The formal establishment of the "House of Governors," which took place
in January of 1910, marked the climax of a definite movement which has
swept onward through the entire history of the United States.
When in 1775 the thirteen American colonies made their first effort
toward united action, they were in truth thirteen different nations,
each possessed of differing traditions and a separate history, and each
suspicious and jealous of all the others. Their widely diverging
interests made concerted action almost impossible during the
Revolutionary War. And when necessity ultimately drove them to join in
the close bond of the present United States, their constitution was
planned less for union than for the protection of each suspicious State
against the aggressions of the others.
Gradually the spread of intercourse among the States has worn away
their more marked differential points of character and purpose. Step by
step the course of history has forced our people into closer harmony
and union. To-day the forty-eight States look to one another in true
brotherhood. And as the final bond of that brotherhood they have
established a new organization, the House of Governors. This
constitutes the only definite change made in the United States
machinery of government since the beginning.
The House of Governors sprang first from the suggestion of William
George Jordan, who was afterward appropriately selected as its
permanent secretary. Hence we give here Mr. Jordan's own account of the
movement, as being its clearest possible elucidation. Then we give a
series of brief estimates of the importance of the new step from the
pens of those Governors who themselves took part in the gathering. In
their ringing utterances you hear the voice of North and South,
Illinois and Florida, of East and West, Massachusetts and Oregon, and
of the great central Mississippi Valley, all announcing the
fraternizing influence of the new step.
Governor Willson, of Kentucky, chairman of the committee which arranged
the gathering, in an earnest speech to its members declared that, "If
this conference of Governors had been in existence as an institution in
1860, there would never have been a war between the States. The issues
of the day would have been settled by argument, adjustment, and
compromise." It would be hard to find stronger words for measuring the
possible importance of the new institution.