Our Nonpartisan Motive

LEO has a patriotic motive for our work.  Yet LEO expresses our patriotic motive--to make a better America through better ethical leaders--with a strictly nonpartisan point of view. 

Political parties attempt to gather votes by their allegations that they are more patriotic and loyal to America than their political competition.  In recent decades, millions of Americans have become convinced this fiction is fact.  The United States now is divided not merely by partisan spirit, but partisan hatred, distrust, and alienation.  Many partisans openly ridicule, mock, and portray as unpatriotic, disloyal, untrustworthy, and un-American members of other political parties. 

What is ethical about “Political Spin?”  This is willful manipulation of information by selecting, shaping, modifying, avoiding, suppressing, or denying some facts to the exclusion of others, for a political end.  Spin is accepted as the norm to be expected, or even laughed at, by most Americans.  In truth, spin is lying, or misrepresentation, or propaganda. 

What is ethical about “Partisanship”?  The predictable, normative behaviors are willful refusal to cooperate fully with members of another political party, seeking information to discredit or extort political cooperation, rumor-mongering, and a host of other practices that advance one party to the harm of another.  And the American population is victimized in the process. 

LEO now cites three Americans--George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and a man unknown to many, Herbert J. Taylor—each whose lives exemplified the best in the American character. 

George Washington 

Washington was not a member of any political party.  There were no parties as we know them today.  After the Revolutionary War, his friends called him out of retirement because of his sterling character and his reputation for fair and ethical leadership, so they could elect him President.  By the time he finished his second term, Washington had seen the growing pressures to form political parties. 

In 1796, as he prepared to leave office, he sought counsel from James Madison and Alexander Hamilton before he finished his Farewell Address to the American People.  The text was published in a Philadelphia newspaper.  He explained his motives for what he wrote, for he knew the opposition they would generate. 

[A] solicitude for your welfare…and the apprehension of danger, natural to that solicitude, urge me…to offer to your solemn contemplation, and to recommend to your frequent review, some sentiments which are the result of much reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me all-important to the permanency of your felicity as a people.  These will be offered to you with the more freedom, as you can only see in them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, who can possibly have no personal motive to bias his counsel. 

Because his comments were lengthy, complex, and in a formal style unfamiliar to many today, these are presented summarily by bullet points.  The reader will see the immediate relevance of Washington’s address to our current conditions.  He was prophetic, over three hundred years before this present time. 

• Political parties seek to acquire influence by misrepresenting opinions and aims of others.

• Political misrepresentations tend to alienate Americans from each other, rather than bind them as a political family.

• Some groups of Americans—“combinations and associations”—seek to obstruct the execution of U.S. laws…”to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities.”

• Such groups “organize faction, to give it an extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority…to make the public administration the mirror of their ill-concerted and incongruous projects….”

• Political parties can serve popular purposes, yet “are likely…to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men…subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government….”

• Political parties play on “the strongest passions of the human mind”

• Political parties nurture a “spirit of revenge” in those who lose elections

• Political parties distract “Public Councils” or democratic discourse and consensus-seeking

• Political parties “enfeeble the Public Administration” by weakening current administrations

• Political parties “agitate the community with jealousies and false alarms”

• Political parties “kindle animosity of one part of the nation against another” in regionalized disputes

• Political parties “open the door to foreign influence and corruption—which find easier access to the government through party passions—thus the policy and will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another”

• Party spirit, “a fire not to be quenched…demands uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.”

Washington devoted an unusual amount of space warning against political parties, which he called “factions.”  This surely was because he felt the new constitutional balance of powers did not need to be undermined by organized, subordinate groups seeking self-interest against the common good.  He called no names, but clearly warned against what he considered to be enemies of the American democratic republic. 

Washington’s ancient and prophetic words are mirrors for today’s political parties to see themselves for what they have become, and the ruinous divisions they have created. 

Abraham Lincoln 

In 1858, Abraham Lincoln delivered his House Divided Speech.  Speaking of slavery and a divided nation, he quoted, with his own changes in syntax, the last clause of the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 12, verse 25:  “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand.”  He referred, of course, to a nation divided on the issue of slavery.  The obvious truth of his reference, however, is self-evident. 

