The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) | Page 7

merely a will and a brain, and the body as but the outward clothing of these, mere drapery, capable of being changed as the spirit wills. There is no visible limit to this wondrous drama in which man's patient mastering of his immediate environment is gradually teaching him to mold to his purpose all the potent forces of the universe.
[Footnote 2: See Our Progressing Knowledge of Life Surgery, page 273.]
In this assurance of ultimate success, let us find such consolation as we may. Though world-war may continue its devastation, though its increasing horrors may shake our civilization to the deepest depths, though its wanton destruction may rob us of the hoarded wealth of generations and the art treasures of all the past, though its beastlike massacres may reduce the number of men fitted to bear onward the torch of progress until of their millions only a mere pitiable handful survive, yet the steps which science has already won cannot be lost. Knowledge survives; and a happier generation than ours standing some day secure against the monster of militarism shall continue to uplift man's understanding till he dwells habitually on heights as yet undreamed.

THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF GOVERNORS
A NEW MACHINERY ADDED TO THE FEDERAL FORM OF GOVERNMENT
A.D. 1910
WILLIAM G. JORDAN
THE GOVERNORS
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.
WILLIAM G. JORDAN
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