During World War 2, approximately 110,000 and 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry were forcibly relocated and incarcerated in internment camps. 62% of those interned were American citizens. These actions were ordered by President FDR after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
Editorials from major newspapers at the time were generally supportive of the internment. The LA Times editorial wrote:
"A viper is nonetheless a viper wherever the egg is hatched... So, a Japanese American born of Japanese parents, nurtured upon Japanese traditions, living in a transplanted Japanese atmosphere...notwithstanding his nominal brand of accidental citizenship almost inevitably and with the rarest exceptions grows up to be a Japanese, and not an American... Thus, while it might cause injustice to a few to treat them all as potential enemies, I cannot escape the conclusion...that such treatment...should be accorded to each and all of them while we are at war with their race."
However, support was not universal. R.C. Hoiles for the Orange County Register wrote:
"It would seem that convicting people of disloyalty to our country without having specific evidence against them is too foreign to our way of life and too close akin to the kind of government we are fighting…. We must realize, as Henry Emerson Fosdick so wisely said, 'Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.'”