Atlanta Daily World

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1941
Big Squeeze On Small
Business Hurting Negro
By ALVIN WHITE
WASHINGTON, D. C.--European conditions have created
in this country a veritable monster comparable to Franken-
stein's creation, bidding fair to destroy every vestige of
small business enterprise and thereby throwing out of work
thousands of Negroes who have depended upon these little
factories for their livelihood.

Already letters of protest
are coming into
governmental
agencies,
written by victims of this jugger-
naught called national defense.

Throughout the middle west, the
New England states, New York and
New Jersey countless small
fac-
tories dot the busy manufacturing
center of the industrial areas.

WORTH SALARIES
Their products
aren't
worth
much in terms of national defense
but they are worth salaries to the
employees who turn out countless
little gadgets and doodads which
fill the five and ten cent counters,
the hardware store, the toy shops
and the entertainment world

To their owners, these fac-
tories have meant security and
to the hundreds of employees
busily turning out the products
which delight men, women and
children as well as serving
some utilitarian purpose, they
have meant keeping the wolf
away from the door.

But now with the priorities buga-
boo staring these little factories in
the face and metal shortages pre-
dicted and hoarding being the
order of the day, Negroes are find-
ing the doors of employment being
closed even more tightly.

Not only are the
manufacturers
of luxuries and unnecessities feel-
ing the crimp, but necessities like
zippers, which have supplanted all
other fasteners in the
modern
world are being cut down.

Employment for these workers in
defense is slowing down, now that
the saturation point has almost
been reached in these
industries
and it never did sweep many Ne-
groes into jobs.

DEFINITE NEED FOR
AGENCIES
So with the talk in congress of
reducing the appropriations
for
work relief gaining impetus, and
elections coming along in 1942, re-

lief organizations sponsored by the
government are, in a quandary as
to their next steps.

It is more than ever evident that
there is a definite need for WPA,
CCC, NYA despite all of the war
time boom in manufacturing.

Scrapping these organizations
will throw even more Negroes
out of their own resources or to
starve, for the proportion
of
Negroes on these projects
so
far outweighs their population
proportion, and their length of
time on the projects is the full
time allotted, indicating
be-
yond any doubt that the need
among Negroes is just as great
as ever, despite claims that
Negroes are being
employed
elsewhere in large numbers.

The great wave of prosperity
has not as yet reached the Negro
although efforts are being made
to see that they get a fair share
in the general issuance of work.

NO CUTS SHOULD BE
MADE
But with all of this, no
cuts
should be made in these appropria-
tions, for it would represent
a
false economy whereby deserving
and needy persons would
suffer
even more greatly than they now
are doing.

It is imperative, it is felt in
certain quarters, that the WPA
among all other agencies should
be given a full appropriation
to cope with a situation fast
growing acute.

Big manufacturers, talking
in
billions,
smug
in
their
com-
placency, have no concept of the
plight of the small business
man
who has for years; even in
the
depression, been the backbone of
the country. It is high time
for
the government to realize
this,
say persons closely connected
with
public affairs, and pay stricter at-
tention to the needs of the great
majority unable to obtain work
in the highly skilled defense in-
dustries.