Plenary Session Transcripts

Governors Attending:

Guests:

Discussion Subjects:

The states and national defense; mobilization of the state’s resources for protection; the Atlantic and Pacific theaters; the selective service; organization and operation of state defense councils; industrial cooperation for defense; the place of agriculture in national defense; the place of law enforcement in national defense; and financial implications of the defense program

Points of Interest:

Among the guest speakers was New York Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia, who had been chosen Director of Civilian Defense by President Roosevelt. Mayor LaGuardia sought the Governors' counsel and advice regarding the means for acquiring adequate fire-fighting equipment; the wisdom of providing the civilian population with gas masks; and whether newly-formed State Guards would be sufficient to protect the nation's infrastructure from possible enemy attack.

Noteworthy was the fact that the job of administering selective compulsory military service (adopted in 1940) had been decentralized to the states. Governors also discussed the potential burden that some states would experience with respect to sudden concentrations of population associated with new defense industries and military establishments.

Memorable Quotes:

In a letter to the Governors, President Roosevelt expressed thanks that 46 states had established councils of defense, and said: "The days ahead are going to test our energy, our ingenuity and our statesmanship, and I know from past experience with your organization that America can depend upon the states to do their full part."

Governor Herbert H. Lehman of New York said that: "The German conception of the master race, preordained to rule the entire world, [had been] looked upon as a fantastic notion which it was safe to disregard...Yet we have been shaken out of our apathy...We know now beyond doubt that Hitler is bent on total world conquest. We must now face the fact that what appeared to us the fanciful dream of a diseased mind can yet be translated into stark reality unless an aroused and an awakened America proclaims in unmistakable terms, 'This shall not be!'"

Selected Resolutions Adopted:
(1) Approving of the President's policy of warning the American people of their present danger, and reaffirming their offer and intent to cooperate with the program to preserve the freedom of men and the institutions of free men; and (2) urging that all matters in connection with civilian defense in the states be taken up with the Governors or their designated defense organizations, and that relations with local officials and private organizations be channeled through the states.