Harry N. Scheiber and Jane L. Scheiber. Bayonets in Paradise: Martial Law in Hawaiʻi during World War II.

Abstract

Forty-six years after the Supreme Court overturned President Abraham Lincoln’s suspension of the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War, the U.S. Congress set the stage that once again pitted the security of the American people against their constitutional protections in a time of extreme national emergency. In Bayonets in Paradise: Martial Law in Hawaiʻi during World War II, an extremely compelling and important book, Harry N. Scheiber and Jane L. Scheiber illustrate how fragile that relationship can be, as viewed through the imposition of martial law in the Hawaiʻi Territory following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Despite growing anti-Japanese sentiment in the early twentieth century, as well as the restrictive immigration laws, the Japanese population in Hawaiʻi grew to become an intrinsic part of Hawaiian society and its economy. The increasing tensions between Japan and the U.S., however, complicated policies on how to deal with the different groups of Japanese, including American citizens, recent immigrants, and children born in the territory, should war break out. The solution came in the form of the Hawaiʻi Defense Act, passed just two months before Pearl Harbor, which gave the territorial governor the authority to declare and implement martial law in the islands. Scheiber and Scheiber, however, demonstrate that the act, while directed to deal with the possibility of espionage from members of the Japanese community, took twists and turns that in short order not only removed civilians from governing the territory but extended the restrictions on constitutional liberties beyond the act’s intended target.