OIL SCANDAL

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLIV, Issue XLIV, 23 January 1924, Page 5

OIL SCANDAL

AMERICAN SENATE INVESTIGA-

TION.

EVIDENCE BY SON OF ROOSEVELT

»* CABLIr—IWBBB ABHOCIAUSOW-COPYBIOH*

Received Jan 23, 9.5 a.m. WASHINGTON, Jan, 21. The appearance of Mr. Archibald Roosevelt, son of the ex~Pr«sident, before 4i Senatorial committee investigating a lea«e of Government-owned oil lands to private interests, promises to procipitate a widespread scandal, involving two Cabinet departments. ' Mr. Roosevelt, who is an employee of the oil company which secured the leases testified that upon the advice of his brother Theodore, who is AssistantSecretary of th© Navy Department he (Archibald) resigned his position' in order to protect the family name. Ho intimated that he was dissatisfied with the manner in which the leases were secured. Mr. Roosevelt's evidence added further complications to involve the case, in which insinuations of bribery have been freely made. The facts briefly are that A-. B. Fall, ex-Secretary of the Department of the Interior, having obtained jurisdiction over those oil lands from the Navy Department, which held them as. navy oil reserves, leased them, to the Sinclair Company. Experts estimated that the lands contained twenty-two million barrels of oil and the Navy Department received as payment only 1,600,000 barrels.—Aus.N.Z. Cable Assn.