Thin Men

Great Meadows, N.J. wanted no Japs. But Farmer Ed Kowalick needed help badly on his 600-acre farm. Neighbors put up crude signs reading "Little Tokyo, One Mile" near Kowalick's farm. Ed Kowalick stayed stubbornly silent, and the five Japanese he had imported from an Arizona relocation center huddled together around a table in their little house. They decided to stick it out. Said Frank Kitagawa, their spokesman: "We are willing to suffer if we can win pursuit of happiness for future generations of our people, and a chance to educate our kids like Americans."

As darkness fell one night last week, Jersey farmers came by the hundreds, crowded into the schoolhouse. They cheered a speaker who cried: "Run them back to Arizona." Shouts of disapproval rose as a woman struggled to say: "God does not say to dislike one race and love another." The mass meeting rumbled angrily on. An outbuilding on Kowalick's farm went up in flames.

Farmer Kowalick gave in. He decided to send the Japanese away. The Jersey farmers slapped his back, bought him drinks, presented him with a box of cigars.

Said Spokesman Kitagawa sadly: "When we appear on the street we walk like thin men, trying to be inconspicuous."

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