The House of Governors will not seek uniformity merely for the sake of uniformity.  There are many questions whereon uniform laws would be unnecessary, and others where it would be not only unwise, but inconceivably foolish.  Many States have purely individual problems that do not concern the other States and do not come in conflict with them, but even in these the Governors may gain an occasional incidental sidelight of illumination from the informal discussion in a conference that may make thinking clearer and action wiser.  The spirit that should inspire the States is the fullest freedom in purely State problems and the largest unity in laws that affect important questions in Interstate relations.

While uniform law is an important element in the thought of the Conference it is far from being the only one.  The frank, easy interchange of view, opinion, and experience brings the Governors closely together in the fine fellowship of a common purpose and a common ideal.  They are broadened, stimulated, and inspired to a keener, clearer vision on a wider outlook.  The most significant, vital, and inspiring phases of these conferences, those which really count for most, and are the strongest guaranties of the permanence and power of this movement, must, however, remain intangible.  This fact was manifest in every moment of that first Conference last January.

The fading of sectional prejudice in the glow of sympathetic understanding was clearly evident.  Some of the Western Governors in their speeches said that their people of the West had felt that they were isolated, misrepresented, misunderstood, and misjudged; but now these Governors could go back to their States and their people with messages of good will and tell them of the identity of interest, the communion of purpose, the kinship of common citizenship, and the closer knowledge that bound them more firmly to the East, to the South, and to the North.  Other Governors spoke of the facilitating of official business between the States because of these meetings.  They would no longer, in correspondence, write to a State Executive as a mere name without personality, but their letters would carry with them the memories of close contact and cordial association with those whom they had learned to know.  There was no faintest tinge of State jealousies or rivalry.  The Governors talked frankly, freely, earnestly of their States and for them, but it was ever with the honest pride of trusteeship, never the petty vanity of proprietorship.

Patriotism seemed to throw down the walls of political party and partizanship and in the three days’ session the words Republican or Democrat were never once spoken.  The Governors showed themselves an able body of men keenly alive to the importance of their work and with a firm grasp on the essential issues.  The meeting added a new dignity to Statehood and furnished a new revelation of the power, prestige, and possibilities of the Governor’s office.