The President's News Conference

BONUS MARCHERS

THE PRESIDENT. A challenge to the authority of the United States Government has been met, swiftly and firmly.

After months of patient indulgence, the Government met overt lawlessness as it always must be met if the cherished processes of self-government are to be preserved. We cannot tolerate the abuse of constitutional rights by those who would destroy all government, no matter who they may be. Government cannot be coerced by mob rule.

The Department of Justice is pressing its investigation into the violence which forced the call for Army detachments, and it is my sincere hope that those agitators who inspired yesterday's attack upon the Federal authority may be brought speedily to trial in the civil courts. There can be no safe harbor in the United States of America for violence.

Order and civil tranquillity are the first requisites in the great task of economic reconstruction to which our whole people now are devoting their heroic and noble energies. This national effort must not be retarded in even the slightest degree by organized lawlessness in the country. The first obligation of my office is to uphold and defend the Constitution and the authority of the law. This I propose always to do.

For your own information, while I am on the subject, the National Red Cross has undertaken to send all the women and children out of the District who want to go home, and they are actively in the field this afternoon gathering them up. This is not for publication, just for your own information.

ECONOMIC RECOVERY PROGRAM

I have a question about recent conferences. I will give you this in mimeographed form later.