Plenary Session Transcripts

Governors Attending:

Guests:

Discussion Subjects:

Education; taped telecast of message from President Eisenhower; address by the Canadian Prime Minister; federal-state relations; civil defense, National Guard; plans for trip to South America; highway financing and safety; and aging

Points of Interest:

U.S.-Soviet relations arose in a number of contexts during the annual meeting. For example, concern was expressed that the Soviets were getting ahead of the U.S. in part because of their emphasis on education. The Canadian Prime Minister cautioned that communist propaganda portrayed U.S. international aid as having ulterior purposes. Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York pointed out the extent to which the U.S. was out-armed by the Soviet Union and vulnerable because of its lack of warning, retaliatory, and survival capability. And the Governors' Conference Civil Defense Committee report recommended providing the public with educational materials on fallout protection.

Governors discussed the deficit of teachers and classrooms, particularly at the postsecondary level, which posed a critical problem in the light of polls showing that the parents of baby boomers wanted their children to attend college.

William Randolph Hearst Jr., representing the President's Committee for Traffic Safety, recommended state pooling of funds to underwrite the cost of research into developing new methods of traffic accident prevention, with funding being prorated based on the number of vehicles registered per participating state.

The Under Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare discussed the upcoming 1961 national conference on aging, which was to follow individual conferences on aging in every state. Governors talked about pending legislation for medical care to the aged [which ultimately became Medicare]. At that time, the House of Representatives favored a voluntary state-federal cooperative matching program, while the Senate supported the concept of providing care via the Social Security system.

Memorable Quotes:

Dr. Alvin Eurich of the Fund for the Advancement of Education said: "The whole educational process...would become more meaningful if each state would establish a system of comprehensive examinations to determine the actual achievement of students...Similarly, our present method of certifying teachers could be replaced by a system of examinations."

Governor Christopher Del Sesto of Rhode Island said: "Probably what ought to be done now is to hold a constitutional convention, to be called by the states, and we ought to amend the Constitution to now realign the allocation of duties between the two governments, state and federal, and put in a realignment of the taxing power. If these things are to have any meaning they must be written into our basic charter of the Constitution. We can't leave it to each separate Congress. We can't meet each problem as it comes up."

Governor Harold Handley of Indiana said regarding state-federal relations: "The thing that worries me more than anything else is that I think the image of this great American Eagle of ours, the American Eagle, is turning into the image of a mother hen."

Governor Ross Barnett of Mississippi said: "...those in authority in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of our [federal] government...look upon [Tenth Amendment] rights as nonexistent and as a burden upon their pattern of government. They do not even bother to dust off the pages of the seldom-used Constitution for proof of these rights and the guarantee of their perpetuation; rather, they search hopefully through the pages of foreign-written and communist-inspired sociology books for a conglomeration of godless words that will allow them to effect illegally their selfish aims. How long will the people of this great nation permit this disgraceful practice and fraud upon the Constitution to continue unrestrained? This usurpation of the rights of the American people and the rights of the states now running wildly and unchecked through the bureaucratic agencies of Washington and that city's power-mad politicians is not just a southern problem...It is not a sectional problem. It is a problem of all sections of this nation, and it is spreading rapidly."

Speaking in defense of Washington, Governor Michael DiSalle of Ohio said: "...we seem to forget that the people whom we accuse of all this subversive activity, who take these rights away from us, are men whom we elect to office in Washington...I suppose in the Senate there are a number of former Governors. The House is made up of many men who have been Governors, who have been mayors of communities, who have been members of state legislatures. What happens to these people when they suddenly leave their states and go to Washington? Is it because they get a different view of the problem than they had on the local level? I don't think they are really conspiring to try to destroy state government or local government."

Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York, as chair of the standing Committee on Civil Defense, said: "We cannot reasonably expect Soviet communism to make concessions to a Western view of arms control—when it enjoys clear military advantages untrammeled by any such control. We cannot reasonably expect Soviet communism to join a serious effort to change the rules of the grim business of armament—when, with the present lack of rules, the Soviet Union enjoys a position of relative power that no rules could give it. We can—and we shall—achieve serious measures of arms control only when our own strength as a nation—joining and serving all our allies—leaves Soviet strength no clear advantage. We do not, as a nation, seek power for the sake of power. We seek power for the sake of peace. The road to disarmament can and must, then, be the road to peace. This is, as it must be, the path of American purpose. It is a steep ascent. It can begin only with strength—great and indestructible strength. For it must carry us to the one summit that truly and fatefully matters—the summit where nations strong in weapons of war begin to put down their arms—to prove themselves strong in the building of a world of peace and of justice."

Selected Resolutions Adopted:
(1) Urging protection of interest on state and municipal bonds from federal taxation; (2) opposing legislation that would require congressional approval for state legislation authorizing state compact activity to take effect; (3) establishing a Committee on Juvenile Delinquency to help marshal efforts to combat the problem of juvenile delinquency and to serve as a liaison with other public and private agencies working on the issue; (4) authorizing the association's Chairman to appoint a Standing Committee on Civil Defense; (5) urging modification of buildings to meet adequate nuclear fallout protection standards and otherwise urging broad protection efforts on the part of the federal government, including the provision of funding to match state and local expenditures for civil defense; (6) urging federal assurance that the National Guard be maintained at adequate levels; (7) authorizing the association's Executive Committee to explore the feasibility of sponsoring, or encouraging the sponsorship by others, of a national conference to define the basic problems arising from automation; (8) encouraging continued study by competent authorities of student-teacher ratios; (9) requesting that the Committee on Roads and Highway Safety of the Governors' Conference study ways and means of securing prompt acceptance and use of automotive safety devices and design features to reduce injuries caused by traffic accidents; (10) endorsing the establishment of an interstate compact for the exchange of driver licensing records and other information and for the development of uniform driver licensing standards; (11) urging an increase of funding from Congress for highway construction; and (12) resolving that states support and participate in the forthcoming White House Conference on Aging.