Hope in Appalachia

If it ever gets serious, Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty might be waged all around Hazleton, Pa. (pop. 32,500), which is perched amid deserted coal mines high on Spring Mountain in the heart of depressed and desolate Appalachia. But Hazleton has already fought a valiant anti-poverty war of its own. Moreover, it has done so with a minimum of federal help.

For years, the town lived respectably if not richly from coal mines and textile plants in the area. But after World War II, Hazleton found itself on the skids. One after another, the mines shut down. Between 1946 and 1958, coalmine employment plunged from 14,000 to 1,750; young people began leaving town at the rate of a thousand a year. In Hazleton it became the rule rather than the exception for wives to plod off to work at sewing machines in the textile and garment plants while listless, jobless husbands stayed home to keep house.

Expensive Experience. Desperately, the Hazleton Chamber of Commerce worked to keep the community alive. When a local silk plant announced that it would move to cheaper labor markets in Mississippi, 70 Hazleton businessmen signed mortgages totaling $50,000 to keep the factory in town. Within three years the plant moved South anyway--putting 2,000 people out of work. Refusing to give up, the chamber formed the Hazleton Industrial Development Corporation, raised $650,000 in bonds and contributions its first year, offered to donate $500,000 as a no-strings down payment on a $1,600,000 plant built to any prospect's specifications. The Electric Auto Lite Co. (now the Eltra Corp.), accepted the offer, but created fewer than 300 new jobs after the community thought it would employ at least 1,000. It was an expensive, disillusioning experience.

In 1955, Hurricane Diane crashed through--flooding and wrecking the few coal mines that remained. It was almost the death blow. Most of the mines never reopened, and 16% of Hazleton's working force was unemployed. But the next year proved to be Hazleton's turning point--for the better.

CAN DO. Dr. Edgar Dessen, now 47, a physician, had been president of the Chamber of Commerce during the darkest days. Under his determined guidance, a 550-acre site near town was bought for $10 an acre as an "industrial development park." Not long after, the Pennsylvania state legislature passed a law providing loans to towns that could scrape up outright contributions from townspeople--as well as bank loans--to attract new industry. Dessen got a local organization going to get the money, dubbed it CAN DO, then spent three weeks trying to dream up some words to fit the initials. Finally he came up with the coherent if colorless label, "Community Area New Development Organization."

Goal of the first CAN DO drive was $500,000--a part to be acquired by selling 15-year 3% debenture bonds, the rest from donations. Dessen's group put on heavy pressure, had every single contributor listed daily in the Hazleton Standard-Speaker, and classified the lists so that all lawyers or all employees of one factory were together--making for easy (and occasionally embarrassing) comparisons. To keep the pressure up, Dessen went on the radio every noon to read the names and amounts contributed. Within three weeks CAN DO was well over its quota, with $200,000 in cash and $540,000 in bond purchases.

The Road Back. Then the town began to improve its "industrial development park," building roads, sewer and water systems, and a 60,000-sq.-ft., $150,000 "shell plant" on sheer speculation. The General Foam Corp. moved in almost right away, has since enlarged until its investment is almost $5,000,000. About the same time, the Beryllium Corp. was persuaded by Hazleton citizens to take a look at an abandoned locomotive roundhouse built in 1918. Said Dessen: "I was ashamed to show it to them. It was built with reinforced concrete, but it was in a mess. Every window had been broken; there was soot all over everything. They said they had looked at 30 or 40 sites all over the Eastern U.S. and Puerto Rico." But Beryllium bought the roundhouse because it was a good building for a bargain price, now employs 400 people, has an $8,000,000 investment. Later the Sekisui Corp., which makes plastics and is the first Japanese-financed factory built in the U.S., put up a $1,750,000 plant.

Now, with CAN DO'S fund-raising drives (collected so far: $2,200,000) keeping the state loans flowing, the once-dying town has, since 1956, attracted 15 new industries with payrolls totaling $13 million a year. No fewer than 11,000 new jobs have been created in the last five years.

Hazleton has its own airport, with daily flights from Washington and New York, a new 175-acre park with a man-made lake, an active arts council; and early this spring ground-breaking ceremonies were held for two new federal superhighways near by. Nearly all of this has been done without federal funds. And even though unemployment in Hazleton is still at an unsettling 7.8% , Edgar Dessen, for one, is not waiting with outstretched hand for poverty-war funds from Washington. Said he: "Federal programs will never rebuild towns that just aren't capable of helping themselves. Some towns should be allowed to become ghost towns--they did in the West. We should not try to create a vast WPA that will make people dependent on the Government forever."

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