Teapot Dome Scandal

Teapot Dome Scandal, in American history, scandal of the early 1920s surrounding the secret leasing of federal oil reserves by the secretary of the interior, Albert Bacon Fall. After U.S. Pres. Warren G. Harding transferred supervision of the naval oil-reserve lands from the navy to the Department of the Interior in 1921, Fall secretly granted to Harry F. Sinclair of the Mammoth Oil Company exclusive rights to the Teapot Dome (Wyoming) reserves (April 7, 1922). He granted similar rights to Edward L. Doheny of Pan American Petroleum Company for the Elk Hills and Buena Vista Hills reserves in California (1921–22).

When these leases and contracts came under investigation by committees of the U.S. Senate, it was disclosed that shortly after the signing of the Teapot Dome lease, Fall and members of his family had received from an unknown source more than $200,000 in Liberty bonds under circumstances indicating that the bonds came from a company organized by Sinclair and others receiving benefits from the lease. Also, it appeared that prior to the execution of the Pan American contracts and leases, Doheny, at Fall’s request, sent $100,000 in currency to Fall as a “loan” that had not been repaid.

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When the affair became known, Congress directed President Harding to cancel the leases; the Supreme Court declared the leases fraudulent and ruled illegal Harding’s transfer of authority to Fall. Although the president himself was not implicated in the transactions that had followed the transfer, the revelations of his associates’ misconduct took a severe toll on his health; disillusioned and exhausted, he died before the full extent of the wrongdoing had been determined. Fall was convicted of accepting a bribe in the Elk Hills negotiations and imprisoned. Doheny and Sinclair were acquitted of charges of bribery and criminal conspiracy, but Sinclair spent 6 1/2 months in prison for contempt of court and contempt of the U.S. Senate. Although the secretary of the navy, Edwin Denby, had signed all the leases, he was cleared of all charges.

Though “Teapot Dome” entered the American political vocabulary as a synonym for governmental corruption, the scandal had little long-term effect on the Republican Party. Calvin Coolidge, a Republican, was elected president in 1924.