The Green Bag
272
from a speech of Mr. Samuel Gompers, who has said: “One or two things will
eventually come: either Federal Govern ment, as a matter of industrial and com mercial necessity, will exercise the powers
tives of all the states, known already as “The House of Governors,” was little
less than an inspiration. This new insti tution is destined to act as a hyphen or buckle to unite the masses struggling
which constitutionally belong to the
for the unification of American law with
states, or, if that is to be avoided, the states must move toward acting with
the state legislatures through whose
the greater degree of uniformity to the
agency it must be brought about, if at all. Each annual conference will put
successful and lawful conduct of in
each governor abreast of the movement;
dustry and commerce."
after each explain to how much how much
The declara
tion is then made that “The entire nation
appreciates the movement for the Con servation of National Resources inaugu
meeting he will be ready to the legislature of his state has been accomplished and remains to be done with its
rated by President Roosevelt. But this great project cannot be carried forward to its perfect consummation unless the states adopt with considerable uni formitylaws upon the subjects of forestry, water power, reclamation of lands by irrigation, etc. . . . DuringtheNational
machinery is all complete, and the public mind thoroughly aroused by the pres sure of a necessity which grows more urgent every day. All that is lacking is a more comprehensive and scientific
Conference on Taxation, under the aus
attained.
pices of the National Civic Federation
such an understanding did not exist
at Buffalo in 1901, it became apparent
from the outset. Great movements always grow as they advance; bit by bit the new land has always to be won. Theodosius laid down without executing the comprehensive plan of codification which Justinian, after the lapse of a century, finally carried out. When the members of the Annapolis convention
that greater uniformity of state laws upon the subject of taxation was most desirable.”
Thus the horizon has been
widened by the National Civic Federa tion whose program has swept into the struggle for unity in state legisla tion such subjects as public accounting,
anti-trust and railway regulation, state
co-operation.
Thus it appears that the
understanding of the end to be finally
It is perfectly natural that
met in September, 1786, simply for the regulation of the restrictions on inter
banking, life and fire insurance, fire marshal laws, pure food laws, labor laws, commercial laws, vital statistics, mar riage and divorce, laws relating to women
state commerce, they did not under stand that the only practical outcome
and the custody of their children, and
of the famous convention at Phila
laws regulating the public health and good roads. That irresistible trend towards unity in state laws, which is
widening and deepening every day under the impulse of commercial necessity, has
suddenly brought into being still another agency destined to be more potent, per haps, than all others in the precipitating the final result. The creation of the annual conference of the chief execu
of their meeting was to be the calling delphia, which in the next year formu
lated the existing Constitution of the United States. The time has arrived when the Ameri can people must awake to the fact that its greatest and most pressing need is a comprehensive and typical code of
state law, embracing all the subjects of legislation common to all, which each state may enact as its own with as little
