State of the Union AddressesJohnson, Lyndon B. (Lyndon Baines)
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State of the Union Addresses
Johnson, Lyndon B. (Lyndon Baines)
Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
We should improve the process of democracy by passing our election reform
and financing proposals, by tightening our laws regulating lobbying, and by
restoring a reasonable franchise to Americans who move their residences.
We should develop educational television into a vital public resource to
enrich our homes, educate our families, and to provide assistance in our
classrooms. We should insist that the public interest be fully served
through the public's airwaves.
And I will propose these measures to the 90th Congress.
Now we come to a question that weighs very heavily on all our minds--on
yours and mine. This Nation must make an all-out effort to combat crime.
The 89th Congress gave us a new start in the attack on crime by passing the
Law Enforcement Assistance Act that I recommended. We appointed the
National Crime Commission to study crime in America and to recommend the
best ways to carry that attack forward.
And while we do not have all the answers, on the basis of its preliminary
recommendations we are ready to move.
This is not a war that Washington alone can win. The idea of a national
police force is repugnant to the American people. Crime must be rooted out
in local communities by local authorities. Our policemen must be better
trained, must be better paid, and must be better supported by the local
citizens that they try to serve and to protect.
The National Government can and expects to help.
And so I will recommend to the 90th Congress the Safe Streets and Crime
Control Act of 1967. It will enable us to assist those States and cities
that try to make their streets and homes safer, their police forces better,
their corrections systems more effective, and their courts more efficient.
When the Congress approves, the Federal Government will be able to provide
a substantial percentage of the cost:
--90 percent of the cost of developing the State and local plans, master
plans, to combat crime in their area;
--60 percent of the cost of training new tactical units, developing instant
communications and special alarm systems, and introducing the latest
equipment and techniques so that they can become weapons in the war on
crime;
--50 percent of the cost of building crime laboratories and police
academy-type centers so that our citizens can be protected by the best
trained and served by the best equipped police to be found anywhere. We
will also recommend new methods to prevent juvenile delinquents from
becoming adult delinquents. We will seek new partnerships with States and
cities in order to deal with this hideous narcotics problem. And we will
recommend strict controls on the sale of firearms.
At the heart of this attack on crime must be the conviction that a free
America--as Abraham Lincoln once said--must "let reverence for the
laws . . . become the political religion of the Nation."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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