A Chicken Thief’s Confession by Alan Borer
Otterbein University President W. G. Clippinger was astonished at the letter that came across is
desk in the late summer of 1913. It
read:
Enclosed
please find four dollars. Some time ago,
a ‘bunch’ of your students, and I was one of the number, stole several of your
chickens for a mid-night roast. I am
ashamed of the action and wish to make things right.
Clippinger replied:
Your
letter . . . enclosing four dollars in payment for your feast is received. . .
. I hardly know how to express my appreciation.
I did value the chickens and I value the payment of them but I value
much more highly your manly confession.[i]
As an educator, Clippinger understood that a guilty
conscience was often a more effective tool than the many demerits he had at his
disposal. Confession is good for the
soul, and here was a confession unsolicited!
Before the modern age, many rural and small town
homeowners kept a few chickens. In an
era before routine delivery service of food, the home grown chicken became a
cultural centerpiece of Sunday dinners, holiday meals, and celebrations. To steal a family’s chickens was a powerful
slap in the face of a culture in which the food supply was less predictable than
now. Westerville residents might have
agreed with this statement:
Long ago, raising barn fowl was critical to the existence
of millions of families. . . To steal someone’s chickens was to steal from a
family’s daily sustenance. While the
theft of other items might prove just as hurtful, a stigma was attached to
those arrested as chicken thieves, who became known as the low-down, dirtiest
of crooks. [ii]
The theft, cooking, and eating of a college president’s
chickens was risky. I have no idea if
Clippinger reported the theft, or if in fact the chickens had any sentimental
value beyond their food value. The
motives of the thieves are also unclear.
Were they robbing the president as a way to bug him personally, or
diminish his status as a symbol of Otterbein College? Or were they just hungry youth who knew where
to find insufficiently guarded chickens?
Whatever the reason for this theft,
Walter Clippinger was far too skillful a teacher to make a federal case of
this. He pardoned the student, and
freely readmitted him to Otterbein.
Whether he ever treated them to chicken dinner is unrecorded.
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