514 State Papers and Addresses

THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

GRADUATION OF EIGHTEENTH SESSION

THE NATIONAL POLICE ACADEMY

October 11, 1941
Washington, D. C.

ONE is honored and privileged to be invited to participate in these exercises.
The tribute and the distinction which are accorded a participant result from
the fact that this academy and its sponsors are recognized by the entire Country
as representing the highest standards in law enforcement.

Likewise, officers who, by reason of their prior success, were selected to
undergo this course, have attained a distinction by reason of that very fact.
Let it be emphasized at the outset that anyone who receives approval from the
Federal Bureau of Investigation is fortunate, indeed. Furthermore, he is en-
titled to sincere congratulations because this respected branch of our Govern-
ment has long since won the acclaim of a grateful citizenry. The names of
this Bureau and of its most efficient director, Mr. J. Edgar Hoover, are the
synonyms of justice of the highest order and of conscientious enforcement of
the law.

From every quarter this Bureau, Mr. Hoover and his carefully selected as-
sociates have been acknowledged as constituting the most efficient agency of its
kind in the world. When last year the greatest menace to our internal order
confronting this Country, the President of the United States turned to this
agency and vested in it the high responsibility of combating subversive activi-
ties, sabotage and espionage. Fulfilling the assignment of the President and
the Attorney General, the FBI has welded together the law-enforcing agencies
of the Country and now there is presented a united front against those who
would undermine our basic institutions.

It cannot be over-emphasized that, during the present National emergency
and in whatever difficulties that lie ahead, effective law enforcement is now and
shall continue to-be increasingly important. At no time, more so than at
present, does the representative of the law assume "the most vital part in this
Nation's effort to demonstrate that people can govern themselves. Accordingly,
the law enforcement officer owes it to his Nation, as well as to himself, to
spare no effort to equip himself satisfactorily. He owes it to his Nation, as
well as to himself, to uphold, with honor, the majesty and the dignity of the law.

There is no better measure of a nation's place in civilization than the ex-
cellence of its jurisprudence. By its system of laws shall a country be known
before the world. That nation which tolerates a government dedicated to the
suppression of free expression—to the exile and murder of its racial minorities
—to the use of concentration camps and Gestapo agents—such a nation is judged
accordingly.