Teapot Dome was
leased to Harry F. Sinclair's Mammoth Oil Company. The Elk Hills
reserve in California was rented to Edward L. Doheny's Pan-American
Petroleum and Transport Company. The two gave Fall and others gifts
and "loans" amounting to $400,000 - an enormous fortune at the time.
The scandal was made public in 1922 in a long investigation by the
U.S. Senate's Committee on Public Lands led by Senator Thomas J. Walsh
from Montana and Senator Robert M. Lafollette.
After much prevarication by Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty, Fall
was brought to justice. He sentenced to one year in prison and
$100,000 fine in 1929 and many officials were implicated. Daugherty
himself resigned in 1924. When Harding died in 1923, he was succeeded
by Calvin Coolidge and public outrage subsided. Coolidge acted
resolutely and appointed special prosecutors under his personal
supervision to protect the interests of the government.
The Supreme Court annulled both the Elk Hills and the Teapot Dome
leases in 1927. But, though government officials were convicted of
corruption and conspiracy - no oilman was found guilty of bribing
(still, they paid damages).
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