The Power of Testimony

DIKKON EBERHART
The simplicity was brilliant. Cy provided the lights. His customers
paid the electric bill.
There were gymnasiums for children, wading pools, swings
and slides, all surrounded by a fence so weary mothers could relax
in the assurance that their little charges could not wander off.
And of course, there was also a large outdoor swimming pool.
I can imagine the Eberhart children at Oak Dale. There’s my
father—​I can see him now—​standing on the edge of the big
swimming pool, which was a bright sheet of water, with all his
friends in it, beckoning.
Cannonball!
Cy Thomson made all of this pleasure available to the upper
Midwest during his ten short years of success. But Thomson’s
time was running out. In late 1920, an auditor from Minneapolis
made a sudden appearance at Hormel, demanding to see
the books immediately. The only mention of my grandfather
in Thomson’s memoir comes when Thomson convinces the
auditor to go out with Mr. Eberhart for a round of golf and a
luncheon at the country club before he sits down to the books.
Had the auditor not joined A.L. during that morning, though
the books would have looked fine on examination, the auditor
would almost surely have noticed that Thomson was personally
short by roughly $200,000 that day. But he did join my
grandfather for a round of golf, and in that time, Cy managed
to doctor the books in his favor.
Then in late April 1921, the Shawmut Bank in Boston wrote
to Thomson asking why Hormel’s cash position, recorded at
slightly over $1 million, did not actually have $1 million of
cash in it. Thomson was able to deflect the bank’s concern by
his usual subterfuge. However, the end was near. In early July
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