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The quality of our drinking water is finally an urgent consumer issue. And not a day too soon. Why the delay? For decades, the public has known of the pollution of our lakes, rivers and streams from industrial, agricultural and municipal wastes. Recently, reports have detailed such dangerous contaminants as lead, mercury, pesticides, hormones, detergents,…

Shoddy housing construction is a national plague. Homeowner complaints are inundating local, state and federal housing officials. Cheated homeowners in various new housing developments are organizing to press their demands. My mail from new homeowners shows the problems are pervasive and that shoddiness is a pattern, not just an occasional lapse in workmanship. Complaints range…

With more casualties to be counted, the Sunshine Silver Mine disaster at Kellogg, Idaho is already the country’s second worst non-coal mine catastrophe in this century. The fire which swept through this silver mine — the largest in the US — and entombed anywhere from 50 to 90 men is under investigation by the US…

That inveterate opponent of consumer rights, the US Chamber of Commerce, is now trying to disown the role its staff took in putting together an unlabeled propaganda kit on how to defeat the consumer protection bill which is before Congress. The kit was sent to mislead hundreds of business and trade associations around the country,…

WASHINGTON — That inveterate opponent of consumer rights, the US Chamber of Commerce, is now trying to disown the role its staff took in putting together an unlabeled propaganda kit on how to defeat the consumer protection bill which is before Congress. The kit was sent to mislead hundreds of business and trade associations around…

A New York City television repairman, named Joseph Linko, takes photographs of highway engineering hazards as a hobby. For five years, this public citizen has shown these pictures to members of Congress, highway officials, and safety groups hoping his campaign will result in safer guard rails and sign posts. His effort needs broad public support…

WASHINGTON — Presidential candidate, Wilbur Mills, the Congressional powerhouse from Little Rock, is troubled over the gathering revolt against the iron grip of his House Ways and Means Committee. If there is to be tax reform, it must start with this “house within a house.” Ways and Means is Mills’ bastion. He presides over the…

In the past two years, letters from irate mobile home owners have been pouring into Washington. Their complaints cover almost every conceivable abuse: shoddy construction; plumbing, heating, electrical and insulation deficiencies; fire hazards; porous warranties, financing gyps. Many mobile home insurers also say that most loss claims in mobile homes are due to poor initial…

With all the flap about the Pay Board, too little attention has been given to the Price Commission. Headed by amiable C. Jackson Grayson, a former business school dean, the Commission is crucial to any attempt to cool the fires of inflation. Yet it is failing. Since Phase II began last November, all components of…

When Illinois Senator Charles H. Percy took to the floor of the Senate recently, he said some things the national and Illinois Chambers of Commerce would have rather not heard. A former big businessman himself, Percy hit them hard for their “unwarranted and impassioned attacks” on a pending bill to create a Consumer Protection Agency.…