or
Democrat were never once spoken. The Governors showed themselves an
able body of men keenly alive to the importance of their work and with
a firm grasp on the essential issues. The meeting added a new dignity
to Statehood and furnished a new revelation of the power, prestige, and
possibilities of the Governor's office. The atmosphere of the session
was that of States' rights, but it was a new States' rights, a
purified, finer, higher recognition by the States of their individual
right and duty of self-government within their Constitutional
limitations. It meant no lessening of interest in the Federal
Government or of respect and honor of it. It was as a family of sons
growing closer together, strengthened as individuals and working to
solve those problems they have in common, and to make their own way
rather than to depend in weakness on the father of the household to
manage all their affairs and do their thinking for them. To him should
be left the watchfulness of the family as a whole, not the dictation of
their individual living.

President Taft had no part in the Conference, but in an address of
welcome to the Governors at the White House showed his realization of
the vital possibility of the meeting in these words:

"I regard this movement as of the utmost importance. The Federal
Constitution has stood the test of more than one hundred years in
supplying the powers that have been needed to make the central
Government as strong as it ought to be, and with this movement toward
uniform legislation and agreement between the States I do not see why
the Constitution may not serve our purpose always."

AUGUSTUS E. WILLSON[1]

Governor of Kentucky

[Footnote 1: The following letters are reprinted by permission from a
collection of such commentaries from _Cottier's Weekly_.]

President Roosevelt held two conferences of Governors, and as a member
of a committee chosen to do so, I have invited the Governors of all of
the States and Territories to meet at the White House in Washington,
January 18th, 19th, and 20th.

The conference has no legal authority of any kind. At the previous
conferences, the conservation subject was the one chiefly thought of,
and it will be brought up in the next conference. The question of what
the Governors will recommend on the income-tax constitutional amendment
may come up. The matter of handling extradition papers is important.
Uniform State laws on matters of universal interest, scho