the foundations upon which the entire structure
rests.

R. W. B.

I

HONESTY OR STEEL DOORS?

While fifty-one per cent of the people have their eyes on
the goal of integrity, our investments are secure; but
with fifty-one per cent of them headed in the wrong
direction, our investments are valueless. The first
fundamental of prosperity is Integrity.

While on a recent visit to Chicago, I was taken by the president of one
of the largest banks to see his new safety deposit vaults. He described
these--as bank presidents will--as the largest and most marvellous
vaults in the city. He expatiated on the heavy steel doors and the
various electrical and mechanical contrivances which protect the stocks
and bonds deposited in the institution.

While at the bank a person came in to rent a box. He made the
arrangements for the box, and a box was handed to him. In it he
deposited some stocks and bonds which he took from his pocket. Then the
clerk who had charge of the vaults went to a rack on the wall and took
out a key and gave it to the man who had rented the box. The man then
put the box into one of the little steel compartments, shut the door and
turned the key. He then went away feeling perfectly secure on account of
those steel doors and various mechanical and electrical contrivances
existing to protect his wealth.

I did not wish to give him a sleepless night so I said nothing; but I
couldn't help thinking how easy it would have been for that poorly-paid,
humpbacked clerk to make a duplicate of that key before he delivered it
to the renter of that box. With such a duplicate, the clerk could have
made that man penniless within a few minutes after he had left the
building. The great steel door and the electrical and mechanical
contrivances would have been absolutely valueless.

Of course the point I am making is that the real security which that
great bank in Chicago had to offer its clientele lay not in the massive
stone columns in front of its structure; nor in the heavy steel doors;
nor the electrical and mechanical contrivances. The real strength of
that institution rested in the honesty,--the absolute integrity--of its
clerks.

* * * * *

That afternoon I was talking about the matter with a business man. We
were discussing securities, earnings and capitalization. He seemed
greatly troubled by th