Honesty

Pres. James E Faust has said: There are different shades of truth telling. When we tell little white lies, we become progressively color-blind. It is better to remain silent than to mislead. The degree to which each of us tells the whole truth and nothing but the truth depends on our conscience.

David Cass Stevens of the Dallas Morning News tells a story about Frank Smanski, a Notre Dame center in the 1940s, who had been called as a witness in a civil suit at South Bend, Indiana.

“Are you on the Notre Dame football team this year?” the judge asked.

“Yes, Your Honor.”
“What position?”
“Center, Your Honor.”
“How good a center?”

Smanski squirmed in his seat, but said firmly, “Sir, I’m the best center Notre Dame has ever had.”

Coach Frank Leah, who was in the courtroom, was surprised. Smanski always had been modest and unassuming.

So when the proceedings were over, he took Smanski aside and asked why he had made such a statement. Smanski blushed. “I hated to do it, Coach,” he said. “But, after all, I was under oath.”
-----------------------------------------------

Now I say: When I was in the military, an honest friend of mine, I’ll call him Ted, desperately wanted to get promoted. In those days, one of the primary means to move upward was to score high on a promotion test. Ted studied hard and the following week Ted was approached by someone on the testing board who informed him that for just a few dollars, he could guarantee that Ted would get a high score.

Ted thought it over and reasoned that though he did not believe in cheating, surely this once would be OK since he had studied so hard. Sure enough, Ted received a perfect score on the test, but since perfect scores were so rare, the testing board supervisors became suspicious.

They investigated and discovered that cheating had taken place. The supervisors agreed not to press criminal charges if Ted and his accomplice would accept a demotion in rank and a dishonorable discharge from the military.

The guilty pair agreed and what had seemed a way to get ahead instead became a costly source of dishonor and embarrassment. They discovered, in a painful way, that honesty should not be just the best policy, but instead, the only policy.