US Presidency
1930

In my messages of June 6th and December 3rd, 1929, I placed before Congress the urgency of certain improvements necessary to effective criminal law enforcement. Substantial progress has been made upon some of the measures proposed, yet we are nearing the end of the present session, and I can not too strongly urge the necessity of action upon all these recommendations before adjournment. The most important recommendations made by me were five in number: 1. There should be a transfer of the functions of detection and prosecution of prohibition cases from the Treasury Department to the Department of Justice, and thus an ending of divided responsibility and effort. An Act providing for this transfer was passed by the House of Representatives and has now been reported to the Senate by its Judiciary Committee. 2. There must be relief afforded from congestion in the courts. While this congestion is evidenced by the dockets in many courts, its full implications are not shown by them.