You know, there's a specific version of history
we all learn in school. It's the statue in the
park version. Everything is solid, marble, and
just inevitable. The sanitized view. Yeah. We
like our history clean. We like these, you know,
clear lines from point A to point B. Exactly.
But usually, if you actually dig into the archives,
the foundation of those statues is a lot messier.
Made of mud and luck and sometimes some... Very
gray ethical decisions. And today we are taking
a sledgehammer to one of those marble columns.
We're doing a deep dive into the life of Burt
L. Stafford. Now, if you're from Vermont or you
follow political history, you hear that name
and you're probably thinking of Robert Stafford.
Robert is the famous one, sure. Governor, U .S.
Senator, a huge figure in the 60s, 70s, 80s.
But today isn't about him. It's about his father,
Burt. Because without Burt, there is no Senator
Stafford. Yeah. And Burt's story. It is. I mean,
it's infinitely wilder than you might expect
from a guy who looks like a stern librarian in
his portraits. I was honestly shocked at going
through the source material on this. It's a lot.
We are talking about a life that spans from a
tiny hamlet in Vermont to the malaria -ridden
jungles of the post -war Philippines, and then
back to a high -stakes financial scandal during
the Great Depression. It's like three different
movies rolled into one life. And the common thread
through it all is this intense drive. We're looking
at biographical records, legal transcripts from
the 1930s. And historical accounts of the Philippines,
yeah. What we see is a man who was constantly
climbing, constantly surviving, and eventually
faced with a decision that could have just ruined
him. So what's the mission today? What are we
trying to figure out? I think we're trying to
answer a question about power. You know, how
does a local lawyer become a kingmaker? Right.
And when the pressure is on like really on does
a pillar of the community protect the law or
does he protect the institution? That is the
big question, because spoiler alert, there is
a bank heist involved in this story. And the
way it was handled is, well, it's not what they
teach you in law school. Definitely not. OK,
let's unpack this. We have to start at the beginning
to understand the trajectory. Burt Linus Stafford,
born December 14th, 1877. In Tynmouth, Vermont.
Tynmouth. And for anyone who hasn't driven through
rural New England, Tynmouth is small. Even today.
Right. Back then, it was deeply rural. Bert is
a local kid. He goes to Wallingford High School,
then the Rutland Institute. He's smart, clearly.
He gets into Middlebury College, class of 1901.
And looking at his college days, he's already
that guy. You know the one running the show.
Oh, absolutely. Class president. member of the
Delta Upsilon fraternity. He is checking every
single box for future solid citizen. If you were
betting on his life in 1901, you'd say, OK, he's
going to take over the family farm, maybe run
a general store and never leave the county. That
was the standard path. Stay local, build slow.
But this is where the first big twist happens.
He graduates. Instead of going home, he packs
a bag and joins the U .S. Office of Education.
To go to the Philippines. To go to the Philippines.
This is such a left turn. We have to contextualize
this. It's 1901. What is even happening in the
Philippines? It's a very volatile time. The Spanish
-American War had just ended, and it transitioned
immediately into the Philippine -American War.
The U .S. was setting up a colonial government.
So chaos. Total chaos. But the U .S. government
had this initiative to establish a public school
system there. They needed teachers. So they recruited
these bright -eyed college grads. Right. They
were called the Thomasites, named after the transport
ship, the USS Thomas, though Burt went on a different
vessel. But the point is, he signed up to go
to the other side of the world. Just imagine
the culture shock. He's a kid from the Green
Mountains. He's used to snow, maple syrup, and,
like, silence. And suddenly he's in Manila. The
heat, the humidity, the smells, a completely
different language, and all in a war zone context.
It says a lot about his character. It speaks
volumes. He wasn't risk -averse. He taught in
Manila from 1901 to 1904. That's three years
in the tropics. It wasn't a vacation. It was
a grueling assignment. And it almost killed him.
It did. The sources are clear he didn't come
back because he was homesick. He came back because
he got malaria. Which, in the early 20th century,
was terrifying. Oh, yeah. We treat it easily
now, but back then it was a recurring, debilitating,
often fatal disease. It ravaged the American
teachers there. Bert got hit so hard that he
had to be medically evacuated. So biology forces
his hand. He has to come home to Vermont to recover.
And this is a huge what -if moment for me. How
so? If he doesn't get sick, does he stay? Does
he become a diplomat? Does he never set foot
in a courtroom? It's very possible. The malaria
grounded him, literally. He returns to Vermont
in 1904 to get his health back. But, and this
is key. He doesn't use that as an excuse to slow
down. Not at all. As soon as he can stand up,
he pivots. He starts reading law. I love that
phrase. It sounds so, I don't know, gentlemanly.
It does, but it was a grind. Before law schools
were mandatory, you apprenticed. Yeah. You found
a firm, in his case Lawrence and Lawrence and
Rutland, and you worked for them while memorizing
statutes. It's hard, lonely work. But he was
clearly a machine. He passes the bar in October
1906. And this is where the timeline goes supersonic.
I was looking at the dates and I actually had
to double check them. He passes the bar in 1906.
