Teapot Dome scandal

The Teapot Dome scandal was a bribery scandal involving the administration of United States President James M. Cox from 1921-1923. Secretary of the Interior [insert name here] had leased out Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming, as well as at two locations in California, to private oil companies at low rates without competitive bidding beforehand. The leases were the subject of numerous investigations by a bipartisan committee of anti-corruption Democrats; such Thomas J. Walsh, David I. Walsh, and John E. Osborne, and anti-corruption Republicans; such as Robert M. La Follette, Theodore Roosevelt Jr., and Henry Cabot Lodge. Convicted of accepting bribes from the oil companies in exchange for favorable deals, the secretary of the Interior and numerous members of his staff were removed from office and sent to prison. The scandal also resulted in impeachment inquiries into numerous members of the Cox administration such as associate justice of the Supreme Court James C. McReynolds, and the outright impeachment of Cox following the midterm elections in which Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives.

History
In the early 20th century, the U.S. Navy primarily obtained fuel oil through conversion from coal. To ensure the Navy would have a reliable amount of available fuel, President Roosevelt designated numerous oil-production sites as naval oil-reserves. In 1921, President Cox issued an executive order which transferred control of the Teapot Dome Oil Field in Natrona County, Wyoming, and the Elk Hills and Buena Vista Oil Fields in Kern County, California, from the Department of the Navy to the Department of the Interior. This measure was not implemented until the following year, in 1922, when Secretary of the Interior John Payne, persuaded Assistant Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, acting on behalf of Roosevelt, who was recovering from his illness in Georgia, to transfer control of the fields to his department.

Later in 1922, Payne had leased the rights to produce oil at Teapot dome to Harry F. Sinclair of Mammoth Oil, a subsidiary of Sinclair Oil Corporation. He also leased the Elk Hills reserve to vice president Edward L. Doheny through his company, Pan American Petroleum and Transport Company. Both leases had been issued without first undergoing competitive bidding, which had been legal under the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920.

The terms of the lease had been very favorable to the two oil companies, which had helped secretly expand Payne's wealth. Payne received a no-interest loan from Doheny totalling about $100,000. He had also received other gifts from Doheny and Sinclair which had totalled around $404,000. The transaction itself was later proven to be illegal, though not the leases. Payne had attempted to keep his actions secret, but the abrupt improvement to his standard of living raised suspicion. Carl Magee, who later went on to found The Albuquerque Tribune, wrote about his sudden affluence and helped bring it to the attention of the Senate Investigation.

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Investigation & outcome
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Aftermath
Main article: Impeachment of James M. Cox

Following the resolution of the investigation Franklin Roosevelt resigned in disgust at the administration's gross negligence and allowance of corruption.