The Power of Testimony

THE TIME MOM MET HITLER . . .
He did not begin to steal until 1911.
Ten years later, in 1921, the story of Cy Thomson’s million-​
dollar embezzlement was a national sensation. There was a
Robin Hood fascination about the thing, owing in part to the
fact that he gave a lot of the money away. Also, there was the
local horror that this man—​this man!—​known and liked by
everyone, the benefactor of thousands, was a crook! How could
that be?
When Thomson returned after almost ten years in prison,
many people stood him drinks, and clapped him on the back,
and swore they had never believed in his guilt. His confession,
they assured him, must have been a cover-​ up for the guilt of his
superiors, one of whom was my grandfather, A.L.
So how did Thomson work it?
Once he was released from prison, Thomson wrote a memoir
of about seventeen thousand words in which he sought to
do three things. One, he addressed young men and warned
them not to do what he had done. They must not find themselves
“sinking into the quicksand,” as he called it, of crime.
Two, he explained that the embezzlement was really the fault
of the Hormel organization because the Hormels had given
such a young man as he was such ready access to the company’s
enormous funds (in 1920, Hormel grossed about $30 million).
So, really, the incautious Hormels ought to have expected
something bad to happen. And, three, he described how the
embezzle ment was done: he kited checks.
As Thomson said in his memoir, it was all so foolishly easy.
The money was coming in so fast and moving around so fast,
that no one except himself—​and he did all this in his head
without ever writing anything down—​no one except himself
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