The ugly pandemic of scandals afflicting Washington provides a timely reminder that our political masters and mistresses are not entirely to be trusted. Indeed, lies seem to trip as smoothly off their tongues as the truth—perhaps even more so.
But, then, politicians have never been held in particular high esteem here in the United States. It was Mark Twain, the sage of Missouri, who famously declared America had no natural criminal class … except Congress.
A rather more modern—and decidedly less elegant—witticism poses the question: “How can you tell when a politician is lying?” The answer is: “His lips are moving.” Ta-da!
But even though politics, down through the ages, has never been a highly regarded profession, politicians, nevertheless, used to be exceedingly careful of their reputations. Indeed, they were apt to fight duels in an effort to uphold them.
“Hypocrisy,” as Oscar Wilde so astutely observed, “is the tribute vice pays to virtue.”
Hypocrisy, however, appears to be entirely alien to the current breed of political animals. Indeed, they seem to revel in brazenly flaunting their lack of candor.
How else could it be when a high-ranking political appointee felt free to tell Congress that while he had made 157 visits to the White House, he remembered nothing of what he did there except attend the Easter Egg Roll. That’s chutzpah, certainly, but it is also contemptuous and dishonest.
Of course, it is fair to point out that the precipitate decline in the standards of the behavior of our Washington elite is reflected in the decline in the standards of general courtesy, not to mention, morality, in the nation as a whole. Could it be we are getting the politicians we deserve?
My maternal grandfather dated the decline in our standards of personal conduct to the inception of the fad for replacing the traditional “Ladies” and “Gentlemen” signs in our public rest rooms with the more politically correct “men” and “women.”
Up to that time, he claimed, most people subscribed to the notion that children should be raised in such a manner that they would not have to enter public rest rooms on false pretenses. Little girls were expected to be “ladies” and small boys “gentlemen.”
The status of “lady” or “gentleman” was not conferred by birth: you either became one—or you didn’t. At the age of 10 or so, for example, the masters at my prep school worked hard at ironing out my East Anglian diphthongs, making me say “I” instead of “oy” and “my” instead of “moy” in an effort to make me “speak like a gentleman.”
Eventually, they succeeded. But folks back home were not notably impressed. “Handsome is as handsome does” was the watchword. The measure of people’s worth was not how they spoke, but how they behaved.
Back in those days, small boys took their reputations very seriously. We weren’t goody-goodies. Quite to the contrary. But we lived by a code of conduct which required us to act like … gentlemen.
Friendships, for example, were not made lightly and it was a matter of the deepest dishonor to turn one’s back on a friend.
It was not an option to lie your way out of trouble. If you were rightly accused of a transgression, you admitted the crime forthrightly and took your punishment “in manly fashion”—without complaint.
If somebody was being punished for something you’d done, you were morally obligated to own up. To allow somebody else to suffer for a thing you had done was unthinkable.
It was beneath contempt to fight unfairly. You never fought anybody smaller or weaker than yourself, no matter how gravely they might have insulted you. And you never—and I mean never—hit somebody when they were off guard.
If you knocked your opponent down you helped him to his feet. Fists were the only acceptable weapons. You never hurled a stone, or used your feet, or a stick. When your opponent asked for quarter, you gave it immediately. And it was your absolute duty to help and protect people smaller or weaker than yourself.
The ultimate indication of one’s worth, however, was the reliance that could be placed on one’s word. When you gave your word, you kept it—no matter how dire the consequences might be. And you never cheated at little things, like cards, because if you couldn’t be trusted in small things, who would trust you in truly important matters?
Adults lived by the same rules. Phrases like “women and children first” and “my word is my bond” were not mere high-flown rhetoric. The history of the two World Wars and countless civil tragedies, such as the sinking of the Titanic, provide ample evidence that these principles were taken seriously.
They were also a fundamental principle in the realm of commerce. A London insurance broker, for example, tried at a late hour to obtain coverage for the interior fittings of an ocean liner that was already at sea.
At Lloyds, he could find nobody from the marine syndicates but a junior underwriter who was rushing off to catch a train. “I’ll sign the contract in the morning,” said the young man, “I can’t do it now or I shall miss my train.”
That night the liner, the Andrea Doria, sank and the syndicate paid out claims amounting to several million dollars on the word of their junior employee. Folks these days are often surprised that this casual contract was honored without demur.
But for the members of the syndicate it would have been unthinkable to have done otherwise. Their word had been pledged. If they had failed to honor the commitment, nobody would have trusted them again.
Today such notions seem hopelessly antique. Today, corporate lawyers are employed to write loopholes into contracts nobody intends to honor. And today’s brides and grooms-to-be hire attorneys to draw up prenuptial agreements defining the legal limits of loving, honoring, and cherishing—for how long, and for how much.
But such ideas aren’t antique. They merely sound like it. They were still the norm 50 years ago, which gives you an idea of how far we’ve come—and how fast. We might be materially richer today than 40 or 50 years ago, but in all other respects we are the poorer.
Are we really any happier than we were when the highest personal compliment of all was to be described as a good Christian lady or gentleman? Come back hypocrisy! All is forgiven! GPH✠
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