In the Public Interest

Washington—The latest right-to-lawyer, decision by the Supreme Court last week should remind Amer-loans that having legal rights is not sufficient without also having legal representation to enforce or defend those rights, regardless of the ability to pay. What the court decided was that a person is entitled to a free lawyer, even in relatively petty…

The latest right-to-lawyer decision by the Supreme Court last week should remind Americans that having legal rights is not sufficient without also having legal representation to enforce or defend those rights, regardless of the ability to pay. What the Court decided was that a person is entitled to a free lawyer, even in relatively petty…

The Pennsylvania insurance commissioner, Herbert S. Denenberg, is shaking up the insurance industry with his recently published Shopper’s Guides to Life Insurance and Auto Insurance. His objective is simple. He wants to give consumers more and more facts about individual insurance companies doing business in Pennsylvania so that they can choose bargains and save millions…

Alongside Geroge McGovern and Hubert Humphrey on the June 6th California Primary ballot is Proposition 9, an anti-pollution measure that has sparked a pot-boiling assault by big business lobbyists. Known as the Clean Environment Act, Proposition 9 qualified for the ballot when the People’s Lobby, an army of volunteer citizens, collected the signatures of more…

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…