The Free Lance-Star (June 21, 1943)
Supreme Court upholds restrictions on West Coast Japs
Washington (AP) –
The Supreme Court held constitutional today military regulations imposing a West Coast curfew on all persons of Japanese ancestry and excluding them from specified areas.
Chief Justice Stone delivered the opinion on a challenge of the regulations by two American-born persons of Japanese ancestry, who contended they were citizens of this country against whom the restrictions could not constitutionally be applied.
Stone asserted that:
In a case of threatened danger requiring prompt action, it is a choice between inflicting obviously needless hardship on the many, or sitting passive and unresisting in the presence of the threat.
Approximately 70,000 American citizens of Japanese ancestry were said to have been evacuated from their homes under the orders.