Word: philadelphia
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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There was not money enough in the Carolinas for all the Negro folk, so Benjamin and Pearl Mason drifted north to Philadelphia. Ben washed cars in a garage. They had a baby girl, and things were all right until 1931. Then Ben lost his job, looked in vain for another. Another baby was born, a boy this time. On relief, 42-year-old Ben drew $11.40 a week. Their house had no heat except the kitchen stove. "Wasn't fit for animals," observed Pearl wearily. "Every time it rained it rained right into the house." She made what...
...world changed color and shape for the stupefied Masons. To their house in the slums of South Philadelphia rushed well-wishers, curiosity-seekers, oil-well and gold-mine promoters. Police had to rope off their street. A man in Liberia wanted them to finance a bus line from Monrovia to the jungle. "All I ever wanted was my own home," Pearl shakily said...
...Masons bought a block of tenements in South Philadelphia. With another $40,000 and Negro labor they will transform the block into a low-cost housing project for Negroes, with 1-2-3 room, air-conditioned apartments built around a central fresh air court. This community centre is to have a gymnasium, bowling alley, chapel, a social worker in charge. Work was scheduled to start this week...
...Philadelphia's municipal finances are in a bad way. All Philadelphia knows it; few Philadelphians seem to care. The city's gas plant is in hock to RFC. Its public libraries can afford to replace only 20,000 of 85,000 dog-eared books which are thumbed to tatters each year. More than a third of Philadelphia's annual revenues go to service old debts. Expensive subways, promoted during the heedless '203, are sealed and empty catacombs; Philadelphia lacked the money to run them or to pay for them...
...Brotherly Love adopted a desperate measure. They levied a flat 1½% income tax on all wages or salaries earned in the city.-Beginning next Jan. 1, everybody's paycheck may be clipped-whether they are bankers, WPA-sters, or suburbanites who live elsewhere but work in Philadelphia. Only ones sure of exemption are corporations, which already pay a State levy and cannot be doubly taxed. A few unions squawked that employers would have to up wages 1½%. But the mass of citizens sleepily accepted the fact that somewhere, somehow, their town had to find...