Plenary Session Transcripts

Governors were addressed about the effects that would be felt by radiation from a nuclear attack.

Governor Orville Freeman of Minnesota pointed out that during the previous ten years, the federal share of spending for non-defense related services had declined from 47 to 35 percent, while the state share had risen from 53 to 65 percent.

The Joint Federal-State Action Committee reported that rather than reduce the tax on local phone service, Congress had repealed it, meaning that states would no longer receive a credit against the tax in return for their assuming the federal share of financial responsibility for vocational education and sewage treatment works grant programs. The Committee adopted an alternative proposal resulting in the submission to Congress of draft legislation providing for a gradual phaseout of the federal tax on local phone service; credit on a portion of state taxes on local phone service; and temporary grants to ensure the maintenance of funding levels for vocational education and waste treatment projects until states could assume full responsibility for them.

HEW Secretary Arthur Flemming raised the issue of whether the federal government should decrease the overall extent of its funding for public assistance, and discontinue categorical grants for aid to the aged, blind, and disabled, as well as for children, replacing them with an overall formula grant, which would reduce federal supervision over those programs and encourage greater state and local responsibility. Flemming also said that in the use of any federal funds, there should be no state residency requirements. And he expressed the federal position that aid to children should be based on need, regardless of whether a child was born out of wedlock.

Governor William Stratton of Illinois said the following about his experience with respect to agriculture during a tour by Governors of the Soviet Union: "I can't resist telling you there was one place we felt at home on a Russian farm. It happened that the manager of the farm was a living likeness of the late President Theodore Roosevelt, and he made us feel right at home. We couldn't resist telling him that he bore that resemblance, and I think he was proud of that fact when we told him, as well as that he had exceeded his production for the past three months and was about to get a bonus from the government."

Governor Cecil Underwood of West Virginia said this with respect to comparing our educational system with that of the Soviet Union: "Many people in this country have supposed, since the advent of Sputnik I, that we should junk our educational system and trade it in for something like the Soviets'. I do not accept that thesis. Our responsibility is not to destroy our own system, but to improve it whenever we can. We Governors have a very firm and fixed responsibility to review our own educational system, to assigning upon ourselves, in our American free way, the kind of self-discipline which will produce in us prestige for education, support from the people, and dedication to a national purpose."

Former President Galo Plaza of Ecuador said: "...would not Latin America, with its twenty independent nations, that in spite of differences make up the most homogeneous community of nations in the world, prove to be an adequate testing ground for democracy to clearly show its worth in a large enough scale?...Today Latin America is the largest trading partner of the United States. United States private investment has a large stake in Latin America. And above all, we both firmly believe that prosperity and social justice can flourish in a free society, where free men have the opportunity to realize their possibilities as human beings. These are some of the reasons why democracy can and must succeed in Latin America."

Governor Foster Furcolo of Massachusetts had this to say about education and the issue of teacher shortages: "Factual research studies found better than 2 to 1, that pupil achievement is actually higher in larger, than in smaller classes."

Selected Resolutions Adopted:
(1) Urging a satisfactory resolution of differences between Congress (which favored bond-financing) and the Administration (which favored a pay-as-you-go tax) over highway financing; (2) directing the Chairman to appoint a standing committee on roads and highway safety; (3) asking Congress to enact legislation establishing a uniform one-year ceiling on residency requirements for federally-funded public assistance, and urging state legislatures to ratify the interstate compact put forth by the report of the Governors' Conference Special Committee on Residence Requirements for Public Assistance, ensuring that people who moved from one state to another would not be denied needed aid; (4) expressing the Governors' sense that immunity and exemption of state and local bond interest from federal income taxation be preserved; (6) urging that the National Guard be maintained at adequate strength; (6) urging that states initiate educational campaigns regarding the danger of nuclear fallout and that all government levels help people prepare for survival in the event of a nuclear attack; (7) urging Congress to establish a permanent Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations; (8) urging the steel industry and steel union to continue negotiations toward settling the current steel strike; (9) commending Congress's action in support of the National Science Foundation's program to accelerate meteorological research to meet scientific, military, and economic needs with respect to atmospheric and weather phenomena; (10) urging that Governors give support to the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), including taking action to permit investment in the securities of the IADB by banks, insurance companies, fiduciaries, state fiscal officers, and other persons restricted by law as to investment in securities; (12) authorizing the association Chairman and Executive Committee to plan a visit to Latin American nations; and (12) authorizing the Executive committee, with State Department approval, to extend invitations to the U.S. for heads of Soviet Socialist Republics.