Remarks to the Delegates to the 1967 Consumer Assembly.

Mr. Clayman, Miss Furness, distinguished Members of the Congress, ladies and gentlemen:

Someday your children and your grandchildren are going to be very proud to be able to say that you were here today at this conference. And I am very proud, myself, that you are here.

The idea that the consumer in America deserves protection is a relatively new American idea.

In the early days of our history, the only consumer law was "let the buyer beware." And a great many consumers thus were victimized by the fast-buck artists of those days. Our country was almost 100 years old before the first consumer protection law was passed in this country. And that law just prohibited the fraudulent use of the United States mails.

Some of the abuses that brought about that early legislation would insult our intelligence today. They were "American ingenuity"-at its very worst.

--For instance, there was a man who advertised that he would send you a steel engraving of George Washington if you sent him a dollar. When he got your dollar, safe and sound, he sent you a one-cent stamp.

--Another fellow asked for a dollar in return for a sure-fire method of exterminating potato bugs. For your dollars, you received a slip of paper saying, "Catch the bug, put him between two boards, and then mash him."

On the American frontier, the practice of medicine was equally haphazard at its best. People bought the cure-alls like "Kick-a-poo Indian Sagwa"--that promised you everything but the headache they produced.

At the turn of the century, there was no guarantee that the meat Americans ate was not diseased--or even that it came from the advertised animal. One newspaper wrapped up the problem in a short poem which read like this:

"Mary had a little lamb,

And when she saw it sicken,

She shipped it off to Packingtown,

And now it's labeled chicken."

Foods were filled with very strange chemicals, whose effect nobody knew. It was 1909, the year after I was born, before President Theodore Roosevelt could say that America had finally awakened to the fact that "no man may poison the people for his private profit."

We take it for granted, today, that such outrageous practices are forbidden by the law of the land.

But without the indignation and without the action of an aroused public--without the Federal Government's very strong sense of responsibility to the consumers of America-the counters in our stores might still be filled with "Kick-a-poo Indian Sagwa."

Without the great milestones of consumer legislation, we would still be playing Russian roulette every time we dealt in the marketplace.

--Our savings would be stolen by unscrupulous speculators.

--Our bodies would carry burn scars from clothing which ignited without warning.

--Our food would be tainted; our drugs would be unsafe.

--Our children would be maimed by the toys their parent brought home to them.

Consumer legislation is a continuing process of serving the changing times in which we live. Technology daily makes our present laws obsolete. Progress is never an unmixed blessing. It can bring countless unforeseen hazards.

Fortunately, these problems are usually resolved in our competitive market, by the engines of private enterprise and their energies.

But dangers must be predicted whenever possible. Standards must be set when necessary. And consumers must be safeguarded from the unreasonable risk.

In the modern marketplace, there are still plenty of traps for the ignorant and the unwary-far more subtle than those our grandfathers knew anything about, but they are no less dangerous than those that grandpa faced. The difference is that the confidence men who brew them up wear Brooks Brothers suits and have college degrees today.

--Every year, Americans pay millions of dollars for parched and worthless land.

--Every year, our citizens are lured, unsuspecting, into credit traps which drive them to desperation, and many to death.

--Every year, Americans eat, on the average, 27 pounds of uninspected red meat--meat that may be mislabeled, tainted, or dangerously diseased.

--Every year American families furnish their homes with fabrics that are dangerously inflammable.

This is a consumer's administration, of which I am a part. I have sent three major messages to the Congress in the last 4 years-asking for strong laws to protect our people from those who would cheat them or those who would expose them to unreasonable hazards in pursuit of a cheap and easy dollar.

The 89th Congress passed several major pieces of legislation which materially helped the consumer to a better life.

--The Truth-in-Packaging Act, that would tell the buyer just what he is buying, how much it weighs, and, besides, who made it. The days of the "jumbo quart" and the "giant economy quart" are already over.

--The Child Protection Act, to guard our children against hazardous toys. Today there is a law that protects a child from poisoning if he puts one of his toys in his mouth--a law that protects him from being burned by firecrackers that look like candy.

--The Traffic and Highway Safety Acts, to protect our drivers from dangerous vehicles, and to train them to protect themselves from each other.

Still we have just begun our program for the consumer. There are currently on my recommendation 12 major actions before the Congress. There are some votes lost in every one of these major actions, but they are for the benefit of the American people. We are going to do right regardless of how popular it is.

