visited Mr. Alexander to work with him during this transitional period.

Just prior to the loan disbursement, Mr. Alexander was shot during a robbery of the store. This resulted in his being hospitalized at the critical time when he was to have assumed full ownership of this business. While still under doctor's care, and possibly needing another operation, Mr. Alexander has progressed toward making this a successful business venture.

As the Congressman said, I think we are all very proud of the fact that Mr. Alexander is indeed a fine American, who is making a success of his efforts to become an entrepreneur.

This particular crime problem that we are all familiar with has played a particular part in the success of his operation up until now. So far as the Small Business Administration is concerned, Mr. Chairman and members of your committee, we are very proud that Mr. Alexander is here to serve as a witness.

In introducing Mr. Alexander I would like to draw your attention to the fact that what is particularly vexing for us as an organization is the fact that in the event that insurance is not available during the course of the history of any particular business and it fails as a result of crime, burglary, or any aspect of crime, we, of course, under a program of this nature, buy our guarantee from the bank and then we become the liquidators-not the liquidators, but owners to an extent, of this business. Again, the fact that insurance is absent from a business such as Mr. Alexander's plays a particular role in whatever success our agency may have.

So we are very proud that Mr. Alexander is here today. We now introduce him formally to this committee for the purpose of your investigation.

Mr. KLUCZYNSKI. The Chair recognizes Mr. Horton.

Mr. HORTON. Mr. Chairman, thank you for permitting me to ask Mr. Alexander a question.

First, I would like to make a statement that I did speak with Mr. Alexander after the recess. I did commend him this morning when he made his statement and I was very impressed with the courage that it took for him to stand here before this committee and offer testimony about the problems he has had in connection with his business. He did mention something about extortion and purposely I did not ask him any questions, because I did not want to put him in the difficult position of answering without talking to him. I did, just after the recess, talk with him personally, and told him of my reluc tance to ask him questions about extortion because I did not want to put him in any physical danger. And he said to me again, very courageously, "Congressman, I wanted to tell the story and I would like to tell the story to the committee."

I know that he can tell us quite frankly just what the problem is that he faces, and I hope as a result of this story, which will be put in the minutes of this record and will be made available to people in the House of Representatives and throughout the country, that your frank expression of the problems that you have will be typical of our small businessmen and hopefully it might be able to help you and other small businessmen to combat this scourge which many people wouldn't even take the courage to tell about, let alone cooperate with the police and other public authorities.

So, Mr. Alexander, I think it would be appropriate, if you will, to just go ahead and tell us your story.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Thank you, Congressman Horton, members of the committee. The story that I have to tell is a story that is prevalent on the South Side. I say South Side because this I am aware of. I am not dealing with hearsay or any unfounded rumors or allegations; these are the things I know, the things that I relate to this body are factual. There is extortion, attempted extortion, on the South Side of the businesses, black and white ownership. This form of extortion takes various forms. One form is outright threats and intimidations of the owners of the business for their property and for their physical wellbeing as well.

Another one is a solicitation for so-called youth groups and the founding of these youth groups and the continuation of nonexisting youth groups. The means that this is done in regard to the solicitation for supposed youth groups is for one or two members that are supposed to be on the committee or the ruling body to come to you and ask you to make a $100 or $50 contribution that will be used to found a youth camp or to be used to entertain youths.

And if you follow the normal procedure you try and ascertain through the Better Business Bureau or the police department whether or not such a group exists; you generally come to be aware that no such group exists; this is strictly extortion, out and out extortion.

If you refuse to go along with this threat of physical violence, the breakage of your windows, intimidation of your customers, normally you find that a coward is a coward no matter where he is. And if you stand up to him and tell him to go jump in the lake, normally they are going to leave you alone if there is only one or two.

If they are in a group of three or four, then this group image seems to make them brave. But there has been incidents in my area, say from 81st Street running back to 78th Street, whereby businesses have been solicited.

Now, we, to combat this, we formed an organization that is known as the Chatham Businessmen's Association. For some unfound reason, maybe because I am a salesman, they made me chairman.

