Teapot Dome scandal
Teapot Dome is the commonly used name applied to the scandal that rocked the administration of United States President Warren G. Harding. Harding personally was not, directly or otherwise, aware of the scandal; at the time of his death in 1923 he was just beginning to learn of problems resulting from his appointee’s actions when he undertook his Voyage of Understanding tour of the United States in the summer of 1923. As a result of Teapot Dome, Harding’s administration has been remembered in history as one of the most corrupt to occupy the White House.
The name Teapot Dome is derived from a land formation in Wyoming, which at the time was part of the United States Navy oil reserves. In 1922, Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall (of New Mexico), a Harding appointee at the suggestion of Harry Daugherty (Attorney General under Harding), illegally conveyed the rights to the oil to Harry F. Sinclair (Sinclair Oil) without competitive bidding. Because of Daugherty’s actions in suggesting so many of his cronies, the term Ohio Gang has been used to define those who performed illegal acts while under the employ of the Harding Administration.
Concurrently, Fall also conveyed the Naval oil reserves at Elk Hills, California to Edward L. Doheny of Los Angeles, California in exchange for personal loans at no interest.
Following a Senate Investigation lead by Senator Thomas Walsh, indictments were handed down for Fall, Doheny and Sinclair. Doheny and Sinclair were both fined $100,000; Fall was sentenced to prison, making him the first Presidential cabinet member to go to prison for his actions in office. Doheny later died under suspicious conditions. The purloined oil fields were returned to the U.S. government through a Supreme Court decision in 1927.
Following the exposure of Teapot Dome, Harding’s popularity plunged. While the late President and First Lady Florence Kling Harding’s bodies were interned in the newly completed Harding Memorial in Marion, Ohio in 1927, a formal dedication ceremony wouldn’t be held until 1930 when enough of the scandal had faded from the memories of the American people.
External link
- The forgotten bagman of the Teapot Dome scandal (http://www.militarymuseum.org/Doheny.html)