Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron.
—I Tim 4:2
2243 Down Trend In U. S.
In 1924 Liberty magazine sent out 100 letters to people selected at random throughout the U.S., enclosing $1 bill, saying it was an adjustment of an error which the addressed had complained of—which really did not exist. Of the 100 recipients, 27 returned the dollar, saying it was a mistake.
Then in 1971, Liberty again conducted the same test. But now only 13 returned the money!
2244 Errant Federal Officials
More than 1,000 key officials from county sheriff to US Vice President were brought to the bar of justice between 1970–1976 on federal charges growing out of bribery, kickbacks, extortion and similar schemes. This does not include people cited for violating State and local laws.
2245 $233M For Bribes
Tokyo (UPI)—Major Japanese companies spent an estimated $233 million in the three years ending in June 1976, for political contributions, bribes and payments to secret agents, the National Tax Office said.
The survey covered 25,000 firms capitalized at $170,000 or more.
According to the survey, unaccounted money totalled about $85 million in business year 1973 starting in July about $69 million and in 1974 about $79 million.
Of the amount about seven million was used for political contributions. Commissions accounted for about $13 million and expense accounts about six million dollars, the survey revealed.
2246 Government’s Right To Lie
In an article in the Saturday Evening Post appeared an article “The Government Has the Right to Lie” by Arthur Sylvester, assistant Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968. “If I had been living in the early 19th Century in what was then our Country’s West, and had been a religious man, I am sure I would have taken my stand with the Lying Baptists against the Truthful Baptists.”
He was referring to an incident in 1804 in Kentucky when some Baptists were disputing whether they should tell the truth and possibly sacrifice the life of a child in so doing, or whether, they should lie to the marauding Indians and possibly save the child.
2247 “I Often Lie”—Judge
When Canada’s Justice Landreville of the Ontario Supreme Court admitted before a Senate-Commons investigating committee that “I often lie on minor matters,” many Canadians were shocked. A man who is vested with the responsibility for handing out justice, and who had often commanded those before the bar to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God,” had himself handled the truth loosely.
2248 Keeping Uncle Sam Honest
A “Truth in Government Act” proposed by Representative Donald M. Fraser (D-Minn. ) would make it illegal for federal officials to lie to private citizens. Right now, Fraser says, honesty is a one-way street. “Under current law, it is a crime for a private citizen to lie to a government official, but not for a government official to lie to the people.” Perhaps officials should take an oath of honesty when they are sworn in.
2249 Joe Namath In Pantyhose?
Washington (UPI)—Under new advertising guidelines proposed by the Federal Trade Commission, celebrities actually would have to use the products they endorse in television commercials.
Otherwise, the sponsor would be subject to deceptive advertising charges.
“If Joe Namath says he eats Maypo for breakfast every morning, he has to eat Maypo,” said one FTC spokesman by way of illustration.
However, another FTC official said it hadn’t been determined whether Namath would have to start wearing pantyhose if he continued to appear in pantyhose commercials.
And here’s another problem: Since Namath is trading on his reputation as a football star in making commercials, would he be required to wear pantyhose during the games?
2250 Shortchanging: Billion-Dollar Business
Bilking consumers out of pennies has now become a billion-dollar business. The National Observer noted that short weighing on food, gasoline, home fuel oil, packaged hardware items, and pills cost the American public some six to twelve billion dollars per year. In an effort to curb this swindle, whether accidental or intentional, many states are spot-checking weighs and measures.
Pennsylvania investigators discovered that 15.5 percent of all prepackaged foods checked were short-weighted, with some stores shorting on 25 percent of the packages checked. A three-day Kansas investigation turned up evidence that 30 percent of all meat packaged in eleven stores were short-weighted.
In Arkansas, officials checked one-pound cans of vegetables to find none that contained sixteen ounces. And Tennessee officials found prepackaged pork chops short-weighted by up to thirty-one cents. Officials have tabulated forty-eight ways to cheat in weighing meat in front of customers, and many markets are apparently using some of them.
