"THE ULTIMATE DECISION TO EVACUATE ALL PERSONS OF JAPANESE ANCESTRY FROM THE PACIFIC COAST UNDER FEDERAL SUPERVISION WAS NOT MADE COINCIDENTALLY WITH THE OUTBREAK OF WAR": FIRST EDITION OF FINAL REPORT: JAPANESE EVACUATION FROM THE WEST COAST 1942

(DEWITT, J.L., editor). Final Report. Japanese Evacuation from the West Coast 1942. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1943. Thick octavo, original black cloth. $1600.

First edition of this intentionally slanted contemporary governmental report on the internment of the Japanese and Japanese-Americans during World War II, presenting the internment as the natural legal consequence of wartime laws directed at enemy aliens.

"A detailed and highly favorable account of the army's actions in removing Japanese-Americans from the West Coast. The report became a key factor in the legal challenges to exclusion and resulted in both intra- and inter-departmental conflicts within the Justice and War Departments. Research in the 1980s revealed that the report had been doctored prior to the court cases, and this revelation was the basis for the reopening of the cases under the writ of error" (Densho Encyclopedia). Compiled by the Civil Affairs Division of the Western Defense Command, the report was meant to serve as justification for the internment. However, severe factual errors—including allegations of espionage (radio transmissions and shore-to-ocean signaling)—were uncovered during the Korematsu case. While the Supreme Court upheld the internment, the decision has come to be regarded as one of the Court's most shameful. Notably, this report fails to discuss the fate of German- and Italian-Americans, both groups that should have been interned according to the justifications used by the report but were not (especially in light of the dozens of German-Americans who were caught engaging in espionage and sabotage). With three folding maps, 13 color maps, and hundreds of black-and-white photographic images. Ex-libris Elmer W. Hunsicker, Superintendent's Office, House of Representatives, with owner stamps including on title page.

Interior generally quite nice, only light wear to cloth. A handsome and desirable copy.