As I mentioned in an earlier post, Arthur Seligman’s son Otis ran into trouble with the law in 1932 when he was indicted for embezzling money from the First National Bank of Santa Fe, where he worked as an assistant cashier and where his father, the governor of New Mexico, was the president.  It could have been a scandal that cost his father the election, but it did not.

Rather than retelling the story in my words, I am going to let Arthur Scott, my cousin and the son of Otis Seligman, tell his father’s story.  His biography of his father is found on the vocesdesantafe website here, and I am also linking to it in pdf format at Otis_P_seligman  I will quote just a bit here to establish the background:

On September 12, 1932 Time Magazine noted “A Federal Grand Jury indicted Otis Perry Seligman, cashier of the First National Bank of Santa Fe, N. Mex. for an alleged shortage of $25,941 in his accounts. Said his father, Governor Arthur Seligman, president of the bank, after making good the shortage: “He will have to take his medicine.” Nine other bank employees were also indicted. The total amount missing was reported by Bank Examiners as $72, 941.23.

He and eight others pled guilty. One pled not guilty. Otis was sentenced to a total of 30 years but the sentences ran concurrently so that the maximum time served would be five years. In addition he was fined $10,000 payable to the US prior to release. He received the harshest sentence because, as an assistant cashier, he was considered a supervisor and officer of the bank.

On September 8, 1932 he and six others were sentenced to terms in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas. Two were given suspended sentences and one (Trujillo) was tried, found guilty and sent to La Tuna Federal Prison in Texas. My father began serving his sentence in Leavenworth on October 8, 1932. His father, mother, wife, and group of friends saw him off at the Albuquerque train station while he was in custody of US Marshals.

I hope that you will all read the whole essay to get the full picture of Otis Perry Seligman.  There are also some wonderful photographs included with the essay.  It is a powerful essay written with heart but with objective eyes.  To get a sense of the impact this had on the family of Otis Seligman, I also recommend reading Pete’s essay about his mother’s life at Doris_Lillian_Gardiner

Otis Perry Seligman was a man who made mistakes.  He, his wife, and his children all paid for those mistakes, and yet their story is a story of forgiveness.