MANUFACTURERS, NATIONAL ASSOCIA TION OF. AO association of American nmitufac turers organized in Cincinnati in 1895 for the pur poses of increasing their export trade. influeneing legislation affecting their interests. and of coping with the demands of labor organizations. The association maintains a central office in New York which supplies members with infornmtion about foreign markets, prives, credit reports, and undertakes through its international freight luireau the shipment and delivery of foreign consignments. Its most conspicuous function is the energetic campaign which it wages against radical legislation and trade unionism. The pub lic measures with which the association has been most prominently connected are the reform of the patent law and of the consular and postal ser vices. The association has placed itself on record as not being opposed to labor organizations as such, but maintains that employers must be free to employ their working people with out interference on the part of individual organizations and that they must be un molested in the management of their business and in the use of any methods or systems of pay which are equitable. The association provided
for the organization of separate defense associa tions in the different lines of industry it repre cents. Provision was further made for the federation of these affiliated protected associa tions into a "permanent central organization that will create a clearing-house for ideas and provide means for cooperation on matters of common in terest." The association has evidently entered upon a programme of positive opposition to trade unionism. The association had, in 1903. more than 1900 members, and claimed that, measured by capital invested, workmen employed, or prod ucts manufactured, it constitutes the largest trade body in the world. The association pub lishes the American Trade Index and the Confi dential Bulletin of Inquiries from Foreign Buyers; its organ is American Industries, pub lished semi-monthly at New York.