[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 37, Number 3 (Monday, January 22, 2001)]
[Pages 147-149]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]
<R04>
Proclamation 7395--Establishment of the Minidoka Internment National
Monument
January 17, 2001
By the President of the United States
of America
A Proclamation
The Minidoka Internment National Monument is a unique and
irreplaceable historical resource which protects historic structures and
objects that provide opportunities for public education and
interpretation of an important chapter in American history--the
internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed
Executive Order 9066, authorizing the Secretary of War and military
commanders to designate military areas from which ``any or all persons
may be excluded'' and to ``provide for residents of any such area who
are excluded therefrom, such transportation, food, shelter, and other
accommodations as may be necessary.''
Starting in early 1942, military authorities began designating
military exclusion areas in the States of California, Washington,
Oregon, and Arizona, and the territory of Alaska. Following the signing
of Executive Order 9066, American citizens and resident aliens of
Japanese ancestry living in the designated exclusion areas were ordered
to evacuate their homes and businesses and report to temporary assembly
centers located at fairgrounds, horse racetracks, and other make-shift
facilities.
To provide more permanent accommodations for the evacuees, President
Roosevelt established the War Relocation Authority (WRA) in March 1942.
The WRA oversaw the construction of ten relocation centers on Federally
owned lands in remote areas of six western States and Arkansas,
including the Minidoka Relocation Center in Idaho. Alaskan Native
residents of the Aleutian and Pribiloff Islands and members of other
ethnic and religious groups were also relocated or interned during the
course of the war.
Established in August 1942, the Minidoka Relocation Center, also
known as the Hunt Site, was located on Federal lands in Jerome
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County, in south central Idaho. During its operation from August 1942 to
October 1945, the population reached a peak of 9,397 Japanese Americans
from Washington State, Oregon, and Alaska. The Center included over
33,000 acres of land with administrative and residential facilities
located on approximately 950 acres. The Center had more than 600
buildings including administrative, religious, residential, educational,
mess, medical, manufacturing, warehouse, security, and other structures.
Living conditions at Minidoka and the other centers were harsh.
Internees were housed in crude barracks and cramped quarters, and they
shared communal facilities. Internees engaged in irrigated agriculture,
livestock production, and light manufacturing to produce food and
garments for the camp. Approximately 1,000 internees from Minidoka
served in the U.S. military. Fifty-four Japanese American servicemen
from Minidoka were killed in action.
Section 2 of the Act of June 8, 1906 (34 Stat. 225, 16 U.S.C. 431),
authorizes the President, in his discretion, to declare by public
proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures,
and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated
upon lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States to
be national monuments, and to reserve as a part thereof parcels of
lands, the limits of which in all cases shall be confined to the
smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the
objects to be protected.
Whereas it appears that it would be in the public interest to
reserve such lands as a national monument to be known as the Minidoka
Internment National Monument:
Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton, President of the United
States of America, by the authority vested in me by section 2 of the Act
of June 8, 1906 (34 Stat. 225, U.S.C. 431), do proclaim that there are
hereby set apart and reserved as the Minidoka Internment National
Monument for the purpose of protecting the historic structures and
objects of historic interest contained therein, all lands and interests
in lands owned or controlled by the United States within the boundaries
of the area described on the map entitled ``Minidoka Internment National
Monument'' attached to and forming a part of this proclamation. The
Federal lands and interests in land reserved consist of approximately
72.75 acres, which is the smallest area compatible with the proper care
and management of the structures and objects to be protected.
All Federal lands and interests in lands within the boundaries of
this monument are hereby appropriated and withdrawn from all forms of
entry, location, selection, sale, or leasing or other disposition under
the public land or other Federal laws, including but not limited to
withdrawal from location, entry, and patent under the mining laws, and
from disposition under all laws relating to mineral and geothermal
leasing.
The Secretary of the Interior, pursuant to legal authorities, shall
manage the monument and shall transfer administration of the monument to
the National Park Service to implement the purposes of this
proclamation.
To carry out the purposes of this proclamation and to interpret the
relocation and internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, the
Secretary of the Interior, through the National Park Service, shall
prepare a management plan for the monument within 3 years of this date.
This proclamation does not reserve water as a matter of Federal law
nor relinquish any water rights held by the Federal Government existing
on this date. The Secretary shall work with appropriate State
authorities to ensure that any water resources needed for monument
purposes are available.
The establishment of this monument is subject to valid existing
rights, provided that nothing in this proclamation shall interfere with
the operation and maintenance of the Northside Canal to the extent that
any such activities, that are not valid existing rights, are consistent
with the purposes of the proclamation.
Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to enlarge or diminish
the rights of any Indian tribe.
Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to revoke any existing
withdrawal, reservation, or appropriation; however the national monument
shall be the dominant reservation.
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Warning is hereby given to all unauthorized persons not to
appropriate, injure, destroy, or remove any feature of this monument and
not to locate or settle upon any of the lands thereof.
In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this seventeenth day
of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand one, and of the
Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and twenty-
fifth.
William J. Clinton
[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 8:45 a.m., January 19,
2001]
Note: This proclamation was published in the Federal Register on
January 22.