Go For Broke - In Brief

This editorial piece was written by William Hodding Carter II shortly after V-J Day in 1946. It tells of the hardworking and courageous nature of the Japanese-Americans, or Nisei, in Company D of the 168th regiment stationed in Leghorn, Italy. The title of the editorial comes from the motto of this regiment, seen in the picture above, which was printed on their banner.

The editorial presents an outward challenge to white Americans to treat these Japanese-American soldiers with the same respect and equality as the white soldiers. Carter was a proponent of racial tolerance for Blacks as well.

"Go For Broke" won the 1946 Pulitzer Prize and is one of the most frequently quoted Pulitzer Prize editorials in the award's history. It is one among a series that Carter wrote for the Delta Democrat-Times of Greenville, Miss. that focused on building respect between races.

I had been protesting editorially against racial and religious injustices for a long time before our editorials won a Pulitzer Prize. But the Pulitzer Prize induced more people at home to concede that there might be some merit in what we were saying. --Hodding Carter, in his Pulitzer Prize acceptance speech

Straight Up: The Actual Text of "Go For Broke" by Hodding Carter II

-From the Delta Democrat-Times of Greenville, Miss. Published Aug. 27, 1945

Company D of the 168th Regiment which is stationed in Leghorn, Italy, is composed altogether of white troops, some from the East, some from the South, some from the Midwest and West Coast.

Company D made an unusual promise earlier this month. The promise was in the form of a communication to their fellow Americans of the 442d Infantry Regiment and the 100th Infantry, whose motto is "Go For Broke," and it was subscribed to unanimously by the officers and men of Company D.

In brief, the communication pledged the help of Company D in convincing "the folks back home that you are fully deserving of all the privileges with which we ourselves are bestowed."

The soldiers to whom that promise was made are Japanese-Americans. In all of the United States Army, no troops have chalked up a better combat record. Their record is so good that these Nisei were selected by General Francis H. Oxx, commander of the military area in which they are stationed, to lead the final victory parade. So they marched, 3,000 strong, at the head of thousands of other Americans, their battle flag with three Presidential unit citationed streamers floating above them, their commander, a Wisconsin white colonel, leading them.

Some of those Nisei must have been thinking of the soul-shaking days of last October, when they spearheaded the attacks that opened the Vosges Mountain doorway to Strasbourg. Some of them were probably remembering how they, on another bloody day, had snatched the Thirty-Six Division's lost battalion of Texans from the encircling Germans. And many of them were bearing scars from those two engagements which alone had cost the Nisei boys from Hawaii and the West Coast 2,300 causalities.

Perhaps these yellow-skinned Americans, to whose Japanese kinsmen we have administered a terrific and long overdue defeat, were holding their heads a little higher because of the pledge of their white fellow-soldiers and fellow-Americans of Company D. Perhaps, when they gazed at their combat flag, the motto "Go For Broke" emblazoned thereon took a different meaning. "Go for Broke" is the Hawaiian-Japanese slang expression for shooting the works in a dice game.

The loyal Nisei have shot the works. From the beginning of the war, they have been on trial, in and out of uniform, in army camps and relocation centers, as combat troops in Europe and as frontline interrogators, propagandists, and combat intelligence personnel in the Pacific where their capture meant prolonged and hideous torture. And even yet they have not satisfied their critics.

It is so easy for a dominant race to explain good or evil, patriotism or treachery, courage or cowardice in terms of skin color. So easy and so tragically wrong.

Too many have committed that wrong against the loyal Nisei, who by the thousands have proved themselves good Americans, even while others of us, by our actions against them, have shown ourselves to be bad Americans. Nor is the end of this misconception in site. Those Japanese-American soldiers who paraded at Leghorn in commemoration of the defeat of the nation from which their fathers came, will meet other enemies, other obstacles as forbidding as those of war. A lot of people will begin saying, as soon as these boys take off their uniforms, that "a Jap is a Jap," and that the Nisei deserve no consideration. A majority won't say or believe this, but an active minority can have its way against an apathetic majority.

It seems to us that the Nisei slogan of "Go For Broke" could be adopted by all Americans of good will in the days ahead.

We've got to shoot the works in a fight for tolerance.

Those boys of Company D point the way. Japan's surrender will be signed aboard the Missouri and General MacArthur's part will be a symbolic "Show Me."

