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Show DEMOCRACY IN ACTION What makes an American? Forty-two Nebraska newspaper publishers last June decided it wasn't the slant of a man's eyes or the color of his skin when they deserted their own businesses busin-esses to help young Nisei Ben Kuroki print a 40-page debut edition of his newly purchased York Republican. Republi-can. When Ben was born in Nebraska to his potato-farming potato-farming family, nobody noticed him at all. He grew up un-heralded, unscorned and practically unnoticed. On Pearl Harbor he and his brother volunteered to the Army. They were accepted and Ben went to the Air Force. Only then did he find discrimination' . . . "lookit that Jap" . . . "What's he doing in uniform?" But by the time Ben had been decorated for bravery, people began to make up their minds that this was an American. In a bomber named "The Honorable Sad Saki" Ben had a chance for many a lick at his "dishonorable ancestors." ' After demobilization Ben made up his mind to enter the newspaper field and he studied journalism in Nebraska. Then he bought the York Republican from veteran Nebraska publisher Joseph Alden. Al-den Al-den is a ninth generation descendant of Pilgrims John and Priscilla. His debut edition called "Operation Democracy" is in the way of being a welcome for young Kuroki to the Nebraska newspaper fraternity. In forty news and feature and ad and picture-packed pages appear the writing and the bylines of Nebraska's well-known community publishers, as well as the usual staff. Kuroki says in his column "named in honor of his old bomber, "The Honorable Sad Saki," that he wanted want-ed to call his column "Chopsticks and Rice" but his Idaho-born wife, Shinge Tanabe, wouldn't let him. |