Remarks to the President's Conference on Technical and Distribution Research for the Benefit of Small Business.

Dr. Walker, and members of this distinguished gathering:

It is truly a real privilege to be able to come here to greet you, to welcome you to your Nation's Capital, and to wish for you while you are here not only a profitable time, in the sense of some solutions to the problems that you are tackling, but a most enjoyable time personally.

You are here because you are of small business and there are certain problems of small business you wish to consider. I must tell you a little story about small business, in order that we can keep in our heads some kind of definition as to what it is.

Secretary Mitchell recently was riding in a taxicab in New York City and passed a vacant lot where a building had been removed. And the taxicab driver, being a very accommodating and garrulous sort of fellow, and conducting the usual Cook's tour, said, "There used to be an F. W. Woolworth store here. It has gone." Well, they rode on a few more blocks, and they went by a vacant room on the first floor of a store. And it said on the window "F. W. Woolworth." And the Secretary said, "It looks as if F. W. Woolworth had moved out of here too." And this man said, "What this Administration is doing to small business shouldn't happen to anybody."

So I think it is reasonable that we try to keep defined in our own minds what this thing, small business, is. Frankly, it is the heart of the American economy, and it is because it is the heart of the American economy--consequently of such extraordinary and pressing interest not only to you people and all engaged in it but to your government, to our entire population--that this conference has finally come about. A conference or a committee of citizens was interested in the problem--became interested through the efforts of a Cabinet committee headed by your chairman Dr. Walker, operating strictly on a small business level, really on a shoe-string. It has finally resulted in this great conference. And you have come here to study problems of research, how small business can be placed on an equality with the largest in the country, and to have the results of good, adequate research both in technical matters and in distribution or in sales processes.

There are many things that have engaged the attention of the Cabinet committee and your government affecting small business that are not on your agenda, as I understand--the problem of taxes, of government procurement, others of this character, that do have importance and will not be forgotten but are not part of your agenda.

Incidentally, about this matter of procurement, you might be interested in the fact as it was told to me by Secretary Wilson not long ago, that in the Defense Department, on contracts, where both small and big business could compete for the contracts, small business has under-bid in two cases out of three--something that speaks very well, I think, both for their efficiency and their energy in going out and looking for jobs and work.

The United States has in the world--and has had for some years--a reputation for a dynamic economy, one that pushes ahead, achieves the latest in all technical advances, and makes certain that the profits--the returns--from the productivity of that great economy are widely shared, certainly more widely shared than any other great country in the world.

If we are going to continue that kind of record--and continue it we must--then the brains of you people who are in this business must be added to the concern, the welfare, the possibilities, that lie within government and that can properly be used without establishing a new bureaucracy--which will take some more of your taxes. Those things we ought to uncover--discover--and apply.

So, as you go into these great problems of research, I am very proud of the fact that you have gathered here voluntarily, at your own expense--there is no great government subsidy or appropriation that is putting you up. You are here seriously, on a business important to you, and just exactly that important to all America and to the government whose job it is to administer its political and legal affairs at the moment.

To each of you, I hope for you--as I said at the beginning-a profitable time, and that you go home with this satisfaction: that something has been accomplished, that you see your way out through a cooperative system or through the help of government to achieve all your research and make it available to you just as much as the richest company in the United States. And while you are doing it, to feel that here you are with your governmental friends and people that are interested in everything that you do, and that you just have a good time.

To each of you again, therefore, greetings--welcome--and thank you for allowing me to come before you for a minute.