History Behind the Words

Carter praises the efforts of Company D in the 168th Regiment in his article, but what exactly did they do, and why was it important?


After the attack on Pearl Harbor, there was a backlash against all Japanese living in US. In repsonse, a battalion of Nisei volunteers (second generation Japanese-Americans) was organized from units of the Hawaiian National Guard and designated the 100th Battalion (Seperate). This unit was sent to Camp Shelby, MS for training in 1942. There were many skeptics that did not think the Nisei would be remain loyal to America. All the officers were haole (Hawaiian for white).
President Roosevelt was impressed with their training and on 1 February 1943, he directed the formation of a regiment that was designated the 442nd Infantry Regiment. With the addition of the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion and the 232nd Engineer Battalion, along with the orignal 100th Battalion, the 442nd Combat Team was established at Camp Shelby.
The 442nd Combat Team went in combat in Italy. Just the 100th Battalion entered combat with the 34th Infantry Division on 27 September, 1943. Soon after the fall of Rome on 4 June, 1944, all the units of the 442nd Combat Team were together. They continued to fight in Italy and then in Southern France. The 442nd Combat Team, less the 522 Field Artillery Battalion, returned to Italy in April 1945, where they were attached to the 92nd Division.
The Nisei proved their loyalty and their bravery. The 442nd Combat Team was one of the most highly decorated units in WW2. However, no members had earned the Congressional Medal of Honor by the end of the war. Some suggested it was still due to prejudice. After a review of their records in June 2000, President Clinton awarded an additional 20 Medals of Honor to members of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

-Excerpt taken from a brochure published during World War II on the 442d Combat Team.



The history of this combat team was honored and re-created in the 1951 film titled after their motto, "Go For Broke!"
Here, in the opening 10-minute segment, you can get a glimpse into the creation of this combat team and their impact.



A monument was also erected in honor of the Japanese-American contributions in World War II. It is located in Little Tokyo in Los Angelos, Calif.
It is inscribed with the following message:

An American Story

Rising to the defense of their country, by the thousands they came – these young Japanese American soldiers from Hawaii, the States, America’s concentration camps – to fight in Europe and the Pacific during World War II. Looked upon with suspicion, set apart and deprived of their constitutional rights, they nevertheless remained steadfast and served with indomitable spirit and uncommon valor, for theirs was a fight to prove loyalty. This legacy will serve as a sobering reminder that never again shall any group be denied liberty and the rights of citizenship.

-- Ben Tamashiro, 100th Infantry Battalion

A Web site is dedicated to the "Go For Broke" motto and message, celebrating and honoring the Japenese-American contribution to the war.

The Power of Words: Impact and Influence

William Hodding Carter II lived in the deep south of Mississippi, in a town that was mostly white, and largely ignorant of racial equality. His series in the Delta Democrat-Times, a newspaper he founded, was a breath of racial, religious and economic tolerance for his community. His commitment to this fight won him the nickname "Spokesman of the New South."

Following World War II there was increased racial intolerance as White Americans largely ignored the contribution of Black and Japanese Americans from the war. In addition, jobs taken over by Blacks while white soldiers were in the war were expected to be returned to the whites following their arrival home from the war. This, coupled with the start of cookie-cutter suburban neighborhoods on the outskirts of urban centers, led to more radical racial segregation, including the advent of the "separate but equal" stipulation. This was not changed until the 1954 court case of Brown vs. the Board of Education.



While Carter did call attention to this racial segregation and the unequal treatment of Black and Japanese Americans, his upbringing in the South did result in some contradictory beliefs. Carter opposed anti-lynching laws, and thought the desegregation of schools in Mississippi was unwise. Some critics wonder how he can be praised for his fight for justice in racial equality while still maintaining some distinctively racial opinions.

Claude Sitton postulates her own opinion on this matter in a review of Carter's work, stating : "Absent his efforts and those of other Southern editors of courage and like mind, change would have come far more slowly and at far greater cost."


Thanks to the small but mighty waves Carter created with his editorials, the path began to form for another leader in promoting equality less than 20 years later - Martin Luther King Jr.

William Hodding Carter II: Spokesman of the New South

William Hodding Carter II was born on Feb. 3, 1907 in Hammond, La. At 18, he left Louisiana to attend Bowdoin College in Maine, where he received his bachelor’s. He went on to study one year at Columbia University before accepting a teaching fellowship at Tulane University.

