Analysis: Let Us Not Persecute These People.

This radio address, delivered by United States Attorney General Francis Biddle, outlined the process to be followed to identify, register, and monitor citizens of nations that were then at war with the United States. The enemy alien registration of 1942 was the latest in a series of steps taken in an effort to contain perceived threats from within the country. Japanese, German, and Italian citizens living in the United States were forced to register and be fingerprinted at local post offices, and they were required to carry their enemy alien registration card with them at all times. Most Americans, influenced by prevailing ideas about race and ethnicity and frightened that there were enemy agents living among them, supported this registration and the subsequent internment of people of Japanese descent, including American citizens, on the Pacific coast. A far smaller number of Germans and Italians were also detained. Attorney General Biddle argued that the burden on the people identified as enemy aliens was light—just a simple registration form—and was a necessary step in wartime. He also emphasized that the vast majority of these people were peaceful and loyal, and that persecuting them would only make them more likely to be sympathetic to the enemy nation of their birth.