Speaker 1: Integrity. There is no striking a cheap bargain with prosperity.
It must be purchased not only with intelligent labor, but
with a moral force. As the bubble cannot endure, so
the fraud cannot prosper He makes a feverish spurt in
the acquirement of money and then collapses. Nothing is ever gained,
Nothing can ever be gained by fraud. It is but
wrestled for a time, to be again returned with heavy interest.
But fraud is not confined to the unscrupulous swindler. All
who are getting or trying to get money without giving
an equivalent are practicing fraud, whether they know it or not.
Men who are anxiously scheming how to get money without
working for it are frauds, and mentally they are closely
allied to the thief and the swindler, under whose influence
they come sooner or later, and who deprives some of
their capital. What is a thief but a man who
carries to its logical extreme or later, and who deprives
some of their capital. What is a thief but a
man who carries it to its logical extreme. The desire
to possess without giving a just return, that is unlawfully.
The man that courts prosperity must, in all his transactions,
whether material or mental, study how to give a just
return for that which he receives. This is the great
fundamental principle in all sound commerce, while in spiritual things
it becomes the doing to others that which we would
have them do to us, and applied to the forces
of the universe. It is scientifically stated in the formula
action and reaction are equal. Human life is reciprocal, not rapacious,
And the man who regards all others as his legitimate
prey will soon find himself stranded in the desert of ruin,
far away from the path of prosperity. He is too
far behind in the process of evolution to cope successfully
with honest men. The fittest, the best always survive, and he,
being the worst, cannot therefore continue his end unless the
change in time is sure. It is the goal the
filthy hovel or the place of the deserted outcast. His
efforts are destructive and not constructive, and he thereby destroys himself.
It was Carlyle who referring to Mohammed, being then universally
regarded by Christians, as an impostor exclaimed, an impostor found
a religion. An impostor couldn't build a brick house, an impostor,
a liar, a cheat. The man of dishonesty cannot build,
as he has neither tools nor material with which to build.
He can no more build up a business, a character,
a career, a success, than he can found a religion
or build a brick house. He not only does not build,
but all his energies are bent on undermining what others
have built. But his being impossible, he undermines himself. Without integrity,
energy and economy will at last fail, but aided by integrity,
their strength will be greatly augmented. There is not an
occasion in life in which the moral factor does not
play an important part. Stirring integrity wherever it is, stamps
its whole mark on all transactions. And it does this
because of its wonderful coherence and consistency, and its invincible strength.
For the man of integrity is in line with the
fixed laws things, not only with the fundamental principles on
which human society rests, but with the laws which hold
the vast universe together. Who shall set all these at naught,
who then shall undermine the man of unblemished integrity. He
is like a strong tree whose roots are fed by
perennial springs, and which no tempest can lay low. To
be complete and strong, integrity must embrace the whole man
and extend to all the details of his life. And
it must be so thorough and permanent as to withstand
all temptations to swerve and to compromise. To fail in
one point is to fail in all, And to admit
under stress a compromise with falsehood, howsoever necessary and insignificant
it may appear, is to throw down the shield of integrity,
and to stand exposed to the onslaughts of evil. The
man who works as carefully and conscientiously when his employer
is away as when his eye is upon him will
not long remain in an inferior position. Such integrity and
duty in performing the details of his work will quickly
lead him into the fertile regions of prosperity. The shirker,
on the other hand, he who does not scruple or
neglect his work when his employer is not about, thereby
robbing his employer of the time and labor for which
he is paid. Will quickly come to the barren reign
of unemployment, and will look in vain for needful labor.
There will come a time, too, to the man who
is not deeply rooted in integrity, when it will seem
necessary to his prospects and prosperity that he should tell
a lie or do a dishonest thing. I say to
the man who is not deeply rooted in this principle,
For a man of fixed and enlightened inentrity knows that
lying and dishonesty can never, under any circumstance be necessary,
and therefore he neither needs to be tempted in this particular,
nor can he possibly be tempted. But the one so
tempted must be able to cast aside the subtle insinuation
of falsehood which, in a time of indecision and perplexity,
arises within him, and he must stand firmly by the principle,
being willing to lose and suffer rather than sink into obliquity.
In this way, only can he become enlightened concerning this
moral principle and discover the glad truth that integrity does
not lead to loss and suffering, but to gain and joy,
that honesty and deprivation are not and cannot be related
as cause and effect. It is this willingness to sacrifice
rather than be untrue that leads to enlightenment in all
spheres of life. And the man who, who, rather than
sacrifice some selfish aim, will lie or deceive, has forfeited
his right to moral enlightenment, and takes his place lowered
down among the devotees of deceit, among the doers of
shady transactions, than men of no character and no reputation.
