November 2009

Should integrity have a price?  In politics that seems to be the case.

Three Towels and a 25-Cent Newspaper

Bishop Richard C. Edgeley tells this story of arriving home after a summer of working at Jackson Lake Lodge in Wyoming between college semesters:

arriving home, my father came out and happily greeted me. After a hug and a few pleasantries, he looked into the backseat of the car and saw three Jackson Lake Lodge towels—the kind you cannot buy. With a disappointed look he merely said, “I expected more of you.” I hadn’t thought that what I had done was all that wrong. To me these towels were but a symbol of a full summer’s work at a luxury hotel, a rite of passage. Nevertheless, by taking them I felt I had lost the trust and confidence of my father, and I was devastated. The following weekend I adjusted the plywood floorboard in my car, filled the radiator with water, and began the 370-mile round trip back to Jackson Lake Lodge to return three towels.

He then gives an example of how this lesson stayed with him:

Some 30 years ago, while working in the corporate world, some business associates and I were passing through O’Hare Airport in Chicago.

As we were passing a newspaper vending machine, (A very wealthy associate) put a quarter in the machine, opened the door to the stack of papers inside the machine, and began dispensing unpaid-for newspapers to each of us. When he handed me a newspaper, I put a quarter in the machine and, trying not to offend but to make a point, jokingly said, “Jim, for 25 cents I can maintain my integrity. A dollar, questionable, but 25 cents—no, not for 25 cents.” You see, I remembered well the experience of three towels and a broken-down 1941 Hudson. A few minutes later we passed the same newspaper vending machine. I noticed that Jim had broken away from our group and was stuffing quarters in the vending machine. I tell you this incident not to portray myself as an unusual example of honesty, but only to emphasize the lessons of three towels and a 25-cent newspaper.

There will never be honesty in the business world, in the schools, in the home, or anyplace else until there is honesty in the heart.

~~~~~

The Second Louisiana Purchase

Today Senator Mary Landrieu, D-La., voted with the rest of the Democrats to begin debate on the Senate healthcare overhaul bill. We’ll call her The Deciding Vote. She was one of three centrists giving Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, heartburn. He needed support from every single Democrat to pass the cloture motion and move the bill to the floor for debate. Reid had to woo Landrieu for her vote, and that put her in a convenient position of power.
…
While the merits of Louisiana’s predicament are debatable, one thing is quite clear: Mary Landrieu held out for goodies and got rewarded with $300 million reasons to vote for the healthcare bill.

This cost the taxpayers $300,000,000.00!  I wonder if she would have sold out for a $500,000 campaign contribution or a $100,000 under the table direct bribe?  But hey, those were just  “pork dollars”…