No one will look with satisfaction upon the volume of crime of all kinds
and the growth of organized crime in our country. We have pressing need so
to organize our system of administering criminal justice as to establish
full vigor and effectiveness. We need to reestablish faith that the highest
interests of our country are served by insistence upon the swift and
even-handed administration of justice to all offenders, whether they be
rich or poor. That we shall effect improvement is vital to the preservation
of our institutions. It is the most serious issue before our people.
Under the authority of Congress I have appointed a National Commission on
Law Observance and Enforcement, for an exhaustive study of the entire
problem of the enforcement of our laws and the improvement of our judicial
system, including the special problems and abuses growing out of the
prohibition laws. The commission has been invited to make the widest
inquiry into the shortcomings of the administration of justice and into the
causes and remedies for them. It has organized its work under subcommittees
dealing with the many contributory causes of our situation and has enlisted
the aid of investigators in fields requiring special consideration. I am
confident that as a result of its studies now being carried forward it will
make a notable contribution to the solution of our pressing problems.
Pending further legislation, the Department of Justice has been striving to
weed out inefficiency wherever it exists, to stimulate activity on the part
of its prosecuting officers, and to use increasing care in examining into
the qualifications of those appointed to serve as prosecutors. The
department is seeking systematically to strengthen the law enforcement
agencies week by week and month by month, not by dramatic displays but by
steady pressure; by removal of negligent officials and by encouragement and
assistance to the vigilant. During the course of these efforts it has been
revealed that in some districts causes contributing to the congestion of
criminal dockets, and to delays and inefficiency in prosecutions, have been
lack of sufficient forces in the offices of United States attorneys, clerks
of courts, and marshals. These conditions tend to clog the machinery of
justice. The last conference of senior circuit judges has taken note of
them and indorsed the department's proposals for improvement. Increases in
appropriations are necessary and will be asked for in order to reenforce
these offices.
The orderly administration of the law involves more than the mere machinery
of law enforcement. The efficient use of that machinery and a spirit in our
people in support of law are alike essential. We have need for improvement
in both. However much we may perfect the mechanism, still if the citizen
who is himself dependent upon some laws for the protection of all that he
has and all that he holds dear, shall insist on selecting the particular
laws which he will obey, he undermines his own safety and that of his
country. His attitude may obscure, but it can not conceal, the ugly truth
that the lawbreaker, whoever he may be, is the enemy of society. We can no
longer gloss over the unpleasant reality which should be made vital in the
consciousness of every citizen, that he who condones or traffics with
crime, who is indifferent to it and to the punishment of the criminal, or
to the lax performance of official duty, is himself the most effective
agency for the breakdown of society.
Law can not rise above its source in good citizenship--in what right-minded
men most earnestly believe and desire. If the law is upheld only by
Government officials, then all law is at an end. Our laws are made by the
people themselves; theirs is the right to work for their repeal; but until
repeal it is an equal duty to observe them and demand their enforcement.
I have been gratified at the awakening sense of this responsibility in our
citizens during the past few months, and gratified that many instances have
occurred which refuted the cynicism which has asserted that our system
could not convict those who had defied the law and possessed the means to
resist its execution. These things reveal a moral awakening both in the
people and in officials which lies at the very foundation of the rule of
law.