[Copy of interviews of JDC by Alexander H. Leighton, who
made a sociological study of Poston during the war and published a book in 1945
titled "The Governing of Men. General Principles and Recommendations Based
on Experience at a Japanese Relocation Camp". The book is scientific in
nature, and mainly about Unit I. It does not refer to JDC by name, but instead
identifies people by their position (e.g. Assistant Director). The Rare and
Manuscript Collections, Carl A. Kroch Library,
The following people
are mentioned:
Wade Head - former superintendent of the Papago Indian
Reservation, director of Poston for 2 years until WRA took over from BIA around
Jan 1, 1944
E. R. Fryer - former superintendent of the Navaho Indian
Reservation, regional WRA director in S.F. until early 1943
R. A. Petrie - assistent to Fryer, both in BIA and WRA
John Collier - BIA Commissioner
Norris James - Reports Officer at Poston
Ralph M. Gelvin - Associate Project Director at Poston
The hand-written interview is written with alot of
abbreviated words that make it hard to understand. I have written the complete
words out, with ??? when I
can not figure out a word. All notes in brackets [] are my comments. Questions
in parenthesis () are AHL's. Underlined words are surrounded by underline
characters such as _xxx_ .
- JLC]
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[Page 0:]
10-27-42
A.H.Leighton
The following account came after I told Mr. C about my trip
to
[Page 1:]
_Mr. James Crawford's Story_
(Review of Poston with Reminensces ?)
I don't know if I should go into why or how I came? (would be useful). I had never known Fryer or Petrie. Petrie
was interested in young fellows assigned to Nav. area as field assistants. He
attended meetings in
When sent to copy
[Page 2:]
Before getting this or my wire he wrote me a letter with a
lot of info in it. I took that up with Dr. Aberle. I felt very loyal to the
Indian Service and especially to Dr. A. who had helped me a lot. Liked field work and direct contact with Indian people reporting
directly to Dr. A. Had a great deal of responsibility.
I was given full responsibility and initiative in relations between Indians and
Non Indians. I knew more Indians personally than any one else in the agency.
Mrs. Crawford helped me with census 1940. Met lots of Indians
personally. Dr. A. was out of town so Mr. Formhals (next in command)
advised me to wire that Dr. A. was out of town and I'd have to take it up with
her when she came back.
At this time Dr. A. had received a telegram from Comm. Collins
which stated all the Indian
[Page 3:]
agencies were to cooperate with
Poston in equipment and personnel. Get in touch with Mr. H. [Wade Head] to see
what was needed.
Everything was arranged. Mr. F. was to come down here to see
Mr. H. We were sending down 6 CCC trucks. He talked to Mr. H. and found they
needed administrative personnel and would be glad to have me.
Got 3rd telegram from Petrie the morning Dr. A. got back. It
said after Francisco office I would be assigned to a relocation center in some
administrative capacity.
At this time Mrs. C. and I had been writing a list, one for
Alburqueque, one for S.F. and one for Poston. The selective service entered the
picture. I found married men were to be taken to the draft. Found local draft
board would look most favorable on continuing in Ind. Service
[Page 4:]
in Poston, rather than S.F.
Dr. A. called Mr. C. [Collins] in
[Page 5:]
just because they thought the grass
was greener on the next pasture. He cited 2 cases especially. He had worked as
Co. Clerk for 35 years, [it was actually 25] and had built up a friendship and
a confidence that people going from 1 place to another don't develop. Change of
job postition doesn't enter his mind.
So all those things together and the fact the
Then we had to decide to leave Alburquerque. As far as
priority ratings went, Indian Service was at the bottom of the list - no. 5.
Then it seemed it would be better for the Indian office to spend its little
money on Indians rather than on me or other administrators. So we decided to go
to Poston. That was Friday and we decided to be in Poston Sunday nite. Ruth
happened to have a sister at Parker
[Page 6:]
Dam. So I was assigned on 30 day
detail. She wanted to visit her sister and cook and go over her new living
quarters there. During 1st month Mrs. C. lived with sister at Parker Dam and I
drove up there once a week.
(Date of arrival?)
