vernment,
is one of right and dignified non-interference. It will not use its
influence with the Government, memorialize Congress, or pass
resolutions on national matters. What the Governors do or say
individually is, of course, their right and privilege, but as a body it
took its stand squarely and positively at its first conference which
met in Washington in January of this year as one of "securing greater
uniformity of State action and better State Government." Governor
Hughes expressed it in these words: "We are here in our own right as
State Executives; we are not here to accelerate or to develop opinion
with regard to matters which have been committed to Federal power." The
States in their relation to the Federal Government have all needed
representation in their Senators and Congressmen.

The attitude of the Governors in their conferences is one of
concentration on State and Interstate problems which are outside of the
domain and Constitutional rights of the Federal Government to solve.
There can be no interference when each confines itself to its own
duties. In keeping the time of the nation the Federal Government
represents the hour-hand, the States, united, the minute-hand. There
will be correct time only as each hand confines itself strictly to its
own business, neither attempting to jog the other, but working in
accord with the natural harmony wrapped up in the mechanism.

We need to-day to draw the sharpest clear-cut line of demarcation
between Federal and State powers. This is in no spirit of antagonism,
but in the truest harmony for the best interests of both. It means an
illumination which will show that the "twilight zone," so called, does
not exist. This dark continent of legislation belongs absolutely to the
States and to the people in the unmistakable terms of the Tenth
Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution or prohibited by it to the States are reserved to the
States, respectively, and to the people." This buffer territory of
legislation, the domain of needed uniform laws, belongs to the States
and through the House of Governors they may enter in and possess their
own. The Federal Government and the States are parts of one great
organization, each having its specific duties, powers, and
responsibilities, and between them should be no conflict, no inharmony.

Let the Federal Government, through Congress, make laws up to the very
maximum of its rights and duti