MONEY IN OIL

Evening Star, Issue 21091, 2 May 1932, Page 10

MONEY IN OIL

TRUTH ABOUT TEAPOT DOME Albert B. Fall, former Secretary of the Interior, now in prison as an upshot of the Teapot Dome oil scandal, was appointed to the Cabinet of President Harding as a result of a forged telegram sent to Mr Harding by Fall, hut signed with the name of former Attorney-General Harry M. Daugherty, Mr Daugherty charges in his book, ‘ Tho Inside Story of the Harding Tragedy,’ according to tho ‘ New York World-Telegram.’ Mr Daugherty, collaborating with Thomas Dixon, the author, has given his version of virtually every scandal, and answered each accusation that has followed President Harding’s death, the newspaper says. The former Attorney-General brands the rumour of negro blood in the Harding family as entirely false, and traces tho original of the story to a quarrel between school children seventy-five years ago, which finished up with children of the Appleman family referring to the Harding ancestors, then youngsters, as coming from negro parents. Tho American Federation-of Labour, Mr Daugherty declares, was in a plot to “get” him for breaking the railroad strike of 1922 by injunction. Mr Charles Evans Hughes, the hook reveals,’once almost slipped into one of President Harding’s Congressional messages a paragraph advocating American entrance to the League of Nations. Mrs Harding discovered it, and in frantic haste called Mr Daugherty away from a meeting of the Ohio society. Mr Daugherty pencilled in a substitute paragraph. Mr Harding said he would not make the change. With Senator Weeks, Mr Daugherty went to the Capitol, expecting President Harding to end the supremacy of the Republicans by a League endorsement. They were surprised and overjoyed when the President read Mr Daugherty’s paragraph, and they felt the party was saved. Speaking of tho telegram he says Fall sent to President Harding, Mr Daugherty in his book states: “ A. B. Fall and I could never have been_ chums in any political enterprise. I think at the last moment Harding began to feel the unspoken antagonism between us, and hesitated to make the appointment. “ And Fall met the crisis in his usual bull-headed fashion. He sent Harding an urgent telegram asking his immediate appointment, signed my name to it without phoning me, wiring, or in any way hinting his purpose. “ This message he boldly charged to A. B. Fall. The appointment was made and the mine laid for an explosion about to shake the i..,tion.”

Mr Daugherty descrihes_ how he took action to prevent revelation of names of important firms, headed by Democrats, who had contributed to the Republican war chest. Contributions of these Democrats, Mr Dixon said, were recorded in tho “Jess Smith extra ” account in the Midland Bank in Washington. It was to protect campaign contributors and not to conceal transactions of Mr Daugherty that Colonel Thomas W. Miller, as alien property custodian, destroyed tho record, the book indicates.