U.S. Small Business Administration

1974 Annual Report

Contents Administrator's Message

1974 In Brief

A Business Revolution

The State of Small Business

Financial Assistance

Management Assistance

Procurement Assistance

Assistance to Minorities

Advocacy

Appendix

A. Revolving Fund Financing

B. Small Business Investment Act

C. Economic Opportunity Program

D. Equal Employment Opportunity

E. "406" Contracts Awarded

F. Business Loans Approved

G. "8(a)" Contracts Awarded

THE PICTURES: Illustrations used in this
Report are taken from engravings depicting
"business" and related activities during the
American Revolution era. The Colonies were
primarily an agricultural society, and businesses,
even relatively speaking, were small. The
industrial age was yet to come, there were less
than a half dozen corporations, banks did not
exist, manufacturing was in its infancy, and
the production of goods and services was
essentially hand work. The upgrading of this
"economy" was a key issue. With the Declaration
of Independence, America's first money was
issued. Among the first coins appeared the
motto: "Mind Your Business" (on the Cover).

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents

U.S. Government Printing Office

Washington, D.C. 20402 - Price $2.95

Stock Number 045-000-00132-6

Catalog Number SBA 1.1:974

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Administrator's Message

This 1974 Annual Report to the President and the Congress, th
Small Business Administration's 21st, is dedicated to America
Bicentennial and reflects the importance of small business to th
United States since the birth of our nation

We enter the Bicentennial era with a renewed appreciation of sma businessmen. They came on the same ships with the first colonist They were among the country's founding fathers as the nation gaine independence. They were in the footsteps of the first explorers am pioneers as young America pushed its frontier westward. They wer the beginning of the earliest commerce from which sprang our greate inventions, industries, and science.

The significance of small business has not diminished. Alongside th giants that get the business headlines are more than 9 million me and women in small business who quietly account for nearly one-ha of the country's business production, more than one-half of its busine: jobs, and represent livelihood, directly and indirectly, for one-ha of our population. Small business remains the key to the health. our competitive, free enterprise system.

1974 saw small business run into a falloff, as did all business, but with difference. As the House of Representatives' Permanent Select Com mittee on Small Business observed: "Small businessmen by experienc suffer first, hardest, and longest of any economic unit in the country i times of an economic downturn".