THE ENRON EXAMPLE.(The Talk of the Town)(Enron Code of Ethics, a 62-page booklet)

When questions of ambiguous morality arise, and no life is immune to them, a person in turmoil might turn for guidance to the Enron Code of Ethics, published in July of 2000 and, regrettably, now out of print. The Enron Code of Ethics is sixty-two pages long and includes two blank pages for notes and a foreword by Kenneth L. Lay, who was then the company's chairman. "Enron's reputation finally depends on its people, on you and me," he wrote. "Let's keep that reputation high." In consulting the Code, any seeker must necessarily bear in mind that no volume of wisdom can answer all questions, soothe all strife, or settle all waters, that moral choices frequently depend on the complexities of any given situation, and, finally, that, as Enron specifies, in the section titled "How to Use This Booklet," "the Company reserves the right to amend, alter, and terminate policies at any time."

The view that all personal growth proceeds from suffering might have figured in any revision of the Code, since Lay has had his own experience to brood upon. Among the thousands of people who have been impoverished by the company's collapse, left without work, with their hopes and futures in ashes, no one, Lay says, was more harmed than he. As proof, he has observed that he was once worth three hundred million dollars, and now he has less than twenty million. Lay made these possibly imprudent remarks at a meeting with the press which is included in the recent documentary film about Enron, "The Smartest Guys in the Room." A few weeks ago, a lawyer in New York named Edwin Matthews saw the movie and thought that it might be edifying to arrange a screening for his firm's summer associates. Mr. Matthews is a lawyer at Coudert Brothers.

The screening took place at a theatre on Houston Street. About thirty associates attended, more or less everyone whose work hadn't kept him in the office. Afterward, they gathered in a room off the second-floor lobby. The associates sat at little round cafe tables on red plastic chairs. The expressions on their faces were attentive and earnest. Several had the pallid complexions emblematic of sportsmen of the great indoors.

Matthews stood to address them. He is about seventy, and tall and thin. He made some remarks. He asked some questions. "Suppose your firm represents Enron, and I'm a partner and I ask you to research whether cornering the power market in California is ...