due. These laws provide additional testimony to the long list of laws that support the consumer's "right to be informed."

The present concern with unit pricing, product composition disclosure, octane rating display, nutrient and performance labeling, guarantee and warranty declarations, and see-through packaging, to mention only a few current problem areas, attests to the continuing search for quality information.

It is unfortunate, I believe, that more and more laws must be passed to require the disclosure of the information which consumers need to make intelligent decisions. Is there not some way in which business can be encouraged to provide this needed information without resorting to new laws to force this disclosure?

I predict that, as consumer education programs spread across this country and grow in effectiveness, the demand for quality information will increase significantly. The pressure will increasingly arise directly from consumers themselves rather than from leading consumer advocates and those with professional interest in consumer affairs.

We believe "caveat emptor"-let the buyer beware to be an archaic concept. When will "cognoscat emptor"-let the buyer be informed become the order of the day?

The American Council on Consumer Interests and the National Conference on Weights and Measures have a continuing and growing responsibility in providing the consumer with quality information. The health and direction of this nation's economy and marketplace rest on our accomplishment of this objective.

What is The American Council on Consumer Interests, you may ask. The American Council on Consumer Interests is the only professional group in the United States having as its principal concern the consumer's interest. It is professional in the sense that it seeks to analyze consumer issues, to promote research, and to disseminate information about the consumer interest. Our group seeks to understand the problems and conditions which affect consumers regardless of the direction in which the analysis may lead. We are not out to bury business, or anyone else for that matter. The consumer is our focal point. We seek to delineate the conditions affecting his decisions and behavior. We seek to understand the effects of business practices and conditions on the consumer. Ultimately many of us are concerned with that somewhat vague and largely immeasurable concept of consumer welfare.

The existence of ACCI is largely attributable to one individual. I am sure that you either know him personally or are acquainted with his name. He is Dr. Colston E. Warne, President of Consumers Union of the U. S. In November 1952 Dr. Warne inquired of some of his fellow consumer educators as to their interests in launching an

association for consumer educators. His idea was enthusiastically received and resulted in a meeting of 21 educators at the University of Minnesota in April 1953. The necessary steps were taken at this meeting which eventually led to the founding of an organization under the name of the Council on Consumer Information. In 1969 the name was changed to the American Council on Consumer Interests to reflect growth and development in the organization's breadth of concern.

Considering ACCI's limited financial resources, its productivity through the years has been amazing. The productivity of its early years was marked by a series of consumer information pamphlets. Some of the early titles were "Consumers Look at Fair Prices," "Consumers Look at Fair Trade," "Consumers Look at Burial Practices," and "What You Should Know about the Law of Estates."

Dr. Leland J. Gordon, our mutual friend, prepared one of our best sellers in 1957 under the title "Watch Your Weights and Measures." "Consumers Look at Federal Protective Services" was published in 1958. The pamphlet series was finally terminated in 1966 after reaching a total of 18 pamphlets since the beginning of the series. The final three pamphlets, which were published in 1966, were on the topic of consumer credit.

Concurrent with the development of the pamphlet series, a highly informative newsletter has been one of the most significant benefits of membership. Originally issued four times a year, this popular publication is now published nine times a year.

Other important benefits which have accompanied the growth in membership (now standing at nearly 3,000 members) are the "Journal of Consumer Affairs" published semiannually, winter and summer, and a newsletter, "Consumer Education Forum," which is designed expressly for public school consumer educators. Also, an annual 211⁄2 day conference is held each year to hear reports of research on consumer matters and to discuss and analyze current consumer issues.

In April we held our 17th Annual Conference at Indiana State University at Terre Haute. Reports on unit pricing, consumer credit, and life insurance, just to name a few of the topics, were presented to the conference participants. One development which occurred at this conference, and of which I am especially proud as president of ACCI this past year, was the establishment of the Colston E. Warne lecture series. The lecture series, in perpetuity, was established to commemorate Dr. Warne's continued support and contribution to the growth and maturity of ACCI and to his contribution to the consumer cause generally.

This lecture series will feature each year at our annual conference an outstanding authority on some aspect of consumer affairs. An

honorarium will be provided to the speaker out of a fund which has been established for this purpose. We are presently seeking contributions to this fund from members and friends in order that it may grow to the point where the annual interest earned from this fund may be used for the speaker's stipend.

Other ACCI benefits which are presently under development are the publication of an annual conference proceedings and the establishment of a job exchange. The job exchange will assist our members in taking advantage of the opportunities in the field of consumer interests. These new benefits are scheduled to be in effect this coming year.

Personally and on behalf of the executive committee and membership of the American Council on Consumer Interests, we are indeed grateful for your interest in our organization. I especially welcome the opportunity to talk about and to invite you individually to join ACCI.

References

[1] Booth, Wayne C., Boring from Within: The Art of the Freshman Essay, an occasional essay in the humanities published by the University of Chicago Press.

