The Connecticut labor news., 1922-02-24

1 state the1r views on the transportation
 The National Industrial Council is the polite name for the inside circle ! composing the hard-boiled prohteers of 1 the National Association of Manufac- l turers, the United States Chamber of Commerce and other aggregations of wealth takers who, on occasions pose as defenders of liberty and friends of the dear people.
 MT. C. s. Walker, a manufacturer of Des Moines, Iowa, was the first l speaker. He presented to the commit tee a set of skillfully drawn resolutions purporting to be the deliberate expres- sion of the membership contained in over 300 manufacturing groups from B states composing, it was alleged, 2oO,- GOO manufacturers employing 10,OOO,O0O Operatives" Mir. James A. Emery, counsel of the National Industrial Council, followed Mr. Walker
 Mir. Emery is the gentleman who fig ured so prominently during the Mulhall
 Lobby Investigation by the Senate and the House in the year 1915, and is the same gentleman selected by the recent conference of subdued representatives of 1 farmers and industrial monopolists to ! represent their views on transportation and other industrial problems before the 1 Federal Congress and state legislatures. presented undertook to crystalize preju- ! dice against labor and the organizations of labor. The remedies proposed to solve our transportation problems were l 1, Compulsory arbitration.
 2. Indirect suggestion for the ! abolition of the Railroad Labor l Board, the substitution of so-
 called impartial tribunal to which l industrial disputes on the railroads should be referred and whose de- l cisions should be surnmarily en- ! forced
 l B Repeal of the Adamson Eight Hour Law.
 l 4. Repeal of the State full crew l laws.
 5. Invest Congress with supreme l powers over all interstate traffic,
 thus centralizing Federal control,
 and depriving the States of any
 rights or privileges to regulate l transportation within their own l boundaries.
 l Mir. Emery i'll reply to questions put 1 by Senators Cum1nins and Stanley ad- mitted that he had no faith or confidence in voluntary negotiations or voluntary arbitration of labor problems by repre- sentatives of organized labor with en- l ployers. He gave no credit to the ex- traordinary successes that had been at ] tendant upon successful voluntary ne- gotiations between 145 railroads and their several groups of organized en- ployes for the last 40 years; he waved aside with magnificent gesture, the service rendered by the Bureau of Con- ciliation in the Department of Labor, the | Board of Mediation and Consolidation es- tablished under the Newlands Act in l 1913, the many weighty cases already adjusted by the Railroad Labor Board and to the many thousands of cases suc- cessfully adjusted with justice to all in- terests by the War Labor Board. l Of course, 1t depends very greatly upon viewpoint as to the merits and the ! benefits accruing from the extraordinary undertakings which this industrial his- ! tory covers, but it was all useless and ! worthless from the material viewpoint of Mr. Emery, his fellow agents and his patrons. As to the spiritual value of such human activities, he had no opinion to state, thus again showing that the ul- ! tramateriaist has at heart no regard ! whatsoever for human rights, human ! comforts, human development human l aspirations and genuine wholesouled ! elsewhere.
 Upon being questioned MT. Emery agreed that the public tri- 1 bunal proposed by his council and
 invested with the dictorial power to
 arbitrate, decide and enforce de-
 cisions by it as to wages paid rail- road employees and working condi- tions, it should also exclusively func-
 tion with the Interstate Commerce Commission possessing the railroad
 rate making power.
 On being further questioned, he ad- mitted that the Interstate Commerce l Commission might function as the pub | lie tribunal to arbitrarily set wages and