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.

A NATIONAL INVESTIGATION

I propose to appoint a national commission for a searching investigation of the whole structure of our Federal system of jurisprudence, to include the method of enforcement of the eighteenth amendment and the causes of abuse under it.  Its purpose will be to make such recommendations for reorganization of the administration of Federal laws and court procedure as may be found desirable.  In the meantime it is essential that a large part of the enforcement activities be transferred from the Treasury Department to the Department of Justice as a beginning of more effective organization.

THE RELATION OF GOVERNMENT TO BUSINESS

The election has again confirmed the determination of the American people that regulation of private enterprise and not Government ownership or operation is the course rightly to be pursued in our relation to business.  In recent years we have established a differentiation in the whole method of business regulation between the industries which produce and distribute commodities on the one hand and public utilities on the other.  In the former, our laws insist upon effective competition; in the latter, because we substantially confer a monopoly by limiting competition, we must regulate their services and rates.  The rigid enforcement of the laws applicable to both groups is the very base of equal opportunity and freedom