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National Advem'sing Service. Inc.
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Member

Disocialed Collegiate Press

Disiriouiur-of

Collegiate Dib‘esl

I-Idnoiml offices: Gilnnell Hemancgistcr, Friday 3 :
to] s I>»‘nl:]lli\0l}e an): 2nd ﬂoor Administration hnilding,
[Hunt 7 a. rug.

A u-mtiy “swimm- published each Friday of the scum
mu hr the cams” Student I’uhilstlin! company.
‘John w. lec)', madam of the board

Entered as sewnd class mm; at the vast ofllte lit Grin-
nell, 1min, untlm the us: or Mmkh a, 1m.

$150 per school year.

Editor in Chief . Catherine Funk
Business Mniiager , Jack {10me
Assistant Editors .. Barbara Bram

Dave Meade

Editorial Director Howard J. Lurie

The Foe Within --

There is nothing we would like better than

to print here a calm, deliberative, restrained
and scholarly argument against the passage
of the Findley resolution now before the
legislature of the sovereign state of Iowa,
But it is the particular advantage of an
amendment like that to fill its opposers with
such incredulity, indignation, and disgust
as to render their arguments almost inar-
ticulate. To be brief it makes us sick.

But still there are many facts with which
to bombard such a suggestion. You see,
Mri Findlay, we happen to know whereof
you speak We’ve been living for a year
with what you call “a serious problem,” We
have Japanese-American students on Grin-
nell campus. It is only such actions as
yours which call to memory the hyphena—
tion. To us they have been, are, and shall
continue to be, kids we go to school with.

Has there been trouble? Not since they
came. Please note that: not since they
came. Before they arrived there was dis-
cussion, argumnt, and a terrific excitement
because here was a real chance to test those
highrsounding principles of democracy to
which we have been rendering detached lip-
service since the Civil War.

There were some people who thought it
wouldn’t work With pleasure, we delegate
them to your camp. Those of us who did
not graduate last spring, who remained here
and actually met the “problem" have found
it doesn’t exist. The students in question
have proved themselves, they have improved
us

The Japanese students in Grinnell have

WELCOME re

GRINNELL SCARLET AND BLACK

become an integral, valuable, enjoyabl part
of our student body. Semester grades came
out a month ago, Mr. Findlay. Every one
of our Japanese students was on the presr
dent’s list of honor students. They live in
our dorms, and we like them. They are
part of our social life, and we don’t want to
lose them. Since theoretical analysis of the
situation has sent you off on such flights of
thought, we suggest you spend a weekend
on Grinnell campus to get back to realities.

That is our personal stake in the defeat
of your amendment: the fact that it would
take from us some people whom we know,
admire, enjoy and do not want to lose

The “impersonal” stake—if anything so
vital to our nation can be called impersonal

is a larger one. You are stirring up
rather a bitter brew, Mr. Findlay. We
suggest you take an experimental sip now
to avoid being drunk on it later.

Suppose your amendment passes. Then
these students will be yanked out of colleges
like Grinnell and sent back hastily to those
centers which have already proved badly or-
ganized, poorly housed centers of waste
There isn’t much for a collge student to do
in a relocation center, Physical labor, yes;
but that leaves a remarkably blank mind.
The students we know aren’t going to go
into an intellectual vacuum. They are going
to think, hard. And we think their thought
will gradually impress upon them that they
have been so treated and segregated be-
cause of certain racial and physical chars
actristics they in no way control. You see.
Mr. Findlay, they shall become conscious of
their race. In Grlnnell we have not been
smitten by any differences We’ve forgotten
about them. They have not made us con.
scious of race. But if we remove them from
colleges like Grinnell, we shall make them
conscious of race. That’s a dangerous fire-
cracker. If we win this war we are natun
ally going to try to return as quickly as pos-
sible to “normalcy." Prerwar normalcy
meant a definiteibut not a distinct—place
in our life for all Americans, and please
skip the hyphens, Just how, Mr. Findlay,
do you propose to regain the confidence, the
respect, and above all the efforts of these
people in peace time if you have so obvious,
1y marked them as a thing apart in war?
They are Valuable to us as every pel‘S-Oll'll‘l
this nation is valuable. We need their V111-
telligence, their skill, their hope for America.
Making them aware of a false, but powerful
spirit of ”difference" is a poor way to )1]-
sure their help in postwar America. If you
won’t think of America at war in 1943, Mr.
Findlay, think of it at peace in 1963‘. ,

In our opinion there is no more serious

Mess MEETING

MARCH l9, I943

threat to American democracy than that
amendment pending today in Des Moines.
Worse than the threat of segregating cer-
tain people is the threat of elevating othrs,
inherent in your amendment. If a state
legislature begins to judge who shall not
be allowed participation in community life,
we think there is an intrinsic danger of the
selection of those who can participate, and
more important, who can lead

In America, we talk of selection by talent.
Yet we have failed in many Ways to live
up to the principle of equality. This coun-
try is shamefully full of racial, religious, and
economic intolerance. War usually has a
nice way of eliminating some of that feeling.
Witness England today. If America fails to
erase the intolerance she has, that is a bad
thing. But if she adds to her intolerance
at the time we are supposedly fighting to
end a racial myth—that, Mr, Findlay is
pure dragon seed.

We are sure that if you chose to answer
this argument, you would harp upon the
thread-bare phrase of “military expedien-
cy." Such pharses as “fifth column,” “Pearl
Harbor," “treachery” and ”prevention” are
sure to figure largely in the conversation of
such a man as you. So before you start,
let us explode that argument now. If you
fear fifth columns, Mr. Findlay, we would
like to point out that of all persons with
whose original nations we may now be at
war, the Japanese are more recognizable
than any other. They hear a mark of
color and characteristic which can be dis-
tinguished, They call attention to their ac-
tivities by that very quality, If you worry
about fifth columns, remember that to be
effective they must be unsuspected. Re—
member that they must fit without special
notice into the pattern and stream of every-
day lifei A Japanese in Iowa does not.
Many an Americangwithout benefit of
hyphen—does If you want to perform a
service to your nation think of a way to
detect the true strangers within our gates~
persons rendered different from us, not by
color, but by spirit.

We didn’t like to say those things in the
above paragraph about color and race. We
at Grinnell have largely forgotten about
them. But you forced us to say them. Al—
ready you have brought race consciousness
into the field of necessary attention. We
have been reminded, We don’t like it, We
think such reminding renders you a man
who endangers this nation, this, people, this
ideal we are seeking, and which we call
America.

Freshmen Sponsor Meal

Lets Try

A mass meeting for all Women
students will be held Monday

morning, March 29, in Herrick
chapel. Social budget, quad-
rangle treasury, and league re»

The St. Patrick's day dinner, a
project of the social budget, was
handled by the freshman commis-
sion with Geraldine Warren,
Meats freshman, as Chairman.
Green crepe paper and candy dec-
orated the tables.

CLASS A 7
from
Bartling 8 Nuckolts

Have A Good Vaca'l'ion, Kids

Optometrists

Jewelers

Those and for the ride home buy an

Corsages

for

The Prep
House Party

Bates
Flower
Shop

Watchmakers ”entertaining" magazine

Engravers
4,
Established- l 907

Laros News Stand

across from the Grinnell Library

Have Your Eyes Examined Here

 

