Burton K. Wheeler, Harry M. Daugherty, and Teapot Dome
This paper will discuss the attacks of Senator Burton K. Wheeler (D. Montana) on Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty during the Winter and Spring of 1924 concerning scandals involving the administration of President Warren G. Harding. The first part of the paper will provide some background to the conflict between the two men. The second part of the paper will examine the charges themselves and discuss their validity. This part of the paper will concentrate on the witnesses called before the Senate investigating committee by Wheeler.
The Teapot Dome scandal involved the selling of leases to U.S. Navy oil reserves by the Secretary of the Interior to private oil companies. Secretary Albert Fall had arranged for control of the reserves to be transferred from the Department of the Navy to the department of the Interior. He then offered leases to a few of his friends, such as Harry Sinclair and Edward Doheny, who controlled large oil companies. In return for these offers, Fall received personal "loans" from these men. There was some question as to whether the Interior Department had the authority to sell such leases and some of the oil company attorneys suggested that Fall solicit the opinion of Attorney General Harry Daugherty concerning the deal. Fall, however, refused to do this, fearing that Daugherty and his personal assistant, Jess Smith, would want to be financially cut in on the deal. Fall's failure to inform Daugherty of the leases eventually protected Daugherty from charges of complicity in the actual deals, but Daugherty was nevertheless caught up in the fallout of Teapot Dome (Werner & Starr, 1959, pp. 39-61).
Daugherty was born in the town of Washington Court House in the state of Ohio. Growing up in a household left poor by the early death of his father, Daugherty worked his way through high school and the University of Michigan; he then read law in a...