In the Public Interest

With the approaching April 20 release date for President Carter’s major energy plan, James Schlesinger, his energy chief, remains a strong nuclear power booster. This position is not in accord with either the tone or the direction of Carter’s repeated criticism and down­grading of nuclear power during the campaign months. Calling nuclear power a “last…

The soft drink and food processing industries are prowling the halls of Congress like a baying pack. They are after the Delaney amendment to the food and drug laws. Named after Rep. James Delaney (D.-N.Y.), this amendment prohibits the sale of any food additive that causes cancer in humans or animals. WHO WOULDN’T BE incensed…

At the age of 86, George Seldes has just finished his 19th book. The venerable muckraker of the press during six decades of reporting and investi­gative effort believes that today’s press is gener­ally better than yesterday’s in printing facts about big business and other formerly taboo subjects. But in his new book, “Even the Gods…

A group of spirited employees at the American Safety Razor Company (ASR) plant in Staunton, Va., are honing a political action strategy against the Federal Trade Commission. At issue are hun­dreds of jobs and the kind of antitrust dilemma that most government lawyers would rather not have to resolve. Here are the facts at their…

Four young reporters from the Children’s Express recently interviewed me. They ranged in age from 10 to 13 years and asked very though-provoking questions on consumer and environmental subjects. Children’s Express is a new monthly magazine written by children. Americans first heard of this delightful idea at the Democratic National Convention last July. The children…

Few situations are more pleasant to follow than a determined businessman on a public interest crusade. One such advocate is William N. Plymat, a co-founder and just retired Chairman of the Board of the Preferred Risk Mutual Insurance Company. From his offices in Des Moines, Iowa, Plymat is accelerating his long fight against al­coholism by…

An American Bar Association Commit­tee has completed a report for the Justice Department on economic or business crimes that is sure to focus more top-level attention on tax enforcement efforts regarding these offenses. Already, sig­nals from the Carter White House and from Attorney General Griffin Bell fore­shadow a move to expand the federal government’s resources…

How many times have you heard it said that this nation has no compre­hensive energy policy? Probably al­most as often as you have heard Jimmy Carter and other political fig­ures promise to give you one. Well, it is important in this harsh winter of the energy industry’s con­tent to summarize what has been learned, if…

About 12 years ago a 9-year-old girl was rid­ing her bicycle near her suburban home out­side of Washington when she struck the rear bumper of a parked automobile. The collision hurled her flush into the sharp, protruding tail-fin on the car. She was fatally impaled. Such tragedies are not freak accidents. Hun­dreds of thousands of…

A few months before the Congressional elections of 1816, the members of Congress voted them­selves a pay increase. The public outrage was jolting. Thomas Jef­ferson wrote: “There has never been an instance before of so unanimous an opinion of the people.” Even though the Congress quickly repealed the compensation law before election day, almost two-thirds…