9
Honor in America
Some time ago I enjoyed the distinguished honor of entertaining an American university professor in my house. The fellow had a resilient gullet, and in the course of the evening we got down a quart of Scotch. Made expansive by the liquor, he told me this story:
A short while before, at his university, one of the professors gave a booze party for a group of colleagues, including the president of the institution. It was warm weather, and they sat on the veranda, guzzling moonshine and ginger-ale. There was so much chatter that they didn’t hear a student coming up the path. Suddenly he was on them, and they almost fainted....
At this point I asked why they were alarmed.
“Well,” said my visitor, “suppose the student had turned out to be a Christian? He would have blabbed, and then our host would have lost his chair. The president would have been forced to cashier him.”
“But the president,” I argued, “was a guest in the man’s house. How could he have dismissed him?”
“What else would there have been for him to do?” asked the professor.
“Resign at once,” I replied. “Wasn’t he under the obligations of a guest? Wasn’t he particeps criminis? How could he separate himself from his host? How could he sit as judge upon his host, even if only formally?”
But the professor couldn’t see the point. I began to fear that he was in his cups, but it soon appeared that he was quite clear. We argued for half an hour: he was still unable to see the point. The duty of a president to enforce an unwilling and dishonest obedience to an absurd law—this duty was superior to his duty as a guest, i. e., it was superior to his obligation as a man of honor! We passed on to another point.
“What of the student?” I asked. “I take it that he turned out to be a gentleman. Suppose he had been a Christian? Suppose he had blabbed? What would the other boys have done to him?”