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minority, but even if that were not enough, we're a minority within the Jewish group, and we can't get loans, and we're poor.” I thought, “Well, that is interesting and it should be rectified,” so I tried through the White House, the Office of Management and Budget, to have Hasidic Jews included as a minority with the six. They said, “No.” They rejected it. And I thought to myself, “Well, this is ridiculous. Why should you have to be a minority to be eligible for this program? Anybody who's poor should be eligible for this program. How about some poor Italian who lives in Bensenhurst?”

And so when the legislation came on for the renewal of the Small Business Administration, I proposed an amendment which would bar the Small Business Administration from discriminating against people or discriminating for people if they were in minority groupings or against people if they were in minority groupings -- in other words, saying, “You are eligible for these loans if you are poor,” because that was the nature of the loan, not “if you are poor and black” or “poor and Spanish surname.” But “if you are poor.” And in my statement at the time I said, “You know, it's very hard in New York City to find Aleuts, Eskimoes or American Indians, but it's very easy to find poor Italians and poor Jews and poor Swedes. You can find them, and they are barred from this program.”

So in the sub-committee -- I was on that sub-committee -- I won by a vote of ten to two. And then the blacks began to lobby, and enormous pressures: letters came pouring in that I was a