Honesty first

Advice to politicians on obeying the commandments | David Aikman

Theodore Roosevelt achieved his first major electoral success in 1898 when he was elected governor of New York. In that race and in subsequent campaigns Mr. Roosevelt often spoke about the importance of upholding God's commands. The following is taken from his remarks as quoted in the magazine Outlook on May 12, 1900:

Every citizen interested in politics, and especially every man who, in a newspaper or on the stump, advocates or condemns any public policy or any public man, should remember always that the two cardinal points in his doctrine ought to be, "Thou shalt not steal," and "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor."

He should also, of course, remember that the multitude of men who break the moral law expressed in these two commandments are not to be justified because they keep out of the clutches of the human law. Robbery and theft, perjury and subornation of perjury, are crimes punishable by the courts; but many a man who technically never commits any one of these crimes is yet morally quite as guilty as his less adroit but not more wicked, and possibly infinitely less dangerous, brother who gets into the penitentiary....