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 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.