Segregationists are condemned today, even those who later recanted: Think of George Wallace. There are few kind words for the American nativist strain, embodied by political movements like the anti-Roman Catholic Know-Nothing Party that flourished in the 1850s.
Even progressive icons like Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and chief justice Earl Warren are censured for their role in interning Japanese-Americans in the Second World War. On the positive side, Seth Masket of Vox wrote last week about governor Ralph Carr of Colorado, who, in 1942, became a lonely voice for the rights of Japanese-Americans.
Now Republican presidential candidates and governors, and a handful of Democrats, are playing a politically motivated fear card. It doesn’t matter, they argue, if families and little children are fleeing mayhem and carnage in Syria. Don’t let them in, especially if they are Muslims. They cite, of course, the terrorist attack in Paris.
Public concern about Syrian refugees is understandable. One of the Paris terrorists might have slipped into Europe with refugees. But real leaders shouldn’t exploit people’s fears. Sometimes their responsibility is to calm them.
That’s not what Americans are getting from Donald Trump. And it’s not what they got from Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who just withdrew from the race. Jindal and David Vitter, the Republican Senator who was running to replace him in yesterday’s election, have warned of hordes of Syrian refugees threatening the citizens of Louisiana. Vitter said there’s an “influx coming” and that vetting can’t guard against possible “terrorist elements”.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune reported last week that there were Syrian refugees in the Bayou State — 14 to be exact. The resettling agency is the New Orleans Archdiocese’s Catholics Charities. The general counsel for the Archdiocese is Wendy Vitter, the wife of Senator Vitter.
After Pearl Harbor, the Roosevelt administration decided to put Japanese-Americans in guarded camps. Colorado’s Carr objected. He said Japanese-Americans were entitled to the same constitutional rights as other citizens and decried the “shame and dishonour” of racial hatred. He was dumped by his own Republican party. America overwhelmingly supported FDR and Warren, then attorney general of California, who whipped up anti-Japanese sentiment. FDR is now celebrated as a great president. Warren went on to become governor of California and chief justice of America. His Supreme Court expanded civil rights and civil liberties. Both, however, get bad marks from most historians for their role in internment.
Carr’s courage ended his political career. But history smiled. Today there’s a statue of him in downtown Denver. A scenic section of a highway bears his name. The Japanese-American Citizens League has an award in his honour.
— Washington Post
Albert Hunt is a Bloomberg columnist.
