Excerpt of Letter to the Members of the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice.
[Released August 13, 1965. Dated August 11, 1965] THE COMMISSION'S primary assignment is to conduct the first systematic, nationwide study of the entire spectrum of crime problems. The mounting crime rate and the unprecedented increase in the incidence of juvenile delinquency are matters of deep concern to me and to most Americans. As you know, I sent a special message concerning these problems to the Congress on March 8, 1965, and have recommended the enactment of certain new legislation designed to combat those problems.
However, that new legislation is but a beginning and there is still much to be done. I am convinced that you and your distinguished colleagues on the Commission can and will make significant contributions to this drive to devise means to eradicate lawlessness, disrespect for the law, and the causes thereof.
Note: The excerpt from the letter was read by Bill D. Moyers, Special Assistant to the President, at his news conference at Austin, Tex., at 4 p.m. on Friday, August 13, 1965. It was not made public in the form of a White House press release.
The letter was sent to the Chairman of the Commission, Attorney General Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, and to the following members: Mrs. Genevieve Blatt, former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania; Judge Charles D. Breitel, Justice of the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division; Kingman Brewster, Jr., President of Yale University; Garrett Byrne, District Attorney, Suffolk County, Mass.; Thomas J. Cahill, Chief of Police, City of San Francisco; Otis Chandler, publisher of the Los Angeles Times; Leon Jaworski, Houston, Tex., attorney, and former President of the American College of Trial Lawyers; Thomas Lynch, Attorney General of California; Ross L. Malone, Jr., Roswell, N. Mex., former Deputy Attorney General of the United States and former President of the American Bar Association; William P. Rogers, Washington, D.C., attorney and former Attorney General of the United States; United States District Judge James B. Parsons, Chicago; Lewis F. Powell, Jr., Richmond, Va., President of the American Bar Association; Robert G. Storey, Dallas attorney and former President of the American Bar Association; Mrs. Robert J. Stuart, Spokane, Wash., President of the League of Women Voters; Mayor Robert F. Wagner of New York City; Herbert Wechsler, professor of law at Columbia University and Director of the American Law Institute; Whitney M. Young, Jr., New Rochelle, N.Y., Executive Director of the National Urban League; United States District Judge Luther W. Youngdahl of Washington, D.C.
For the President's statement on establishing the Commission, see Item 382.
For the President's message to Congress of March 8, 1965, on law enforcement and the administration of justice, see Item 102.
The Law Enforcement Assistance Act of 1965 was approved by the President on September 22, 1965 (see Item 526).
See also Items 437, 500.
Lyndon B. Johnson, Excerpt of Letter to the Members of the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/241027