May 9th. During 1st 10 days everyone stayed at Parker. Sunday nite I
arrived, Parker was like an oil boom town 2400 workers on the project. What
lights there were were gleaming.
All during 1st 10 days I commuted back and forth until we
moved into Poston I. I was one of first to move in the transfer of us with Best
and Ned Campbell - now assistant director Manzanar.
[Page 7:]
Monday morning I walked into Mr. Heads
office and I had never met him before. He began introducing me to personnel. He
said "Ned, come over here." I said I bet that is Ned C. I knew him
back in
[Page 8:]
at school - he was swimming on
Univ. Colo team and was head cheer leader. I got out of school in 1931. Ned had
gone back to a
I was assigned to Ned. I met more government officers within
small town at Parker. None down here. [Camp] I had
buildings 6 and 11 completed. Buildings on west side of area were up, if not
completed.
I learned what the problem was, learned by doing and tried
to combat it. There were no cars here - I had a car so I immediately became a
chauffeur. I took Ned over to Earp to see about ice cars. We had no way of
keeping any of our food. Ned got some ice, but we could get it at
[Page 9:]
Earp for 1/3 the cost at Parker. Fite??? between railroad and
politicians at Parker, Mr. Best??? & I met him helping out with that. The
first day we went to engineer and placed order of our original registration
tables. No signs on any of the blocks. No cots, no mattresses, no nothing. At
warehouses we found ticing??? and the straw pile. Beside the windows where the garage is now located. Quantity
was pretty nice in a mudl???? There was a great deal of anxiety and checking by
Gelvin and Mr. Head and then Gumble???. Mr. James
came about to the time.
Some of the 1st impressions - contractors were working
extremely hard. A foreman called Slim - great big
[Page 10:]
In traveling with this foreman we paired up one for nite??? foremen - Jenkins. We were talking about this and that when
Slim said, Jenkins, "better check that man over
there." And they find a man just like??? to. He
just happened to be standing still. A little later they did the same with
another man they found sitting down.
They said they had so many poor men they had to fire them
right off when they stopped working. The carpenter was getting $1.50 per hour
for 10 hour day.
(Stops because 5 PM and has to go.)
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[Page 1:]
Interview with James Crawford by AHL. 4-28-43
After some preliminary detailed talk about the weather (in
which JC told me he kept a chart of daily temperature readings which he
compares with a similar set of figures kept by his brother at Parker Dam.) I
asked how things were in
The main problem now is gambling. High stakes and lots of
it. A little while ago he walked into the Maintenance Department out near the
water tower one evening to find a party going full blast with "greenbacks
on the table that would choke a mule". The double doors of the barrack
were open and as he approached someone shouted out about 8 times something that
sounded like "cover up". Four men ran out hiding their faces. The
blanket that was on the table was scooped up with all the money in it and
disappeared. 5 or 6 men--all [Camp] I--just sat there. One man just crouched in
a corner behind a box with a blanket over him. The watchman stood by the door
and said he wasn't playing, the others had just set up a game there, a friendly
game, but then the stakes got pretty high. Said he wouldn!t
let them do it again. For a while JC couldn't find anyone who spoke English,
but finally one of the gamblers did. He found out that two of the men were
professionals and had come down from Camp I. JC has checked back at this place
since and found no more going on there. He kept watching the man with the
blanket over his head and finally he peeked out and saw JC looking at him and
then grinned and came out. He was someone JC knew.
JC plans to have the police raid and lock up the gambling
dens soon. There must be 8 or more in operation in the camp. He is getting a
lot of names together from people he knows who are leaving
[Page 2:]
the camp. About tomorrow he thinks
he will be ready for the raid. The trouble is, however, that the police force
is very weak. Ever since the former chief resigned when he volunteered for the
army the police force has been weak because of the lack of his leadership and
because all the good men left with or after him. Now the force is full of
Kibeis and disloyal people who answered no-no on the questionnaire. The force
formerly was a cracker-jack. At the time of the Saburo Kido incident in
February you couldn't get a better force anywhere. All
different now. Last September or October (he would have to look it up to
tell me exactly.) they had some gambling in one block run by professionals.
