Cozzens Says Charges Against WRA Are 'False'

SAN FRANCISCO (UP) - R.B. Cozzens, assistant director of the War Relocation authority, Saturday charged that State Sens. Jack Tenney, R., Los Angeles, and Hugh Burns, D., Fresno, spread "fearless falsehoods" about the WRA during the last session of the state legislature.

Tenney and Burns are chairman and vice chairman respectively of the California "Little Dies" committee on un-American activities.

Cozzens listed as "fictions" four statements included in a resolution introduced by Tenney and Burns at the last session of the legislature.The statements, which were stricken from the resolution by the authors before it was passed by the legislature, asserted that:

1. The federal bureau of investigation, navy and army intelligence were not consulted on the character and integrity of persons of Japanese ancestry returned to the west coast. 2. The first five Japanese returned to one California county had espionage records. 3. Japanese-Americans and Japanese-aliens "with an open and notorious and well known disloyal attitude" are being released. 4. The WRA has exercised lack of care in its relocation work.

The resolution asked the president and congress to make available to west coast law enforcement officials reports of the FBI, the army and the navy on persons of Japanese ancestry to be returned to the west coast. Cozzens said that the original resolution was a "shabby contribution to further discrimination against a minority group."

Source: Watsonville Register-Pajaronian , page 4
Date: 1945-07-09
Type: NEWS; DOCUMENT
Coverage: 1940s
Rights: Copyrighted by the Watsonville Register-Pajaronian. Reproduced by permission.
Identifier: LN-1945-07-09-1022

Collection

Citation

“Cozzens Says Charges Against WRA Are 'False'.” Watsonville Register-Pajaronian , page 4. 1945-07-09. SCPL Local History. https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/items/show/134713. Accessed 2 May 2024.