Plenary Session Transcripts

Governors Attending:

Guests:

Discussion Subjects:

Cooperation of Governors on crime problems; employment of prisoners; youthful offenders; the federal government and state tax relations; the segregation plan of taxation; gas taxes; the importance of the states’ function in aviation; and individual attitudes toward government

Points of Interest:

Governors talked at length about crime issues, including the origins of crime, gun control, and youth crime.

Also discussed were a variety of tax issues, among them: (1) interstate tax problems--including the difficulty of taxing corporations doing business in more than one state and taxing estates affecting more than one state; (2) continued federal imposition of inheritance tax; (3) segregated taxes, meaning the division of property taxes such that localities taxed real estate and tangible property while states taxed intangible property; (4) the federal elimination of gas taxes and the question of whether their restoration should lie exclusively with the states; and (5) taxation of national banks.

Governors talked about the promise of aviation and the steps that would be involved in preparing for increased airplane travel. It was observed that ultimately, air travel would bring cost savings compared with the required maintenance and construction of highways.

The subject of prohibition and the need for Governors to take a formal stand on state enforcement was raised but quashed in the face of Executive Committee opposition. In connection with prohibition and the problem of discussing it in public, then-Governor Franklin Roosevelt was the first to propose the idea of Governors meeting in Governors-only sessions. His motion to do this carried and his idea was referred to the Executive Committee for further consideration.

Memorable Quotes:

Governor George Dern of Utah said: "...there will be speculation in the mind of some as to why we have more crime in the United States than they have in Great Britain. I wonder if the answer in part is not to be found in our national fetish of standardizing everything, even thinking. In England a citizen may hold and freely express radical opinions on political and economic questions without losing his social standing...In this land of mass production and 100 per cent Americanism, the person who shows signs of independent thinking is promptly ostracized from good society. Such an attitude must inevitably breed resentment and lack of respect for our system and laws."

Then-Governor Franklin Roosevelt of New York said: "Each State must study its own crime conditions, must gather its own statistics...By that I do not mean that there should not be the closest possible uniformity in our crime legislation and our criminal codes. All legislation, for instance, against the gun toter has been seriously impaired because it is not uniform in every State."

Governor Max Gardner of North Carolina said: "We shall gain nothing by inveighing against the invention of the automobile or the motion picture or deploring the styles in modern dress or manners...the real source of the trouble...lies beneath the surface of its superficial manifestations. If our youth are to have a fine and sane and wholesome attitude towards life and its problems and opportunities and duties, they must get it from somewhere...The schools can help--as can the church--but the home must remain the central source from which youth derives its most important and permanent attitudes as to life's values and as to its responsibilities."

Governor George Shafer of North Dakota said: "[The system of gasoline taxation] in its origin comes to us as a sort of necessary by-product of the great demand for the rapid improvement of the highway systems of the several States, particularly as the same was given a special impetus by the encouragement of the Federal Government through the Federal Highway Aid appropriations...[T]here was incorporated in the Revenue Measure of 1918...a provision imposing a tax upon gasoline in this country, but fortunately, I think...that provision was eliminated and there has been no attempt evidently to restore it...I hope that it may never be restored and that one form of taxation that has proven so successful and so popular will be left exclusively to be exploited by the States."

Harry Guggenheim said this about aviation: "I think the day is very near at hand when not only Governors but the citizens of all the States will be flying around in airplanes just as we travel in motor cars today."

With respect to the controversy over whether the Governors' Conference should take a stand on prohibition, the Executive Committee concluded: "The members of your committee...feel it their duty to point out the potential danger to the Conference in the future if its long established rule against the adoption of resolutions be violated. The usefulness of this organization depends upon complete harmony, and if we now establish a new precedent the door will be opened to discord and disruption..."

Resolutions:

Referring the matter of Governors holding closed sessions to the Executive Committee for consideration.