Bloodstream Victory

It shall be unlawful for any person of the Caucasian or white race to intermarry with any person of the Ethiopian or black race, Malayan or brown race, or Mongolian or yellow race . . .

--1864 Nevada Law

Harry Bridges, Australian-born West Coast longshore boss, flew into Reno from San Francisco last week with his companion and registered at the Mapes Hotel as "Mr. & Mrs. Harry Bridges"--prematurely, as it turned out. For one thing, it was too late in the day for even a quick Nevada wedding. For another, as besieging newspapermen pointed out when Bridges jauntily introduced them to his bride-to-be next morning, the archaic, unchallenged Nevada law forbade it. The future and third Mrs. Bridges, 35-year-old Noriko Sawada, a dainty, dignified San Francisco law secretary, is a Nisei.

Bridges, 57, never one to duck a fight, attempted three times the next day to get a marriage license and was rebuffed. "She isn't really a Japanese," he protested to the marriage clerk. "She was born in the United States." Replied Clerk Viola Given: "It isn't where you were born, but your bloodstream that counts." The couple re-registered for separate rooms at the hotel. On the third day U.S. District Judge Taylor Wines, on a petition filed by Bridges, gave his ruling: "The right to marry is the right of the individual, not the race . . . If we are to take the proposition that all men are born free and equal seriously, then we can't very well ignore the implications." After a brief wedding a few minutes later, Bridges allowed cordially: "You can't hold a law that was established way back around 1860 against the people of today."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.