Upon completion of his fellowship, he took a job at the Item-Tribune in New Orleans and later as the Night Bureau manager for the United Press. In 1930 he moved to Jackson, Miss., where he worked as the Bureau Manager for the Associated Press.

He was fired from his position at AP for “insubordination,” and his supervisor advised him to choose a new career, for he “would never make a newspaper man, and (he) ought not waste any time getting into another business.” To prove him wrong, Carter and his wife Betty Werlein returned to Hammond and opened the Daily Courier.

Carter later admitted the main goal of the Daily Courier was to highlight the wrong doings of Congressman Huey Long. His efforts succeeded, for his district was the only one in Louisiana to never send an associate of Long's to Congress.

In 1935, Carter attended a literary conference in Baton Rouge, La. where he met David Cohn who convinced him to open a newspaper in Greenville, Miss.

By 1936, Carter was publishing the Delta Star in Greenville. Carter and his wife soon bought out the only other daily in Greenville, the Democrat Times, and merged the two papers to create the Delta Democrat-Times in 1938.

In 1939, Carter accepted a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University and by 1940, had become editor of Ralph Ingersoll’s publication PM. His stint at PM was short-lived and Carter returned to his newspapers.

Having joined the National Guard in 1938, Carter was sent overseas in 1940 as the Public Relations Officer for his regiment. He lost sight in one eye during a training exercise, but continued to write for Yank and Stars and Stripes out of Cairo, Egypt.

He received an Honorable Discharge from the U.S. Armed Services in 1945 and returned to Greenville.

He wrote a series of articles dealing with racial, economic and religious problems in Mississippi, and in May of 1946, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing. A few months later, Carter established another newspaper, the Delta Star.

Carter’s health was slowly deteriorating, and in June of 1966 he officially handed control of the Delta Democrat-Times to his son William Hodding Carter III in June of 1966.

Carter received the 10th Annual First Federation Award for his service to Mississippi and the Columbia University Journalism Award.

On April 4, 1972, Carter died of heart failure. His two surviving sons wrote editorials about him in the Delta-Democrat Times.

"If I have gained anything in life, it is a belief in the soul and the destiny of man." - William Hodding Carter II

Early Racist
Although Carter would receive wide acclaim for his editorials condemning racist practices, Carter was, for much of his life, a racist.
While at Bowdoin College, Carter went so far as to change dorms because a Black student, Lincoln Johnson, lived in the same building. He would leave the room when Johnson entered, and was an outspoken white supremacist who believed the South should have won the Civil War and the slaves should not have been freed.
Both Carter’s grandfathers had fought on the side of the Confederacy and were members of the Ku Klux Klan.

The Pulitzer Prize: The Journalist's Greatest Achievement

Hodding Carter II was awarded the Pulitzer Prize “for a group of editorials published during the year 1945 on the subject of racial, religious and economic intolerance, as exemplified by the editorial ‘Go for Broke,’” according to the official Web site for the Pulitzer Prizes.

History of the Pulitzer Prize
In Joseph Pulitzer’s 1904 will, he made provision for the establishment of the Pulitzer Prizes as an incentive for excellence in newspaper journalism, literature and musical composition.
An advisory board, known today as the Pulitzer Prize Board, was established to oversee any suspension, changes, or substitutions in the system of awards.
Since the inception of the prizes in 1917, the categories of poetry, music and photography have been added and the number of awards increased to 21.
In 20 of the 21 categories, each winner receives a certificate and a $10,000 cash reward.
The winner in the public service category of the journalism competition is awarded a gold medal. The Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing was one of the original categories awarded in 1917.
The formal announcement of the prizes is made each April by the president of Columbia University on the recommendation of the Pulitzer Prize Board.

So how do you win?
Works are tested for excellence on clearness of style, moral purpose, sound reasoning and the power to influence public opinion in what the writer believes to be the right direction.
This year's deadline for entries in Journalsim is Feb. 1.
Visit the Pulitzer Prizes Web site at http://www.pulitzer.org/how_to_enter for more information on eligibility requirements and submission guidelines.

- It's not what you say, it's how you say it -
The correct pronunciation of Pulitzer is “PULL it sir.”