NEW PRESIDENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 604, 5 March 1929, Page 11

NEW PRESIDENT

Accepting Solemn Oath of Office, Hoover Makes Strong Policy Speech PEACE ABROAD, LAW AT HOME »“ (United P.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian gild N.Z. Press Association) (United Service) Received 9 a.m. WASHINGTON, Monday. FACING thousands of his fellow-citizens, who came to do him honour, Herbert Clark Hoover was sworn in as President of the United States by Chief Justice Taft, who, until that moment, was himself the only living ex-President. President Hoover swore to uphold the Constitution while standing under the shadow of the Capitol dome, and although rain commenced falling about an hour before he took the oath, the ovation which he received from the thousands of massed citizens more than compensated for Nature’s sullen welcome.

The city presented a giant national carnival such as the capital* probably never saw before. There were cowboys and Indians, Confederate veterans hobbling along on their canes, large numbers of businessmen, delegations of women’s clubs, college bands, farmers and State Governors, with gay escorts to a number estimated to be beyond 200,000. Referring in his inaugural address to world peace, the new President said: If we survey the situation of our nation, both at home and abroad, we find many causes for satisfaction and some causes for concern. The United States fully accepts the profound truth that her own progress, prosperity and peace are interlocked with the progress, prosperity and peace of all humanity. The whole world is at peace now, and the dangers to a continuation of this peace to-day are largely fear and suspicion which will haunt the world. No suspicion or fear can rightly be directed toward our country. Those who have a true understanding of America know that we have no desire for territorial expansion, for economic or other domination of other peoples. Such purposes are repugnant to our ideals of human freedom. NOT IMPERIALISTIC Our form of Government is ill-ad-apted to responsibilities which inevitably follow the permanent limitation of the independence of other peoples. Superficial observers seem to find no destiny for our abounding increase in population, wealth and power except that of Imperialism. They fail to see that the people of America are engrossed in the task of building for themselves a new economic system, a new social system and a new political system, all of which shall be characterised by aspirations of freedom and opportunity, and thereby form a negation of Imperialism. Mr. Hoover went -on to refer to the Kellogg Fact. He said: The recent treaty for the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy sets an advanced standard in our conception of the relations of nations. Its acceptance should pave the way to a greater limitation of armaments. MAY JOIN WORLD COURT Regarding the World Court, the President said: American statesmen were among the first to propose—and they have constantly* urged upon the world —the establishment of a tribunal for the settlement of controversies of a justiciable character. The Permanent Court of International Justice, in its major purpose, is thus peculiarly identified with American ideals and American statesmanship. No more potent instrumentality for this purpose has ever been conceived, and no other is practicable of establishment. The * reservations placed upon America’s adherence to the Court should not be misinterpreted. The United States seeks by these reservations no special privilege or advantage, but only to clarify our relation to advisory opinions and other matters which are subsidiary to the major purpose of the Court. A way should, and I believe will, be found by which we may take our proper place in a movement so fundamental to the progress of peace. MALIGN DISREGARD FOR LAW The most malign of all our internal dangers is the disregard for, and the disobedience of, the law. Crime is increasing and confidence in rigid and speedy justice is decreasing. I am not prepared to believe that this indicates impotence on the part of the Federal Government to enforce its laws. It is only in part due to the additional burdens imposed upon our judicial system by the Eighteenth Amendment. The problem is much wider than that. Many influences, to an increasing degree, had complicated and weakened our law enforcement organisation long before the adoption of Prohibition. Justice must not fail because the agencies of enforcement are either delinquent or inefficiently organised. To consider these evils and to find a remedy for them is the most sore necessity of our times. Our whole system of self-govern-ment will crumble either if officials choose what laws they will enforce or if the citizens elect what laws they will support. The worst evil of the disregard for some law is that it destroys respect for all law. For our citizens to patronise 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, homes and property which they rightly claim under other laws. If citizens do not like any law, their duty, as honest men and women, is to

discourage its violation. Their right is openly to work for its repeal.

Mr. Hoover announced that he intended to appoint a national commission to make a searching investigation of the whole structure of the Federal system of jurisprudence. This would include a method of enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment and the causes of abuse under it. THOUSANDS THRONG ROUTE Thousands thronged the route from the White House to the Capitol, and vociferously cheered ex-President Coolidge, President Hoover, and their wives. The assemblage in the inaugural stands included the retiring President and his Cabinet, nearly all the members of tbe new Hoover Cabinet, the old Congress, which expired at noon, the new Congress, which will soon be called, members of the diplomatic corps and others. The gatheringmarched to a special stand from the Senate Chambers, where Mr. Charles Curtis had previously received the Vice-Presidential oath of office. The Australian boy tourists, carrying British, Australian and American flags, and eight presentation flags from the American States they have already visited, were given a vantage point on an improvised platform on the parapets of the Capitol building a few feet of the Presidential dais. The Blue Australian Ensign was lashed to a point on the Capitol buildings second only in prominence to that of the Stars and Stripes on the Dome.