After repeated warnings the police chief arrested them and the Judicial
Commission sentenced them to build a ramada for the children in their block.
(GS says this was Blk. 227.) They thought it was a block problem since all the
men, but two were from the same block. The men built the ramada and there was
no more trouble with gambling there. In the last few months he has found
gambling going on in different places such as the warehouses where men were at
work. Most of these appeared to be really just friendly games with low stakes
at the start, but then they would get high. Mostly Nisies.
JC talked to the fellows and mostly they would stop. He would appeal to them on
the ground of the good record they had and that they shouldn't be doing this
before the high school part time workers and well they just couldn't have it
and the fellows would say, "Sure, we know that, we won't do it any
more," and mostly they didn't.
It is noteworthy that in talking about his camp, JC is
always referring to one group of residents as "good",
"honest",
[Page 3:]
"American", and the other as "bad",
"agitators", "no-no", "disloyal",
"Pro-Axis" usually the way he uses these words make it seem that
these are all synonymous with each other in each class. It indicates he thinks
of the people in very black and white terms and in moral terms--like a
missionary in a settlement--the good people and the drunks and thieves."
Referring again to the police force, he said that their
weakness was shown when he told them to see that people who were supposed to
see that the people who were supposed to turn their trucks into the pool did
so. The present police chief told him that they would just laugh at him if he
gave any such order. Same attitude when JC tried to get them to stop the trucks
driving recklessly through the crowds after the movies. The present Chief is
Richard Fukanaga.
I asked about what was the attitude of the Council. He said
this Council is also very weak. In January, the old Council which was made up
of "good" fellows got disgusted that the administration couldn't do
anything to get rid of the "bad" fellows and so they made
arrangements to have a new election about the middle of February. After the
arrests (17 persons) in early February, it was too late to stop the election so
they went on with it and nearly all the good fellows refused to run again, so a
lot of the bad ones got in and even among the good ones, in each block they had
to go way down to 3rd or 4th grade persons to get anyone to take the office. So
the present council is weak. It has had no real problems to deal with so far
except this gambling and it is just dodging that. One problem they did work on was
the over-all trust fund. They didn't want to go in with [Camp] I and [Camp] III
on that, but last week F. Sugiyama and F. Fukuda
[Page 4:]
came down there and talked about it
and said that of course [Camp] I and [Camp] III would be supporting the hospital
out of their fund and they would hate to see the day when people from
Even though the Council is weak, it is more coordinated and
cooperative than a while ago. Both bad and good are in it and they are working
together on Community problems and there isn't the same friction between the
Council and the group of bad people that there was before. More
harmonious even if less strong. JC thinks that with the Resettlement
program and volunteering soon there won't be anything left but the old people,
Kibeis and disloyal Nisei.
I asked if there was any group giving leadership to the
community and he said no--not really. I said what about the IAB. He said that
there were a few men in it who were the best leaders in the community; He named
some of them.
Miura-(IAB, one of the few in Unit 2 from
Kazato-(IAB, father of Dr. Kazato. He has one girl in
Shimotsuka--(IAB), one son volunteered.
Takeshita-(IAB), has one son in the
army and one son a doctor.
Doi-(Formerly IAB, now block manager. From same block as
Miura-they work together. Is going to
[Page 5:]
At present you can't work on anything without fear that some
switch in WRA policy will upset it all. His block is 222 which yielded 10
volunteers. He has been great help to J.C.
The following people JC listed as "Renegades
Miamoto-(IAB, Pres. of Cooks Association.
From Blk. 221)
Kuroiwa-Said to be a Nisei whose birth record was lost at
time of
Dave Imahara-(Blk. mgr. of 208, answered no-no. He is a
Council member and chairman of the Labor Commission and on the Merit Rating
Board.
Harry Ikegawa who comes from same block as D.I. above (208)
is a unique person. He was block manager and all along took the stand of a
loyal American even though whole block was on other side including his family.
