Plenary Session Transcripts

Governors Attending:

Guests:

Discussion Subjects:

Social Security and welfare; education; intergovernmental relations; and highway construction, regulation, and safety

Points of Interest:

It was mentioned that representatives of the Governors' Conference, the Council of State Governments (CSG), local governments, and the federal Treasury Department and Bureau of the Budget had met earlier in the year and agreed that the national government should withdraw from or reduce taxes that could be used most advantageously by state and local government; that the inheritance tax should be adjusted to give states a more equitable share of the returns; and that Congress should act to ensure federal payment of taxes to states for federally-owned property.

Pursuant to the previous year's discussion regarding the potential for interstate educational cooperatives and general interstate cooperation, it was reported that interstate cooperative activities had been undertaken in a number of issue areas, including forest conservation in New England, care of delinquents in the West, and higher education in the South. CSG, at the direction of the Executive Committee, had done a study of the organization, operation, and financing of elementary and secondary education in the various states. And it was reported that the federal Hoover Commission [appointed by President Truman and headed by former President Herbert Hoover, for the purpose of studying the need for government reorganization] had reported to Congress on federal-state relations, urging the establishment of a commission to study the relationship between the two levels of government. Legislation was pending to establish the commission, which would provide an effective method for exploring and implementing recommendations of the Governors' Conference.

Governors again discussed the advisability of federal grants-in-aid.

Memorable Quotes:

With respect to federal power, Governor J. Bracken Lee of Utah: "I'm worrying about the time when you won't even be Governor of your state--the Governor will be in Washington...I think that a good majority of the Governors would be glad to give up [grants-in-aid] if they could get the taxing power back that the federal government now has."

Taking a more tempered approach, Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois said: "...all of us know that there must be some limit to the extension of federal programs. I suggest that those limits may well be determined more effectively by the taxpayers' pocketbooks than by issuing proclamations about states' rights...the industrial age has created problems of health, housing, education, transportation, and employment which inexorably flow over state boundaries...I believe there is a way for all of the levels of government to pull together in a harmonious manner...I suggest that we recognize the need for cooperation rather than hostility or capitulation between levels of government, that we should root out every unnecessary duplication in federal, state, and local services, assigning those services to each unit most fitted to administer them in the public interest...we should press...for efficient administration of our federal grants with only those controls which the public interest requires, and limited to fields of legitimate national concern...we should return to the states or localities...tax sources which could best be handled at their levels."

General Walter Bedell Smith, former Ambassador to the USSR, quoted former British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston as saying: "It has always been the policy and practice of the Russian government to expand its borders as rapidly as the apathy and the timidity of its neighbors will permit, but always to halt and often to recoil when confronted by determined opposition, then to await for the next favorable opportunity to spring upon its intended victim." He said, referring to a Europe weakened by WWII: "...it devolves upon the United States to use its own strength to shield the free nations of Europe from aggression while they rebuild their own defenses..."

Selected Resolutions Adopted:
(1) Continuing support to the UN and the European Recovery Program, and endorsing adoption of the North Atlantic Treaty; (2) approving objectives of the Hoover Commission [see points of interest above]; (3) urging congressional enactment of legislation to establish a commission to explore intergovernmental relations; (4) directing the Council of State Governments to study mental hygiene and care and treatment of the mentally ill in the various states; (5) urging states to establish adequate driver licensing and exam systems; (6) recognizing the need for better cooperation among levels of government with respect to water resource development, conservation, and use; (7) reiterating the desire for state-federal cooperative programs with respect to unemployment and relief; (8) opposing any proposals for the federal government to take over the National Guard; (9) urging enactment of statehood for Alaska and Hawaii; (10) urging that no one be denied naturalization because of race or color; and (11) endorsing the joint committee of federal and state budget officers and their cooperative efforts toward attaining administrative improvements and more effective control of public expenditures.