Very Solly — No Wanty

Here on the coast where we have constantly associated with the American Japanese we have no thought of prejudice against them. We have played baseball, football, basketball with them; we have worked and studied along with them. We fully realize the younger generation of Japanese are, if anything, more completely American than we are.
In our eyes, news releases such as this from the Utah State Agricultural college at Logan are disgusting.
Salt Lake City, March 29.–Japanese college students evacuated from the Pacific Coast will not be accepted at Utah State college at Logan.
In announcing the ruling today, College trustees said that USAC “Is crowded with a naval training program, giving elementary and advanced classes in radio technology and a large number of naval trainees.” The school’s defense work was thus advanced as the reason for barring Japanese students.
Japanese students are not invited to attend the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, President Leroy E. Cowles said tonight. But he qualified his statement, adding that “American-born Japanese students, who are in good standing at the Universities of California and Washington will be accepted as transfers if they can pay full tuition and bring letters of recommendation.”
Presidents Peterson and Cowles act as if these American-Japanese were convicted criminals. Perhaps, they have the impression that each one has a short wave radio and an arsenal of death-dealing weapons hidden under his black cloak.
They are completely overlooking the fact that the Nisei have been outstanding students, perfect citizens and good friends while living on the coast. Of course the second-rate Utah Agricultural College at Logan might well be contaminated by the intelligence and industry of the Japanese which has previously been welcomed at two of the nation’s foremost colleges.
Contrast this release to a note recently written The Daily by a Japanese student who is about to be evacuated.
This note is not intended for the “Safety Valve” or any valve for that matter. I just want to point out to you a glaring error in the article on student evacuees published in the March 31 edition of The Daily.
The head states: “Students and Faculty Set Census Tomorrow to Aid Alien Students,” and the lead paragraph gives in part “…a campus census Wednesday of probable Alien student evacuees.” May I inform you that a majority of the affected student evacuees are not aliens! They (of Japanese ancestry) are no more aliens than you or the fellow who wrote the story. Almost 100 per cent of the Japanese student evacuees born have been born in this country and have been educated in America. Since when did The Daily assume that citizens of the United States could be called aliens?