The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 124

THIS WEEK Magazin Section I I I II I II I I I I I Iflil -ffVIt" 0'' The Greater Cleverness by William F. McDermott vvv 4 i .1 I. A I THIS WEEK Snatches A young man entered a Detroit hotel just another patron. He emerged four days later a distinguished' figure. The cost of this distinction to him was forty cents.

Stopping to pay his bill on departure, he found it didn't match his figures. "See here, this statement isn't right," he said to the cashier. "If it isn't, we'll make it right, sir. Have we overcharged you?" "No. But you haven't entered all the items against me.

I made some telephone calls not listed here." The clerk checked back on the telephone records. Nothing could be found. Undaunted, the guest insisted another search be made. The entry was finally discovered on the account of another man with the same last name. The guest paid it and thanked the clerk.

It was a small sum but the hotel was doubly grateful, because it prevented a blow-up by the other man one of its best customers, but with a hair-trigger disposition. A year later the young man paid another visit to the hotel. The manager called on him and extended to him the hospitality of the place. Today his credit is unlimited there, and nothing is too good for him. That was more than common honesty.

It was honesty with a whole conscience, sometimes called scrupulousness. It was also immensely more clever than simply calling attention to the mistake and letting it go when the clerk couldn't find it. And it won the good will of an entire establishment. There are innumerable ways to cheat which means there are just as many ways of being rigidly honest. I talked the other day with a dealer in roofing supplies.

He told me some builders in his community put tile roof on with iron nails. They save a few dollars but shorten the life of the roof. However, one man, who takes pride in his work, never uses anything but copper nails, whether the contract requires it or not. Word has passed around about this man being absolutely honest in little things, and he is getting the big things the choicest contracts. It was the first J.

Pierpont Morgan, I think, who used to say, "I know one man I wouldn't lend a cent if he offered me a million dollars in security, simply because he's a crook. But there's anothefone to whom I'd lend a million on his word alone, because he never cheats." Complete honesty, born of character and not of expediency, is the greater cleverness in the long run. When a citizens' committee in Chicago a few years ago wanted to clean lip a rotten municipal mess, it turned to a lawyer eighty years old to lead the fight. Lawyers had come and gone, some honest, some corrupt, but Frank J. Loesch stood out, so stalwart in character and so uncompro mising in principle that Chicago instinctively looked to him in a crisis.

Today, at 85, active and militant, he enjoys the affectionate regard of three million fellow citizens. During the war a manufacturer with a government contract cheated on shoes, putting on paper soles instead of leather. One doughboy, whose feet were cut and bleeding because of that crookedness, remembered. Years later he passed on a million-dollar contract. One bidder was unceremoniously ruled out the paffer-sole racketeer.

Have you noticed how seldom we hear the expressions "He's a man of honor" and "His word is as good as his bond" nowadays? The "smart" thing may be to get by with a sharp deal; but the really clever thing in the long run is an untouchable integrity. A broker told me not long ago of the involved procedure" connected with the transfer of real estate. Then he wistfully recalled the practice in his boyhood days in Sweden. "When my father sold his farm, he and the buyer went arm in arm out to a corner of the field. The money was paid over; then my father reached down, picked up a handful of -dirt and placed it in' the hand of the other man.

They shook hands. The deal was completed and the title was never questioned." Could such a thing be done if absolute honesty didn't inhere in the persons involved even in the very customs and character of the entire community? Probably no man ever had a longer or more distinguished career in the world of -sports than the veteran coach, A. A. Stagg, who, though past seventy, is still a driving force in athletics For. forty-two years he was the idol of students and graduates of the University of Chicago.

Yet he is more admired for his rugged character and uncompromising honesty, no matter what the cost. An eminently successful businessman told recently how his whole life had been changed, forty years ago, by a little incident on the baseball diamond. Stagg's champion baseball team was defending its college title. The batter had singled and one of Stagg's men was racing home with the winning run. came rushing up to meet him.

"Get back to third base!" he shouted. "You cut it by a "But the umpire didn't see it," the runner protested. "That doesn't make any difference!" roared Stagg. "Get back!" It cost a game but a character battle was won. "When I saw that," said the businessman, "I determined always to play square.

I've done it to the best of my ability and my life has been immeasurably happier for it." It can be made a game this matter of abiding integrity. And the cleverest player is not the one with the greatest talent but the one who gives his conscience the freest rein. FICTION Pao Star Dust 4 In Hollywood tho Unptt4 Ahnyt Happen! bv Margaret Ayer Barnes IllutfratoJ by Marslnll Frantt Count D'Ambrcs Window a Amothor SHrrino Adrontun of'tho Muskotoor" by Sax Rohmer HlurtratodbyC.C.Boall A Silence in Tappan Valley 7 A Powwfo, Grfppinf Drama by Max Brand llluttrafod by Ralph Poftn CoImmd No dictatorship can afford to be without an outside enemy. Grievances against the foreigner must be kept alive as an excuse for demanding political unity. Returning travelers report that Hungary has a law that all movie houses must flash on the screen, at every performance, two maps.

One shows Austro-Hungary before the Versailles treaty dismembered her; the other indicates the territories taken from her after the World War. ARTICLES FEATURES The Greater Cleverness 1 IntHrlty Pay and Brine Happinou by William F. McDermott SpeedI Can lAan fvcr Tap tka Bot-fly' Roeord? by George W. Gray Drawintt by Jatk Murray "Nothing Like American Pie" 14 But Anna Noagl DftcviMi OlkotGoodiat, Too by Grace Turner Pnofof rapAs in Color Waist-High in Beauty 10 Win Your Walallno It Slondor by Martha Leavitt Drawina by Major Folton Posed by Winter it Tko Snapthootor Gtfs Snow Httarat The First Woman? 13 New forti About tho Anclont "Mlo Woman" by Roy Chapman Andrews 'Piotosnpk Have you ever heard the soda clerks shouting numbers to each other? Here are a few which we recently persuaded a nimble-fingered mixer to translate for us: "81" water for the customer. "61" cup of coffee.

"87" we've run out of that item on the menu. "3 7" take special pains for this customer. "Watch the pump" the girl you're serving pretty eyes. "Stretch it" give this man a big one; he looks hungry. "87" the girl in the corner has pretty legs.

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