In the Public Interest

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

The anonymous ITT whistleblower who, mailed to columnist Jack Anderson the private two-page memorandum from Mrs. Dita Beard, ITT’s chief lobbyist, may yet be responsible for the most important reforms for handling antitrust cases in 35 years. For a week and a half, the Senate Judiciary Committee has held hearings into the role which acting…

What’s in a frankfurter? This question is being answered with disturbing detail for consumers who want to know what they are buying. Fraud, low nutritional value and health hazards abound, with varying degrees, in most of the 15 billion frankfurters sold annually. The hot dog is offering less nutrition and more fat and added water…

To most Americans, a company without a country would seem suspicious and puzzling. But not to many leading corporate executives who are finding that their multinational corporations’ American nationality is something of a drag. Last month, at the White House Conference on the Industrial World Ahead, Carl A. Gerstacker, chairman of Dow Chemical Company, revealed…

Several Presidential candi­dates, including Muskie, Lindsay, McGovern and McCloskey, are about to take positions on the issues of concentrated power, secrecy and monopolistic practices of giant cor­porations. Injecting the matter of monopolies and giantism into an election campaign is something of a revival. Although virtually ignored for three dec­ades, the issue draws on the historic…

Several Presidential candidates, including Muskie, Lindsay, McGovern and McCloskey, are about to take positions on the issues of concentrated power, secrecy and monopolistic practices of giant corporations. Injecting the matter monopolies and giantism into an election campaign is something of a revival. virtually ignored for three decades, it draws on the historic aversion of many…

If college students woke up to the world around them in the Sixties, the Seventies be when they organized systematically to get something done. The campus demonstrations of recent years have subsided. But in their place a new kind of commitment is emerging which draws on a greater sense of realism about what is required…

With election year upon us, the Nixon Administration has quietly moved to centralize in the White House the making of safety and environmental policy by Executive branch agencies. In a secret memorandum to “Heads of Departments and Agencies,” dated October 5, 1971, George Shultz, Director of the White House’s powerful Office of Management and Budget…