The Cutting Edge

The great Canadian professor Michael Marrus claimed that Thomas J. Watson, president of IBM, was no "corporate scoundrel" (see Michael Marrus Falters in Some Measure of Justice, Arts, March 1, 2010), but rather just a "maverick." Here is what I did. I checked Google Books and after one minute found several biographies written over a period of years that all referred in some detail or another to Waton's criminal conviction and jail sentence in the National Cash Register extortion and harassment conspiracy. Watson was not alone--he was part of a gang--all convicted. I did not have a foundation grant, but I did locate the information using my laptop. Our nation is being hammered by corporate thieves right now from the mortgage industry to health insurance. This is not the time to rewrite history to minimize the crimes corporate executives commit in the name of profits or amassing sheer power. If we cannot face up to what corporate robber barons and clever criminals like Thomas J. Watson have done in the past, just think about what the next generation will be reading about Enron, Countrywide and the like.