of the state Republican Party until April 1938, Warren won the Republican, Progressive, and, crucially, Democratic primaries for attorney general. He faced no serious opposition in the 1938 elections, even while incumbent Republican Governor Frank Merriam was defeated by Democratic nominee Culbert Olson. Once elected, he organized state law enforcement officials into regions and led a statewide anti-crime effort. One of his major initiatives was to crack down on gambling ships operating off the coast of Southern California. Warren continued many of the policies from his predecessor Ulysses S. Webb's four decades in office. These included eugenic forced sterilizations and the confiscation of land from Japanese owners. Warren, who was a member of the outspoken anti-Asian society Native Sons of the Golden West, successfully sought legislation expanding the land confiscations. During his time as Attorney General, Warren appointed as one of his deputy attorneys general Roger J. Traynor, who was then a law professor at UC Berkeley and later became the 23rd chief justice of California, as well as one of the most influential judges of his time. Internment of Japanese Americans After World War II broke out in Europe in 1939, foreign policy became an increasingly important issue in the United States; Warren rejected the isolationist tendencies of many Republicans and supported Roosevelt's rearmament campaign. The United States entered World War II after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Following the attack, Warren organized the state's civilian defense program, warning in January 1942 that "the Japanese situation as it exists in this state today may well be the Achilles' heel of the entire civilian defense effort." He became a driving force behind the internment of over one hundred thousand Japanese Americans without any charges or due process. Though the decision to intern Japanese Americans was made by General John L. DeWitt, and the internment was carried out by federal officials, Warren's advocacy played a major role in providing public justification for the internment. In particular, Warren had claimed that Japanese Americans had willfully infiltrated "every strategic spot" in California coastal and valley counties, had warned of potentially greater danger from American born ethnic Japanese than from first-generation immigrants, and asserted that although there were means to test the loyalty of a "Caucasian" that the same could not be said for ethnic Japanese. Warren further argued that the complete lack of disloyal acts among Japanese Americans in