Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-05-10
THE TRICKY
By H. Addington Bruce

NUR old world still abounds in people
I J who confuse thickness with cleverness
~ Which is equivalent to saying that it
abounds in people who have frequent occa-
sion to appreciate, from personal experience,
the force of the old adage that dishonesty is
the worst policy.
Only, unfortunately, tricky persons, as a
rule, do not recognize the true origin of the
troubles that from time to time come upon
them. They talk of hard lucl.." They are
prone to self-pity. They assume a wronged
and injured air.
Yet all the while they have none but them
selves to blame for their reverses. Through
their thickness they have set working against
them the law Of action and reaction. Thereby
they have made themselves the subjects of
inevitable misfortune of some sort.
merchant for example, may think it
clever to substitute inferior goods for the
goods his customers order. He may think it
clever to give short weight and at the same
time make OVercharge for the weight he
lis supposed to be giving.
But this is not cleverness, it is thickness.
And in time trade is certain to drift from
such merchant to some really clever one,
who reveals his cleverness by trade tactics
that insure customers satisfaction.
So with the workman who thinks it clever
to insist on . short working day. not for his
health's sake, not because he wants to work
by draw down ore money for overtime.
That same workman will also think it clever
to work as slow = as possible, even to the eX-
tent perhaps of making his work twice as
costly to his employers and the public as it
ought to be.
This again is miserable thickness. In
times of industrial activity it may seem to
pay" But let industrial depression come
and thickness of this sort itself hastens in
dustrial depression-the tricky worker will
then find himself very much on the defensive,
gaining neither pity from the employer he
has tricked, nor sympathy from the public
whose livin,, cost his thickness has raised.
There are, of course, tricky employers, too,
and they likewise are soon or late penalized
for their thickness.
If they trick their employees they invite
costly retaliation. If they trick the public
they are supposed to serve-as by profteer-
ing in building charges, in the cost of repair
work. in the price of food necessities, etc.
they provoke "col sumers' strikes that may
in the end drive them completely out of
business.
From all of which it may be inferred that
I regard our present depl orable industrial
and commercial state, not an after-War
ondition merely, but as in part product of
widespread thickness. Most assuredly I do
so regard it.
And most assuredly I believe that pre-
requisite to the re-establishing of prosperity
and social harmony is a more general recog-
milton of the sheer dishonesty of many in
dustrial an commercial practices that nu-
merous peop4, now mistakenly applaud as
clever.
'To every action there is an equal reac-
tom" thus Newton long ago stated the I'M
cscapable law of ceaseless equivalence and
compensation The greater the regard paid
to this law, he potter place the world will be
in which to live.
Copyright, 1921, by The Associated News
papers)