This Week in Texas Methodist History March 1

South Central Jurisdictional WSCS Meets in Dallas,  March 1943

The South Central Jurisdiction was approaching the 4^th anniversary of its creation in early 1943.  The various conferences from Nebraska to Texas were learning to live together in a new relationship.  The Woman’s Society of Christian Service (WSCS) and Wesleyan Service Guild (WSG) created jurisdictional organizational according to the geographic areas.  Texas was placed in the South Central Jurisdiction along with Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. 

Dallas had the honor of hosting the 1943 jurisdictional meeting of the WSCS.   Sessions were held in First Methodist.  Most of the speakers were the usual persons one would expect.  The host pastor, Angie Smith, and Marshall Steel of Highland Park MC provided welcoming addresses.   The most prominent newspaper columnist of the city was Lynn Landrum, but he was serving in the Army so Mrs. Landrum (Anna Belle) spoke to the assembled women.

Another one of the speakers was Dana Dawson pastor of Shreveport First Methodist from 1934 to 1948 when he was elected bishop and oversaw the Kansas-Nebraska Episcopal Area.

Dawson’s subject was a report from his visitation of Japanese relocation camps.  The Methodist Church created a committee to study the camps, and Dawson was a member of that committee. 

Dawson began his talk by acknowledging that at least two-thirds of the Japanese forced to live in the camps were American citizens.  He also acknowledged that Japanese aliens determined to pose a threat were in internment camps rather than the relocation camps.    

            He then criticized the comparison of Japanese relocation camps to Hitler’s concentration camps and came down squarely on the side of the decision to establish the relocation camps.   He said, “I think the government is to be congratulated for doing a necessary piece of work quickly, efficiently, and humanely.  . .It has been conducted as to be a good illustration of Christian ethics in government affairs.  I salute the Stars and Stripes and am proud to be an American citizen.”

The passage of time has changed the predominant view of the necessity of the relocation camps.  In 1988 the U. S. Congress voted reparations to the Japanese Americans who had been relocated.