AMERICAN LEGION CONVENTION 357

unless they are buttressed by triumphs and progress at home. Often
our causes are less glamorous but they are no less just. Often our im-
mediate objectives are less clearly defined but they are no less real.
Often our triumphs receive less notoriety but they are no less gratify-
ing.

Each day the citizen must fight against abuse and apathy at home
to give his victories as a soldier abroad real and vital meaning. We
must fight a war against pollution of our air and water which menaces
the physical health of our society at home as much as totalitarianism
threatens the security of our democracy abroad.

We must fight against the frustrations of ignorance, prejudice and
poverty at home lest our cities become victims of perpetual violence
and siege.

We must fight against the carnage on our highways which each
year claims more lives than have been sacrificed by American soldiers
in any single year of war — lives of noncombatants whose slaughter
we have accepted with an appalling apathy.

We must fight for domestic security on our streets with the same
intensity and passion that we have brought to the defense of our
national security.

For too long, we have ignored crime — the corrosive enemy within
— and as a result we have suffered. Lawlessness has become a plague
preying upon our people, creating a climate of pervasive fear. The
national crime rate has increased almost six times faster than the
national population. A recent survey made in the nation's largest
cities revealed that 43 percent of those interviewed stayed off the
streets at night; 35 percent refused to speak to strangers; 21 percent
used only cabs or cars at night; and 20 percent desired to move to
another neighborhood.

Crime is estimated to cost the national economy $3 billion each year.
The cost of operating the nation's correctional services exceeds $1
billion annually. What is the freedom that you as soldiers fought for
abroad worth, if you are afraid to walk alone at night at home? What
value can be placed upon your contribution as a citizen to our na-
tional prosperity if your person and property are menaced?

Crime — organized crime, crimes of violence and crimes of oppor-
tunity — has grown to such a proportion that we must declare war
and mobilize our national human, technological and financial re-
sources toward its defeat. As in all wars each of us has a role to play,