Recently Mathiesen had great difficulty finding anyone to operate slaughter
house near Camp 2 because of the way Japonese feel about butchers, especially
hogs. Look on it as a very low job. (JC said there was something in this
attitude he didn't understand, but he knew they looked on it as low.) Well,
Harry had taken on this job and got a crew together.
I asked how many Caucasians helped him and JC said, really
none. McClaren ran the schools and Miller and Scott lived there and ran the
police, but he rarely came in contact with them. In fact he could never find
Miller when he wanted hime He seemed to spend a lot of time in Parker, maybe
it was official business, but he was getting worried about it and so was Wade.
For the most part, the evacuee heads of the different departments ran their
departments and
[Page 6:]
and the Council and IAB don't do
much. The Labor Commission and the Merit Board do a good job. JC runs the
executive end of the camp by himself. I asked if he didn't have some executive
assistance, such as Mr. Wumino in Unit 3.
He said, oh, yes, George Nagano, the Block Manager
Supervisor was ex-officio actually an administrative assistant. He is a fellow
who is very popular in the camp and a great help to JC. Before evacuation, he
had some low salaried job and he hasn't got too much education, but he has done
well here. Then there were some other persons JC leans on for advice. There is
Herbert Yoshida, the truck dispatcher who is an older Nisei. Then there is John
Maeno, head of the Legal Department. Mr. Doi, previously
mentioned, and Mr. Miura who is supervisor of the block gardeners. He
works closely with George Nagano and while George has contact with Niseis, Mr
Miura controls the Isseis.
I asked Mr. Crawford how he spent his day. He said half of
it was out in the field. He was constantly going around from one job to another
getting a first hand view. He tried to know as many people as possible and he
felt he did know a great many by one of three things. Face,
name, present occupation. He also tried to know a little personal
something about each one, such as who grew good sweet peas so he could mention
it when he talked with them. He felt that this paid big dividends and that he
was a popular director. In the office he spends his time on the following.
Checking and signing requisitions-(which doesn't take much time), signing leave
clearance (this used to take a lot of time because he liked to look up all the
facts he could about each person so he could
[Page 7:]
give them a good recommendation if
they deserved it.), reviewing reports (every day he has reports sent in from
all divisions and work projects. Also block manager logs. Much of this is compiled
and analyzed by his secretary and he sees only final figures, but all special
or unusual items she brings to his attention and he makes it a point to read
the complaint section of the block manager's log. By the study of these
reports, he can make best use of his time when out and around. He can
understand better what he sees.) Straightening matters out between his Division
heads and the Caucasian staff of the branch offices and divisions. For example
if his block manager's supervisor tells him they have screens in 3 and in 1,
but none in 2, how come? JC calls 1 and 3 to find out if they have,--if they do
he calls Mr. Popkins to find out how come and then lets the block managers
know. I said, "Can't an executive assistant do that?" He said, yes,
as a matter of fact he did most of it. I asked did he have trouble getting
things done because evacuees got the brush off from Caucasians in the
administration and other offices, and he said, no, he never had trouble that
way.
He mentioned he had preached two times to the Buddhists on
Sunday. He thinks most of the bad eggs are Buddhists, but not all the Buddhists
are bad.
He said that the only vacation he had had since coming here
were two saturday mornings. (2
weekends including Saturday A.M.) He feels very much in need of a
vacation now.
He is at home nearly every evening and up to 10 P.M. there
is a steady stream of callers coming with various questions.
On 4-25 while talking with WH I asked him if he could work
well
[Page 8:]
with JC. He said, "Oh,
yes." I asked if JC would go through with something after they had talked
it over and reached an agreement. WH said, yes, he certainly would. In fact he
was too conscientious about following out orders.
JC was very proud of the Boy Scout troop in 2.
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[Page 1:]
Interview with J. Crawford-AHL. 5-13-43
In his office at 3:30 P.M. He was
very busy, but promptly made time to see me and we talked for an hour. He
talked at length and very willingly with few questions from me.
_Police Department_ - operates under joint orders from JC
and Miller (whom JC said again he can never find when he wants him.) Take
orders from either one division of authority not clear. Judicial
Commission--Judges to try cases that is all. There is
also a Law and Order Committee of the Council which is composed of most of same
members. They investigate and decide on policy, make recommendations to Council
which makes recommendations to JC who sets same in motion via police department
with or without Miller.
