Misrepresentation in any form is the shortest-sighted policy in the world. No man ever built up a permanent position or institution upon it, or ever will, for the man who gets a temporary advantage by misrepresentation makes everybody who finds it out his enemy ever after. It is human nature never fully to trust a person again who has once deceived us.
Is there any power in cunning,, in shrewd, long-headed, deceptive methods that can for a moment compare with the truth, with absolute integrity? There is no advertisement in the world, in the long run, that can compare with that which comes from the reputation of always and everywhere telling the exact truth, of being absolutely reliable. This reputation alone has made the names of some of the great business houses in this country worth millions of dollars.
Every time a man deceives he knows that he has to cover his tracks. He is always on thorns for fear of discovery, for everything in his own nature is trying to betray him; but when he tells the truth, because he is built on the truth plan, he has all the universe sustaining, supporting, backing him.
What a difference there is between the power of a man who is telling the truth and is conscious that he is backed by the eternal principle of right and justice, and the man who is lying and is conscious of it!
One can look the world in the face without wincing, because he feels that he is backed by eternal principle; there is victory in his eye, assurance in his very bearing, while there is something within the other man which says, “I am a liar; I am not a man. I know I am not a man, but a sneak, a make-believe.”
The moment we attempt to express that which is not true, we are crippled, for we are doing an unnatural thing and are not reinforced by the consent of all our faculties, The best thing in us, the divine thing, protests against the false.
No man can be really strong when in the wrong. Everything within rebukes him; everything tells him of his cowardice. Truth is man’s normal state, deception is a cultivated, abnormal thing. There is no substitute for the right. Cunning can not take its place, nor can education. A person may have great ability and a college education, but if he does not ring true, if there is any evidence of counterfeit about him he never gets our confidence, our order, our business, or our patronage.
There is always a question mark in our minds when we have dealings with a man who is not perfectly honest. We are not sure of him. On the other hand, a person may lack education, culture, even refinement; but if he has an Honest heart, if he rings true every time, we believe in him; we trust him.
No man can look honest and long give the impression of honesty when he is an habitual scoundrel. It is only a question of time when something will happen to tear off his mask and reveal the real man.
Just look at the man who has practiced deceit and lying all his life. There is not a line of truth in his face. His very expression is false. He radiates dishonesty from every pore. He may attempt to deceive with his smooth, honeyed diplomacy, but we instinctively feel that he is a liar in every part of his being.
It does not matter how he tries to cover up his rottenness by appearances of respectability, his clothes, his money; he can not long continue to cheat the heart. What he jays about himself contradicts what we feel.
A perfectly truthful man regards his honor first; his interest comes later. Truth is everything to him. Justice must be done, no matter if it goes against his own interests.
Man is constructed along the lines of truth, and he can not violate his nature without showing it by the loss of the best thing in him. The liar’s deception destroys his self-respect, and with it goes his confidence; and what can a man accomplish who can not respect himself or believe in himself?
Why is it that a single man without wealth or position has so often exerted marvelous power in the world? Simply because he was supported by principle; because one man with the right is always a majority and can stand against the world for principle—is invincible. One man in the right has often been more than a match for tens of thousands in the wrong.
This was what made Lincoln such a giant; he always stood for truth and justice. He believed what he said, and he knew that the very structure of the universe was backing him.
He would never take a case unless he believed that his side was in the right. He knew that the advocate on the other side would always be placed at a disadvantage by trying to make others believe what he did not believe himself; that he would be weak at best, no matter how great an orator he might be. Lincoln knew there was something backing him that was greater than oratory, mightier than words, and which multiplied his natural ability a thousandfold.
Right speaks with the force of law. The world listens when truth speaks through a man like Lincoln, who was entrenched in principle, backed by the right. Not all of the mighty force which made him a giant among his fellows was generated in his own brain. There was a power back of him loaned from justice, from right, which made him invincible; a power which all men forfeit the moment they forsake truth, principle.
When a man feels that he is buttressed by the right, entrenched in truth, he does not feel weak, although the whole world may be against him. He feels the everlasting arm about him, because he knows that nothing can stand against principle; nothing can be so mighty as the right.
One of the mysteries of the ages has been the marvel of men going to the stake smiling, without a tremor; standing calm and serene while the flames were licking the flesh from their bones. They were supported by a power back of the flesh, but not of it; by the conviction that they were in the right. They did not feel alone or weak, for they were entrenched in eternal principle. They believed that they were protected by the Almighty, and nothing could shake their confidence or disturb their faith. Their exalted mental condition lifted them even above the pain of physical torture.
The man who goes through the world sailing under false colors, trying to make black appear white, will always have a hard time of it. Nobody will long believe him, no matter how smooth his tongue, how long-headed or cunning he may be. Things are so planned that if a man is ever to get very far or to accomplish very much in this world he must be honest, for the whole structure of natural law is pledged to defeat the He, the sham. Only the right, ultimately, can succeed.
What would you think of a man who tries to defeat the laws of mathematics? He is a bigger fool who tries to get ahead of right, tries to defeat justice by lying and deceit. No man ever yet got around God, good, justice, right. It is true a man may get something in the wrong—so may a thief. But the wrong always defeats itself because it has no principle in it. A man in the wrong is out of place for the same reason that discord is out of place in the presence of harmony.
Not long ago nine students were suspended at Brown University for cribbing in their examinations. A great many well-intentioned students lie by cribbing in all sorts of ways in their recitations and examinations. They put formulae and figures and suggestions and all sorts of helps upon their cuffs and shirt bosoms, finger nails and paper rolls, to help them during their recitations or examinations, thus laying foundations for future forms of deceit and dishonesty on a large scale, which may ultimately ruin them.
Many prosperous business men who are very conscientious about telling verbal lies are consummate liars in the deceits they work into their manufactures, their commodities. I know a man who is always talking to his sons about telling the truth, yet he has for nearly half a century been selling lies in his store, boxes of lies, barrels of lies, lies in “foreign” silks made in New Jersey, and all sorts of “imported” articles.
American liars in high places have recently had the flashlight of public scrutiny turned upon them. Men who not long ago stood high in the American regard are worse than nobodies to-day, for they are despised by their fellow men.
Does it pay to sell one’s birthright for a little mess of pottage?
Veracity to a man should be as priceless as virtue to a woman. When he has lost truthfulness and the reputation for it, he is a burned-out man, a mere shell, like one of our great skyscrapers gutted by fire. Does it pay to take chances with one’s reputation? Nothing can compensate the lily for a smirch upon its whiteness; nothing can compensate