At a time when economy is the byword of our Nation, these 12 measures should be among the first bills passed. The cost to the taxpayers is virtually nothing. The savings to the consumer are in untold grief as well as millions of dollars.

The truth-in-lending bill--its great and distinguished author, Mrs. Sullivan, is on the platform today, and the chairman of the committee that is going to bring the bill out of the committee I hope very soon and pass it, Mr. Patman, is here with us--would require the moneylenders of our society to inform the citizen--to tell the parents who need to borrow for their children's education, or to pay medical bills, or to buy a car or a television set--just how much it will cost to borrow that money.

The lender knows to the very penny how much interest he is charging. We don't think it is too much to ask that he also tell the borrower.

We have proposed amendments to the Flammable Fabrics Act of 1953. As new materials are invented, new hazards occur. We don't want a repeat of the incident when young girls were incinerated by their own sweaters.

We want to see minimum safety standards set for the movement of natural gas by pipeline. These pipelines may run under your city streets and under your own bungalow. We don't want them to erupt; we don't want them to kill your townspeople.

As representatives of our 200 million consumers, these bills concern each of you directly. It has been said that the consumer lobby is the most widespread in our land, yet the least vociferous and the least powerful. Well, I disagree.

You can only wield the power that you have if you are willing to make yourselves heard. You have the interest, you have the organization, you have the numbers, you have the horsepower.

And we have made sure that you have access to the highest councils of your own Government. The President's Committee on Consumer Interests, the Consumer Advisory Council, and my very talented Special Assistant for Consumer Affairs, Betty Furness, are all--I started to say available to you-available to consult with you.

They are willing to hear your ideas, take your suggestions, listen to your complaints, and then pass them along to me, if I can be helpful.

I don't want to have any monopoly on these complaints. Your Congressmen should hear from you, too--often, loud, and clear.

As I speak here, at this very moment, there are two specific issues which I think should call for your attention. They threaten you consumers and they threaten your country.

The first is inflation. By keeping a close watch on our economy, we have managed for the past 81 months to keep our consumer price rise lower than that of any other nation in the industrial West. We have kept the housewife's dollar secure. We have even been able to lower taxes.

If the two tax bills that we repealed in the last 2 years were on the books today, they would bring in an additional $24 billion.

But now there are pressures on our economy which demand that we ask for a portion of that $24 billion back--in the form of a surcharge. It would be a penny out of every dollar.

We estimate that the 10 percent surcharge, so-called, would average one penny out of every dollar earned.

Now, I realize that it is hard for you to ask the people you represent for more taxes, but let me give you just two quick examples of what will happen, if you don't get that tax.

A family of four with an income of $5,000 would pay nothing under our tax proposal. They are exempt. But the chances are very great that they would pay $147 a year under the inaction inflation tax.

A family with an income of $10,000 will pay $285--or $174 more than some economists estimate it would pay if the surcharge is passed. So inaction will cost you an estimated $174, if you earn $10,000 a year.

You don't see the effects of inaction now, but you are going to see it next year when it is too late for you to correct your own errors.

The second issue you should know about is the threat of protectionism. Protectionism is rearing its head in the form of certain quota bills now before the Congress trying to take care of each Congressman's district. And when we begin to think more of our district than we think of the country, we are likely to get into trouble.

Those proposed quotas would invite massive retaliation from our trading partners throughout the world. Just the little publicity that has been spread around the globe has them all concerned and up in arms.

Prices would rise. Our world market would shrink. And so would the range of goods which American consumers choose when they buy.

I think those protectionists' bills just must not become law. And they are not going to become law as long as I am President and can help it.

So I plead with you consumers. I plead with all Americans. I urge you to make yourselves heard, to exercise your rights, to fulfill your duties both as consumers and, more important, as citizens.

We have too much to preserve. We have reaped the harvest of a vigorous prosperity-a record prosperity that has lasted for 81 months--the longest in history. Our consumers now enjoy the highest standard of living in America that has ever been known to civilization. Yet one in every seven of our citizens--one out of every seven of our fellow human beings--exists below the poverty line. And every citizen faces unreasonable risks in the modern marketplace.

There are danger signs on the horizon now which should arrest the attention of each of you.

When all Americans enjoy the bounties of this rich land, when all Americans can live in dignity and security--then we can say we have done the consumer justice. This is the largest meeting of this kind that has ever been held, I am told, in this town for a cause like this. I hope you will never be satisfied with anything less than getting the consumer justice. I don't believe you will settle for anything less. And I promise you, as your President, that I will not settle for anything less.

Thank you very much.