Lighting Association, the Automobile Manufacturers' Association, as well as the police chiefs and the public officials concerned. It was felt by Mr. Hoover that it would be unfortunate to extend the federal regulation unless it was essential. There was a discussion in that body of that very question. It was felt that from a state standpoint it would be very unfortunate to have two rules, those relating to the use of the highways not given federal aid or not military or post highways, and those relating to roads which were given federal aid. It was the recommendation of the Hoover Conference, in which there were more than a thousand delegates representing every possible commercial and public interest, that the matter ought to be dealt with as a unit by state legislatures.

I therefore submit that it would be unfortunate, after having gone ahead on that theory and worked on it a number of years and prepared a code which thoroughly covers the matter from the state standpoint, for this Association now to go back and investigate and start a discussion with the idea, perhaps, of having a separate regulation of highways carrying interstate commerce. There is no real conflict, but the commercial interests involved and the public interests involved, after all this discussion, felt that it should be handled as a unit, and that has been done in the Code which you have adopted this morning.

The motion is already before us, Mr. President, that Resolution No. 7 be adopted. I hope, on the contrary, that it be defeated. I should like to press my motion, therefore, that it be laid upon the table. (Motion seconded.)

The President:

There can be no discussion on this motion.

Mr. MacChesney:

I do not desire to cut off debate.

The President:

That motion cuts off debate.

Mr. MacChesney:

I do not want to do that.

The President:

You withdraw the motion to lay on the table?

Mr. MacChesney:

Yes, temporarily.

Harvey F. Smith, of West Virginia:

This very same matter was discussed at Detroit last year in some considerable detail. I shall not, recognizing the importance of the time of this Association, undertake to review what was said there, but I will say-desiring not to take one minute of your time unnecessarily-that we were fully supported by a resolution of this body on the floor, that if we kept within the path of interstate commerce, we were invited to proceed. We have done this, and we have done it with industry. I do not claim that we have had every expert in this country before us, but I do say that all laymen and lawyers who have a comprehensive knowledge of this subject recognize that no relief will be had in the matter of the control of automobiles and trucks in interstate commerce unless we have it through a federal statute.

I have been highly desirous that this matter be controlled. through legislation by the states, but I shall not continue to lend my energies and hopes toward the solution of a question I know to be futile. Our committee has been industrious, and we dropped last year all phases of this question which should be considered by the states and which were within their scope; but when you recognize the impossibility of the states to control, deal with and license interstate traffic of trucks and automobiles, why do you not want a committee within its province to industriously go ahead and consider the other questions connected therewith as our Chairman has briefly stated in his report; namely, the control of traffic rules, regulations and licensing of trucks and automobiles engaged in travel across state lines? But we must save time. I discussed this matter more fully in my statement on the floor of this Association last year, and I now refer you to that statement and my argument as then made and which now applies with equal force. I refer you to our Annual Report, Volume L, page 91, for my discussion of this matter at the Detroit meeting.

William Marshall Bullitt, of Kentucky:

The thought occurs to me, that this morning without debate there was endorsed by this Association a proposed law recom

mended by the National Conference on Uniform State Laws, with the result that this Association has, in effect, signed a blank check approving that legislation. When you consider that The American Bar Association is supposed to represent the opinions, the considered opinions of the Bar gathered as a whole, it is at least of doubtful wisdom whether we ought to do that. While the National Conference on Uniform State Laws is subsidized by the funds of The American Bar Association, the Association, as I understand it, has no voice-practically no voice-in its deliberations; and therefore the proposition that is presented this morning is that this Association will sign a blank check endorsing what the National Conference on Uniform State Laws chooses to adopt, concerning which I doubt if any member of this Association knows anything. At the same time the approval of that idea means a stifling of independent investigation by the members of this Association who would study it for themselves.

Therefore, it seems to me that we certainly, unless we propose to abrogate our functions entirely to the Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, ought to at least reserve to our own committees consideration of this subject, on which the Association should reserve its own judgment.

