F.J. Schlink
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Frederick John Schlink (October 26, 1891 - January 15, 1995) has been called the Ralph Nader of his day and his book (co-written with Stuart Chase) Your Money's Worth was called the consumer's Uncle Tom's Cabin. These descriptions, made 50 years apart, represent some of the opinions of a true consumer pioneer, caught up in too much contradictory dogma and ideology, and nearly forgotten in the history of the consumer movement. While Your Money's Worth, and later 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs (co-written with Arthur Kallet), galvanized consumers and helped create the consumer movement (thus the comparison to Stowe's novel), the Nader remark, made because Schlink was one of the more important early consumer activists, implies that Schlink's exile from national prominence after 1935 created a vacuum in the consumer movement that was not filled until Nader gained prominence. It should be noted that Schlink had no stomach for Nader, although he did collect several thousand news clippings relating to Nader.
Born in Peoria, Illinois, Frederick John Schlink was the son of Valentine L. and Margaret Brutcher Schlink. He graduated from Peoria High School and then in 1912 from the University of Illinois with a B.S. degree. In 1917 he received a Mechanical Engineering degree from the same school. Between 1913 and 1919, Schlink worked at the Bureau of Standards in Washington, D.C., where he wrote several monographs on measurement and other technical subjects, and where he rose to the position of assistant to the director. In 1919 he was awarded the Edward Longstreet Medal of the Franklin Institute. During 1919 and 1920, he worked in Akron, Ohio for the Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. as head of the instrument department. Between 1920 and 1922, Schlink worked for Western Electric Co (later Bell Telephone Laboratories).
Between 1922 and 1931, Schlink worked as assistant to Paul E. Agnew at the American Engineering Standards Committee, which changed its name to the American Standards Association in the late 1920's. At the ASA, Schlink worked on several projects, including standards for Czechoslovakia, specifications and standards in government, purchase methods of the navy and army, and methods for testing products. During his tenure at the ASES/ASA Schlink served as an independent consultant to several organizations on standards. These organizations included Macy's, the Federation for Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies, the State of Pennsylvania, and finally, the Consumers' Club which evolved into Consumers' Research Inc. During his professional career prior to Consumers' Research's formation, Schlink wrote for several technical journals, purchasing publications, Women's Wear Daily and other publications on standardization issues and mechanical measurement. Some of Schlink's earliest writings included "Efficiency in the Arrangement of the Desk (1917)," and "New Ways of Using Index Cards (1919)." Many of these early writings were monographs written for the Bureau of Standards. Some are collected in the Consumers' Research records at Rutgers and others are available in the F.J. Schlink collection at the University of Wyoming.
During the mid-1920's he worked with Stuart Chase on articles that evolved into the bestselling book Your Money's Worth. After the book was published, Schlink received large amounts of mail asking for critical and competent information on consumer products. In response to the book and this overwhelming mail, Schlink assisted in the formation of a Consumers Club. Out of a meeting at a church in White Plains, N.Y., in 1927 came the Consumers Club Commodity List. Soon the Club's membership grew. By the end of 1929, the Club evolved into Consumers' Research, Inc., with Schlink as Technical Director.
In 1932, Schlink co-authored (with Arthur Kallet) the bestselling book 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs. The book sold over 250,000 copies. In 1935 Schlink published Eat, Drink and Be Wary. Schlink served as adjunct professor of Consumer Economics at the University of Tennessee. He was a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. In 1969, Schlink and Your Money's Worth were mentioned by President Nixon in his consumer address to Congress. The Papers of Consumers' Research are at Rutgers University.
During the first five years of Consumers' Research, membership grew to over 50,000 with close to 60 people employed in various technical, administrative and editorial jobs. Schlink, then, headed an organization with quite a series of natural growing pains and many consequent problems. With funding from the Elmhirst Foundation, the organization was able to hire an administrative assistant. As the organization's membership grew, more employees were hired. Schlink's Board of Directors and his employees consisted of technical people (Dewey Palmer, Arthur Kallet) and writers (Alexander Crosby, George Soule) and even some agitators (J.B. Matthews). When the organization moved to rural Washington, New Jersey, in 1933, several, if not most, of the formerly urbanite employees quit.
Schlink's ambitions and demands converged to create employee problems even before the 1935 strike and the move to New Jersey. Schlink, described as "lean freckled [and] didactic," was depicted by a resigning employee as idolizing efficiency while "at the same time [having] the highest reputation for disorganization" and accused of "wasting thousands in the constant training of new employment." In another 1933 resignation letter, early Schlink assistant, Eleanor Loeb, noted that Schlink's "innately sanguine temperament" resulted in an "unwillingness to countenance honesty of opinion" that "seriously interfered with the natural growth of Consumers' Research."
Schlink's political views were generally leftist or more progressive and these views corresponded with Consumers' Research's early editorial stance. One note states that Schlink intended to vote for Norman Thomas, the socialist candidate in 1928. Schlink was also a speaker for the League of Industrial Democracy. The early meetings of the White Plains groups discussed co-operative purchasing. CBS radio tried to censor his criticism of the NRA in a 1934 address. In the early 1930's Consumers' Research was painted red by advertising and industrial concerns who wanted to sell their products independent of any outside testing organization. Schlink was particularly critical of the Roosevelt Administration's handling of consumption issues, the National Recovery Administration's Consumer Advisory Board and the attempt by Congress to reform the Food and Drug Administration.
With the influence of J.B. Matthews and M.C. Phillips (Schlink's wife), Schlink was against any movement that didn't take into account the needs of the consumer. So at times he was anti- Roosevelt, anti-advertising, anti-industry, anti-fascist, and anti-Hearst. After the 1935 strike he became anti-communist. The strike, which involved very few long-time employees,caused Matthews, Phillips, and Schlink to reevaluate their political stances and become anti-labor, anti-NLRB, anti-Communist, anti-leftist, anti- liberal (although not so anti-Hearst or anti-industry as before). How this political reevaluation came about is worthy of debate. Schlink claimed it was a simple matter of one group (Communists) trying to take over the organization. For the next 40 years, CR made sure anyone who asked received flimsy or circumstantial documentation that the strikers and the people behind the strike were working for the Communist Party. But also to be considered in this ideological flip-flop is Schlink's shock at having his workers turn against him, and the violence of the strike itself, when the strikers stoned CR's headquarters and attacked non-striking workers on a bus. A year after the strike, Schlink was described as "to the right of [Presidential candidate Alf] Landon." Schlink died on January 15, 1995.
