The Washington herald., 1917-01-24
Picking Up Souvenirs.
By ORIsON SWEET MARDEN.

A man not long ago boastfully told
me that his family had all sorts of
souvenirs in their home which they
had picked up in their travels in all
parts of the world. He made no Sc
cret of the fact that the "picked-up"
souvenirs were things that his fam
ily seemingly without any idea they
were stealing. had taken from the
different hotels at which they had
stayed.
Thousands of people who patronize
hotels are consciously or uncon-
sciously thieves. They do not hesi-
tate to appropriate surreptitiously
bric-a-brac or ornaments, small
clocks, toilet accessories, and other
things. They will carry away, too, a
lot of stationery, soap, towels, nap
kins, and spoons, especially spoons
which happen to be left in their
rooms in serving a meal.
This is one reason why the guest
rooms in hotels are so bare-the pro-
prietors know that their patrons are
liable to help themselves to small
portable articles that are easy to con-
ceal and carry away.
Men and women frequently take
papers and magazines from reading
rooms without any prickings of con-
science. This is done a great deal
in clubs. The better magazines, and
the more attractively illustrated ones,
are constantly disappearing, or ar
ticles are cut from them, and the very
fact that people take them when they
think they arc not being observed is
proof that they know they are doing
| wrong.
These may seem little things to
many people, but they often work
great injury to character. A mud
crack is a little thing, but it may
swell to an Amazon River.
| If l were young man or a young
woman, starting out on my own re-
| sponsibility, l would make 1t a life
rule never to take anything that did
not belong to me. | should never
deceive myself by making believe it
was right to take something felt
| obliged to take when there was no
one looking. If one has right to a
thing at all, he has right to take it
at any time, before anybody.
Yet how many employees who would
feel insulted if any one should inti-
mate that they would take a postage
stamp or stationery from an employ
er, do not hesitate to steal his time
by clipping their hours, coming in
late, writing personal letters during
business hours. being absent from
their work more than their allotted
lunch time, or shirking work when
the boss is not around?
These things are just as dishonest
! as 1t would be to take his money.
What is the difference between tax
ing IS cents out OF the money drawer
or taking piece of merchandise, and
stealing half an hour or an hour Of
your employers time during the day
by all sorts of ingenious schemes?
There are myriad ways of being
dishonest. We can be dishonest in
word as we'll as in deed, and we can
lie in many ways. We can lie by our
manner, by Our expression, by our
eye. We can lie by keeping silent
when 1t is our duty to speak How
many of us do lie in all of these
ways, who would be indignant if told
we were liarsl We are all more or
less guilty of violating the strict law
of integrity in one way or another.
How often we excuse acts on the
ground that they are not so very
wrong" How many of us are con-
stantly indulging in what are known
as white lies" that is, what we call
less harmful deceptions1
1t is well-known psychological
law that the constant doing OF a
thing, the repetition of a wrong act,
gradually robs it of its enormity, un-
til it finally ceases to appear wrong
This is the danger point for charac-
ter; for strict honesty is the natural
utterance of the truthful character
And truth herself is the voice of God
How quickly the millennium would
come if, like Honest Abe" Lincoln,
everybody told the truth! How life
would be simplihed if we could get
rid OF all the complexities of decep-
ton which are now practicedl