We have talked of some qualities of character associated with men whose names are honorably remembered, and last week recalled the quality of courage. Now for a moment or two we would turn to integrity—a word which urgently suggests itself for consideration. The words associated with it are themselves reassuring: ” . . . the quality of being complete. . .. unbroken—unimpaired—moral soundness, purity, honesty, freedom from corrupting influence or practice, strictness in the fulfillment of contracts . . . and in the discharge of trusts.”
This is the quality that gives assurance that, as things seem to be, they are—that an endorsement represents an honest judgment, and not merely an opinion paid for. In a simple forthright sentence, Washington said: “I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.”1—and Alexander Pope added: “An honest man’s the noblest work of God.”2 And Herbert Spencer said: “Not education, but character, is man’s greatest need and man’s greatest safeguard.”3 . . . Young Washington resolved to adhere absolutely to truth,” wrote Samuel Eliot Morrison, “to practice rigid honesty, to do his full duty, to put forth his largest effort, to maintain uniform courtesy and, above all, to deal justly.”4
In this he may have left us our greatest heritage, or at least he left us an example of a quality of character we must have, if we are to preserve the heritage we have. Surely there is no greater need for our time than the need for integrity, for being true to trust, for being assured that the whole face of things can be seen from the top of the table. And this isn’t something that new laws or legislation will fix, or new rules or regulations, for ingenious men will always find ways to circumvent both laws and locks. Integrity is simply something that a man is inside himself. It is, in a sense, the assurance that what one sees, that what something seems, that what should be, that what is said to be, is something that can be counted on, without side considerations.
1George Washington
2Alexander Pope, Essay on Man, IV
3Herbert Spencer
4George Washington, by Douglas Southall Freeman
“The Spoken Word,” heard over Radio Station KSL and the CBS Radio Network, from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, February 21, 1960, 11:30 a.m. to 12:00 noon, Eastern Time. Copyright 1960