The Strength of a Nation

We have failed to meet the postwar goals which America had established for herself because … the forces for decency in our country have failed in many respects to live up to their duties and responsibilities.

What has happened to the time-honored precepts of hard work and fair play which influenced the American scene during the all-important formative years of this great republic? Where is the faith in God which fortified us through our past trials? Have our national pride, our moral conscience, our sensitivity to filth and degradation, grown so weak that they no longer react to assaults upon our proud heritage of freedom?

Crime and subversion are formidable problems in the United States today because, and only because, there is a dangerous flaw in our nation’s moral armor. Self-indulgence—the principle of pleasure before duty—is practiced across the length and breadth of the land. It is undermining those attributes of personal responsibility and self-discipline which are essential to our national survival. It is creating citizens who reach maturity with a warped sense of values and an undeveloped conscience.

Crime is a parasite, feeding upon public disinterest and moral lethargy. This day, more than 5,200 felonies—four serious crimes every minute—will be committed across the United States. They will include 430 crimes of violence—murders, forcible rapes, and assaults to kill. At least 250 robberies, 10 an hour, will be recorded, as will 4,500 burglaries, major larcenies, and automobile thefts.

Since 1946, our national crime totals have more than doubled. Over the past five years, since 1957, these crimes have risen five times as fast as our growing population.

Nowhere has this increase been more pronounced than among America’s youth. Last year, persons under 18 years of age were involved in 43 per cent of all arrests for serious crimes. They accounted for 22 per cent of the robbery arrests, nearly one-half of the burglaries and larcenies, and well over half of the automobile thefts.… There is a moral breakdown among young people in the United States. The crime rate is outdistancing the population increase; pornography is flourishing; and there is a quest for status at the expense of morality.…

There must be a moral reawakening in every home of our country. Disrespect for law and order is a tragic moral illness.… Our city streets are jungles of terror. The viciousness of the rapists, murderers, and muggers who attack women and young girls seems to know no bounds. This senseless sadism can be stopped only by a concerted, realistic action on the part of everyone connected with law enforcement and our judicial processes. We must adopt stiffer laws and a more stern policy toward these perverted individuals.

Too often, the interests of justice and consideration for the welfare of society are buried under an avalanche of court decisions which give violators of the law rights and privileges that destroy respect for the law and the public safety.

Too often, technicalities have been permitted to exist in our penal codes which have been employed solely and exclusively for the benefit of that small minority of lawyers-criminal who use any tactic, no matter how unethical, to defeat the interests of justice.

More and more the judicial-legal system of this country is being revised to benefit the criminal—to the disadvantage of the innocent. More judges should speak out against this legalized perversion of justice.

Too often, our parole boards are being influenced by impractical theorists—conference room “experts” who are without experience in the arena of action against crime.

Too often, a cloak of special privilege is thrown around the enemies of society, vicious young muggers, robbers, rapists, and murderers, by poorly conceived and maladministered programs intended to promote their rehabilitation.

Mercy tempers justice in the American judicial system, but leniency was never intended to become a weapon for repeating offenders. Mercy can be hazardous and sympathy morbid when they are wasted on those who exploit them.

Responsibility for the wave of lawlessness now sweeping the nation and the continued existence of conditions in which crime and corruption flourish, rests directly with the American people. The public, by its submissive attitude and its lethargic acceptance of infractions of the law, has helped create an atmosphere conducive to the insidious growth of underworld activity.…

Every strong nation in history has lived by an ideal and has died when its ideals were dissipated. We can be destroyed only by our own gullibility. If we are ready, we shall neither be Dead nor Red!

It is what a nation has in its heart, rather than what it has in its hand, that makes it strong. The nation which honors God is protected and strengthened by him.… We are a God-loving people. This is our greatest strength. Let our national motto always be, “In God we trust.”—DIRECTOR J. EDGAR HOOVER, Federal Bureau of Investigation, to the American Legion convention in Las Vegas, Nevada.

THE MIRAGE OF CO-EXISTENCE—The whole idea of peaceful co-existence between a world half free and half slave is a pernicious mirage. To believe that one can resolve all conflict between the West and the East soon in a soft, sweet compromise is a much worse delusion. Some people in our midst seem to think that the Soviets are moving slowly and surely toward capitalism and that the West moves slowly but surely toward socialism. Hence they conclude that sooner or later the twain will meet on an East-West honeymoon. But one cannot slide backward and move forward. Khrushchev, as well as Mao and Chou En Lai knows this extremely well. There is no greater danger for the West than in underestimating the faith in their philosophy which the leaders of the Sino-Soviet-Bloc have, and their determination to conquer the Western world. They are well on their way to cracking our defenses wherever they can. The suicidal strands of thought give them an opening wedge in many countries. If the Western allies do not succeed in closing ranks, abandoning lofty demands and unreasonable postulates addressed to each other, and do not instead cling to the great ideals by which the West lives, then we all have a fair chance of being buried one by one—eventually—by Khrushchev et al after a most sophisticated ceremonial suicide, not after assassination.—KARL BRANDT, Director, the Food Research Institute, Stanford University, in remarks to the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco.

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