Responsible Muckraker

For years the Interstate Sanitation Commission had declared that the waters of Raritan Bay, a sizable hunk of New York Harbor, were fit for swimming, boating and fishing. When the New Republic's new reporter, James Ridgeway, took a look at Raritan in 1963, he came to an opposite conclusion. "Not unlike the environs of the River Styx," he wrote, "a foul-smelling sewer feeds the accumulated filth from 1,200,000 people into this bay every 24 hours. This mass of putrefaction oozes about New Jersey and Staten Island shores for several days, washing the beaches with quantities of fecal bacteria, closing out the light and consuming oxygen required by fish and other forms of marine animal and plant life, before sluggishly moving seaward on the outgoing tide."

Respect from His Targets. Ridgeway was not exaggerating, but he had little hope that his indignant article would have any effect. The U.S. Public Health Service, he pointed out, lacked the necessary muscle to enforce a cleanup; New York and New Jersey, he argued, would not want to risk scaring off industry by enforcing the necessary antipollution controls. What was needed, he said, was a new federal agency reporting directly to the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare.

To Ridgeway's surprise, someone was listening. When Congress passed its water-pollution bill last year, the New Republic suggestion was written into law. Out of a reporter's complaints, the Water Pollution Control Administration was born. Ridgeway himself disclaims more than a minor share of the credit.

But the federal agencies that have been his most consistent targets have learned to speak of him with respect. His influence reaches beyond that of the magazine he works for. He is, says a top aide of the Federal Power Commission, something of a journalistic rarity --"a responsible muckraker."

Threadbare Tires. A onetime editor of the Daily Princetonian, Ridgeway, 29, put in a stint on the Wall Street Journal before coming to the New Republic. He makes sure that he ge'ts his facts correct and avoids the doctrinaire "New Left" politics that fills much of the rest of the magazine. "I don't think things should be cast in black and white," he says. "These subjects are complicated and difficult to get at. What I want to do is take a point of view that is unreported and provide people with that different perspective."

Some of Ridgeway's "different perspectives":

>He was the first to air completely--and ridicule--the battery of psychological tests administered to most federal employees, particularly the personal and simplistic questions about each individual's sex life. (Sample: True or False? Once in a while I think of things too bad to talk about.) Ridgeway's article--plus the protest of much of the rest of the press--led to a congressional investigation, and the Civil Service Commission now bans all such tests for the 86% of federal employees under its jurisdiction.

> He was the first correspondent in the general press to report the startling facts that emerged from a 1965 Federal Trade Commission hearing on the tire industry: tires supposedly designed for six-passenger autos were actually so weak that they could safely support only three passengers. After the piece appeared, the Senate Commerce Committee asked Ridgeway to offer his assessment of the Federal Trade Com mission's Bureau of Deceptive Practices. Said a Commerce Committee member: "It is rare that a member of the working press would be asked for his views in the same way we seek expert advice."

> He reported from his own personal investigation that supermarkets in poor Negro neighborhoods were charging higher prices for shoddier food than stores of the same chain in affluent neighborhoods. Special Presidential Assistant on Consumer Interests Mrs. Esther Peterson, who has often made use of Ridgeway's research, was impressed enough by this article to order an investigation of food prices. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also started a study. "Other people have made the charge before," says an aide of Mrs. Peterson, "but Ridgeway's coining of the term 'segregated food' became a rallying cry."

At present, Ridgeway is waging an inconclusive war with the federal antipoverty program, something of a surprise in a magazine that is usually an ardent supporter of federal welfare measures. Charging that the poor are not being consulted as originally intended, Ridgeway has accused the anti-poverty administrators of selling out the program. They, in turn, have responded with angry letters to the New Republic. Ridgeway is happy to keep things in ferment. "As a rule, these guys don't like to argue," he says. "Everyone in Washington takes himself so seriously. They're all very pompous. I try not to take myself too seriously, but I am trying to engage people in arguments about our civilization."

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