Lincoln understood that the secession of the Confederate States presented a constitutional crisis, though those states asserted their actions arose from principles in both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.  The War Between the States was fought because Lincoln was dedicated to restoring all states in the Union under the authority of the U.S. Constitution. 

Lincoln eventually would be assassinated.  After John Wilkes Booth shot him and jumped to the stage of the Ford Theater, he shouted, “Sic semper tyrannis!,” or “Thus always to tyrants!”  Booth was not a madman, as sometimes portrayed.  He and his collaborators considered themselves patriots who were loyal to the “true America” they represented, and Lincoln a tyrant worthy of execution.  Every U.S. President ever assassinated was killed by people who believed they had good political causes for their actions.  Even today, our current President’s life already has been threatened by fellow Americans who considered him un-American, and a traitor to the true America they represent, in their own minds. 

During another great national crisis, World War II, Lincoln’s same motif expressed in his “House Divided Speech” was taken up in 1942 by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.  At that time, the Assembly adopted for the state motto, “United We Stand, Divided We Fall.”  That action undoubtedly expressed their hope that the nation would survive its great war overseas against the Axis powers. 

Herbert J. Taylor 

Herbert J. Taylor was no U.S. President, only an average American with an uncommon set of values.  LEO cites him as an example of a fine citizen who sought not to advance his own private interests at the expense of others, even in dire circumstances. 

The year was 1932, during an era of the greatest financial collapse in our history, the Great Depression.  Taylor’s business was nearly destroyed.  His personal fortune and future were threatened.  He felt internal pressures, fears and anxieties.  He was driven to desperation.  He knew unethical and illegal options some chose to escape such dire circumstances.  Taylor wrestled within himself, seeking the best path of action.  An unnamed historian quotes Taylor’s explanation of what happened. 

To win our way out of this situation, I reasoned we must be morally and ethically strong. I knew that, in right there was might. I felt that, if we could get our employees to think right, they would do right. We needed some sort of ethical yardstick that everybody in the company could memorize and apply to what we thought, said, and did in our relations to others.  So one morning I leaned over on my desk, rested my head in my hands. In a few moments, I reached for a white paper card and wrote down that which had come to me – in twenty-four words. 

What were those “twenty-four words”?  Here is Taylor’s “ethical yardstick in relations to others,” now famous among the worldwide membership of Rotary International. 
Is it the TRUTH?

Is it FAIR to all concerned?

Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?

Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

Rotarian Darrell Thompson discussed more of what happened to Taylor’s business, which succeeded.  Taylor’s Four-Way Test eventually was passed on to his fellow Chicago Rotarians, and then was cast into the very ethical core of Rotary’s Guiding Principles.  This simple ethical test has been translated into many languages all over the world.  Taylor’s ethical values fit naturally into every world society, culture, and national heritage. 

LEO cites Herbert J. Taylor because his Four-Way Test ought to be, one might argue, the official operative policies of every American political party. 

What truly ethical leader in any land is not concerned with the truth?  What truly ethical leader in any land is not concerned to measure the impacts of potential action by their fairness to all affected?  What truly ethical leader in any land does not seek to select actions that build general goodwill, and stronger friendships?  What truly ethical leader in any land does not seek to measure personal action by its beneficial outcomes for all? 

Nonpartisan Service to Our Clients 

LEO does have a patriotic motive; however, we pursue that motive by following the Four Way Test created by Herbert J. Taylor, not by any loyalty to any national political party. 

Our clients deserve the best education, training, and support, as we help them become more ethical, better leaders.  We believe that, if every American leader, and for that matter, every citizen in every nation around the world engaged in business or any other activity by applying Taylor’s little but profound system of ethical self-examination, the following would result in every American organization. 

• Leaders will tell the truth, not lie, “spin” or use propaganda

• Leaders will be fair to others, including competitors and even enemies

• Leaders will build goodwill, not ignore or destroy it for gain

• Leaders will build friendships, not based on self-interest but the common good

• Leaders will use influence and authority to benefit others, not self-promotion

Taylor’s Four Way Test was created in 1932.  American history would have been different in so many ways had our leaders in every area of our common life practiced its simple directives from that time until now.  LEO has at our disposal the entire history of ethics in world civilization, as well as many other resources.  Nevertheless, we find one American’s “twenty-four words” to be profound in their simplicity.  LEO seeks to do business with our clients following such simple rules.