[BOWMAN] DISCREPANCY IN TRUSTWORTHY RECORDS 165 
V.—THE TRUTHFULNESS OF DISCREPANCY. 
(a) THE CRITERION OF TRUTHFULNESS IN STATEMENTS. 
Truthfulness in a statement concerning an occurrence or a trans- 
action is not a negative, but a positive, quality. It consists not in 
the absence of formal discord between the statement and the facts, 
but in the impartation of correct information to the hearer or hearers 
according to the particular interest which he or they take in the facts. 
Illustrations :— 
(1) While an agreement is under negotiation, a public body passes 
an adverse resolution, urging the abandonment of the negotiation. 
If, nevertheless, the negotiation be prosecuted to a successful issue, 
and subsequently an inquiry be made whether the above body did not 
pass a resolution against the agreement, may one answer the inquiry 
with an unqualified denial? 
(2) If in the above case the public body meets again after the 
completion of the negotiation, and the majority at this second meeting 
wishes to reaffirm the previous resolution, but yields to the appeals of 
a minority present so far as to compromise on a resolution to give 
greater publicity to the previous resolution, how much truth would 
there be in an unqualified statement that the body did not reaffirm 
the first resolution? 
(3) Let it be supposed that a political speaker is asked on a public 
occasion by a member of a labor union why the national printing 
bureau is permitted to be an “open shop.” A certain official publi- 
cation is printed, not in the national printing bureau, but in a private 
printing office which is a “union shop.” The speaker, in reply to the 
above inquiry, holds up a copy of this publication and, pointing to the 
label upon it which shows that it is printed in a union shop, says “This 
is the best answer I can give to that question.” 
These cases will suffice to show how. ineffective as a safeguard of 
truthfulness is mere formal concord, or the absence of formal discord, 
between a statement and the facts. Such a formal or superficial har- 
mony, regardless of essential disagreement, is indeed the constant 
device of persons who wish to leave the hearer under a false impression. 
Thus, in the first of the above cases, the public body, having passed 
