An associate professor of psychology at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University gave Americans something to think about when she charged in a speech that cheating is epidemic, a moral dilemma in this country. The “blatant dishonesty” portrayed by Dr. Hattye Liston reaches into many segments of society and costs billions of dollars each year plus untold anguish and suffering. Cheating, much of it absorbed in the crime picture, ranges from investment frauds, taxes, and welfare fudging to love, work, and education. Some of Dr. Liston’s specifics: Tax cheating exceeds an estimated $100 billion a year; pilferage costs department stores (and ultimately the public) $4 billion annually; about $1 million is paid each year to welfare doubledippers. Telephone misuses such as billing to other people’s numbers amounts to some $1 million a year; countless employees improperly use company and institutional postage meters; more than 30 percent of scholars cheat in exams; students have defaulted on 14 percent of federal loans, and extra-marital cheating is rampant. Aside from the psychologists’s report, white collar frauds including land scams and investment swindles – prey on the unsuspecting, frequently the elderly. Drug trafficking is another major national crime. Cheating can even extend to rigging a slot machine, of all things. A recent news account told of a customer who hit the world’s largest jackpott payoff – $1.7 million – at Lake Tahoe. But the Nevada Gaming Control Board instructed the casino not to pay because of “evidence of cheating? How should the nation deal with cheating? Obviously there is no magic solution. Insofar as crime is involved, stricter regulations and monitoring, more frequent audits, and tougher enforcement are apparent needs. The over-all problem also requires more vigilance, skepticism and discernment on the part of the people to avoid being victimized. Better cooperation from the citizenry is needed in exposing perpetrators. At the grassroots, how about some sober personal introspection’? Are we as individuals glossing over little dishonesties that can become big ones? Deploring the cheating of others while overlooking our own’? As with so many other things, national resolve is important. Such commitment begins with common resolve in the ranks of the people themselves.