In the Public Interest

On March 22, 1981, the cost of mailing a first-class letter will go to 18 cents from the current 15 cents. But the stamp will be a non-denominational “B” postage stamp. This indicates that the postal service’s board of governors is not satisfied. It wants at least 20 cents to be the price you pay…

Cruel deeds camouflaged by velvet words are gushing from Ronald Reagan and his associates in great numbers these days. If you voted for Mr. Reagan, you may wish to ponder the following checklist of Reaganite actions and words since Jan. 20, 1981. Transferred the remaining pricing power over oil produced in the U.S. to the…

In spite of the fact that 145 fatalities occur each day on the nation’s highways, and thousands more are injured, the future of the federal auto-safety program is in doubt. The new secretary of transportation, Drew Lewis, is adding to the uncertainty over this lifesaving program with a remarkable zigzag verbal per­formance over the last…

It was a television advertisement from the mid-’70s. The blue-collar worker shuffles home from work, enters his living room, plunks himself down in his favorite easy chair and takes off his shoes. His wife, heading toward the kitchen to prepare the evening meal, crosses past his stocking feet and suddenly collapses. The ad announcer then…

In 1913, the parents of Anna and Mary Constanti moved into an eight room house in an East Detroit neighborhood called Poletown. Anna, now 73 years old, and Mary, now 69, still live in the same house. They have kept their home in good physical repair and the back yard is filled with 60 rose…

No one can fairly accuse Ronald Reagan of reading or thinking very much. But he does a superb regurgitation of what his advisers feed him. Such a foren­sic performance occurred Feb. 5 in his televised address on the state of the economy. As has been his practice for 20 years, Reagan told the American people…

Years ago, a venerable law professor described the developing law of personal injury as “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.” He was referring to the courts’ gradual recognition that in­jured people had rights to damages from companies whose unsafe products led to the injuries. Ronald Reagan and his Cabinet members give every indication that…

Rep. Barry Goldwater Jr. (R-Calif.) has revived an old proposal to allow corporations to buy advertising space on postage stamps. He says his legislation will bring in revenue that could reduce the Postal Service’s deficit. To portray his point, he includes in his explanation kit a sample post card bearing a 7-Up emblem. For each…

After weeks of delay, he handed his death-producing decision to his subordinates to announce and went on a travel junket to Japan. Such behavior is in character for outgoing Secretary of Transportation Neil Gold­schmidt. Having overruled his own auto-safety agency’s advice to order the recall of 10 million defective Ford vehicles which have a propensity…

For more than 100 years Americans have expressed deep suspicion about the excessive powers of big business. Farmers pushed for political reforms and anti-monopoly laws early in this century. A few years later factory workers demanded industrial safety laws, an end to child labor and the right to organize. After World War II there arose…