Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-10-08
The Tale Bearer
(By the Exchange National Bank of
New York;

Gossips, talebearers, the unthinking
| passers-on of rumor, report and scan
dial, are the mediums through which
the malicious or self-interested get
| publicity and thus give effect to their
malice and intents. In modern life, a
mans or an institutions reputation is
his or it's basic asset, the foundation
upon which all social and business re
lationships rest. A good reputation
is not easily wOn; it is the reward of
fair dealings, of conformity. But it is
easily destroyed-too easily; it may
be blown out with a breath, a word.
The power to destroy a thing so frag-
lie, yet so precious, by right belongs
to considered Judgment and not to the
caprice.
The Greeks, who employed ostra-
cism, Punishment, in punishment Of
major offenses against their society,
exercised this power sparingly, made
its use a subject of popular vote after
days and even weeks of deliberatiOn.
Yet today the scandal-monger, with
the help of the ta%lebearer and the
gossip, easily employs this power to-
ward the practical Punishment of all
and any who excite his envy or pas
sion, or whose destruction serves his
l1ttk tSts Aflth lOANA IN S'o
sip and the ~talebearer for ages, have
regarded them as n%uisances rather
than enemies of society. In low
stages of culture man derives pleasure
from gossip, just as he derives pleas
ure when he sees a fellow man slip on
a banana peel. When a man gossips,
he worships at the shrine of his OVID
ego, INDUCES in unconscious and indj-
rect praise of his own probity. He is
eager to bear witness TO his fellows
that he is not as others, he is q Phar-
isee. Or. he seeks the excitement
and interest which ~centers around the
bearer of news; and news, he has dis
covered, is mostly bad news, something
that affords his hearers an opportu-
nifty to compare their own security or
pr0bity to that of the unfortunate sub
jects of the news.
The non-conformists, the men who
deride acknowledgements by which
man judges manicure nothing for
regulations or for the institutions
which form character and establish a
basis for confident intercourse be-
tween men. Conformity is not always
desirable. men have different ideas
about the form that should be given
TO many things. but there can be no
difference on fundamental morality,
nor can non-conformists successfully
ignore custom and method in the OPP
Grafton OF the established order. Man
seeks the society of or does business
with those who recognize the validity
and usefulness of the institutions and
customs to which he gives his own al
legiance. For the most part, these in
stitutions are erected on the basis of
trial and error, on experience, and
take their validity from common con-
sent. They are not immutable, they
can be changed. are changing, but
whether at a given time they are fixed
or changing, they are the foundations
uDon which man must stand IN order
To hold the confidence and regard of
his fellows:
Habit. ways of doing things, fixed
ideas. are necessary; without them
man would have no sense of mental or
moral direction, would run around in
circles. The liberated minds, the minds
which soar above the mass to heights
from which they can look down on the
enslaved, seldom stay aloft-if they
are sane minds. They come back to
conformity. sometimes with a purpose
to bore from within; but more often
they come back because thew have seen
that the leaven which is working in
the mass is wiser than they. The man
who wins a reputation for conformity
to the rules which have been estab-
lished for the game of life is entitled
to hold that place as long as he con-
tinues to play by these rules. ANY
dereliction with which he may
Mere gossip or report should be ig-
nored, and no man who places by the
rules himself will pass along gossip o.
which are likely to undermine
the confidence Of the community in
other men or institutions. Interested
owe themselves a duty to in
vestigate all reports and rumors con-
matters which involve their
welfare, but no man should re-
peat idle gossip or malicious rumor un-
til he is sure of the facts, and even
then he should exercise with the
greatest caution and with due regard
for the consequences the power for
the punishment of individuals or insti-
which is placed in his hands. .