A man is not truly armored with integrity until he
has become incapable of lying or deceiving, either by gesture, word,
or act. Until he sees clearly, openly, and freed from
all doubt, the deadly effects of such moral turpitude. The
man so enlightened is protected from all quarters, and he
can no more be undermined by dishonest men than the
sun can be pulled down from the heaven by madmen,
and the arrows of selfishness and treachery that may be
poured upon him will rebound from the strong armor of
his integrity and the bright shield of his righteousness, leaving
him unharmed and untouched. A line tradesman will tell you
that no man can thrive and be honest in these
days of keen competition. How can such a man know this,
seeing that he has never tried honesty. Moreover, such a
man has no knowledge of honesty, and his statement is
therefore a statement of ignorance. An ignorance and falsehood so
blind a man that he foolishly imagines all are as
ignorant and false as himself. I have known such tradesmen,
and I have seen them come to ruin. I once
heard a business man make the following statement in a
public meeting. No man can be entirely honest in business.
He can only be approximately honest. He imagined that his
statement revealed the condition of the business world. It did not.
It revealed his own condition. He was merely telling his
audience that he was a dishonest man, But his ignorance
moral ignorance prevented him from seeing this. Approximate honesty is
only another term for dishonesty. The man who deviated a
little from the straight path will deviate more. He has
no fixed principle of right, and is only thinking of
his own advantage that he persuades himself that his particular
dishonesty is of a white and harmless kind, and that
he is not so bad as his neighbor is only
one of the many forms of self delusion which ignorance
of moral principle creates. Right doing between men in the
varied relations and transactions of life is the very soul
of integrity. It includes, but is more than honesty. It
is the backbone of human society and the support of
human institutions. Without it, there would be no trust, no
confidence between men, and the business world would topple to
its fall. As the liar thinks all men are liars
and treats them as such. So the man of integrity
treats all men with confidence. He trusts them, and they
trust him. His clear eye and open hand shame the
creeping fraud so that he cannot practice his fraud on him.
As Emerson has so finely put it, trust men, and
they will be true to you, even though they may
make an exception in your favor to all their rules
of trade. The upright man, by his very presence, commands
the morality of those about him, making them better than
they were. Men are powerfully influenced by one another, and
as good is more powerful than evil. The strong and
good man both shames and elevates by his contact the
weak and bad. The man of integrity carries about with
him an unconscious grandeur which both awes and inspires. Having
lifted himself above the petty, the mean, and the false,
those coward vices slink from his presence in confusion. The
highest intellectual gift cannot compare with this lofty moral grandeur.
In the memory of men and the estimation of the world,
the man of integrity occupies a higher place than the
man of genius. Buckminster says the moral grandeur of an
independent integrity is the sublimest thing in nature. It is
the quality in man which produces heroes. The man of
unswerving rectitude is intrinsically always a hero. It only needs
the occasion to bring about the heroic element. He is
always too possessed by a permanent happiness. The man of
genius may be very unhappy, but not to the man
of integrity. Nothing nor sickness, nor calamity, nor death can
deprive him of that permanent satisfaction which inheres in uprightness.
Rectitude leads straight to prosperity by four successive steps First,
the upright man wins the confidence of others. Second, having
gained their confidence, they put trust in him. Third, this trust,
never being violated, produces a good reputation. And fourth, a
good reputation spreads further and further, and so brings about success.
Dishonesty has the reverse effect. By destroying the confidence of others,
it produces in them suspicion and mistrust, and these bring
about a bad reputation, which culminates in failure. The pillers
of integrity are held together by these four virile elements
one honesty, two fearlessness, three purposefulness four invincibility. Honesty is
the surest way to success. The day at last comes
when the dishonest man repents and sorrow and suffering. But
no man ever needs to repent of having been honest.
Even when the honest man fails, as he does sometimes
through the lacking of other of these pillars, such as energy, economy,
or system, his failure is not the grievous thing it
is to the dishonest man, for he can always rejoice
in the fact that he has never defrauded a fellow being.
Even in his darkest hour, he finds repose in a
clear conscience. Ignorant men imagine that dishonesty is a shortcut
to prosperity. That is why they practice it. This man
is moralwys shortsighted, like the drunkard who sees the immediate
pleasure of his habit, but not the ultimate degradation. He
sees the immediate effect of a dishonest act a larger profit,
but not its ultimate outcome. He does not see that
an accumulated number of such acts must inevitably undermine his
character and bring his business toppling upon its ears in ruin.
