Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 June 1876 — Business Lies. [ARTICLE]

Business Lies.

Mr. William Golsen, the rectifier and witness in the Munn case, draws a nice distinction in the matter of lying. Upon his cross-examination Mr. Golsen laid down this broad proposition: “I may have told Mr. Munn a lie. I have a right to tell lies if I can make money by them.” The proposition seems to have startled Col. Ingersoll, who is considerable of a philosopher, and so he asked the witness: “ If you will lie to make money, just tell me whether you would lie to keep out of the Penitentiary?” To which the witness replied: “No, sir, I would not.” Col. Ingersoll then drew out the following nice distinction: “But you would lie to make a dollar?” To which said the man who wouldn’t lie to save himself from the Penitentiary: “Oh, but that’s business.”

Mr. Golsen’s theory as to mendacity may seem at first sight’very finely drawn, but when it is examined below the surface Mr. Golsen’s practice or rule of life with regard to lying will be found too often in consonance with the general practices of commercial life. Mr. Golsen’s lying for a dollar is the way of too many traders the world over. How inany traders consider it wrong to conceal the bad qualities of their goods or magnify the good qualities? What bootmaker considers it a lie to Inform his customer that his boots will last a year when he ‘knows they will not last six months ? What per cent, of clothiers consider it to be a lie to tell the purchase! that a suit of clothes will do good service w“hen they know that tlie garments are shoddy stuff? What horse-dealer hesitates to recommend a horse as perfect when he knows that the animal is full of defects ? Every department of business, especially dry-goods trading, is characterized by this indifference to lying. How often is the cost-price misrepresented? There seems to be a sort of moral obliquity in this regard. Lying “to make dollar” has become a past of the machinery of business. The trader lies without a qualm of conscience as to price and quality, and the customer swallows the lie, pretending to believe it as if it was part of the ti ade that he should do so. Grace, truth and religion combined have thus far tailed to root out this curse of business lying. Mr. Golsen made a singular application of his theory, as he seems to have used it to cheat the Government instead of cheating a customer, but he should be credited with courage in being bold enough to give utterance to his belief in business lies, which are universal in evfry community, and as disgraceful as they are universal. Mr. Golsen’s application of his theory seems to be the worst feature of it. In its general statement he only enunciated a course of business conduct which is almost universally pursued, and is not generally considered disreputable.— Chicago Tribune.