Show THE REVOLT AGAINST civilization no more notable utterance utter ince has been made by a president in beals than that of president hoover at the meeting of the associated pless pi ess in new york it is a message which the american people must take to heart if their civilization is to be pie preserved served strong as the utterance is much was left lef t unsaid which thoughtful men and women can easily lead between the lines president hoover called attention to the fact that in individual lawlessness america leads the world he declai declared ed that it is evident that the national habit babit of lawbreaking law breaking did not begin with the enactment of the eighteenth amendment but that the violation of the prohibition amendment and laws was only the continuance of a tendency alarmingly before this change oc cuned those whose ibern memories ories run back to pre prohibition days will have no difficulty in recalling that lawlessness in connection with the liquor traffic was rampant before the prohibition policy was seriously considered and indeed accounted for the development of public sentiment which made this drastic legislation possible such lawlessness is not hard to explain the gre greater ater political freedom achieved by a people the greater the relaxation of arbitrary authority the giester the danger of a lack of obedience to law yet that obedience to law is an essential accompaniment pani ment of greater freedom otherwise the experiment of popular government erime nt will fail the citizen owes more implicit obedience to law under a representative republican government than under an autocracy for laws under a popular form of 90 government are necessarily an expression of majority rule in liberty is the seed of anarchy unless it be guarded by etea eternal nal vigilance the situation in america is complicated by the fact that we have absorbed into our population mil lions of aliens unaccustomed to free institutions i n long held under the thel i heel of despotism they find it biffi I 1 cult to look pen laws ir ws and institutions in ri riv aw iv land hand in the spirit that should characterize a citizen of i I 1 a flee government it is not acci dental that a vast majority of those who have become 1 identified in this country with organized crime are newcomers newcom eis to the united states they constitute but a small dinall percentage of our total foreign population but their activity constitutes a growing menace to public order and safety 1 AT rr tn ic ir TT nAnAn n mi if u i but after all so long as a certain section of the american metropolitan press persists persist in glorifying the criminal and attacking rather than defending the officers of the law who are constantly called upon to risk their lives in the battle with the underworld we cannot flatter ourselves with the thought that the causes of this revolt against law and order are of foreign origin so long as many newspapers some of them of vast circulation and influence ale persist in sneering at and attacking certain of our criminal laws and in surrounding the commercial activities of lawbreakers with the halo of resistance si to oppression what wonder that crime has increased to the point that in cities like chicago there is some doubt as to whether the government or the racketeer is supreme sonic some years ago a notable book the revolt against civilization called attention to the fact that as civilization advances it develops within in itself subversive forces which tend to weaken and then destroy it and that human history is a succession of cycles in which progress is succeeded by retrogression there are signs that our civilization is revolting against itself there is an identity of effect if not of purpose in the commercialized activities of the rum rings the racketeers the 1 radical agitators of armed revolution against the united states and the highly organized and financed movements to disarm the united states in the face of the peril created by the growth of elements which violently resist law into the network of this general subversive movement many well intentioned people with heads as soft as their henits aie drawn while on the part of the general public there is an oin ominous inous indifference to the results which if the teaching of history is woith anything must bring the most selious consequences in view of these conditions these voids of president Pies ident hoover 7 te should be ie lead and reread re read by every editor responsible for the policy of his publication and by every citizen as well 1 I am wondering whether the time has not come however to realize that we are confronted with a national necessity y of the first degree that we are not suffering from an ephemeral crime wave but from a subsidence of our foundations foundation S possibly the time is at hand band for the press to systematically demand and support the georga reorganization niza tion of our law enforcement machinery machiner y federal state and local so that crime may be reduced and on the other hand to demand that our citizens shall awake to the fundamental consciousness ness of democracy which is that the laws are and that every responsible member of a democracy has the primary duty to obey the law it is unnecessary for me to argue the fact that the very essence of freedom is obedience to law that liberty itself has but one foundation and that is in the law |