The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) | Page 8

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.
WILLIAM G. JORDAN[1]
[Footnote 1: Reproduced from The Craftsman of October, 1910, by
permission of Gustav Stickley.]
When a new idea or a new institution confronts the world it must
answer all challenges, show its credentials, specify its claims for
usefulness, and prove its promise by its performance. As an idea the
House of Governors has won the cordial approval of the American
press and public; as an institution it must now justify this confidence.
To grasp fully its powers and possibilities requires a clear, definite
understanding of its spirit, scope, plan, and purpose, and its attitude
toward the Federal Government.
The House of Governors is a union of the Governors of all the States,
meeting annually in conference as a deliberative body (with no
lawmaking power) for initiative, influence, and inspiration toward a
better, higher, and more unified Statehood. Its organization will be
simple and practical, avoiding red-tape, unnecessary formality, and
elaborate rules and regulations. It will adopt the few fundamental
expressions of its principles of action and the least number of rules that
are absolutely essential to enunciate its plan and scope, to transmute its
united wisdom into united action and to guarantee the coherence,
continuity, and