Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 April 1886 — Honesty. [ARTICLE]

Honesty.

Honesty is a rare herb. Even as a matter of policy it works well.

Simple honesty is virtue enough for any man. I consider honesty a half-brother of Christianity. Many are down on honesty and pumpkin pie, but I’m not. It will win oftener than three trays or two pair of sixes. Its tendency is more demoralizing to mep than fleas to a dog. Whether honesty wins or {not, I believe safe risk to chance it. Honesty and virtue are bom of the angels, and are as often twins as otherwise. An honest man is a king among men, either on a throne or in a political convention. I don’t believe in dishonesty, unless a man has got a pretty good thing with no risks.

In cultivating honesty an occasional hoeing won’t- in jur e its tendency toward maturity. .. i. If dishonesty isn’t a sin, then it is because it hasn’t the digpity to rise to the level of sin.

No doubt honesty was once “the best policy, ” but that theory seems to have had its day. There isn’t such a thing as being too honest, but there is such a thing as bragging about it too much. Dishonesty would seem to me to be as far as a man would go to satisfy a moderate ambition. Jud Lafagan, in Chicago Ledger