THE THING IN THE SPRING

DRESSED in old clothes and overalls, the 5,000 suburbanites--men, women and children--looked ready for weekend chores in house or garden. Instead, they were on their way to help thousands of New York City slum dwellers clean, repair, paint and decorate 43 of the city's grimiest, grittiest blocks. By nightfall, when residents gave their guests an outdoor buffet, the scabrous streets were conspicuously cleaner and perhaps a little more habitable, with balloons waving from fire escapes and pastels brightening alleyways.

Last week's cleanup, titled "The Thing in the Spring," was not a headline project. It was hardly a billion-dollar item and scarcely caused much of a dent in New York City's Augean malaise. But, along with dozens of similar efforts across the nation, it demonstrated--even as Congress balks at the billion-dollar programs that are truly needed--that individual hands and hearts are committed to alleviating the wretchedness of the inner city.

Crisis Sunday. In Boston, Jewish philanthropies donated buildings valued at $1,250,000 for a community and cultural center in the Roxbury slum. In Washington, Patrick Cardinal O'Boyle announced a moratorium on all new Roman Catholic church building and improvements so that funds would be freed to "help relieve the chronic causes of poverty in our midst." In Portland, Ore., the Council of Churches designated May 5 "Summer Crisis Sunday," when each congregation will be asked to provide decent jobs for slum dwellers and help provide support for summer programs.

In New York, IBM disclosed plans for a plant to make computer cables in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant slum; starting within two months, the factory will employ 300 workers, mostly unskilled, by the end of 1969. Planning is already far advanced, under the federal model-cities program, for something like 4,000 much-needed housing units in Bedford-Stuyvesant and other slum areas of New York. Earlier this month, the Fairchild Hiller Corp., working with a black community group, opened the doors of the new Fairmicco Corp. in Washington's Shaw area. Eventually, Fairmicco, which will turn out such products as foot lockers and unpainted furniture, will employ 250 and will be owned outright by its workers.

In Los Angeles' Watts, the Green Power Foundation, founded and operated by Negroes, is already busy making baseball bats. By summer's end, 300 people will be turning out 1,000 "Watts Wallopers" a day. Giving preference to men with handicaps that would normally make them unemployable, Green Power prides itself on the fact that even though its employees have an average of twelve arrests apiece, it has had no difficulty at all with theft or absenteeism.

Principal Burner. A little more honesty on all sides might, in fact, go a long way toward cooling the ghettos this summer. Speaking to the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Washington, Betty Furness, the President's adviser on consumer affairs, noted that gouging of slum residents by merchants and markets--an unsavory but common practice--is "a principal burner under any long hot summer." She added later: "The poor are paying more. The proof was right here in the streets two weeks ago," when rioters selectively burned and looted stores they considered unfair.

Full Membership. With a little will, a great deal can be done without vast expenditures. Still, it is obvious that permanent solutions cannot be found on the cheap. In his first, long-heralded speech on national issues last week, Nelson Rockefeller said that it will take at least $150 billion in public and private investment over the next decade to over come the "agony" of the nation's cities. New York City's Mayor John Lindsay, who is often at odds with Governor Rockefeller, applauded the speech, but warned that capital spending is only a part of the need. "Our problem," said Lindsay, "is operating money. Until the federal and state governments get the message that what is strangling the cities is lack of operating money, the urban crisis is not going to be solved."

Both men are right, of course. But neither tells the whole story. Tax money, business investment, increased concern on the part of the churches, a neighborly commitment from the suburbs--all are needed if the cities are to be saved and if the Negro is to become a full and competitive member of American society. Yet as April turned toward May, TIME correspondents across the country did detect a shifting of priorities. With Americans in all age groups and at all levels of society re-examining the values they had held dear so long, Viet Nam has receded as their primary concern. There were signs that many Americans are awakening at last to the fundamental needs of an urban nation and that, in time, the thing in the spring may last all year.

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