"Here, at the convention of the nation's police chiefs, Hoover revealed statistics showing an amazing increase in arrests of bobby-sox girls of 18 and under. Hoover asserted that one out of every twenty-three Americans had been criminally fingerprinted by the F.B.I., whose files, he said, contain records of 6,000,000 such persons. He cited figures showing that persons under twenty-one commit 15% of all murders, 36% of the robberies, 30% of all rapists, 34% of thieves, 26% of the arsonists, and 62% of all car thieves. "Hoover said arrest of bobby-sox girls under eighteen jumped 198% since 1939, while arrests for boys in the same age group increased 48% for homicide, 70% for rape, 72% for assault, 55% for auto thefts, and 101% for drunkenness and drunken driving. "Lawlessness has taken on such proportions as to even startle the imagination," he said. "In Miami Beach, December 11, 1945, President Truman in a personal message called on the nation's police officials to organize a country wide crime prevention drive aimed at the roots of juvenile delinquency. Mr. Truman said in the message read to more than 700 delegates to the International Association of Chiefs of Police Convention that he looked upon the rise of juvenile delinquency as perhaps the most alarming problem faced by law enforcement officers. "Americans cannot afford to regard that problem passively or to postpone the action necessary to its solution," the President said. "I am convinced that the active cooperation of all welfare, religious and social agencies, civic leaders, businessmen and citizens in the broad national crime prevention program directed at the roots of the evil is the path to be followed and without delay."[28] "Mr. Edgar Hoover, chief of your Federal Bureau of Investigation, and your President Harry Truman know full well one of the main reasons for these conditions; but with liquor and alcohol traffic protected by the 21st Amendment to your Constitution, with the strong financial interest in the manufacturing and distribution of alcohol, and with the strong propaganda which strengthens the desire for the existence of these conditions, their hands as heads of Government and Investigation Bureau are tied and powerless. They and your Congress would greatly hesitate to try to do away with this evil, if doing so would close those industries with their large numbers of workers out of work and bring back prohibition conditions. "Man's poison habits are often the cause of an innocent person losing his life or being disabled through the recklessness of the moderate or social drinker.