Over the past month I have spent countless hours reading 19th Century handbooks designed to teach young men how to achieve success in the world. Nineteenth Century America was a nation of hope and optimism and the belief that any young man (contemporaries were less generous in their attitudes towards women) with the willingness to work hard and adopt the proper behavior could become a financial and social success.

Publishers poured out dozens of manuals designed to guide young people in the ways of the world and the paths to success. Americans were proud to have cast off the English class system in which social mobility was limited and financial success a near impossibility unless you were blessed with the right parents. In the United States, anyone could succeed so long as they truly wanted to do so and were willing to do all that was necessary to succeed.

What I find particularly fascinating in these early manuals is the constant emphasis on the importance of honesty in all business and social dealings. A young man who cannot or will not be truthful with others or who is willing to lie and deceive, according to these self-help authors, is destined to failure in the world. The message is clear: If you want to succeed then you must do so through honest hard work. The old cliché, “a man’s word is his bond” meant something to these people.

Having spent so much time reading these manuals written by our forebearers, it has been a bit of a shock every time I turn on the television or radio or read the newspapers or online news. Everywhere I turn I see public figures, including virtually all of our political candidates for state and national office, putting forth lies and half-truths.

The business news is filled with tales of industrial corporations, financial institutions, and even universities caught in lies and deceptions. How can it be that the very institutions that are the soul of our nation and the people who lead them are able to lie and deceive with seemingly no penalties for doing so? When did the idea that “honesty was the best policy” fall by the wayside and the very different notion that one should do whatever one can get away with become the norm.

Why do we as a nation accept politicians who lie and lie and seem to have no desire whatsoever to tell the truth? Have we become so cynical that we no longer care whether our political and business leaders are openly dishonest? I have to think that our ancestors, were they alive today, we would be shocked and disheartened to see what has happened in our country. 

— Mike Hoefich, a distinguished professor in the Kansas University School of Law, writes a regular column for the Journal-World.