STAINED BY MURDER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 645, 23 April 1929, Page 1

STAINED BY MURDER

Cities of United States HOOVER CALLS FOR ACTION Shocking Position is Revealed (United I\A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) (United Service) Received 9 a.m. NEW YORK. Monday. “j ife and property in the United States are relatively more •Li unsafe than in any other civilised country in the world," declared President Hoover to-day. “Twenty times as many people, in proportion to the population, are lawlessly killed in the United States as in Britain.”

’’J'lIE President was addressing the annual luncheon of the Associated Press. “In many of our cities,” lie said, “murder can apparently be committed with impunity.” He wondered whether the time had not come for Americans to realise that they were confronted with a national necessity of the first degree; that they were not suffering from an ephemeral but from a subsidence in their’ foundations. “No individual has a right to determine what law shall be obeyed, and what law shall not be enforced. If the law is wrong, rigid enforcement is the surest guarantee of its repeal. If it is right, enforcement is the quickest method for compelling respect.

‘ It is the purpose of the Administration to strengthen the law enforcement agencies, by steady pressure and steady weeding out of all incapable and negligent officials. “The Press, almost final in its potency, should arouse the interest and conscience of the people. It can destroy their finer sensibilities, or can invigorate them.” Mr. Hoover called upon American editors to throw their influence unreservedly into the fight for law enforcement. He declared that prohibition was merely a part of the problem, pointing out that only eight per cent, of the felony convictions in 192$ came from that source. He said: “If the law can be upheld only by enforcement officers, then our scheme of government is at an end.”