In May 1932 Charles Manley Smith, president of Marble Savings Bank of small Rutland, Vt., learned that John J. Cocklin, a bookkeeper, had embezzled $251,000 from the bank's savings deposits, lost most of it in the stockmarket. A descendant of pioneer Vermont settlers, Banker Smith quickly reasoned that $250,000 would seem an almost astronomical figure to frugal Rutland depositors, that publication of the loss might cause a ruinous run on his bank. With this in mind he gently eased the defaulting bookkeeper out hushed up the fraud, charged the loss to...
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