The Connecticut labor press., 1920-06-19
MANUFACTURERS ADMIT
 DICTATING PLATFORM
Say Golden Opportunity Lost in Not Making It More
 Drastic.

The following special dispatch from Chicago shows what the manufacturers think about the platform:
 In the general comment heard on the platform adopted by the Republican party, 1t was remarked in the hotel lob- bies that the national platform builders recognized in many particulars of prin- cip1e and policy, the recommendations voiced by the National Association of Manufacturers in their platform for American industry and followed none of the demands made by the labor plat form proponents. James A. Emery general counsel for the manufacturers, took about 20 minutes before the reso- lutions committee, while Samuel Com pers consumed more than an hour MT. Emery declared the national platform builders had overlooked a great oppor- tunity by not declaring fat1y that all organizations should be held to the strict accountability of the law
 The manufacturers committee" said MT. Emery, "is concerned with ideas and principles and not with words The principles and policies urged through our industrial platform have received liberal recognition. This is noticeable in the demand for the return to constitutional restraint; the release from executive autocarcy and the revindication of the independence of the three great co-or- dinate departments of our government.
 It is even more noticeable in the ringing declaration that the right of strike against the government does not exist. It declares i'll accord with our urgent request the necessity. for business legislation and the administration of such legislation so that business men may be able to Know in advance with reasonable certainty whetlIer specific business practices are permissible or forbidden, and it sharply criticises the present administration of the Federal Trade Commission
 It fully sustains our contention for privately owned and operated, Amer ican built and manned merchant marine. It sustains our widespread criticism of the present form of the tax law and assures corrective remedial legislation and constructive immigration policy.
 'sThe Republican party has again wisely rejected, as 1t did iii 1908, the de- termined effort to compel 1t to criticise the federal courts for the protection they have justly secured for life and property when assailed in industrial disputes. The party has declined also to yield to the impudent demand tbat 1t declare for the destruction of the in dependence of the national judiciary or recommend that the power of the peoples courts to protect the peoples constitution aainst invasion be impair ed or destroyed.
 Tn our opinion, the declaration rep resenting the settlement of employment disputes affecting public utilities is weak. The plank, while reconizing the paramount public interest in the con- tinued operation of the public service essential to the pre ,ervation of com munity life, fails to vindicate the high obligation of national, state and munici- pal government to adequately protect such service from paralysis or obstruc- tion by arbitrary combination.
 Tt Is our further opinion that great opportunity has been neglected to recog- nize and assert that the right TO com- bine Is relative and not absolute. Whether exercised through corpora ton or by a labor union, 1t ends where peril to the public interest begins.
 "This principle lies at the root of our social question: It should have been unequivoca11y asserted, accompanied by the complementary declaration that nowhere in the republic is it safe to per- init power to be exercised without cor responding legal. responsibility No association of employers or employees should be. permitted to act without the acceptance of liability for it's own acts or those of it's agents. No other prir- cip1e of greater importance to the ade- quate protection of the everyday rights of the American people"