Pacific Coast Committee on American Principles and Fair Play Records, 1940-1951

Summary

Creators:

Pacific Coast Committee on American Principles and Fair Play

Extent:

Number of containers: 5 cartons and 8 boxes Linear feet: 9.55

Language:

Collection materials are in English

Background

Scope and content:

The Pacific Coast Committee on American Principles and Fair Play Records date from 1940 to 1951, and relate to the evacuation, internment, and relocation of Japanese-Americans during World War II. The collection consists of a variety of materials, including correspondence, reports, minutes, and printed materials, which provide insight into the feelings of the citizens connected to this situation.

Correspondence includes requests for information from government agencies and community organizations as well as individuals. Committee records include memoranda, reports, minutes of Executive Board meetings, and financial records. Publications include articles by Dr. Galen M. Fisher.

Materials relate to the evacuation, internment, and relocation of Japanese Americans during World War II. Correspondence includes requests for information from government agencies and officials, community groups, and private individuals. Committee records include in-house correspondence, memoranda, reports of activities, minutes of executive board meetings, financial records, and publications, including articles by Dr. Galen M. Fisher. Materials collected by the Committee for reference purposes include Japanese-American subject files relating to evacuation from the west coast, specific relocation centers, and resettlement legislative issues; War Relocation Authority files, including memoranda, reports, statements, press releases, and clippings which illustrate the committee's role in the interpretation and dissemination of government information; and, files for various organizations, which may include correspondence, minutes, reports, statements, and printed materials as well as clippings, all providing insight into the feelings of citizens connected to the situation.

The Japanese-American subject files include evacuation from the West Coast, materials regarding specific relocation centers, and resettlement legislative issues. The relationship of The Committee to the War Relocation Authority is illustrated by handwritten memos, reports, and statements. Of particular interest are field notes and interviews regarding the return of the Japanese-Americans to Northern California in the summer of 1945. A selection of clippings completes the collection.

Biographical / historical:

The Pacific Coast Committee on American Principles and Fair Play was organized in January of 1943 with the express purpose of insuring the constitutional rights of persons of Japanese ancestry who had been evacuated from the Pacific Coast and relocated to the interior of the country by presidential proclamation in 1942.

The committee was an outgrowth of the Committee on National Security and Fair Play, which had been originally constituted in October 1941, under the name of the Northern California Committee for Fair Play for Citizens and Aliens of Japanese Ancestry. Among its founders and leading members were David P. Barrows, Monroe Deutsch, Josephine Duveneck, Galen M. Fisher, Henry Francis Grady, Ruth Kingman, Alfred J. Lundberg, Robert Millikan, Chester Rowell, Robert Gordon Sproul, Paul Taylor, and Ray Lyman Wilbur.

The committee acted as an unofficial public relations representative of the War Department, the Justice Department, the State Department, the War Relocation Authority, and any other government body or civil servant whose responsibility it was to express a considered opinion concerning persons of Japanese ancestry in the United States. The work of the committee included disseminating educational materials to the public, providing public speakers, holding conferences, correcting distorted statements in the press, carrying on a dialogue with governmental officials and leaders of community groups, investigating conditions at relocation centers and monitoring the return of the evacuees after the centers were closed. Chapters were formed in Fresno, Los Angeles, Pasadena, Santa Barbara, Portland, and Seattle.

After the closing of the relocation centers, committee members decided that other, broader based interracial, intercultural community organizations could more effectively continue the work of the committee and incorporate its programs into their own. To this end, the Pacific Coast Committee for American Principles and Fair Play dissolved itself in December 1945.

Acquisition information:

The Pacific Coast Committee on American Principles and Fair Play Records were given to The Bancroft Library by Dr. Galen M. Fisher in 1952.

Physical location:

For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the Library's online catalog.

Rules or conventions:

Finding Aid prepared using Describing Archives: a Content Standard

Location of this collection:

UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library

University of California, Berkeley, The Bancroft Library

Berkeley, CA 94720-6000, US

Contact:

510-642-6481

bancref-library@berkeley.edu

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