42 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLII. No. 1071 



accuracy and for the listeners to believe 

 that they speak the truth as they know it. 

 I mean no personal and certainly no sharp 

 criticism when I say that this is far from 

 being the case when men, perhaps even the 

 same men, meet to discuss public affairs. 

 The things which are at times currently be- 

 lieved by many among us on various public 

 subjects are not infrequently things that 

 are not so, and criticisms are based and 

 policies commended or condemned with 

 astonishing frequency on the basis of things 

 which are said to be but which do not exist. 

 It is not throwing the standards of busi- 

 ness discussion into excessively high relief 

 to say that our public affairs would be 

 vastly improved if the accuracy of state- 

 ment and the courtesy when differences of 

 opinion arise common in business circles 

 could be transferred to public ones. This is 

 not because the facts are not available, for 

 most of them are such as are of public 

 record. The condition exists in spite of 

 these existing records, and often without 

 consulting them. On a recent occasion it 

 was my duty to point out that in a para- 

 graph from an address by a well-known 

 man of affairs on certain public subjects 

 not a single correct statement was made; 

 yet the facts concerning which the state- 

 ments were made were all of them avail- 

 able on request and without expense. 



It must not be understood, however, that 

 I am now making either a sweeping or a 

 specific charge of untruthfulness or of de- 

 sire to misrepresent. I am dealing with a 

 condition and not with persons and a con- 

 dition in which persons of unquestioned 

 probity and honor constantly act and speak 

 concerning public affairs without the pre- 

 cise information on which they commonly 

 act in private matters. This is not because 

 they have ceased to be upright and truth- 

 ful men, but because the standards respect- 

 ing facts do not seem to be quite the same 



nor is the same care always taken to ascer- 

 tain the facts. There is no question in my 

 mind that the gentleman whose remarks 

 I had occasion to correct would in the 

 management of, a factory be scrupulously 

 careful to learn the facts before he spoke 

 concerning them to his board of directors. 

 So far, however, as my knowledge goes, 

 though the records concerning the facts of 

 which he inaccurately spoke are in the 

 Department of Commerce, no effort was 

 made to ascertain them. 



Neither must it be understood that I 

 single any one person out or any party or 

 locality. It has been my experience that 

 the same separation from the normal accu- 

 racies of life has occurred with men of 

 many varying views and of different local- 

 ities when they came to speak of public 

 matters. It seems to be a general and not 

 a particular condition. 



I once noticed when having charge of a, 

 portion of the highways of an important 

 city that many citizens spoke as if they 

 were intimately informed respecting the 

 somewhat technical subject of street pave- 

 ments. Possibly it is because we assume 

 that our public affairs are easily grasped 

 by all men without special inquiry concern- 

 ing them that this habitual inaccuracy ap- 

 pears in conversation and criticism. So 

 far from its being easy to know and under- 

 stand our multiplex public matters I think 

 it is true that many if not most of our 

 citizens have but vague conceptions of what 

 the actual detailed operations of the gov- 

 ernment are. One is constantly requested 

 in all goodwill and sincerity to do that 

 which is impossible or even unlawful. I 

 received but a few days since a numerously 

 signed petition urging that the department 

 enter upon a line of business not only un- 

 known to the law but which would require 

 an amendment to the constitution of the 

 United States to make a law concerning it 