There is a Police Commission. An Issei who
is supposed to direct the department. He seems to do what we have been
thinking it would be good to have a committee doing. JC was very receptive to
ideas of a council appointed committee which would run the police department.
Says police department is 90% made up of "No-no Kibeis.
_Fire Department_--Very bad shape.
Same kind of people as in Police. Fien has little
control over them. They take all the orders directly from Fien. Fien is very
strong on this. Doesn't like any interference. Fire
Chief isn't a bad guy, but he is only there half of the time and the rest of
the time the boys go wild. Card playing, stealing tractors and joy riding on
them, running through the community at 3:00 A.M. on the fire engine just for
the hell of it.
_Agriculture_--80 acres being farmed at
[Page 2:]
beginning to start work on fire
breaks and in boundary of the town. All technical advice and planning done by
the agriculture committee (council) and department head (Sharp). However, Crawford
is kept informed of each move and has power of veto if he doesn't like their
plans. Also arbitrators between department head and agriculture committee (of
the agriculture department) if need be. Actually, all is very harmonious. It
works well.
_Civic Planning Board_--A group who have
a say so on all projects which affect the camp within its boundaries, but
outside of blocks. All things within blocks are left to block councils. This
board has about 11 members on it--one from each of the principal organizations
or associations in the community.
_Industries_--Operates under about the same system as
agriculture. Very closely under Crawford with technical
advice from Department Heads. JC gets regular reports from them. They
have charge of all food processing including the slaughter house and hogs, etc.
which are not under agriculture, but under industries.
These meat producers are fine, but there are a lot of people
in industries, old men, especially, who don't want to do much- "Work three
hours a day and that sort of thing."
Ha said he didn't think they cared much about having
charcoal industry shut-down. It was done because of WRA ruling against outside
trade.
_Engineering_--Only member of that outfit is the
watermaster, (Japanese) who looks after irrigation ditches. He gets his orders
from engineers.
_Maintenance_--Originally there was a department in II
called Division of Operators. The head of this was Sid Shiratsuki. Then as camp
[Page 3:]
developed, this was broken down
into _Construction_ & _Maintenance_.
_Maintenance_ is under Sid and takes care of pumps, sewage,
stoves, electric wiring, plumbing, transmitting, water, etc. It is under
Bowman. Sid is very unusual person who is alert, smart, full of ideas, and will
stand up to anyone to get them carried out. One of those
outstanding personalities that live forever in your memory. (JC got a
little emotional about it.) In spite of his aggressiveness, Sid gets along well
with everybody. He works very closely with JC and with the block managers.
_Construction_ is under Bob Kitaji who used to assist Sid in
days of _Division of Operators_. Bob is under Peuterbaugh who lives and spends
all his time at II. Peuterbaugh is an old time Indian Service man who has had
responsible jobs before. Moy Anderson is a carpenter from
_Cooks_--Are a very independent bunch and
all bad or nearly all. They run their kitchens as they please and pay no
attention to the Steward's Department, block people, or JC. They take 10 lbs.
out of the rice sack to make sake. They take eggs, avocados, all kinds
[Page 4:]
of things delivered to the blocks
which the people never see or see in very small amounts. Or some blocks will
serve the things and the people from the other blacks will rush in to JC and
demand to know why they don't get avocados, too. JC will have to tell them they
were delivered to the kitchen of every block. There are two supervising chefs
(he pronounced "ch" as in "chops") who are supposed to go
about and regulate things. They have no control at all. Some kitchens won't let
them in. They are never invited to cook's meetings. JC thinks cooks are all
organized and tied in with the police, fire, and the disloyal. He caught two
police and a cook lifting coffee and sugar out of a kitchen a few days ago. He
went up and charged them with it when they came out of the building and they
admitted it.
-----
Summing up JC talked about how his father used to raise hogs and just a few. He spoke with an enthusiasm that is almost vicious about the killings, told me how coffee grounds will kill a hog very quickly.