EDITORIAL 



Forestry and Irrigation First 



The report of the White House 

 Conference, practically complete, is 

 contained in this issue of Forestry 

 AND Irrigation; and this magazine is 

 the first among periodicals to publish 

 a full account of the meeting of the 

 Governors. Almost the entire maga- 

 zine is devoted to this report, and the 

 papers, addresses, discussions, etc., are 

 given in the order in which they oc- 

 curred. Sixteen pages have been 

 added to the magazine in order to 

 do this ; and even with such addition it 

 has been found necessary to omit prac- 

 tically all other features, departments, 

 etc., usually found in the magazine. 

 None but papers actually read at the 

 Conference appear in this issue ; sev- 

 eral extremely valuable ones not de- 

 livered because of lack of time, but 

 which will appear in the published re- 

 port of the proceedings, will be printed 

 later in this magazine. 



VH ^ )^ 



"A New Departure in Government" 



The Governor's Conference has been 

 well styled "a new departure in gov- 

 ernment." The states of the Union 

 have grown in number from thirteen 

 to forty-six. The Nation has risen 

 from a position in which the govern- 

 orship of a state or even the mayor- 

 alty of an important city was held 

 as a higher dignity than membership 

 in either branch of Congress. Yet 

 never before, in the century and a 

 quarter during which this development 

 has been in progress, have representa- 

 tives of the states and of the three 

 co-ordinate branches of the National 

 Government met together. As an in- 

 novation, if nothing else, the event 

 might well be styled "epoch-making." 



Such a coming together reflects 

 strikingly the spirit of the age. This 

 is an era of congresses, conventions, 

 and great concourses. Modern fa- 

 cilities, notably railroads, telegraphs, 

 and daily newspapers, are rapidly unir 



fying the world. For the first time 

 in history it is now possible for men 

 scattered over an area as great, al- 

 most, as that of Europe, to come to- 

 gether quickly and inexpensively, to 

 confer, surrounded by "all the com- 

 forts of home," to keep in touch, 

 meanwhile, with their ordinary inter- 

 ests, and to return promptly to their 

 regular work. Hence, meetings of 

 bodies, commercial, political, economic, 

 educational, scientific, religious, phil- 

 osophical, and what-not, are the order 

 of the day. Thus, influenced by the 

 Time Spirit, it was probably inevit- 

 able that representatives of all of the 

 states should, sooner or later, be 

 brought together in conference with 

 representatives of the several branches 

 of the Federal Government 



As a factor in developing the Na- 

 tional spirit, as against the old time 

 particularism which, once regnant, 

 made the development of the Nation 

 and a true National policy so difficult, 

 such a meeting was doubtless potent. 

 As a factor in developing uniform pol- 

 icies among multiplying and widely 

 separated states, this meeting, wuth 

 those to follow, may be even more 

 potent. The individualism which so 

 long characterized the American man, 

 has likewise, in large measure, char- 

 acterized the American state. State 

 policy, state legislation, state admin- 

 istration, has hitherto been, in great 

 degree, a matter of "jevery tub stand- 

 ing on its own bottom." The result 

 has been divorce laws, labor laws, cor- 

 poration laws, and the like, striking- 

 ly suggestive of a patchwork quilt. 

 While, super-imposed upon this maze 

 of dissimilar and inharmonious state 

 legislation, has been still another sys- 

 tem of Federal legislation, making the 

 confusion worse confounded. 



But the states are now learning 

 what individuals earlier began to 

 learn ; namely, that their relations in 

 a commonwealth are relations not of 

 independence, but of interdependence. 

 Further, as harmony and substantial 



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