And in that same year, he gets elected to the
Vermont House of Representatives. It's a sprint.
Most people wait years to build a practice before
running for office. Burt does both at the same
time. He represents Tynmouth in the legislature
from 1906 to 1908. And he's not done. Two years
later in 1910, he becomes the state's attorney
for Rutland County. The chief prosecutor. He's
the guy putting people in jail. He holds that
job until 1915. And the moment he steps down
from that... He becomes the mayor of Rutland.
So from law student to running the entire city
in less than 10 years. While recovering from
a major tropical disease, basically. It suggests
he was incredibly charismatic. You don't win
that many elections that fast just by being smart.
You have to be a guy people want to talk to.
He must have been a master at the handshake,
the town meeting, all of that. He was definitely
a joiner. The list of organizations he was involved
in is exhausting just to read. Freemason. President
of Rutland Rotary Club, chairman of the State
Board of Education for six years. President of
the Bar Association. Right. In that era, those
weren't just hobbies. That was the infrastructure
of power. The Rotary Club lunch was where business
deals were made. The Masonic Lodge was where
political alliances were formed. Burt made sure
he was in every single room where a decision
might happen. He was weaving a web. Exactly.
He was making himself indispensable. If you had
a problem in Rutland in, say, 1920, Burt Stafford
was probably the guy you called or the guy who
knew the guy you called. And when you have that
kind of trust and that kind of network. You end
up guarding the money. Naturally. You become
a bank director. And this brings us to the segment
where the movie genre shifts. We go from inspiring
biopic to financial thriller. We need to set
the scene here. It's the early 1930s. The Great
Depression. Right. Context is everything. The
economy is in ruins. Banks are collapsing across
the country. People are terrified. And if a rumor
starts that a bank is shaky, you get a run. People
line up, demand their cash. The vault empties
out and the bank closes forever. Everyone is
on edge. OK, so Bert Stafford is a trustee of
the Marble Stavings Bank in Rutland. And the
president of the bank is Charles Manley Smith.
who, just to add to the stakes, later becomes
the governor of Vermont. So you have the political
and legal elite of the state running this one
bank. And in May of 1932, right in the darkest
part of the Depression, Charles Manley Smith
finds discrepancy in the books. A discrepancy
is putting it mildly. The bookkeeper, a guy named
John J. Coughlin, had been skimming. He had been
embezzling. For a while. And the total came to
$251 ,000. I ran that through an inflation calculator.
In today's money, that is roughly $5 .5 million.
It's a massive fortune. For a small Vermont bank,
it's an absolute catastrophe. So put yourself
in that boardroom. You're Burt Stafford. You
are the former state's attorney. You are a pillar
of the law. You just found out your employee
stole $5 million. What do you do? Well, the law
is clear. You call the police. You have him arrested.
You press charges. That is not what they did.
No. They look at the ledger. And they looked
at the line of people standing in bread lines
outside. And they made a calculation. They realized
that if the news broke. Marble Savings Bank lost
quarter million dollars. The public wouldn't
care about insurance or surplus funds. They would
panic. There would be a run on the bank. The
bank would fail. Innocent people, farmers, shopkeepers,
widows would lose everything. So Smith, Stafford
and the other trustees decided that the truth
was too dangerous. They chose the cover up. They
fired Coughlin, the thief. But they let him walk
away. No police, no handcuffs. They took the
loss, charged it against the bank's surplus fund,
basically their rainy day savings, and swore
everyone to secrecy. It's incredible. They let
a guy who sold a fortune just walk out the door
because they were too afraid of the scandal?
It's the noble lie. They convinced themselves
they were doing it to save the town. And to be
fair, they might have been right about the panic.
But legally? Legally. It's a nightmare. And here's
the part that I still can't wrap my head around.
The cover -up worked for years. Nobody knew.
From 1932 to 1935, it was a perfect secret. The
bank stayed open. Coughlin stayed free. But then,
Coughlin got cocky. He got arrogant. This is
the human element you can never predict. John
J. Coughlin. The man who silently stole a fortune
decided in 1935 that he wanted to run for public
office. You have to be kidding me. He announced
his candidacy for city treasurer of Rutland.
I'm great with money. Just ask my previous employer.
I mean, wow. The audacity is breathtaking. He
must have believed that Stafford and Smith were
so terrified of the secret coming out that they
would never say a word. He thought he had them
hostage. But he forgot that politics is a full
contact sport. Exactly. He had political opponents.
And this is a small town. Rumors float. Someone
knew something. We don't know exactly who leaked
it. But Coughlin's opponents found out why he
left the bank. And they weren't going to let
an embezzler run the city treasury. So they leaped
it to the press. And the dam broke. The headline
wasn't just about Coughlin. It was about the
bank. The secret was out. And the fallout. Immediate
chaos. Coughlin was arrested, convicted, and
jailed. The bank's treasurer got a suspended
sentence. But then the prosecutor turned his
eyes toward the big fish. The men who hid the
crime. The trustees. In December 1936, Burt Stafford,
along with Governor Smith, who was the bank president,
were charged with misprision of felony. Misprision.