—C. R. Hembree
2251 Fooling Some Is Profitable
A Washington merchant has gone Lincoln one better with this sign in his shop window: “You can fool some of the people some of the time, and, generally speaking, that’s enough to allow for profit.”
2252 Honor System For Tolls Failed
During the summer of 1970, the state of Delaware experimented with the honor system for twenty days on the Delaware Turnpike. Motorists without exact change at the automatic toll booth were allowed to take appropriately-addressed envelopes and mail in the money.
But in twenty days, of more than 26,000 envelopes taken, only 582 were returned, according to the Associated Press. And of those that were returned, some contained stamps and pieces of paper instead of money. The experiment cost the state about $4,000 before it was discontinued. And that didn’t include lost tolls.
2253 Right To Copy During Exams
Peking (AFP)—The People’s Daily devoted a full page in 1975 to high school students in Shanghai who sparked off a miniature Cultural Revolution by demanding the right to copy from their neighbors during examinations.
The trouble began when two young Red Guards at Chung Shan high school copied from one of their friends during a mathematics exam. Their teacher, a woman, gave them zero marks and ordered them to make a self-criticism.
This brought a storm of protest from the other students who began covering their walls with big letter slogans—similar to those of the Cultural Revolution—which eventually won them the support of local party officials.
The People’s Daily quoted one of the students who was caught copying as saying, “I do not think the final exam results are as important as the ability to master a practical problem.”
He added, “The teacher was unable to accept the idea that students should be able to normally exchange opinions during an examination, and this was opposed to the ideas of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung on education.”
The student went on: “I had not understood, so I asked my fellow students for help and this enabled me to understand. Therefore, why should we be expected to answer questions by repeating simply what we have learned by heart?”
2254 Ready-To-Go Term Papers
Sunday, 8:15 p.m. A junior at the University of Miami walks into the dingy third-floor office of “Universal International Termpapers Limited, Inc.” He scribbles out his order and hands it to the clerk. “I’m sorry,” she says, “We don’t have that paper in stock. We’ll have to order it.” The clerk dials the firm’s main office in Boston and then attaches the telephone receiver to a copying machine. A few minutes later, page after page of an impressively researched paper, transmitted from Boston, rolls off the copier.
—Time
2255 Even Guarantees An A Grade
There are several organizations which sell ready-made term papers to students. The largest is probably “Term Papers Unlimited” which employs 200 persons as writers.
Usual rate is $3 a page, although a doctoral dissertation can run $7 a page.
For an extra price, they will also guarantee a certain grade!
2256 Two Exams Every Time
In Moody Monthly recently, George Sweeting writes about the desperate need for honesty in our culture. He refers to Dr. Madison Sarratt, who taught mathematics at Vanderbilt University for many years. Before giving a test, the professor would admonish his class something like this:
“Today I am giving two examinations one in trigonometry and the other in honesty. I hope you will pass them both. If you must fail one, fail trigonometry. There are many good people in the world who can’t pass trig, but there are no good people in the world who cannot pass the examination of honesty.”
2257 John Hopkins Stops Honor System
John Hopkins University in Baltimore has always believed that encouraging self-discipline was part of its task of education. Students were honor-bound both not to cheat and were expected to report on their peers who did. But as in many other places, honor seems to be in short supply at Hopkins these days. Cheating rose to the point that the school felt forced to abandon the honor system, under which it had operated for sixty-one years. From now on cheating will be prevented by policing.
—Christianity Today
2258 West Point’s “Harder Right”
The following quotation is from the “Cadet Prayer.” It is repeated every Sunday in chapel services at West Point:
“Make us choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never to be contented with half truth when whole truth can be won. Endow us with courage that is born of loyalty to all that is noble and worthy, that scorns to compromise with vice and injustice and knows no fear when right and truth are in jeopardy.”
