On Their Own

So far, the expected G.I. invasion of the small-business field via Federal aid is only a small-scale infiltration. Around 2,000,000 men will return to civilian life in the coming year, and those honorably discharged are eligible to apply for loans. But last week the Veterans Administration said it had guaranteed only 738 G.I. Bill loans for businesses, only 270 for farms (but 11,220 for homes). Total amount underwritten: $19,644,824.99.

Among those who had struck out for themselves, things were going like this:

P:Dark-haired ex-boxer James Vincent Portell, 32, was in business as the Colony Beauty Shoppe, on Washington's Georgia Avenue N.W. His profit was running $100 weekly; he and his wife planned to pay off both a $2,000 G.I. loan and a $1,000 bank loan this year. Beautician Portell, who taught Army rookies how to square off, learned his trade before the war.

P:In Denver, Doyt Avery, 39, who served 31 months as a combat MP, nursed a fast-growing business in Pronto Pups, a product combining features of the doughnut, the hot dog, the popsicle. He was confident that other veterans would want to buy agencies.

P:In Lawton, Okla., ex-Marine Bennett Savage, wounded on Bougainville, ran the Oklahoma Club, a night spot whose best customers were soldiers from nearby Fort Sill. Proprietor Savage needed no G.I. loan. He invested $12,000 he had made in similar, prewar ventures. His future: "I'll stick as long as the business is good."

P:In Philadelphia, Morris Lenghal, 23, discharged from the Navy with a stomach wound, started a dry-cleaning business with a $1,100 Government loan and $700 of his own. For three years he and his wife, Doris, who was nursing at the naval hospital in Seattle when they met will pay the Government $34 a month. Said Lenghal, who learned dry cleaning before the war: "They won't lose any money on us."

P:In Hyannis, Mass., Hobart A. H. Cook, 33, discharged Navy flyer, leased a Lockheed Lodestar from the Government, sold $13,000 worth of stock, started Trans-Marine Airlines Inc. (New York to Cape Cod). At Hyannis, his wife drives the passengers into town. Last week, with customers standing in line to get reservations, Cook observed: "I don't want to become a big airline. I want to become a big seasonal operator."

P:In Cripple Creek, Colo., Herman Conrow Jr., 36, discharged from the Army in November, leased a gold mine. By last week he had struck it rich, taken out $25,000, was going strong, with nothing to lose--since on the "split-check" leasing plan, a miner invests only his time, surrenders half his take. Miner Conrow, too, had learned his trade before the war. Looking at the returned U.S. serviceman last week, his neighbors concluded that he, like other new small businessmen, was ignoring the "everything-for-the-boys" oratory, preferring to set his own course, toward his own goal.

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