Plenary Session Transcripts

Governors Attending:

Guests:

Discussion Subjects:

The states and the war effort; war legislation and emergency war powers of Governors; federal-state relations in wartime; organization of civilian defense; organization and training of the State Guard; victory home food supply program [under which people would be encouraged to grow as much of their own food as possible]; state revenues in wartime; administration of rationing and price control; and interstate trade barriers and the war effort

Points of Interest:

Frank Bane, Secretary of the Governors' Conference, reported on the preeminent role that states were playing in the development of state defense councils, administration of selective service, preparation of local law enforcement for civilian defense, and development and administration of price control machinery and rationing. It was also noted that President Roosevelt had appointed a Committee on Federal-State Cooperation in the War Effort, which expressed concern about the extent to which lack of uniformity in state motor transport laws was impeding the wartime effort. Specifically, wartime obstacles to water shipments placed tremendous burden on the railroads that the federal government felt should be shared by trucks. However, the lack of uniformity in state motor transport laws was blocking this effort. In response, the states worked out a satisfactory agreement among themselves that reduced the transportation bottleneck.

Although there was strong support for cooperation with the federal government in the conduct of war and pride in the role that states were playing, Governors were also concerned about the extent to which the federal government was flexing its wartime muscle domestically, and there was consensus that any agreement by the states to give the federal government wartime authority over what would normally be a state function (e.g., the administration of unemployment compensation) was temporary only.

The British, Chinese, and Netherlands Ambassadors made brief presentations on the effects of the war on their nations and regions.

Memorable Quotes:

Governor Prentice Cooper of Tennessee, who had been asked by the federal government to chair a national advisory committee on food production, said "...we need to build up a tremendous store of food surpluses in America...Every day thousands are leaving the jobs of producing food so that today there exists a most serious shortage of farm labor. The job of feeding the war workers, the soldiers here in our camps and abroad, as well as the job of feeding our Allies, shows...that food will...decide the conflict. The job of encouraging adequate home food supplies for each American family is preeminently one for the Governors. Food grown at home doesn't have to be transported, and it saves the food on the grocery shelves already packaged for use elsewhere."

Governor Frank M. Dixon of Alabama said: "...every single power which is necessary for the Federal Government to exercise for the successful prosecution of this war should be accorded instantly, cheerfully...But two principles should be borne in mind. First, that the power should not be surrendered unless it is actually and directly necessary to win the war and, second, that it should be clearly understood that the return of that power from the federal to local governments will come with the end of hostilities."

Selected Resolutions Adopted:
(1) Opposing any further effort to transfer authority from the states to the federal government with respect to unemployment compensation; and (2) objecting to federal interference with respect to the inherent taxation powers of state and local governments by exempting private corporations and individuals that were engaged in the production of war materials or the construction of war installations for the federal government from the payment of state and local sales taxes.