The Stranger Within Our Gates

Who was a friend, who was a foe? In Hawaii no one could be sure of the answer. Probably most of the Islands' 150,000 Japanese were loyal; perhaps, again, they were not. Last week Hawaii again suffered from the white man's old shortcoming--of not being able to tell one yellow man from another, nor-the loyal from the disloyal. It was an overwhelming problem. For the Japs were everywhere--behind shop counters in Honolulu, serving as gardeners on almost every island, cutting cane on all plantations, fishing off the coasts. Many of them were working on defense projects, many, as members of the Hawaiian Territorial Guard, were watching over power plants, parading in front of public buildings. The uniforms they wore were those of the U.S. Army, and only an arm badge, marked H.T.G., distinguished them from U.S. regulars.

In the minds of many of Hawaii's 105,000 haoles (whites), invasion loomed as a very real threat. What would the Islands' Japanese do then? Islanders who remembered that Jap high-school boys from Hawaii had helped pilot the planes that attacked Pearl Harbor looked uneasily at Hawaii's Japanese thousands going freely, imperturbably about their business. What about the houseboy, the cop on the corner, the farmer down the road? What about the Japs set to guard the Islands?

In the New York Times, Newshawk foster Hailey reported a discouraging conversation with one of the Army officers in Hawaii. Said the officer:

"It is a terrific headache. You can't just pick up 150,000 persons and put them in a concentration camp. It would disrupt the life of the Islands and pose a bigger problem than any we are prepared to handle at the moment."

So as not to disrupt the life of the Islands, the military gave permission for two Jap papers to reappear, considered resumption of Jap broadcasts from Hawaii's radio stations. Only thus could the Army convey its orders to non-English-speaking Japs.

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