Screening People In

It would take a big library to accommodate all the analyses of urban unrest. But the greatest single cause can be summed up in a single word: unemployment. Last week three broad new approaches to the plight of the jobless slum dweller were under way:

>New York's Jacob Javits, with the support of 21 other Republican Senators, introduced companion bills into the Senate to set up a federally sponsored "Domestic Development Bank" and an "Economic Opportunity Corporation" to encourage private investment in the slums. DDB, modeled after the World Bank, would offer low interest loans and finance businesses owned by slum dwellers themselves. Capital would be raised on the regular bond market and be guaranteed by the Government to the limit of $2 billion. EOC would assist the slums even more directly, establishing profit-making subsidiaries that would sell stocks and bonds to the public. Washington would put up $10 million in seed money, plus another $10 million to match private contributions. Both proposals have enthusiastic business support and stand a good chance of passage in the second session of the 90th Congress.

>The once laggard Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, activated by an aggressive new director, opened a drive against discrimination in white-collar jobs, with hearings to start early next year in New York, where Negroes make up 18.8% of the city's population and Puerto Ricans, 9.2%. Employment data from 4,249 New York businesses, according to a commission report, show that 1,827 did not have even one Negro white-collar worker and 1,936 did not have a single employee with a Spanish surname. On the other hand, one Manhattan insurance firm managed to hire enough qualified Negroes for 22% of its white-collar force. "It becomes academic to ask whether discrimination exists," said Commission Chairman Clifford Alexander Jr. "Instead, it becomes imperative to pin down where and why it exists and find ways to eliminate it."

>In Detroit, stung by one of the costliest riots in the nation's history, industry was making major efforts both to find jobs for Negroes and to improve the ability of Negroes to find jobs for themselves. The Ford Motor Co. was actively recruiting in the ghettos to fill its 6,500 job openings. The Chrysler Corp. dropped some of its barriers against men with police records--which would include many in the slums--while the Michigan Bell Telephone Co. offered its services as a job broker. Michigan Bell, in addition, has "adopted" a high school near the riot area and changed its own job requirements so that more Negroes can qualify for employment. "For more than 75 years," said Edward Hodges III, a company employment supervisor, "business tried to screen people out. Now we are trying to find reasons to screen people in."

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