John Costello

John Martin Costello was born in Los Angeles on January 16, 1903. The son of Irish immigrants, Costello attended public schools in Los Angeles. In 1924, Costello graduated from Loyola College (the predecessor to Loyola Marymount University) with a degree in law. After working for a year as a teacher, Costello began pursuing a career in law. ^[1]

In 1932, Costello ran as a Democratic candidate to represent California's 15th Congressional District, which encompassed Hollywood and West Los Angeles. While he lost the election to Los Angeles Sheriff and Republican candidate William Traeger, Costello successfully ran again in 1934 and unseated Traeger.

In Congress, Costello positioned himself as a conservative Democrat opposed to unions. Of course, as a representative of Hollywood, Costello spoke on behalf of his constituents in the film industry, often speaking on behalf of industry representatives in Congress. ^[2]

In the prewar years, Costello became an outspoken proponent for national defense as a member of the House Military Affairs Committee. In 1940, newspapers reported that Costello went to great lengths to ensure that California was equipped with air bases and defense installations. Costello also received an appointment to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) to inspect subversive activities of political groups like the German American Bund. ^[3]

In the weeks following Pearl Harbor, Representative Costello used his position in the House Military Affairs Committee and the House Un-American Activities Committee to amplify anti-Japanese sentiment within Congress. On February 18, 1942, during deliberations over appropriations for the Department of Justice to fund investigations into Japanese American activity, Costello lambasted the Department of Justice as having "'tended to block and interfere' with efforts to deal with the problem of American citizens of Japanese ancestry." While Congress approved the $300,000 in funding, it contributed to Roosevelt's decision to grant the War Department with powers under Executive Order 9066 to unjustly remove Japanese Americans from the West Coast. ^[4]

The next day, on February 19th, 1942, newspapers quoted a statement Costello made on the House floor declaring that "a most serious situation is liable to develop unless American citizens of Japanese are removed or otherwise dealt with. If there is any fifth column threat it's going to come from this group." ^[5]

In April 1943, amid circulating rumors that Japanese American service members would be allowed to return to the West Coast and General John Dewitt would be removed from the Western Defense Command , the Dies Committee orchestrated a series of hearings in Southern California. John Costello was selected as the head of the committee hearings. While attesting to rumors circulating that the general's removal from command was possible, he claimed it was unwise "with the feeling against the Japs as high as it is that the Army can afford to relax its rules against them on the Coast." ^[6]

On June 8, 1943, Costello and members of the Dies Committee traveled to Southern California to conduct a series of hearings on the operation of the War Relocation Authority camps. The hearings, held from June 8 to July 7, 1943, specifically targeted the War Relocation Authority's leave clearance program, which it claimed released 1,000 Japanese Americans per week who were not properly vetted as "loyal." In a statement for the Los Angeles Times , Costello argued "our inquiry will be confined to un-American activities and to what extent subversive forces have been at work among the Japanese." ^[7]

Carey McWilliams , in his study Prejudice, described the hearings as less of an investigative study than a kangaroo court for slamming the WRA. Over the course of the hearings, Costello argued that East Coast politicians failed to understand what he claimed was "Japanese psychology." As typical of many West Coast anti-Japanese politicians, Costello blamed East Coast politicians for not understanding their so-called "Japanese issue." In the case of the War Relocation Authority, Costello stated that he believed WRA officials spent more investigating employers than Japanese American resettlers. ^[8]

Frequently, Costello and members of HUAC claimed that a criminal organization, the Black Dragon Society, operated within the camps as a pro-Japan organization. In October 1944, following the announcement of Black Dragon Society founder Mitsuru Toyama's death, Costello told the San Francisco Examiner that the WRA needed to arrest anyone found mourning Toyama. Costello asserted that Japanese Americans would mourn Toyama's death and instructed the WRA to arrest those involved in any celebration of Toyama's life: "The time will come when we must make disposition of the virulently disloyal Japanese in this country, and here is a method of identification that can hardly fail." ^[9]

During the 1944 election, Costello cited his role in HUAC for investigating Japanese Americans as one of his accomplishments in his campaign advertisements. He lost the Democratic nomination to Hal Styles, a former journalist, radio announcer, and progressive. The election became controversial when Styles's opponents accused him of being a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Styles admitted he had joined the Klan as part of his work for the New York Evening Graphic to document the Klan's activities in New York City. Nonetheless, the controversy ruined Styles's campaign and he lost to Gordon McDonough, a Republican.

After losing his seat in Congress in the 1944 election, Costello remained in Washington, D.C., where he served as general counsel and manager of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce's Washington office from 1945 to 1947. He subsequently opened a private practice in Washington, where he worked as a lobbyist on Capitol Hill.

John M. Costello died on August 28, 1976, while vacationing in Las Vegas, Nevada, at age 73. His cause of death was listed as heart failure. Interestingly, Costello was a lifelong bachelor. His obituary was published in The Los Angeles Times. ^[10]

McWilliams, Carey. Prejudice: Japanese-Americans: Symbols of Racial Intolerance. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1944.