In conclusion I would like to propound to my distinguished friend on the other side three questions:

1. What if any voice did this Association or its members have in reaching the decision that was reached by the National Conference on Uniform State Laws?

2. Whether it is wise for us to continue to contribute to the Conference the large sums of money what we do?

3. Whether or not some committee should not be appointed by the President to consider and report at a future meeting of this Association whether we should continue the large subsidies we are paying to the National Conference, in the decisions of which we really have no voice.

W. H. Washington, of Tennessee:

You have heard from the statement of General MacChesney that the procedure resulting in this Uniform Vehicle Code has been endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce of the United States. Various associations have finally, by concurring agreement, evolved the result announced to this Association by the

Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. I resent the insinuation made by the distinguished gentleman from Kentucky that the Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws is not a committee of this Association. For 35 years that Conference has been in existence. It was sponsored and created by The American Bar Association, and it has remained at this date and this hour for a member of this Association to insinuate that that was a separate and independent body, and that when its reports are made and endorsed by this Association it is like endorsing a blank check.

What are we asked to do? This Association has already endorsed the four acts covering the whole question of the motor vehicle law, and this Association is asked to refer the matter of interstate commerce touching the motor vehicle law to the Commerce Committee. That committee will get to work; that committee will make a report; and the question we are against is this: An automobile starting in Kansas and proceeding to New York at once, when it crosses a state line, becomes an interstate vehicle. Where will you draw the lines? We are invited by the position assumed by the distinguished gentlemen to get into that field of mystification and conflict of state commerce and interstate commerce.

Secretary Hoover has announced that it is preferably a matter of uniform state regulation. But if Congress enters the field, whenever the automobile becomes an interstate vehicle, the state law is displaced and the national law takes possession of the field; and one of the purposes of uniformity is defeated, and the traveler will be constantly mystified and perplexed to know whether he is driving an intrastate or interstate vehicle. Whereas, without any act of Congress the state law is plenary, potential and effective.

I appeal to this body to stand by its guns. The whole question has been considered by the Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. A report has been made and this body has endorsed that report.

Mr. MacChesney:

The distinguished gentleman from Kentucky addressed, I believe, a personal inquiry to me with reference to the matter. The distinguished former Solicitor-General, I am sure, if he will

consider the language that he used with reference to the matter, will conclude that it does not represent his usual accuracy in public statement, of which I have always been fond.

First, as to whether or not this body was represented in the consideration of these acts. Briefly, yes. The Committee on Commerce, Trade and Commercial Law was represented by appointment by Mr. Hoover, on the suggestion of Mr. Hughes, the President of this Association, by its Chairman, Mr. W. H. H. Piatt, of Kansas City, who sat in the deliberations of the committee which prepared the act. Furthermore, every man who sat on that committee who was a lawyer was a member of this Association and active in its deliberations.

Furthermore, this matter was taken up by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws in the following manner: Mr. Hoover, who was a colleague of Mr. Hughes, at that time a member of the cabinet, requested Mr. Hughes to take up this matter, and they had a conference regarding it and Mr. Hughes said that in view of the consideration of the matter and the determination that it was a proper matter for state regulation, and that preferably if it was to be dealt with from that point of view, in his judgment it should be considered in the first instance by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, upon whose report this Association generally acted, and referred it to me at that time as the President of the organization. I was thereupon appointed as Chairman of the sub-committee of the Hoover conference at the suggestion of Mr. Hughes by Mr. Hoover as the result of that suggestion; and all of the men in that committee were active members of this Association. Furthermore, that every point was referred to this Association and debated last year, as to whether or not in its judgment the question should be dealt with from the standpoint of federal or state regulation, and this Association affirmed its belief that it was a proper matter for state regulation.

Second, as to whether or not I think that we ought to practically suppress consideration by this Association of the question generally, I submit that the matter has been considered by this Association, and if it is thought desirable to give it further consideration I would suggest that the appropriate way to do it would not be by resolution such as this, which proceeds upon an