The Northwest Times

Baldridge Testifies for Payment Of Evacuation Compromise Claims

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 1 (JACL ADC)—The Department of Justice informed the Washington office of the JACL Anti-Discrimination Committee that Holmes Baldridge, assistant attorney general in charge of the claims division, testified before a House Appropriations committee for the payment of compromise settlement evacuation claims.

The House subcommittee deals with appropriations for the State, Justice, and Commerce departments and the Federal judiciary. Chairman of the subcommittee is Rep. John L. Rooney (D., N.Y.). Other members are Prince H. Preston (Ga.), Daniel J. Flood (Pa.), Fred Marshall (Minn.), Democrats, and Cliff Clevenger (O.) and Fred G. Aandahl (N.D.), Republicans.

It was revealed that Baldridge pointed out that the Department of Justice had already exceeded by several times the $500,000 which Congress appropriated for the payment of evacuation claims awards for the 1952 fiscal year, which ends June 30, 1952, and that his division hoped to process up to about 15 millions in compromise settlements alone under the JACL ADC-endorsed amendment of last August.

He is presumed to have explained that several thousand claimants whose claims have been compromised and settled and for whom awards have been approved are now waiting payment of their awards by the government. And, at the present rate of processing by the department, he may have expressed the hope that all of the smaller claims subject to the compromise procedure will be processed and paid by the end of the calendar year, the greater majority of them by the end of the fiscal year in June.

To encourage evacuees to submit their compromise offers, the Department of Justice has set an administrative deadline of March 15 for the submission of all compromise claims.

Mike Masaoka, national JACL ADC legislative director, announced that his organization would either file a statement or testify endorsing the 15 million dollar request of the Department of Justice for supplemental funds to pay compromise settlement claims within the next ten days. He expressed optimism that the House Appropriations subcommittee would authorize sizable appropriations for this purpose in the immediate future.