Remembering The Teapot Oil Mafia Scandal That Dragged US President Warren G. Harding

Oil well at Teapot Dome, Wyoming, USA (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

JAKARTA - The Teapot Dome or Teko Teh scandal is a case of the oil field mafia which involved the United States Secretary of the Interior (US) and dragged the name of the US President at that time, Warren G. Harding. This issue became one of the biggest US scandals before the Watergate scandal, which caused President Richard Nixon to resign.

Right on this day October 25, nearly a century ago or in the 1920s, the Minister of the Interior in President Warren G. Harding's cabinet, Albert B. Fall, was found guilty of accepting bribes in the Teapot Dome scandal. According to History, Fall was the first person to be convicted of crimes committed while serving in the presidential cabinet.

As a member of President Harding's corrupt cabinet in the early 1920s, Fall received a "commission" of $ 100,000 from Edward Doheny, owner of the Pan-American Petroleum and Transport company, as a "grease". The goal is for Fall to grant land leases in the former Elk Hills, California naval oil reserve.

The $ 100,000 bribe that Fall received was not much. In October 1923, the Senate General Defense Committee launched an investigation that revealed that Mamooth Oil President Harry Sinclair had also given Fall of $ 300,000 in bonds and cash. The money is in exchange for using up the Teapot Dome oil reserves in Wyoming.

Albert B.Fall (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Dragging the president

In the early 20th century, the United States had indeed converted energy from coal to petroleum. Launching the WyoHistory page In the era of President William Howard Taft, the country then bought land that contained abundant oil reserves. The land is "held" by the US Navy.

Then in the era of Warren G. Harding, the handling of oil fields was transferred to the US Department of the Interior at Fall's insistence. The land deal between the Navy and the Ministry of the Interior covers land in Natrona County, Wyoming (Teapot Rock) and in Kern County, California (Elk Hills and Buena Vista).

At that time, the US Secretary of the Interior, Albert B. Fall, lobbied the private sector. He sold the Teapot Dome oilfield to two private companies. Fall realized the huge potential personal gain that could be obtained by renting out the land to a private company.

In 1927, the oil fields were returned to the US government through a Supreme Court decision. Two years later, Fall was convicted of bribery and sentenced to one year in prison and a $ 100,000 fine, while Doheny escaped punishment, but Sinclair was jailed for insulting Congress and the jury.

Former US President, Warren G. Harding (Source: Wikimedia Commons)