In the Public Interest

For the past generation, millions of high school and college students have taken college or graduate school admissions tests prepared and scored by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) of Princeton, New Jersey. They were to be tested for their “scholastic aptitude” and, by and large, they passively accepted the results even to the point, parents…

On December 19, several members of the Auto Club of New York will show up for their annual meeting to ask questions which the club’s entrenched management would prefer not to hear. At last year’s meeting, a member’s questions about how the club was run were brushed off. Other members are trying to find out…

Here’s some good news for citizens who are struggling for open government and less secrecy in the dealings of bureaucrats and business lobbyists. It comes from Missouri and Massachusetts and in it there’s a model other states might emulate. The Missouri Public Service Commission has issued a ruling requiring trucking companies and utilities that it…

Along with rising meat prices is mounting chaos in the regulation of meat and poultry for wholesomeness, safety and purity. Under the Wholesome Meat and Poultry Acts, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is supposed to advance these objectives. Instead, proindustry USDA officials, industry lobbyists and state officials struggling to block federal inspection have devastated many…

Student activism has come a long way from that day in February 1960 when four Bible-carrying black students sat down at a lunch counter in North Carolina and refused to move until served. They and the thousands of white and black civil rights workers who followed their example ushered in a decade of campus social…

During the last, frantic day and night sessions of the 92nd Congress, the customary strategy of ramming through special-interest tax loopholes got under way. Under the direction of the powerful Tax Committee Chairmen, Congressman Wilbur Mills (D-Ark.) and Senator Russell Long (D-La.), the bills and their various legislative sponsors were lined up for lightening quick…

State insurance commissioners have sharply different opinions on the auto and life insurance shopper’s guides distributed by Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner Herbert S. Denenberg. In the four months since I requested these opinions from fifty‑one state insurance commissioners (including those of the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico), thirty-two have replied. Thirteen were negative on the…

In the closing days of the 92nd Congress, President Nixon unleashed a virulent, anti-consumer lobbying effort which succeeded in defeating or blocking major consumer protection legislation. All lip service to consumer interests in health, safety, and dollar value in the market place was swept aside as White House operatives lobbied along with corporate interests to…

Uncle Sam is the biggest consumer in the country. Federal agencies, military commissaries and PX’s regularly buy almost everything that ordinary consumers purchase — food, clothes, household appliances, drugs, autos, tires, light bulbs, detergents, blankets, and many other items. With these multi-billion dollar expenditures annually, there is very little testing done to determine what is…

Two months ago, when a bill to establish an independent consumer product safety commission was at a critical juncture in the House of Representatives, a five‑page unsigned memorandum was quietly left at several members’ offices by a prominent Washington law firm. The memo took note of Chief Justice Warren Burger’s recent criticism of Congress in…