I have just had a half-dozen telephone calls from women who are indignant over the Japanese situation in Colorado, and ask that I do something - or, at least, write something - about it. Three say they have sons in the service. The others have close relatives with the armed forces. All are engaged in war work. One said she was a nurse. Two are active in the Red Cross. They are apprehensive. They don't understand why Japanese should be allowed to come here - should, in some instances, be ordered to come here - and go about the state at will, enter the institutions of higher learning, take jobs if there are jobs to be had. They think Governor Carr should have resisted this. I asked each caller whether she used the term "Japanese" to apply to enemy aliens only or to include American-born citizens of Japanese descent. I was told this made no difference, and that, regardless of birthplace, all Japanese were alike and should be treated alike - interned or at least kept out of Colorado.

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This same opinion is held by a good many patriotic and conscientious men and women. That is the trouble. For this opinion is, in my judgment, wholly wrong.

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We cannot, under our Constitution and our traditions, have a class of semi-citizens or sub-citizens.

Germany has established gradations of citizenship. That is one of the reasons we are at war with Germany. We refuse to accept the theory of the enslaving state.

An American citizen of Japanese descent has exactly the same rights as an American citizen of English or French or Irish or Scandinavian descent. He has exactly the same protection under the Bill of Rights. If he is disloyal, he gets exactly the same dose that any other disloyal person gets. He can move about the country as he wishes, exactly as any other citizen can do. He can - indeed, under the truancy laws, he must - send his children to school, where they will be instructed in the fundamentals of American democracy. One of those fundamentals is the theory that a man is innocent until he is proved guilty - a theory that must not be lost sight of in time of war.

Governor Carr has not attempted to interfere with the rights of these citizens. To do so would have been a violation of his oath to support and obey the Constitution.

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So far as accepting aliens transferred to Colorado by the federal government, again his action has been both sound and patriotic.

The federal government has asked the state to help do a job. The state has accepted its responsibility.

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Governors of adjoining states to the north and south have refused to do their duty.

They have attempted to make capital of the fact that some people are reluctant to receive Japanese.

That is, of course, simply avoiding an obvious issue.

There are a lot of things about a war that nobody likes.

We all grieve with those who have received word that their sons and brothers have been lost in the fight for freedom. But those losses are an inevitable part of the war.

So is the acceptance of aliens an inevitable part of the war.

Colorado is doing and will continue to do its part in the war effort.