• of Governor Herbert R. O'Conor 447

of our law enforcement agencies in order to deal with unusual disasters or
planned disorders. The power plant explosion in New Jersey last summer is
an example. of an unusual emergency requiring the coordination of all a State's
law enforcement agencies.

It is important, therefore, that some general plan be worked out for the
coordination, indeed the mobilization, of large numbers of trained police officers,
with their equipment, at these danger spots in the shortest possible period of
time. With 160, 000 police officers available but widely dispersed among thou-
sands of units of government, our problem is a real one. However, Bruce Smith,
of the Institute of Public Administration, an authority on law enforcement
problems, has worked out a police mobilization plan which has been made avail-
able to the State Council of Defense through the State and Local Division of the
National Defense Commission. Under the leadership of the Governor's Office,
an administrative blueprint has been worked our which provides for the mobili-
zation of State and local police by district or area where major threats to law
and order impend. The Institute's publication states:

"The Governors represent the most natural and also the most promising
means for developing a plan for common action. While the statues of but few
commonwealths endow the State with specific power to marshal and coordinate
State and local police resources, the Governor's office possesses many of the
inherent attributes of sovereignty, and enjoys a prestige that may be effectively
employed in welding our fragmentary police systems into a coherent body for
emergency operations. "

The plan is based on such factors as (1) trained and available manpower,
(2) ready facilities for rapid transport, and (3) existing police communication
facilities.

I urge that you give consideration to such a plan in the light of conditions
in the respective States. One matter should be emphasized: In those States
where the plan has been put into effect, official and formal expression has been
given to the effect that local police will not be mobilized for strike breaking
activities. The operation of the plan should be confined only to situations in-
volving "serious threats to law and order. "

It would seem pertinent to make reference here to an article appearing in
the current issue of the American Bar Association Journal in which a leading
authority on Constitution Law discusses and seeks to analyze what he argues
is a decrease in the importance of States in the governmental system.

He rests his argument chiefly on the ground that increased exercise by the
National Government of powers granted to it under the Constitution, together
with the increasingly broad judicial construction of the extent of such powers,
have correspondingly restricted the scope of the powers previously exercised
by the States.

He concludes from this that the extent of the State's share in the govern-
mental functions of the Nation is a matter of governmental policy and not
of constitutional law, and is determined only by the extent to which Congress
may choose to extend Federal regulatory power in the future.

To grant that there have been both increased exercise by the Federal