[2] Brady, Mildred E., The American Family and Consumer Education, Marriage and Family Living, November 1963. pp. 448-451.

[3] Washington Post, U. S. Chamber: Aid Consumer, July 13, 1971.

[4] Bymers, Gwen, Seller-Buyer Communications-Point of View of a Family Economist, 62d Annual Meeting, American Home Economics Association, June 30, 1971. 9 p.

ADDRESS OF CONFERENCE PRESIDENT

by DR. LEWIS M. BRANSCOMB, Director, National Bureau of Standards

It is a great pleasure for me to be back with you at the National Conference. I want to wish you well for another successful and productive session this year. I would also like to thank Under Secretary Lynn for his kind remarks about the Conference as a model for federalstate relations. I think sometimes we feel that few recognize the full importance of what weights and measures officials do. His recognition is gratifying.

In that respect, I would like to tell you about

an experience I recently had in Mr. Jennings' home state of Tennes

see. I had the honor to go to Nashville to talk to the Centennial Club of Nashville, which is a gathering of blue-ribbon citizens of the town. I talked to them about consumer matters and other things. As an experiment I showed them a slide of the state weights and measures laboratory building and asked if they knew what this elegant but modest structure was. I will confess to you that I was surprised when a great many hands went up. They knew that this was the weights and measures laboratory which had been named for Matt Jennings and they were familiar with its activities. Now, either more people know about their weights and measures people than I would have expected, or else Mr. Jennings must be doing an unusually good job in the State of Tennessee.

The Under Secretary has recognized this Conference as a model for intergovernmental relations. Certainly it is, and it is rapidly becoming a model for other things. In the past few years, the National Bureau of Standards, building on our experience with this Conference, worked together with the governors of a number of states to encourage the formation of a National Conference of States on Building Codes and Standards. That conference, of course, is designed to bring some uniformity into the building regulatory system, where regulatory responsibilities are diffused among state and local jurisdictions, just as they are in weights and measures, but with a difference. In the weights and measures field we have an integrated national market. A mass-producing manufacturer in this country can make a product, package it, and put the weight on the package and be confident that his product can be sold in every state in the Union. Not so with the manufacturer of industrialized housing. He may make factory-built modules but he has to face the fact that there are over 6,000 separate jurisdictions which have regulations different in at least some respects that govern the acceptability of his product.

I have confidence that the National Conference of States on Building Codes and Standards, which is now about four years into its history, will long before its 56th birthday be demonstrating the kind of service to the country that you have long provided.

The spirit and philosophy of this Conference is finding its way, and not by accident I assure you, into the thinking of the Bureau of Standards in many measurement fields. It does not do any good for a standards laboratory to operate in splendid isolation, lacking contact with the everyday problems of those who actually do the measuring in the market, on the production line, and in the laboratory. The National Conference on Weights and Measures serves one of its main functions in providing a forum where men and women who work in all steps in the measurement chain can make their special problems and their clever solutions known to workers on all

other levels in the chain. Certainly we at the Bureau can do a better job of providing services if we know what the people in the field need, if we know where we are doing a good job, and if we know where we are not providing the support people really need.

If I had to point out one quality that makes this Conference great, I would have to say honesty. There is little reluctance among you to reveal problems, or to state in no uncertain terms, dissatisfaction with the performance of other people in the measurement chain on whom you depend.

In this connection, the Bureau of Standards comes in for its share of comments, and we welcome them. We have been together for more than half a century in this Conference. NBS and the states have developed the kind of relationship that permits us to discuss our successes, our problems, and even our failures. We have done this in an open forum, open to any interested citizen, open to people from industry and from other organizations that have a shared interest in the problems that we face together.

Now, we have to have this sort of exchange in our system if we are to learn and grow. Every group providing services needs this sort of feedback. I am sure you know what feedback is. Jim Bouton in the celebrated baseball book "Ball Four" quotes outfielder philosopher Steve Hovely as saying, "To a pitcher, a base hit is negative feedback." The National Conference on Weights and Measures is a good arena for receiving feedback of all kinds. Among old friends, talk can be plain and honest. And I think that this is the main factor in the success of the U. S. weights and measures system.

We are trying to bring these advantages to other areas of our operation. We have come to realize that we must have a strong and direct interaction with the people who use measurement every day if we are to be able to provide them the services they need. Many of you are probably familiar with the NBS Measurement Analysis Program, or MAP. In fact, some of you may be tired of hearing about it, since I know my colleagues and I have talked about it before. In this program, we recognize that it is not sufficient to provide a set of calibrated weights to a laboratory and then to assume that all their problems are solved. The MAP scheme provides a continual feedback to NBS of the measurement process in a participating laboratory on a voluntary basis. We can advise them of systematic errors in their procedures, deficient procedures on the part of their personnel, and

so on.

MAP is a complete calibration of a laboratory, not only of its standards, but of its people, its procedures, its environment. I think that it is to date the most complete feedback process developed in the measurement system. We began it in mass measurements with a set of