2259 Teacher Graduated Himself
Minola, N.Y. (AP)—A New Hampshire school teacher was charged with switching university records in his undergraduate days to give himself passing grades in courses he flunked. When he still couldn’t earn cap and gown, he forged his own graduation papers.
The complaint asserted that Tilson typed into university records a notation that he received a degree, enabling him to secure a teaching post at the Campton, N.H., Elementary School.
Tilson got caught, police said, because he used the wrong typewriter.
Tilson, married and the father of one, moved to Wentworth, N.H., Elementary School, to take the job teaching grades five through eight. The academic pressures apparently were not eased any by Tilson trying to work his way through college as a night watchman on the campus. His grades suffered.
But, determined to pass his courses, Tilson would enter the registrar’s office at the end of each semester, during his nightly watchman rounds, detectives said. There, he changed his flunking grades to passing—and finally graduated himself by typing a degree notation on his record last June, police stated.
A Hofstra clerk noticed during a routine records check that the “Degree Granted” phrase was in a typeface different from the one usually used. Another clerk, informed of this, remembered that Tilson’s name had appeared on a list of non-graduates.
2260 Shark Delivers Evidence
An American vessel named Nancy, suspected of carrying contraband, was seized by a British revenue cutter in 1799 and taken into Port Royal. Before it was boarded, however, the crew disposed of the forbidden part of the cargo and the captain likewise threw overboard the ship’s papers, substituting a faked set he had prepared for such an emergency.
At the trial he and the officers were about to be acquitted of the charge of smuggling, for lack of evidence, when the master of another cutter walked into the court with the Nancy’s original papers. His men had discovered them in the stomach of a shark they had harpooned that morning. Consequently, the defendants were convicted.
Today, these documents, called “The Shark’s Papers,” are on exhibition in the Institute of Jamaica in Kingston, and the shark’s head is preserved in the Royal United Service Institution in London.
—Selected
2261 Clergy’s Consistent “Mistake”
Internal Revenue officials were somewhat suspicious about a deduction claim on a clergyman’s form: $450 for a “clerical collar.” Despite the leapfrogging cost of living, that seemed a little out of line.
Called to account for his costly collar, the minister said he had made an innocent mistake: $450 should have been $4.50. Understanding IRS men let the clergyman pay the extra tax—plus 6 percent interest.
But one shrewd auditor had a second guess. Sure enough, a scrutiny of past income-tax returns revealed that the minister consistently had trouble with decimals. For three years in a row things like $4.50 came out $450 in the deductions column. For this, the red-faced cleric paid added taxes, 6 percent interest—and a 50 percent penalty for fraud.
2262 Delivering (To His) Home The Mail
Postman Frank Sosienski of Louisville, Ky., had some mail he didn’t want to deliver, so in a six-year period he packed 15 tons of it in 1,200 bags and stacked them in his attic. When the mail was finally uncovered, Sosienski was charged with delaying mail intended for delivery.
Firemen fighting a blaze in a house in Newington, Conn., found thousands of pieces of undelivered mail in the attic of a two-family house. One of the occupants was a mail carrier. The mail was put in a trailer measuring 40 feet by 10 feet and covered its floor to a height of four feet.
—Prairie Overcomer
2263 Preacher With Empty Church
Once when the famous Bishop Warren A. Candler was preaching to a large audience, he used as his text the story of Ananias and Sapphira, who told a lie to God and were struck dead. The old bishop roared: “God doesn’t strike people dead for lying like He used to. If He did, where would I be?” When his audience snickered a bit, he roared back, “I tell you where I would be. I would be right here preaching to an empty house!”
—Optimist Magazine
2264 Bribes Are Deductible
The Internal Revenue Service official taxpayers’ guide advises: “Bribes and kickbacks to nongovernmental officials are deductible unless the individual has been convicted of making the bribe or has entered a plea of guilty or nolo contendere.”
Says an IRS expert: “Suppose a guy gets a kickback from an insurance broker for referring customers to him. Unless he’s convicted or pleads guilty or nolo contendere (no contest), the broker is entitled to a deduction.” The ancient institution of bribery has finally been institutionalized, achieving formal Government recognition.
