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ADDRESS TO THIRD ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON
POLICE AND COMMUNITY RELATIONS, BALTIMORE

May 11, 1968

While I am pleased to be here, I am even more pleased to see so
many of Maryland's young leaders here today. In a spring when head-
lines have been dominated by disruptive youth, it is reassuring to see
constructive youth. With so much attention focused on a minority of
law-breaking youth, it is gratifying to realize that law-abiding youth
remain the majority.

You are to be commended and congratulated for your concern; for
the time you have taken to be here today; and for your willingness
to make the law a positive, vital force for good within your com-
munity.

The National Conference of Christians and Jews, the Maryland
Association of Student Councils, and the Maryland Chiefs of Police
Association are to be commended and congratulated for providing
this forum for discussion. While we recognize that we cannot save our
civilization in a single day — as the old saving goes, "even the journey
of a thousand miles must begin with a single step" — today's confer-
ence can be that first step forward.

It is most appropriate that the National Conference of Christians
and Jews has taken the initiative in sponsoring programs to promote
citizen support of the law. For our most basic reverence for the law
stems from our Judaic-Christian tradition. Man first knew universal
law through God and for centuries the Ten Commandments stood as
the ultimate civilizing force. The Ten Commandments were truly
revolutionary at a time when murder, theft and brute force had for
centuries been accepted as the norm. One need only review the thou-
sands and thousands of years, the strife and the immeasurable human
suffering, required to guarantee and expand upon the very basic hu-
man rights established in the Ten Commandments to appreciate the
importance of the law and its relationship to social progress.

Today — with Judaic-Christian culture as our base — some and only
some of our nations have progressed to the point where we com-
monly accept the rule of laws rather than the rule of men; where
we have representative government, free speech, press and worship.
This evolution took more than 3000 years and we have seen in our
lifetime — in countries such as Cuba and China — that a thousand
years of progress may be overthrown in less than a thousand days.