Clark & Church

Introductory Remarks at Nisei Trials: 80 Years Distinguished Lecture with Frank Abe and Eric Muller in Boise, Idaho

By Monica Church, Educator and Idaho State Representative Elect (District 19)

September 14, 2024

Today I am going to tell you a story of two men. My great grandfather and my grandfather. It is also a story of human character. Of those principled enough to speak fundamental truths to power. 

My great grandfather was not. 

My grandfather was. 

I have been thinking a lot about the topic of this lecture series recently — I know many of you have — though my thoughts may be guided by different conversations than yours — I am teaching middle school US history for the first time — from contact to the gilded age. A time period that is rot with unprincipled decision makers. And the theme that we keep coming back to is natural law and human rationality.

Meaning. If we are to believe that humans can govern themselves and live together in peace — then we must accept that we are all rational — and we don’t harm our neighbor because we rationally know they could harm us. Treat thine neighbor as thine self. How then do we have experiences like slavery, Indigenous genocide, and Japanese and Japanese Americans forced into concentration camps? I ask my students, what must be true about human beings who make laws denying other human beings the same freedoms they enjoy? The answer is always - for rational minds to do such a thing they must dehumanize the group in question.

This dehumanization happens throughout history — it is happening now -- no one is outside its grasp. And when it takes control of a population and spreads to people in positions of power -- terrible things happen. So when we see leaders stand up against the peer pressure that accompanies dehumanization. And there is always peer pressure, because the rational brain has to fight hard to maintain what it knows to be untrue.. It says something about their character — and we should gravitate toward them en masse.

Governor Clark — later U.S. District Court of Idaho Judge Clark — chose to be pressured. In family stories I know my great grandfather to be a kind and fair father and grandfather. I know that he loved his daughter Bethine and that she loved him. I know that my grandfather Frank Church respected his father-in-law deeply. I know he loved living in Idaho and served in almost every possible capacity — Chase Clark was an Idaho State Representative, State Senator, Mayor, Governor, and FDR appointed federal district court judge. What I don’t know is how with all those qualities and public service ambition he was able to separate HIS liberty from other human beings, from other Americans.

And he did so knowingly — stating in 1942 of his fellow Americans (I paraphrase) “I want to admit right on the start that I am so prejudiced that my reasoning might be a little off — I don’t trust any of them, to me they are all enemy aliens.” He would later become even more bigoted in his language -- language I will not repeat.

Then Governor Clark was persuaded to accept a highly guarded concentration camp in Idaho by his political peer FDR, only to force the unconstitutionally incarcerated to work in the Idaho sugar beet fields — a source of labor he desperately needed if he was going to be re-elected. And possibly the most egregious example of unprincipled behavior — Federal Judge Clark presided over the trials, and sentenced the Minidoka prisoners who refused to serve a government that had denied them — and so many others -- their fundamental human rights — their US constitutional rights -- a constitution Clark had taken an oath to uphold more times than almost anyone. Being a man of privilege, a man of status and power -- and knowing how quickly all the Minidoka men were found guilty -- I have to believe the jury was not free of bigoted grooming by Judge Clark.

I don’t know how my great grandfather found himself both the product of a dehumanizing program and a producer of continued dehumanization — but perhaps it doesn’t matter… what I do know is that his deficiencies were not passed down, and for that I am grateful.

Chase Clark, photo from 1942's Les Bois, Boise Junior College yearbook, and Frank Church, photo courtesy of U.S. Senate Historical Office.

I recently read in a biography of Frank Church that his dedication at the Minidoka Site in 1979 was his attempt to make amends for his father in law’s prejudice — I disagree. It is my understanding of my grandfather that he was always a principled man. He didn’t make decisions based on that kind of calculation -- he made decisions based on a strongly held belief that in order for democracy to be true - in order for democracy to be successful -- we must all accept that every human being must be awarded the same liberties -- that the a government of the people, by design, cannot deny freedom for some without denying freedom for all.

Senator Church not only spoke about the injustice of Executive Order 9066, the American concentration camps, and the lives lost and destroyed — at the dedication of Minidoka -- he also co-sponsored the 1979 Senate Bill 1647 — which established the commission to investigate the government’s unconstitutional actions related to Japanese and Japanese American imprisonment and other atrocities related to Executive Order 9066, and to recommend to the US government and her people remedies -- which included an official apology and acknowledgment of the violation of human rights and paid reparations to many of the families.

My grandfather spoke fondly of his friendship with fellow veteran senator — Daniel Inouye -- his co-sponsor on Senate bill 1647 and a man who served in the 442nd Regimental Combat team — At the dedication of Minidoka my grandfather said of the 442nd and those from Minidoka (again I paraphrase) “I admire the unquenchable spirit which nourished the Japanese American soldiers during the dark days of the war when their loved ones were living here at Minidoka in tar paper shacks far removed from their homes because of the blindness and hatred that consumed our country.” And he went on to say that while the disgrace of the American concentration camps should never be erased from memory — the people can rejoice in living in a country strong enough to recognize its mistakes, and make amends.

It is my belief that my grandfather, Frank Church, had no desire to right a family wrong. He wanted to remind Idaho, and the country more broadly, that we must protect our greatest strength in the world; the moral and rational understanding that in the United States — in a democracy -- liberty for all means liberty for all.

Thank you.