AMERICAN OIL LANDS

Southland Times, Issue 19157, 29 January 1924, Page 5

AMERICAN OIL LANDS

STARTLING ALLEGATIONS HIGH OFFICIALS INVOLVED GRAVE SCANDAL REVEALED (By Telegraphy-Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association). WASHINGTON, January 27. With the oil lands investigation developing into the gravest scandal in the history of American politics, an announcement by President Coolidge that he will form a Legal Committee from the Republican and Democratic Parties, who will take over the Senate Committee’s evidence and begin the prosecution of all persons concerned in malfeasance, reveals the existence of an unusual situation.

The evidence developed before the Senate Committee now involves the former Secretary of the Interior (Mr A. B. Fall), with Mr E. Denby (Secretary to the Navy), Mr H. M. Daugherty (Attorney-General), and Mr Theodore Roosevelt (who is Assistant Secretary to the Navy). President Coolidge hints that serious corduption exists and that the testimony given by Mr Fall conflicts with that of the others, especially concerning certain large loans granted by various individuals who obtained oil land leases.

The Democrats are openly gleeful over the situation, and it is widely assumed that the scandal spells death for Republican aspirations at the coming Presidential election.

During the Senate’s inquiry last week, Archibald Roosevelt, son of the ex-President, who is an employee of the Oil Company which secured the leases, testified that upon the advice of his brother Theodore, who is Assistant Secretary of the Navy Department, he (Archibald) resigned his position in order to protect the family name. He intimated that he was dissatisfied with the manner in which the leases were secured. Roosevelt’s evidence added further complications to an involved case, in which insinuations of bribery have been freely made and much damaging testimony adduced. The facts briefly are that A. B. Fall, ex-Secret-ary of the Department of the Interior, having obtained jurisdiction over thse oil lands from the Navy Department, which held them as naval oil reserves, leased them to the Sinclair Oil Company. Experts estimated that the lands contained twenty-two million barrels of oiL The Navy Department received payment for only 1,60,000 barrels.