552 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



It may occur to you that it is too much to ask that self-respecting 

 men should fall down and grovel in the dirt at the feet of every selfish 

 dollar-chasing employer. Nothing of the sort is expected. A loyal 

 man can not only stand up straight, but he can stand just a little 

 straighter than any one else, for no one so much as he has the mind 

 conscious of rectitude. 



You may fairly ask what is to become of loyalty when the condi- 

 tions make it impossible. One always has a remedy in his own hands : 

 he can quit, and carry with him a gentleman's self-respect, for without 

 that there can be no loyalty worthy of the name. 



There are certain things that loyalty does not demand of us. For 

 example, it does not require us, in being loyal to one person, to be 

 disloyal to others. Environment and education often lead us to look 

 at things differently, and honest men may conscientiously differ, but we 

 are bound to respect the attitude of other people, or as Professor 

 Eoyce puts it, to be loyal to the loyalty of others. 



Again, loyalty should not lead us into excesses that work wrong to 

 others. It is a common misconception of loyalty to imagine that one 

 must back his personal friend for anything and everything he happens 

 to want, regardless of whether he is fit for it, and regardless of the 

 rights of others. It is unnecessary to say that such an attitude is not 

 tenable. Loyalty to the principles of justice and right will not permit 

 that sort of thing. 



But there are usually two parties to loyalty, especially in matters of 

 employment and in all organizations where there are superior officers 

 under their various titles or wherever the personal element enters. It 

 can not all be on the side of the employee or of the subordinate. The 

 employer, the head of the firm, the superior officer and the organization 

 itself owes loyalty to employees, to partners and to colleagues. And 

 it is this loyalty to each other that constitutes esprit de corps, that 

 enables organizations to pull together, to work to a common end, to act 

 in concert, to stand together in all things and to one big purpose. 

 Moreover, those who expect loyalty are bound by every sense of decency 

 and propriety to be worthy of loyalty, and to be loyal in return to those 

 of whom loyalty is expected; that is a sine qua non. No one can long 

 be loyal to a man who backbites, belittles or sneers at his employees 

 or his colleagues behind their backs. 



And what I say of loyalty is true not only here among us, in our 

 own community, in our own country, and in our own time, but it is 

 equally true of every quarter of the globe and of every age. 



In commending loyalty to you I am not raising any questions about 

 right and wrong. And even if I should raise such questions, there are, 

 as Professor Eoyce points out, conflicting loyalties. I suspect that 

 loyalty, like love, is blind. Who, when he sees his brother attacked, 



