(2 of 2)
The Consumers' Research idea, which Consumers Union took over bodily, is to apply impartial laboratory tests to the advertised claims of trademarked products, sell the results in printed bulletins. C. R. grades its findings under "Recommended, Intermediate, Not Recommended"; C. U. uses "Best Buys, Also Acceptable, Not Acceptable." Both organizations are nonprofit. In its last nonconfidential bulletin C. R. graded mechanical refrigerators, tennis shoes, gas ranges, croquet sets (it found mail order croquet balls are often "out of balance"). C. U.'s September report discussed shirts, shampoos, children's shoes, canned peas. C. R. has acquired a pleasant cluster of stone and frame buildings around its lab oratory (an old feed-mill), keeps geese in a nearby stream. C. U. operates in barren offices in lower Manhattan. Most impor tant difference between the two services is that C. U. reports on labor conditions un der which articles are made, is strongly prolabor. Its friendly relations with un ions and the liberal press (which alone accepts its kind of advertising) give it a sharp advantage in a field where labor-consciousness is highly prevalent. Since the C. R. strike, Schlink is convinced that organized labor's interests are not those of consumers, made no objection when his close adviser and Vice President Joseph B. ("Once a Red'') Matthews, told the Dies Committee that Shirley Temple and John L. Lewis had done their bit for the Communists (TIME, Sept. 5).
No advertiser has ever sued C. R. or C. U. for knocking his products, nor has the honesty of their intentions been successfully questioned. But manufacturers, some of whom spend millions on laboratory research and who figure that neither C. R. nor C. U. can gross more than $200,000 a year (most of which must go for salaries and printing), are sometimes pretty acid about the quality of research on which these organizations undertake to pass judgments that may cost businessmen thousands of dollars. The consumers' organizations reply that much of their testing is done free in universities, private laboratories or at small cost by the Government.
At rustic Washington, remote from angry advertising agents and salesmen, the Schlinks (she is Mary Catherine Phillips, author of Skin Deep, an "expose" of the cosmetic industry) live in an old farmhouse heated by a kerosene floor burner, scrub their teeth with chalk, their laundry with soap mixed by "Ma" (Mother-in-law) Phillips. Since the "unhappiness" in 1935, he has not seen 36-year-old Arthur Kallet, once his close friend. The only thing they have in common now is a reforming urge toward guinea pigs.
* Government bureaus engaged in "consumer education" have multiplied under the New Deal now include AAA's Consumers' Counsel Division, Home Economics Bureau, and Extension Service of the Department of Agriculture, the Office of Education. Admen claim that many home economics teachers are ''influencing the buyers of tomorrow by studied and continuous attacks on advertising and advertised products."