While pocketing his gains and thinking how cleverly and successfully
he is imposing on others, he is all the time
imposing on himself. And thus every coin gained must be
paid back with added interest, and from this just retribution
there is no possible loophole of escape. This moral gravitation
is as sure and unvarying as the physical gravitation of
a stone to the earth. The tradesman who demands of
his assistance that they shall be and misrepper presents his
goods to customers is surrounding himself on all hands with suspicion, mistrust,
and hatred. Even the moral weaklings who carry out his
instructions despise him while defiling themselves with his unclean work.
How can success thrive in such a poisonous atmosphere? The
spirit of ruin is already in such a business, and
the day of his fall is ordained. An honest man
may fail, but not because he is honest, and his
failure will be honorable and will not injure his character
and reputation. His failure, too, resulting doubtless from his incapacity
in the particular direction of his failure, will be a
means of leading him into something more suited to his talents,
and thus to ultimate success. Fearlessness accompanies honesty. The honest
man has a clear eye and an unflinching gaze. He
looks his fellow in the face, and his speech is
direct and convincing. The liar and cheat hangs his head.
His eye is muddy and his gaze oblique. He cannot
look another man in the eye, and his speech arouses mistrust,
for it is ambiguous and unconvincing. When a man has
fulfilled his obligations, he has nothing to fear. All his
business relations are safe and secure. His methods and actions
will endure the light of day. Should he pass through
a difficult time and get into debt, everybody will trust
him and be willing to wait for payment, and all
his debts will be paid. Dishonest people try to avoid
paying their debts, and they live in fear. But the
honest man tries to avoid getting into debt. But when
debt overtakes him, he does not fear, but redoubling his exertions,
his debts are paid. The dishonest are always in fear.
They do not fear debt, but fear that they will
have to pay their debt. They fear their fellow men,
fear the established authorities, fear the results of all that
they do, and they are in constant fear of their
misdeeds being revealed and the consequences which may at any
moment overtake them. The honest man is rid of all
this burden of fear. He is light hearted and walks
erect among his fellows, not assuming a part and sulking
and cringing, but being himself and meeting eye to eye,
not deceiving or injuring any There are none to fear,
and anything and against him can only rebound to his advantage.
And this fearlessness is in itself a tower to strengthen
a man's life, supporting him through all emergencies, enabling him
to battle manfully with difficulties, and in the end securing
for him that success of which he cannot be dispossessed.
Purposefulness is the direct outcome of that strength of character
which integrity fosters. The man of integrity is the man
of direct aims and strong and intelligent purposes. He does
not guess and work in the dark. All his plans
have in them some of that moral fiber of which
his character is wrought. A man's work will always come
in some way to reflect himself, And the man of
sound integrity is the man of sound plan. He weighs
and considers, and looks ahead, and so is less likely
to make serious mistakes or to bungle into a dilemma
from which it is difficult to escape. Taking a moral
view of all things and always considering moral consequences, he
stands on a firmer and more exalted ground than the
man of mere policy and expedient, And while commanding a
more extended view of any situation, he wields the greater
power which a more comprehensive grasp of details, with the
principles involved confers upon him. Morality always has the advantage
of expediency. Its purposes always reach down far below the surface,
and are therefore more firm and secure, more strong and lasting.
There is a native directness, too about integrity, which enables
the man to get straight to the mark in whatever
he does, and which makes failure almost impossible. Strong men
have strong purposes, and strong purposes lead to strong achievements.
The man of integrity is above all men strong, and
his strength is manifested in that thoroughness with which he
does the business of his life, thoroughness which commands respect, admiration,
and success. Invincibility is a glorious protector, but it only
envelops the man whose integrity is perfectly pure and unassailable,
never to violate even in the most insignificant particular. The
principle of integrity is to be invincible against all the
assaults of innuendo, slander, and misrepresentation. The man who has
failed in one point is vulnerable, and the shaft of
evil entering that point will lay him low like the
arrow in the heel of Achilles. Pure imperfect integrity is
proof against all attack and injury, enabling its possessor to
meet all opposition and persecution with dauntless courage and sublime equanimity.
No amount of talent, intellect, or business acumen can give
a man that power of mind and peace of heart,
which come from an enlightened acceptance an observance of lofty
moral principles. Moral force is the greatest power. Let the
seeker for true prosperity discover this force. Let him foster
and develop it in his mind and in his deeds,
And as he succeeds, he will take his place among
the strong leaders of the earth. Such is the strong
and adamantine pillar of integrity, blessed and prosperous above all men,
will be he who builds its incorruptible masonry into the
temple of his life.