Of the undoubted abuses which have grown up under the eighteenth
amendment, part are due to the causes I have just mentioned; but part
are due to the failure of some States to accept their share of
responsibility for concurrent enforcement and to the failure of many
State and local officials to accept the obligation under their oath of
office zealously to enforce the laws. With the failures from these many
causes has come a dangerous expansion in the criminal elements who have
found enlarged opportunities in dealing in illegal liquor.
But a large responsibility rests directly upon our citizens. There would
be little traffic in illegal liquor if only criminals patronized it. We
must awake to the fact that this patronage from large numbers of
law-abiding citizens is supplying the rewards and stimulating crime.
I have been selected by you to execute and enforce the laws of the
country. I propose to do so to the extent of my own abilities, but the
measure of success that the Government shall attain will depend upon the
moral support which you, as citizens, extend. The duty of citizens to
support the laws of the land is coequal with the duty of their
Government to enforce the laws which exist. No greater national service
can be given by men and women of good will--who, I know, are not
unmindful of the responsibilities of citizenship--than that they should,
by their example, assist in stamping out crime and outlawry by refusing
participation in and condemning all transactions with illegal liquor.
Our whole system of self-government will crumble either if officials
elect what laws they will enforce or citizens elect what laws they will
support. The worst evil of disregard for some law is that it destroys
respect for all law. For our citizens to patronize the violation of a
particular law on the ground that they are opposed to it is destructive
of the very basis of all that protection of life, of homes and property
which they rightly claim under other laws. If citizens do not like a
law, their duty as honest men and women is to discourage its violation;
their right is openly to work for its repeal.
To those of criminal mind there can be no appeal but vigorous
enforcement of the law. Fortunately they are but a small percentage of
our people. Their activities must be stopped.