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 The Green Bag

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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