That's a term we don't hear often. It's an old
common law concept. Basically, if you know a
felony has happened and you actively conceal
it, you are committing a crime. You are obstructing
justice. So here is Burt Stafford. He's been
the mayor. He's been the state's attorney. He's
Mr. Respectable. And now he's sitting in a courtroom
accused of helping cover up one of the biggest
bank heists in state history. It must have been
humiliating. It shattered that image of the perfect
marble column. And remember, Smith is the sitting
governor at this point. This is a constitutional
crisis for Vermont. But they were powerful men.
And powerful men often have a different experience
in court. That is the cynical but often accurate
take. Governor Smith went to trial first. His
defense was fascinating. He didn't deny hiding
the theft. So what was his argument? He argued
he lacked corrupt intent. He argued that his
motive was pure. He was saving the bank, not
helping the criminal. I broke the law to save
the village. Essentially. And the jury bought
it. Smith was acquitted. And once the governor
walks. The prosecutor knows he can't win against
the others. Following Smith's acquittal, the
charges against Burt Stafford and the other trustees
were dismissed. Just like that. Case closed.
Legally, yes. But ethically, it's still debated.
On one hand, they did save the bank. No depositor
lost a dime. But on the other hand, they usurped
the legal system. They decided they were the
law. They decided a massive theft didn't need
to be punished if it was inconvenient for business.
It really highlights that too -big -to -fail
mentality isn't new. We saw in 2008, but here
it is in 1932 in Rutland, Vermont. It's the same
logic. Protecting the institution matters more
than punishing the crime. Now, Burt Stafford
walked away free. But you have to imagine the
toll this took on him. It was immense. We look
at the medical records. During this period, the
mid -1930s, while The Secret was live and then
during the trial, Bert suffered three heart attacks.
Three? And he kept working? He would collapse,
take some time, and go right back to the office.
It goes back to that resilience we saw in the
Philippines. He was tough. He refused to let
the stress break him publicly. But physically,
his body was keeping the score. It was. It eventually
caught up with him. He died on July 29, 1941
from a cerebral hemorrhage. He was only 64 years
old. That feels young, especially for someone
so active. But while Bert's life ended there,
the story doesn't really stop because we talked
at the beginning about the Stafford dynasty.
Right. Bert had married Mabel Rose Stratton back
in 1911. They had three kids, Robert, Thomas,
and Shirley. And Robert T. Stafford is the one
who really took the baton. Robert was born in
1913, so he was in his early 20s when this whole
bank scandal blew up. He had a front row seat.
He saw his father navigate the heights of power
and the depths of this scandal. And when Robert
launched his own political career, he was standing
on the foundation Burt built. The network. The
network is everything. The Rotary Connections,
the Masonic Brothers, the Bar Association colleagues.
Even with the scandal, the name Stafford meant
leadership in Rutland. Burt had accumulated so
much social capital that he could pass it down
like an inheritance. It's interesting. Robert
went on to be governor, U .S. senator, a huge
environmental champion. But his path was paved
by his father's grit. and his father's ability
to survive things that should have destroyed
him. It adds so much texture to history. It does.
We tend to think of senators as these inevitable
forces. But Robert Stafford's career exists because
Burt Stafford survived malaria in 1904 and survived
a grand jury in 1936. It's all connected. So
when we step back and look at the full picture
of Burt L. Stafford, what's the takeaway? How
should we remember him? I think he's a realistic
portrait of how power actually works. He wasn't
a cartoon hero and he wasn't a villain. He was
a guy who showed up. He served his country in
a war zone. He served his city, but he also operated
in the gray areas. It's that complexity. He was
willing to sacrifice his health for his job,
but he was also willing to bend the law to save
his bank. And that's the reality of leadership
in a crisis. It's rarely black and white. It's
usually a group of terrified men in a boardroom
trying to figure out the least bad option. And
sometimes the least bad option involves hiding
a $5 million theft. Precisely. Before we wrap
up, though, there is one thing that keeps nagging
at me. It's a real sliding doors moment. What's
that? It's about Coughlin. The embezzler. The
catalyst. The only reason we know any of this,
the theft, the cover -up, the surplus fund manipulation,
is because Coughlin decided to run for treasurer.
That's true. If he had just taken his freedom,
moved to Florida, sat on a beach, and kept his
mouth shut. Then the scandal never breaks. The
surplus adjustment remains a boring line in a
ledger that no one ever checks. Burt Stafford
is never charged. The governor never goes to
court. And the history books would just list
Burt as a spotless, perfect pillar of the community.
No scandal attached. It's a sobering thought.
It makes you wonder how many other respectable
historical figures are just people whose secrets
never got leaked. How many scandals are buried
in the surplus funds of history? Probably more
than we want to know. On that cheerful note,
we're going to wrap up this deep dive into the
life of Burt L. Stafford. From the jungles of
Manila to the courtrooms of Rutland, what a ride.
A fascinating life indeed. Thanks for listening.
We'll catch you on the next deep dive.