Oh, euphemisms. Our favorite way to make something unpleasant—"he died"—sound like a real-estate investment ("he bought the farm"), a clumsy mistake ("he kicked the bucket"), or a frog impersonation ("he croaked").

And you can be sure that if euphemisms are handy for making death sound funny and cute, they're super effective for making the mass deportation and imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of people sound hilarious.

Or, at least, subtle.

You may have noticed that while FDR is quite specific about to whom he's giving power, he's remarkably vague about what will happen to the citizens inevitably affected by his order. Sure, we know Japanese Americans are going to bear the brunt of his injunction, but that specific detail is left to the secretary of war to articulate.

In E.O. 9066, targeted populations are simply referred to as "any or all persons" (6) or "residents" (7). And even though the order instructs the secretary of war and other extensions of the government to support the soon-to-be-displaced families, the list of provisions simply breaks down into, well, things.

Things "people" might want:

[...] transportation, food, shelter, and other accommodations as may be necessary [...]. (7)

or:

[...] medical aid, hospitalization, food, clothing, transportation, use of land, shelter, and other supplies, equipment, utilities, facilities, and services. (10)

Um, yeah, can we get an order of food and shelter with a side of facilities? Just whatever you have...

FDR's open-ended choice of words are for the benefit of those specific government officials whom he's authorizing to take action, not the people who will be affected by his order. By using broad terminology, he affords these men (in particular the secretary of war) the widest latitude of power to control the largest number of people.

You might be wondering how this is possible, and that's a great question with a complex answer. For more on how the federal bureaucracy works, you might go see a man about a dog...and by that we mean, check out our handy-dandy guide.