[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 34 (Tuesday, March 24, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H1382]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         HONESTY IS AN ABSOLUTE PREREQUISITE FOR PUBLIC SERVICE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hefley). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 21, 1997, the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Lewis) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.

                              {time}  1245

  Mr. LEWIS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, I would like to read a piece from 
the Washington Times that caught my attention. It reads: ``Still 
amazingly relevant today, New York Gov. Theodore Roosevelt observed on 
May 12, 1900:

       We can afford to differ on the currency, the tariff, and 
     foreign policy; but we cannot afford to differ on the 
     question of honesty if we expect our republic permanently to 
     endure.
       Honesty is it not so much a credit as an absolute 
     prerequisite to efficient service to the public. Unless a man 
     is honest, we have no right to keep him in public life. It 
     matters not how brilliant his capacity.
       The weakling and the coward cannot be saved by honesty 
     alone. But without honesty, the brave and able man is merely 
     a civic wild beast who should be hunted down by every lover 
     of righteousness.
       No man who is corrupt, no man what condones corruption in 
     others can possibly do his duty by the community.
       `Liar' is just as ugly a word as 'thief' because it implies 
     the presence of just as ugly a sin in one case as in the 
     other. If a man lies under oath or procures a lie of another 
     under oath, if he perjures himself or suborns perjury, he is 
     guilty under the statute law.
       Under the higher law, under the great law of morality and 
     righteousness, he is precisely as guilty if, instead of lying 
     in court, he lies in a newspaper or on the stump; and in all 
     probability, the evil effects of his conduct are more 
     widespread and more pernicious.

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