A New Study of an Old Scandal
BRAEMAN, JOHN
A New Study of an Old Scandal Teapot Dome. By M. R. Werner and John Starr. Viking. 306 pp. $5.00. Reviewed by John Braeman Contributor, "Indiana Magazine of History" THE TEAPOT DOME oil...
...His Alaskan policies and his bid to transfer the Forest Service from the Department of Agriculture to his Department sharpened their distrust...
...Besides recovering the Navy oil reserves, the Government secured payment of over $47 million dollars from the two oil companies for the oil taken out...
...The oil leases represented part of a larger dispute between the pro– conservation forces and the anti–conservation Secretary of the Interior...
...Sinclair was acquitted of conspiring to defraud the Government...
...Teapot Dome is the fullest study yet published of the oil scandals...
...As Secretary of the Interior, the New Mexican retained the 19th century belief that the public domain should be disposed as rapidly and as cheaply as possible into private hands...
...A second contract in December 1922 leased the rest of the Elk Hills Reserve to the Pan–American Company...
...Senator Robert M. La Follette introduced his resolution for a full investigation of the leases by the Senate Committee on Public Lands and Surveys...
...On his payroll, the oil man had leading figures of the Wilson Administration—former Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane, former Secretary of War Lindley Garrison, former Attorney General Thomas W. Gregory, and former Secretary of the Treasury William G. McAdoo...
...The conservationist leaders seized upon the oil lease rumors, when they were still simply rumors, to spearhead their successful fight against the Secretary...
...until that moment the front runner for the Democratic Presidential nomination...
...Fall would have leased the Navy's reserves to private firms without any bribery...
...M. R. Werner, the veteran political biographer, and his co–author...
...They have drawn for the first time on the Secret Service reports in the National Archives to detail the detective work of tracing the Liberty bonds given the Secretary...
...at Teapot Dome...
...But were the oil leases part of a sinister plot whereby Fall bargained with the highest bidder to rob the nation of its natural resources...
...D. C. handed down criminal indictments against Fall...
...John Starr, have aspired to fill this gap with their new book...
...President Harding, transfer the administration of the naval oil reserves from the Navy Department to the Department of the Interior...
...But no historian has published a full–scale account...
...With the Democrats forced on the defensive...
...Further investigation by the Senate Committee on Public Lands and Surveys found that Sinclair had given the Secretary some cattle for his ranch, but could not prove that any money had passed hands...
...Although sentenced to three months in prison for con...
...Shortly after becoming Secretary of the Interior, former Senator Albert B. Fall of New Mexico had his friend...
...The conservation of the remaining public domain for the public weal became the national policy of the future...
...Promising to seek out and punish all guilty persons, whether Democrats or Republicans, the President named bipartisan special counsel, Republican lawyer Owen J. Roberts of Philadelphia and former Democratic Senator Atlee Pomerene of Ohio, to prosecute the oil scandal...
...Reviewed by John Braeman Contributor, "Indiana Magazine of History" THE TEAPOT DOME oil scandal has become part of the national folklore as the symbol of the political corruption of the Harding Administration...
...Fall had not hidden his anti–conservation views when he was a Senator...
...After Teapot Dome, few politicians dared publicly support the reckless handout policy of the past...
...The investigation which followed sealed conservation's victory...
...Although the lack of footnotes is annoying, the authors have researched widely in the hearings of the Senate investigation, the court records and the newspapers...
...But the investigation splattered leading Democrats with the oil scandal...
...These leases, the Secretary replied when questioned, were necessary to save the Navy's oil from drainage into adjacent private fields...
...The scandal disgraced not simply Albert B. Fall personally, but his larger policy...
...With this outlook...
...Shortly afterward, a grand jury in Washington...
...What happened is simple...
...In April 1922, Fall secretly and without any competitive bidding leased Reserve Number Three...
...Sinclair and Doheny for conspiracy and bribery...
...The prosecution did not fare so successfully in the criminal trials...
...A second investigation in 1928 provided definite proof that the oil magnate had given Fall $230,– 000 in Liberty bonds and $36,000 in cash...
...The Democrats rushed to capitalize on the mushrooming scandal for the 1924 Presidential campaign...
...tempt of Congress and six months for jury–shadowing...
...But another jury acquitted the oil man of giving the bribe...
...From the start, the conservationists suspected that Fall aimed to reverse the pro–conservation policies of the previous administrations...
...Wyoming, to Harry F. Sinclair's Mammoth Oil Company...
...The outline of the story is widely known...
...But a Senate investigation spearheaded by Democratic Senator Thomas J. Walsh of Montana found in the winter of 1923–24 that Fall personally had received from oil man Doheny a cash "loan" of $100,000...
...Werner and Starr have written a swiftly–paced, fascinating account of the oil scandals which never bogs down amid the twistings and turnings of the story...
...Fall was convicted, and sentenced to a year in prison, for taking a $100,000 bribe from Doheny...
...The special counsel won the civil suits to cancel the leases on the grounds of fraud...
...Every four years since 1924 the Democrats have revived the story to lambast the Republican party for its betrayal of the public trust...
...President Calvin Coolidge proceeded to dissociate his Administration from the scandals of the "Harding Gang...
...Spurred by the conservationist leaders...
...The special counsel filed civil suits for cancellation of the leases on grounds of conspiracy, bribery and fraud...
...Doheny himself was a prominent California Democrat and had contributed $75,000 to help pay the party's 1920 campaign deficit...
...Later that month, the Secretary leased part of Reserve Number One, at Elk Hills, California, to Edward L. Doheny's Pan–American Petroleum and Transport Companv...
Vol. 42 • October 1959 • No. 38
