STATES & CITIES: Governors' Party

STATES & CITIES

Like most occupational groups in the U. S. the Governors of the States and Territories have a formal trade association—the Governors' Conference with headquarters and an executive secretary in Washington. And Governors have conventions. Last week they assembled in a traditional convention spot, Atlantic City, for their annual two-day outing. Only 22 went in person, some of the rest dispatching representatives. New Jersey's Hoffman played host, greeting the guests with a band, a claque of uniformed veterans, a platoon of State troopers, a motorcade of ten cars with gubernatorial license plates ("N. J. 1") and a convivial "get-together" dinner for early arrivals in the Hotel Traymore.

Throughout the serious daytime sessions the dominant theme was the historic conflict of State and Federal authority—a conflict in which the Governors and their predecessors for 150 years had been reluctantly giving ground. Wyoming's Miller urged interchange of State data to eliminate gasoline-tax evasion. Handsome Governor Allred of Texas delivered a thoughtful appeal for closer co-operation between State parole boards. The rest of the speeches, almost without exception, were devoted to encroachment of Federal power. Topics of discussion and typical ejaculations:

Education. One bitter theme was Federal aid for local schools. South Carolina's Johnston: "We should be as jealous of individual liberty in education as we are of individual liberty in religion. . . . South Carolina will always demand its right to segregate the whites and the blacks. . . . We would not condone anything which approaches racial equality." North Carolina's Hoey: "In my State the municipalities accepted State funds and the burden of education gradually shifted to the State. The same thing will happen in the Federal Government." Maine's Barrows: "I most certainly fear control of education by the Federal Government. . . ." Only dissenter was Indiana's Townsend, who cracked back: "The Federal Government certainly never did the State of Indiana any harm when it meddled with roads. . . ."

Floods & Power. From George Aiken of Vermont came a bitter blast at Federal intervention in flood control. The whole Connecticut River flood-control program has been held up by New Deal insistence that, in return for Federal aid, all reservoir and power sites be turned over to the Federal Government—which Vermont refused to do. Vermont's Aiken: "Shall the Federal Government have the authority to take from a State without its consent and with or without recompense the natural resources [reservoir and power sites] upon which the industry, the income and the welfare of the people may depend? ... If the water power of Vermont can be taken without its consent, then the same right would exist for appropriating any natural resource of any other State."