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BUSINESS INTEGRITY CONSISTENT WITH

BUSINESS SUCCESS.

BY

GEN. B. F. COWEN

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HE satisfactory solution of this inquiry necessarily involves an analysis of the subject,

and the examination of its parts,

which may be stated as follows:

1. What is understood by integrity as applied to business methods? and

2. What is the highest business success?

The answer to our interrogatory caption will depend largely on the answers to the other questions stated, and it is therefore proper and consistent with the best methods of discussion to examine the latter first, which we shall endeavor to do.

Integrity has been defined as moral soundness; honesty; entire freedom from all corrupting influences or motives; uprightness. The word is used more especially with reference to dealings between men in the fulfilment of contracts, the discharge of agencies, and the performance of trusts, but is

also applicable to all transactions between man and man, whether of the character referred to or in the ordinary, every day affairs of life.

The definition of the word is broadened by looking at its synonyms, one of which is probity. Probity is defined as tried virtue; approved moral excellence; strict honesty; sincerity. And all these qualities must really exist in and inspire a man's action to entitle him to be classed as a man of integrity. We are not now inquiring as to the reputation but the character; not what a man seems to be, but what he is. Unfortunately there is a wide difference in the present organization of society between character and reputation, and we may see illustrations of fact almost every day. It is not an uncommon thing in our criminal courts to see men on trial for crimes extending through years bring witnesses to prove good reputation, when all the other evidence goes to show that they have been men of bad character for the greater part of their lives. Their crimes were secret; they had lived double lives and practiced deceit continuously. Then, again, a man may be of good character, innocent of wrong-doing, simply because he has never been tried. His good character is not probity, because it has not been tested and proved to be genuine. His virtue is a negative quality, because it has not been tempted and approved. [Integrity implies an entire surrender of self to honorable methods, and especially to those forms of injustice and wrong-doing which might favor one's self, and for the doing of which men are so fruitful in excuses; and has especial reference to honesty in trade, in the transfers of property, and the discharge of trusts.] Thus it will be seen that a man of integ rity must frame his life after the most rigid rules of propriety; the most exacting requirements of the strictest moral, social and commercial rectitude.

Nor is it sufficient to establish a character for integrity that

a man strictly observes all legal obligations and requirements. It is little credit to a man that he voluntarily does all those things which the law prescribes and which the appliances of our courts are especially adapted to compel him to do, and to punish him if he neglects or refuses to do, and his integrity must be tested by some higher standard.

There are obligations known in legal parlance as imperfect obligations, which the laws do not reach and cannot enforce and which are not legally binding between man and man, and for the fulfilment of which we are accountable to God alone. Among these are charity and gratitude Of the same general character are natural or moral obligations, which, though not enforcable by legal process, are no less binding in conscience and natural justice, as for example, when an action is barred by the statute of limitations, the natural obligation is as binding as ever although the legal obligation is extinguished.

No man can long neglect the imperfect or natural obligations of his position without a loss of character, and a growing disposition to evade or disregard his legal obligations. The man who refuses to pay his promissory note simply because it is sixteen years old, would not hesitate to refuse its payment were it a year or a month younger if he could do so with impunity.

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That he keeps within the law is not the best, nor is it a safe criterion by which to try a man's character for integrity. Human legislation is not the best standard of integrity. The statute books do not erect a perfect model, by any means. there were nothing to hold society in order but acts of Congress and of legislative assemblies this would be a sorry world, and yet how many men there be who recognize no other standard. It is a noticeable fact that a majority of men consider even that standard too high, and spend largely of their substance to evade its requirements.

It is safe to say that the man who models his life upon the standard of the statute books alone, and who takes risks of occasional departure from the rules therein laid down in direct proportion to the severity of the penalties prescribed, and his confidence in the skill of his lawyer to avoid those penalties, will bear close watching, and is far from being a man of integrity.

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These may be broad and comprehensive definitions of integrity, and may be generally considered as somewhat severe, but it will scarcely be maintained by any right-thinking man seeking all the light attainable for the regulation of his life and conduct, that the standard is unattainable.

There are no separate standards of conduct for different men. If the foregoing is a correct standard it must be applied to the active business man as well as to the student, the scholar and the professional man. The statute books recognize no separate standard, neither does the moral law. By what right then can the business man claim exemption from any of those rules.

Assuming that the standard above laid down is a correct one, that it is fairly applicable to all men capable of discharging the duties of citizenship,- let us endeavor to trace the indications of departures from that standard in the transactions of the ordinary business of life with which all men are more or less familiar.

Turning first to the crowded dockets of our courts, both civil and criminal, we are met with a mass of evidence showing how men tax their ingenuity to evade the legal requirements of their positions. The issues involved almost invariably disclose a disregard of those requirements which go to make up a symmetrical integrity of character. Every judicial appliance and all the ingenuity of legal talent are invoked to enforce on the one side and to evade on the other the observ

ance of the plainest legal obligation. Men who stand high in the community do not scruple to promote their interests and gain their ends by the merest technicalities and the most miserable tricks and subterfuges.

From the court room, where the tricks of trade are exposed and punished, we go directly to the great business arena, where those tricks are done and suffered, and there we see a cumulation of the evidence found in the courts. Ever since Jacob realized large profit from the application of his peculiar knowledge of the effect of pre-natal influences at the expense of his unsuspecting father-in-law, men have been so intent on their own aggrandizement that they were unmindful of the injury accruing to others. And when Jacob was caught in his ingenious scheme and the morality of it questioned, as it doubtless was, by the helpless victims, he no doubt eased his conscience by the reflection that all traffic is but a game of wits, to be won by him who has the keenest. Thus, at least, argue all the modern imitators of the patriarch, until it has become the rule in business life, as it was in Verona in the stormy days of the Montagus and Capulets, that "the weakest goes to the wall."

The casual observer must have frequently remarked that the shopkeeper seldom says aught but good of his wares. Each article is represented as the very best of its kind to be had in the market. Defects are carefully concealed, and if discovered by the keen eye of the purchaser, are treated as of no moment and no injury to the value. Send your child to make your purchases, or accept whatever is given you for a time until the merchant comes to regard you as an ignorant or indifferent buyer, and see how frequently you will be cheated. Why does one person get better bargains than his neighbors at the same shop, if the shopkeeper conducts his business with integrity?

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