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PRESERVE YOUR INTEGRITY
By Fernando Soave © 2005
It is more precious than diamonds or rubies. The old
miser said to his sons: "Get money; get it honestly,
if you can, but get money."
This advice was not only
atrociously wicked, but it was the very essence of
stupidity. It was as much as to say, "if you find it
difficult to obtain money honestly, you can easily get
it dishonestly. Get it in that way." Poor fool! Not to
know that the most difficult thing in life is to make
money dishonestly! not to know that our prisons are
full of men who attempted to follow this advice; not
to understand that no man can be dishonest, without
soon being found out, and that when his lack of
principle is discovered, nearly every avenue to
success is closed against him forever. The public very
properly shun all whose integrity is doubted. No
matter how polite and pleasant and accommodating a man
may be, none of us dare to deal with him if we suspect
"false weights and measures." Strict honesty, not only
lies at the foundation of all success in life
(financially), but in every other respect.
Uncompromising integrity of character is invaluable.
It secures to its possessor a peace and joy which
cannot be attained without it--which no amount of
money, or houses and lands can purchase. A man who is
known to be strictly honest, may be ever so poor, but
he has the purses of all the community at his
disposal--for all know that if he promises to return
what he borrows, he will never disappoint them. As a
mere matter of selfishness, therefore, if a man had no
higher motive for being honest, all will find that the
maxim of Dr. Franklin can never fail to be true, that
"honesty is the best policy."
To get rich, is not always equivalent to being
successful. "There are many rich poor men," while
there are many others, honest and devout men and
women, who have never possessed so much money as some
rich persons squander in a week, but who are
nevertheless really richer and happier than any man
can ever be while he is a transgressor of the higher
laws of his being.
The inordinate love of money, no doubt, may be and is
"the root of all evil," but money itself, when
properly used, is not only a "handy thing to have in
the house," but affords the gratification of blessing
our race by enabling its possessor to enlarge the
scope of human happiness and human influence. The
desire for wealth is nearly universal, and none can
say it is not laudable, provided the possessor of it
accepts its responsibilities, and uses it as a friend
to humanity.
The history of money-getting, which is commerce, is a
history of civilization, and wherever trade has
flourished most, there, too, have art and science
produced the noblest fruits. In fact, as a general
thing, money-getters are the benefactors of our race.
To them, in a great measure, are we indebted for our
institutions of learning and of art, our academies,
colleges and churches. It is no argument against the
desire for, or the possession of, wealth, to say that
there are sometimes misers who hoard money only for
the sake of hoarding and who have no higher aspiration
than to grasp everything which comes within their
reach. As we have sometimes hypocrites in religion,
and demagogues in politics, so there are occasionally
misers among money-getters. These, however, are only
exceptions to the general rule. But when, in this
country, we find such a nuisance and stumbling block
as a miser, we remember with gratitude that in America
we have no laws of primogeniture, and that in the due
course of nature the time will come when the hoarded
dust will be scattered for the benefit of mankind. To
all men and women, therefore, do I conscientiously
say, make money honestly, and not otherwise, for
Shakespeare has truly said, "He that wants money,
means, and content, is without three good friends."