Proceedings of First Session. 



November 23, 1908, 2 p.m. 



ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 



By Hon. Curtis Guild, Ju., Governor of Massachusetts. 



It is my happy privilege to welcome you to the first conference 

 ever held by the New England States for the promotion of uni- 

 formity in law and for the development of the natural resources 

 of this portion of the United States. It is not the intention of 

 the present Governors of New England to form an organization 

 that shall in any way supplant the legislative authority established 

 by the constitutions of the separate States or by that of the United 

 States; we form here no irresponsible House of Governors. StiU 

 less is it desirable that Senators and Eepresentatives in Congress 

 should be asked to set the needs or prejudices of a section before 

 the needs of the whole nation. The Stars and Stripes fly on the 

 right of the State ensign on every State House in New England; 

 there may they ever remain. 



Tliere is^ however, legislation that is reserved by constitutional 

 rights to the States. The lack of uniformity in these State laws 

 is alike prejudicial to the conservation of our natural resources and 

 to the elevation of public and private life. It is idle, for example, 

 for one New England State to enact rigid laws for the preservation 

 of shellfish, if the lack of such law in others makes the same man 

 punishable as a malefactor in the State where he secures his mer- 

 chandise and an honorable merchant in the States where he sells it. 



Let this movement for uniformity of State laws succeed in New 

 England, and we may hope that its application may be even broader, 

 till the little child shall be transferred from the cotton mill to the 



