474 Presidential Addresses 



scrupulous to do justice to others. It is because the 

 average American citizen, rich or poor, is of just 

 this type that we have cause for our profound faith 

 in the future of the Republic. 



Ours is a government of liberty, by, through, 

 and under the law. Lawlessness and connivance at 

 law-breaking whether the law-breaking take the 

 form of a crime of greed and cunning or of a crime 

 of violence are destructive not only of order, but 

 of the true liberties which can only come through 

 order. If alive to their true interests rich and poor 

 alike will set their faces like flint against the spirit 

 which seeks personal advantage by overriding the 

 laws, without regard to whether this spirit shows 

 itself in the form of bodily violence by one set of 

 men or in the form of vulpine cunning by another 

 set of men. 



Let the watchwords of all our people be the old 

 familiar watchwords of honesty, decency, fair-deal- 

 ing and common sense. The qualities denoted by 

 these words are essential to all of us, as we deal with 

 the complex industrial problems of to-day, the prob- 

 lems affecting not merely the accumulation but even 

 more the wise distribution of wealth. We ask no 

 man's permission when we require him to obey the 

 law; neither the permission of the poor man nor 

 yet of the rich man. Least of all can the man of 

 great wealth afford to break the law, even for his 

 own financial advantage ; for the law is his prop and 

 support, and it is both foolish and profoundly unpa- 

 triotic for him to fail in giving hearty support to 



