The conference of the Governors at Washington this month marks the
beginning of a new epoch in the political history of the nation. It is
the first meeting ever held of the State Executives as a body seeking,
by their united influence, to secure uniform laws on vital subjects for
the welfare of the entire country. It should not be confused with the
Roosevelt conferences of May and December, 1908. It is in no sense a
continuation of them. It is essentially different in aim, method, and
basis, and is larger, broader, and more far-reaching in its
possibilities.
The nation to-day is facing a grave crisis in its history. Vital
problems affecting the welfare of the whole country, remaining unsolved
through the years, have at last reached an acute stage where they
_demand_ solution. This solution must come now in some form--either in
harmony with the Constitution or in defiance of it. The Federal
Government has been and still is absolutely powerless to act because of
constitutional limitation; the State governments have the sole power,
but heretofore no way has been provided for them to exercise that
power.
Senator Elihu Root points out fairly, squarely, and relentlessly the
two great dangers confronting the Republic: the danger of the National
Government breaking down in its effective machinery through the burdens
that threaten to be cast upon it; and the danger that the local
self-government of the States may, through disuse, become inefficient.
The House of Governors plan seems to have in it possibilities of
mastering both of these evils at one stroke.
There are three basic weaknesses in the American system of government
as we know it to-day. There are three insidious evils that are creeping
like a blood-poison through the body politic, threatening the very life
of the Republic. They are killing the soul of self-government, though
perhaps not its form; destroying its essence, though perhaps not its
name.
These three evils, so intertwined as to be practically one, are: the
growing centralization at Washington, the shifting, undignified,
uncertain status of State rights, and the lack of uniform laws.
It was to propose a possible cure for these three evils that the writer
sent in February, 1907, to President Roosevelt and to the Governors of
the country a pamphlet on a new idea in American politics. It was the
institution of a new House, a new representation of the people and of
the States to secure uniform legislation on those questions wherein the
Federal Governments could not act because of Constitutional limitation.
The plan proposed, so simple that it would require no Constitutional
amendment to put it into effect, was the organization of the House of
Governors.
More than thirty Governors responded in cordial approval of the plan.
Eight months later, October, 1907, President Roosevelt invited the
State Executives to a conference at Washington in May, 1908. The writer
pointed out at that time what seemed an intrinsic weakness of the
convention, that it could have little practical result, because it
would be, after all, only a conference, where the Federal Government,
by its limitations, was powerless to carry the findings of the
conference into effect, and the Governors, acting not as a co-operative
body, but as individuals, would be equally powerless in effecting
uniform legislation. It was a conference of conflicting powers.
The Governors were then urged to meet upon their own initiative, as a
body of peers, working out by united State action those problems where
United States action had for more than a century proved powerless. At
the close of the Roosevelt conference the Governors, at an adjourned
meeting, appointed a committee to arrange time and place for a session
of the Governors in a body of their own, independently of the
President. This movement differentiated the proposed meeting absolutely
from that with the President in every fundamental. It essentially
became more than a conference; it meant a deliberative body of the
Governors uniting to initiate, to inspire, and to influence uniform
laws. The committee then named, consisting of three members, later
increased to five, set the dates January 18, 19, and 20, 1910, for the
first session of the Governors as a separate body.