Good Men Ye Should Observe to Uphold

As to the great need for matching talent and training with intelligence and integrity, we should like to say something of these and other attributes that would surely be essential in filling any position of trust or any office or assignment.
Some other qualities if not absolutely essential, at least sought after and earnestly to be considered, are pleasing or impressive appearance, pleasing or impressive personality, pleasing or impressive powers of expression, and even eloquence: the power to reason, to convince, to persuade people.
All of these surely should be listed as assets. But all of these together wouldn’t be sufficient to assure a safe and sound and dependable person without some other essentials, such as fairness and forthrightness, a clear, clean record, cleanliness of life, a willingness to work, trustworthiness, straight thinking on financial matters—a sharp, undeviating sense of honesty in matters of money, with scrupulous keeping of accounts, and strict discrimination as to what is ours and what is others—as to what should be charged to public or private or personal accounts.
We need those with whom we may know that our interests are safe and secure. And one of the great sources of satisfaction in life is to find someone to trust, someone whose courage is not compromised by an unquiet conscience.
This is one of the essentials for enforcing laws fairly, for a person who has himself cut corners is hardly in a favorable position to call other people to account for cutting corners. He who is to enforce the law should live it. The person who must stand against pressure would be weakened if he has a sense of apology for himself—a sense of apology that has come from the kind of compromise that would make it difficult to deal forthrightly with facts.
In short, for all offices and assignments, all positions, both public or private, we should seek “…honest men and wise men… and good men… ye should observe to uphold;…” —men of faith and courage, and character, no matter what other personal attributes or technical training they have to have.

“It is a greater compliment to be trusted than to be loved.”
—George Macdonald