When I first arrived at the SEC two months ago, I noticed a very large, framed quote prominently displayed outside the Chairman’s Office. It’s a quote from former Chairman (and later Supreme Court Justice) William O. Douglas. And, it says, “We are the investor’s advocate.”

Usually, that’s the only part of his quote we ever hear. But the full statement is more enlightening. It reads:

We have got brokers’ advocates; we have got Exchange advocates; we have got investment banker advocates; and WE are the investors’ advocate.

The date of that quote is 1937. Seventy-two years later, there are even more advocates for all of the various participants in our markets, but the SEC remains the only federal agency dedicated to looking out for investors. And surely there has been no time in history that investors have been more in need of an advocate than today.

You — the trillions of dollars that are represented in this room — need an advocate that is strong and effective. In our time together this morning, I’d like to share with you my plans for ensuring both.

The Role of Regulation in Our Markets

Now over the past many months, there’s been much talk in Washington and around the globe, about the need to rethink our regulatory system. It is a discussion that has been given urgency by the financial crisis we face — and the quest for solutions.

But as we consider how to address this crisis, I think it is useful to remember that there are myriad reasons for how we got here. The ink on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was hardly dry before we began to hear concerns from some quarters about the costs of “over-regulation,” the stifling of innovation, and the superior ability of markets to protect themselves from excesses.

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