Evening star., 1945-01-07


a machinist in a war plant and expects
to reopen his shade business after the
war.
Fittstown, Okla, is supplied with elec-
trio power by small local company.
Fish Company Saved.
In December, 194l, RFC made loan
of $4,000 to it to pay mortgage, install
new facilities and provide working
capital.
The loan put the company in good
shape and enabled it to provide addi-
tional badly needed facilities. The COM
pany Is succeeding.
In Nanticoke, Md, there is q small
fishing company that has been in busi-
ness since 1917.
1t found the going rough in 1912 and
obtained $1,000 loan from the RFC.
1t needed SITS more in May, 1913,
which it got.
The company has been able to stay
in business, thereby providing employ
ment and badly needed food products.
We are inclined to think of shipbuild-
ing in terms of such companies as those
operated by Henry Kaiser, Todd Ship
building Co., Newport News Ship, Beth
lehem, Cramps and New York Ship
building-all of which are tremendous
operations.
But we, in the RFC, have knowledge
of others.
Take, as an example, the small ship
building and repair yard in Seattle,
which needed to install additional facil-
tiles to participate in the war effort.
RFC, in August, 1941, took 10 per
cent participation in loan of $1500o0
made by local bank, the bank taking
the other 80 per cent and servicing the
loan.
Terms to Bandoleers.
This was cnly the beginning. Since
that time, RFC has co-operated with a
local bank, in loans aggregating $23,-
564,00 and the company has assisted
materially in the construction program
of the Navy Department.
The present outstanding balance is
only $775,O00.
A small fern packing firm in Florida
faced difficulties because it could no
longer obtain boxes to ship its products.
1t decided 1t could make bandoleers
If 1t could obtain the necessary financ-
ing.
The RFC provided it and a small
plant employing 40 to SO persons was
kept in operation.
These few typical loans are only ex-
amples Of thousands of others like them
which RFC has made.
The record of the past Is, however,
mainly useful as a signpost for the fu-
ture-a future which for the present
can be devoted only to an an-out war
effort, but which on day we cannot
now foreteil, will bring peace to the
world and provide opportunities for
thousands OF little businesses.
With the coming Of peace. there will
be many opportunities In the field of
small business and many men and
women anxious to challenge the oppor-
tunity. A great many men now in the
service viii want to go back to their
former jobs or businesses, but many will
want to try their own wings. They have
been risking their lives to preserve free
dom and our way of life and may want
business of their own, however small.
They must have that chance and it will
be small business. Estimates made by
experts in the Department Of Commerce
indicate that the war has created a de-
ficiency of 10000 small businesses in
the field of retail distribution alone
Stores Suffered Most.
The net change in the number of
firms in retailing is particularly impor-
tant since the number of businesses in
retailing account for nearly half of all
enterprises.
Wartime casualties particularly in
cluded grocery stores, eating and drink
ing places and filling stations, but many
small manufacturers were put out of
business in the early years of the war.
Some of these were later given orders
which enabled them to start up again.
Relative to the total number of various
types of retail stores in existence at the
end of 1941, household appliance and
radio stores, meat and seafood markets,
automobile dealers, filling stations and
shoe stores suffered most severely. In
each of these lines, there was a net de-