in the Pacific. We shall use others in the combat elements in Italy." I was one of five brothers to volunteer. All of us saw combat in Italy and France. All of us were wounded. One of my brothers will not come back. Another brother of mine had 34 operations. He is still convalescing. A young kid brother, who had no business volunteering, except that he wanted to look after me because I was probably the less capable of all, still limps and will limp the rest of his life. Well, overseas there were lots of fellows who believed in some of the things I had said, because during the evacuation process I was the national secretary of the organization of Japanese Americans, and we took it upon ourselves to urge every eligible Nisei to volunteer either against the Japanese enemy or for combat in Europe. A lot of those fellows believed in me, and I can remember time after time overseas we would be sent upon a dangerous mission, and a fellow would say, "Mike, don't go on this one. This is on us. Your job is to go back and see that what we are trying to do isn't forgotten; that our parents will get citizenship." Amazingly enough, right in the fox holes before battle we would talk about a lot of things; but the No. 1 topic was this: Sure we wanted America to win the war, but we also wanted America to be the kind of America that it professed to be, and that kind of America would not discriminate against people like my mother, who came here early in the 1900's. When she had eight children, dad died leaving us practically penniless. Yet, my mother saw every one of us through school, a number of us through college, and when the test of supreme loyalty to this country came it was my mother who first said, "Boys, your job is to go out and fight for these United States, because it is my country." Well, there were lots of other mothers and fathers like that, and, as I say, their sons and I knew each other overseas, and over and over again they insisted that my job was to come and tell you, the Congress of the United States, what their loyalties were loyalties which could not be questioned. Now, I do not believe it is necessary for me to go into the long combat record of the Four Hundred and Forty-second. I think it is pretty well known. I would, however, like to give you a few statistics about its casualties. When the combat team originally went into action they had a complement of a little over 3,000 men. After only 120 days of combat fighting, mind you, our casualties, as the War Department has carried them time and time again, were over 300 percent. We had 9,486 casualties. Most of these casualties were sustained when we rescued the lost Texas battalion of white Americans. After fighting through from Salerno up through Italy, we were transferred to northern France to go through the various mountains there. No army in history up to that time had ever broken through this area. We were assigned the job of spearheading the drive. We broke through, yes, but during the initial break-through one of our battalions of Americans from Texas-it is too bad the Congressman from Texas is not here because he could tell you the story-was isolated by the Germans. Seven regiments were ordered to the rescue of that one Texas battalion, but none were able to break through. After 4 days of waiting, the Japanese-American combat team in another sector was pulled out of the line and ordered to the rescue of that Texas battalion. We made it. We rescued 189 Texans, but we lost over 200 men killed just in that rescue. I will never forget that, because my brother was one of those. I remember when we went into the line in northern France we had a full rifle complement to every company, over 200 men. We had 40 men in reserve for each company. Yet, after we made the rescue of the Lost Battalion, after we had spearheaded the drive of the Seventh Army through northern France, one company had only two men who could crawl out under their own power. Yet, none of us ever asked for relief. None of us ever showed the white feather. And the only a. w. o. 1.'s-absent without leave, gentlemen were those of the men in the hospitals who, though they were seriously wounded and should have remained in hospitals, knowing the tragic situation of their buddies up front insisted upon leaving their hospitals, some still lame, some still halt, others with gaping wounds, in order to strengthen that thin red line that we had up there. The commanding general of the Thirty-sixth Division—and I will never forget it-told us at our little memorial ceremonies we had that no outfit in American history "has ever showed greater courage, greater conviction in the American way, than you Japanese-Americans. I say this not to brag about our outfit-although I think it is an American trait to brag about a good outfit like that-but I say it simply to indicate that here you had a great number of American soldiers of Japanese ancestry who believed in America, who so believed in it that even though they were incarcerated in virtual prisons they saw behind and beyond the barbed-wire fences; they saw beyond the watchtowers manned by armed MP's; they saw America, just and fairminded, willing to give them and their parents a decent break. And that is why, even though they were suspected by their own Government, they went out and fought as well as they did. |