516 State Papers and Addresses

American home. There had to be protection for the man who earned his daily
bread by the honest sweat of his brow. The sanctity of the Law had to be
upheld for the good of the civilization which had made that Law.

Fantastic things have happened since those early days. Skyscrapers of
steel and concrete have grown many times higher than the forest trees. The
traveler from coast to coast is carried at unbelievable speed whether over the
earth or high above it. But the lawbreakers and the highwaymen are with us
still. The modern outlaw has many times the urge to steal and he is many
times the more clever at his work.

Fortunately, the methods of law enforcement have matched him step lor
step. The lawbreaker of today has to contend against a professional posse out
to hunt him down. The new law-protectors are selected for their high qualities
of manhood—physical bravery, intelligence, endurance, perseverance and moral
honesty. They are trained, as you men know, with all the care and science at
the disposal of State and Federal Governments. Our Nation's police have be-
come our Nation's soldiers who are engaged in a constant, never-lagging war-
fare. Into your hands is given the responsibility for our domestic security.
And your officers and trainers are charged to see to it that you are such men
as will deserve this kind of responsibility.

Law enforcement is one of the most vital activities of any organized society.
When that service is incompetently performed, the person and property of the
average citizen is in danger. In a word, the officers and members of the various
law enforcement agencies throughout the Country stand as a constant guard
between the citizen, his property, and the forces of depredation and crime. Yet,
although these are statements of fact which will not be disputed by anyone, it
was only in recent years that attention was given to the high advisability of a
special course of intensive training to those so vitally engaged.

Experience in recent decades has demonstrated over and over again that
the competent law enforcement officer must be possessed of qualifications not
limited merely to honesty and energy. In the earlier years of our Country's
history, when our population was widely scattered, for the most part; when the
towns and cities were relatively small; when the means of travel were limited;
the test of honesty and energy as the sole qualification for the law enforcement
officer seemed largely to be all that was needed.

The fact is that, in thousands upon thousands of instances, officers possessed
of no greater qualification, did accomplish almost remarkable results. But with
the coming of our vast growth, concentrated centers, the automobile as a means
of transportation—and now the airplane, there has been introduced a vastly
increased complexity of life, which in turn confronts the officers of law en-
forcement with vastly increased complexities of detection and identification.

So much did this come to be so in the late twenties, that even the agencies
of the Federal Government, engaged in this sort of work, were confronted with
such frequent failure that public opinion demanded a drastic change. Then it
was that the genius of J. Edgar Hoover was given free rein in this field. The
result was that the abbreviated name, FBI, has since become a synonym for
well-nigh perfect law enforcement. This result did not come about through the
operation of honesty and energy alone. It was produced by an organization