More Oil

For a week the Senate Committee on Public Lands did most of its oil scandal investigation in closed session, examining brokers and others as to what men in public life had been speculating in oil stocks. The events of the week included:

The return of Harry .F. Sinclair, lessee of Teapot Dome, from Europe. To only two questions of reporters did he return positive answers. He said that politics had entered into the investigation and that he had put $45,000,000 into the development of Teapot Dome. Asked about the rumor that there was a $1,000,000 oil slush fund in Washington, he answered: "I haven't heard about that. How much am I supposed to have furnished?"

P:The investigating committee having used up its funds, Senator Lenroot obtained $125,000 for the committee to continue its work.

P:A rumor became current that a Senator had been dealing in Sinclair Oil stock. Senator Davis Elkins, Republican of West Virginia, admitted that he was the Senator in question, saying:

"Certainly I bought and sold Sinclair oil stock. I dealt in several hundred shares through (Benkard & Co., and I don't care who knows it. I buy and sell any kind of stock I want. There is no law against it and my office does not prevent my dealing in stocks.

"If that is a crime, let them go holler their heads off. The public seems to have gone crazy and there is a lot of hot air in the Senate about this oil thing, but it will not disturb me, because my transactions were absolutely legitimate."

Senator Elkins, son of the , late Senator Stephen B. Elkins, was nominated and elected in 1918 when he was serving as a Major in the A. E. F. in France. It has been understood for some time that he intended to retire from the Senate when his term is past (Mar. 4, 1925). So he is not worried about reelection.

P:Senator Wheeler of Montana made a speech in the Senate advocating a resolution that Attorney General Daugherty should resign. He said that "everybody knows" that Daugherty was a friend of Sinclair and Doheny. Thereupon Mr. Doheny wired the Senator: "The fact is that Mr. Daugherty and myself are not friends and that I never saw him but once in my life and that was on a formal official occasion. ... I have never had any relationship of a business or friendly nature with Mr. Daugherty, nor have I ever directly or indirectly addressed to or received from him any communications whatever. In view of these facts your statement that everybody knows that the Attorney General is my friend is as ridiculous as it is false."

P:C. Bascom Slemp, Secretary to the President, was called before the investigating committee and asked what relations he had with Edward B. Mc-Lean, ex-Secretary Fall, Sinclair or Doheny. The last two he had never met or communicated with. During the first two weeks in January while the Secretary was at Palm Beach on vacation, he had encountered Mr. McLean on the golf course. Later he had called on the McLeans and had met Mr. Fall who was visiting them. They had talked about the Volstead Act, golf, the weather, the Mellon tax plan. Teapot Dome, not then such a notorious episode, had been only touched on. P: Washington bankers testified before the committee that Mr. McLean had not on deposit at that time the $100,000 which he declared he had offered to lend Senator Fall.