Now, we have been working in close association with the various law enforcement agencies in the Chicago area. I must say that in all due respect to the police department, they have given us full cooperation.

Only last week, two guys who were attempting to extort $100 from one of our members, these two were apprehended. And we feel that the only way that we as businessmen can overcome this and keep our business area from reverting to some of the blighted areas that you may have had an opportunity to see in Chicago-and in this I refer to the 63th Street area, from Stony Island back to Cottage Grove Avenue, and the 43rd Street area, which is blighted-and we don't want this to happen in our area.

If we have to fight fire with fire, this is the only way to protect what we have, this I think is the only way that we can do it. Now, we have another problem which is very, very paramount, and that is what will happen if through our resistance-many of these businesses I believe were started with the backings of the SBA-our inability to get insurance to protect our businesses, to give us a chance to restore, start

again in the event something should happen, if we become delinquent to such an extent in our payments that the SBA will have to step in, we cannot write off any of the losses that were caused by our resistance to this gang intimidation. And, gentlemen of the committee, believe me, I don't know what you have heard about gangsters in the black area, but it is very prevalent.

There is an absolute fear in a lot of sections of people being out on the streets after dark. There are cases where homeowners are even asked to contribute a dollar, $2 a week to protect their glass, the glasses in their homes. This is factual.

You know, when a punk can go up to a homeowner and tell him that unless you give me a couple of dollars a week, otherwise you are going to get your windows broken, you know I think this has come to a pretty desperate pass.

Now, if you were to ask me what is the solution, it will take a far better man than I to tell you what the solution may be, but I as a businessman, and taking this incident with the gracious consent of the committee to represent the businessmen in my area, I ask the committee for two things, if this is possible, and I think with the power and prestige that is vested in the committee that something may be

done about it.

I ask that some effort will be made for all small businessmen to have the backing of the Government, if necessary, in obtaining insurance. This is one of our prime concerns. The rest of it we can handle.

I think once the community realizes that the monster that they nourished for such a long time is really beginning to start feeding back on them, then we are going to wake up and really take action, because I blame, personally, the community as a whole for letting this thing get as far as it has gotten.

If you had stepped in earlier, I say not "you," if they would have stepped in earlier and crushed it at its inception, it never would have gotten to the place where it is now.

Now, if there are any other questions, I would be most happy to answer them.

Mr. KLUCZYNSKI. Mr. Alexander, do you recommend that small businessmen band together to fight the extortion racket?

Mr. ALEXANDER. I most heartily do, sir.

Mr. KLUCZYNSKI. What age are these kids that you talked about who are looking for a dollar or two from the homeowners so they won't break the windows?

Mr. ALEXANDER. Congressman Kluczynski, the funny part of it is most of these little guys are around the ages of 8 and 10 years old. Mr. KLUCZYNSKI. How old?

Mr. ALEXANDER. Eight and 10 years old. Now, I attribute this that they are trying to emulate their elders. They are from the age of 8 to 10 years old, and I think that they realize, even at this age, that there is very little that the law can do to them. They are under age; they are juveniles. It is just like the two that shot me. They were juveniles, 15 and 16 years old.

They shot me in the face; the bullet lies in my spine and only by the grace of God I am here. This is the reason why I have to walk around in my store with a pistol in my pocket and fear every time the door opens and a youth comes in.

Now, my business is to sell anyone that walks through my door. But you always are apprehensive.

Mr. KLUCZYNSKI. Do you keep your door open, or do you operate with a locked door?

Mr. ALEXANDER. No, my door is open. It is pretty hard to conduct a retail business through a locked door.

Mr. KLUCZYNSKI. May I ask where your store is located?

Mr. ALEXANDER. My store is located at 8233 South Cottage Grove Avenue.

Mr. KLUCZYNSKI. I think I read about your experiences. Mr. Horton, any questions?

Mr. HORTON. Mr. Chairman, again I just wanted to say to Mr. Alexander I am sure that the committee wants to express to you the deep appreciation for your courage in telling us about the problems and hope that as a result of your story other people will come forward and tell the same type of story.

You said that you didn't know what the answer to the problem is, but I think one of the first steps to find the answer is just what you are doing; namely, to bring out into the open what is happening.