2265 Fooling Even The Wife
Margaret Fielty, a director of adult education in Fitchburg, Mass., in recalling various cases with which she has dealt, tells of a man who came to her, admitting that even his wife didn’t know he couldn’t read. For eleven years he had been holding a newspaper for an hour every night, pretending to read it. Finally, he just couldn’t stand it any more.
2266 Technical Smuggling
Customs appraisers at the Manila International Airport intercepted 890 pieces of tar gard cigaret filters and 480 bottles of perfumes said to be misdeclared “pasalubong” or Christmas gifts brought in by a returning resident. Under the existing program, returning residents are granted tax-exempt privilege on personal items. The goods were said to be worth $6,000.
2267 Which Tire?
Down in Jackson, Mississippi, three boys arrived in school late. It was as late as 10:00 a.m. They had been fishing. For their excuse they stated that they were delayed because of a flat tire. The teacher decided to give them a test immediately, so she had them seated apart from one another. She said, “This test will have only one question, and I will give you thirty seconds to put down your answer.” The question was, “Which tire?”
The teacher was pretty sharp. There is no question as to the result of the test. The boys were shown to be liars.
—Maurice Dametz
2268 No Longer Seeing
An old woman whose sight was bad offered her doctor a fee to cure her. He treated her with ointment, and after each application, while her eyes were closed, he kept stealing her possessions one by one. When he had removed them all he said that the cure was completed and demanded the fee agreed upon.
The woman, however, refused to pay; so he summoned her before the magistrates. Her defense was that she promised to pay the money if he cured her sight; but after his treatment it got worse. “Before he began, I could see all the things in the house and now I can’t see anything.”
—Fables of Aesop
2269 From Promotion To Discharge
In a certain bank there was a trust department in which four young men and one older man were employed. It was decided by the directors that they would promote the older employee and also promote one of the younger men to have charge of the trust department after the older gentleman was removed to his new position. After considering the merits of each of the men, one of the four younger men was selected for the new position and to receive a substantial increase in salary. It was decided to notify him of the promotion that afternoon at four o’clock.
At the noon hour the young man went to a cafeteria for lunch. One of the directors was behind him in the line with several other customers in between. The director saw the young man select his food including a small piece of butter. The butter, he flipped on his plate, and threw some food on top of it to hide it from the cashier. In this way he lied to the cashier about what was on his plate.
That afternoon the directors met to notify the young man that they had intended giving him the promotion, but that because of what had been seen in the cafeteria, they must discharge him. They felt that they could not have as the head of their trust department one who would lie and steal.
—Earl C. Willer
2270 He Dared Not Face Music
A man was able to join the Emperor of China’s orchestra, although he could not play a note. Whenever the group played, he would hold his flute against his lips, not daring even to blow softly for fear he might cause a discord. He received a modest salary and was able to live comfortably.
One day, the emperor happened to desire that each musician play for him solo. The flutist became desperate. He tried to take quick professional lessons but to no avail, but he really had no ear for music. He pretended to be sick, but the Royal Physician who attended him knew better, causing him to be increasingly apprehensive.
On the day of his solo appearance, he took poison rather than face the music. From this comes the old Chinese proverb: “He dared not face the music.”
2271 Epigram On Honesty
• Falsehoods not only disagree with truths, but usually quarrel among themselves.
—Webster
• When Aristotle, who was a Grecian Philosopher, and the tutor of Alexander the Great, was once asked what a man could gain by uttering falsehoods, he replied, “Not to be credited when he shall tell the truth.”
• A lie travels around the world while Truth is putting on her boots.
—Spurgeon
• The Air Force cadets’ Honor Code: “I will not lie, cheat, or steal, nor will I tolerate anyone who does.”
• In the honor system the professors have the honor and the students have the system.
See also: Integrity ; Truth ; John 8:44; Rom. 13:13; II Thess. 2:11; I Tim. 4:1.