Most of the people unfortunately are intimidated and do pay the dollar or two. Businessmen pay the money, and as a result of it creates the atmosphere for more of this type of extortion. I think one of the first steps is to do what you are doing, to bring it out into the open and tell the public what goes on.

I hope that the sense of shock in the community will be such that the community will react and put this kind of extortion and this kind of intimidation down.

I am reminded, I was in Korea a couple of years ago and also in Vietnam, and I was impressed that the Koreans feel very strongly about their nation. There was an attempt to land guerrillas in the southern part of Korea. They had some nine attempts with six or seven people in each one of these teams. There wasn't a team that was successful in landing from the North Korean area, and the guerrillas stopped them because every one of them were reported and captured and killed. So there was no guerrilla activity in South Korea. The people banded together and made certain it didn't happen.

That is the first step to eliminate this type of gangsterism that you are talking about.

Now, I would like to ask you; I don't want you to name any names or anything like that, but I think it would be helpful if you gave us a little bit of information about some of the things that you actually have had. What do they do? Do they say we are going to steal from you, we are going to tear down your place, we are going to tear it up, or what?

Mr. ALEXANDER. Thanks for asking, Congressman Horton. Only last month I had something happen to me supposedly because of my stance as the representative of the Chatham Businessmen's Organization.

I just had bought a new car. I had only had the car for about a week. I am unable to secure a garage to park it in because where I live at it is apartment buildings. My car was parked in front of my home one night after I left the store. I drove home, parked my car in front of the house, and went into the house. I had no occasion to

come back out that night. The next morning one of my neighbors knocked on my door and said, "Alec, look what happened to your car."

I went out. My car was completely covered, the left side away from the house, and all of the hood was covered with black paint. I started to get into my car. I went back upstairs and got dressed, started to get into my car to drive in a garage to see if the paint could be removed, when he said, "Look, don't start your car. Look in the back."

I looked in the back. Underneath the gas tank was a white substance. We opened the gas tank up and the tank was completely filled with sugar. I called a friend of mine. He came and towed it into his service station where we pulled the gas tank off, drained it, and it was boiled out.

I went to the store and I got a telephone call as soon as I got into the store stating, "You s.o.b., you see what can happen to you."

A little bit later on, during the week, I got another call telling me, "If you don't cut out that activity with that businessmen's association, we are going to take care of you."

Now, these were reported to the police. As I aforestated, before the committee, this business of mine that I was given a chance to go into is both my wife, my mother, my brother, my sister, and my uncle. This is all I have. I have nothing else. It is just me, I have no family. And I as one individual absolutely refuse to be intimidated by anyone. Now, there has been reports that have been brought to me of various things that were going to happen to me. A lot of it I think is just rumors. I am not worried about it, because I give less than a darn about them. If it is factual, it is going to happen; if it is not, I am going to try to make sure that it doesn't if I have a chance to prevent it.

There have been cases where payoffs have been made, I have been informed by the police department, by some of my friends who are on the force, and this I would say under oath, there have been payoffs made that I know of. There have been payoffs as much as $2,000, and payoffs as little as $50. But what I related to you now, as I say, it is not fiction. This is hard, cold, horrible facts.

Mr. HORTON. It is not right, Mr. Alexander, that any person living in a great land like we in America, that guarantees the freedom of equal opportunity, have to exist under those type of conditions. I hope that as a result of what you say here today that this committee can be helpful to you and other people who are similarly situated, not only in Chicago but throughout the United States. Because I am sure it is happening in other places.

I personally want to thank you for your courage and willingness to testify to us.

Mr. KLUCZYNSKI. Mr. Hungate, any questions or comments?

Mr. HUNGATE. Mr. Alexander, I would like to thank you for your courage, as Mr. Horton has, and to your service to your country in taking a stand. This is your country, and we are not going to let this sort of people take it away from us.

And it wouldn't take very many men with courage that you have to get this stopped. I want to let you know that the committee will work with you in any way we can to help you.

Mr. KLUCZYNSKI. Are there any other comments?

Mr. Button?

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