Oil Everlasting

Like a mangled reptile whose tail will writhe until sundown, the Fall-Sinclair oil conspiracy, smashed at by investigators since 1923, still had life in it last week. The Messrs. Fall and Sinclair were neither of them in jail. Their cases still lay in the courts, tangled and malodorous. Nor did they cease pulsing when the U. S. Senate, returning to the reptile with a fresh-cut bludgeon, pounded to a pulp one central segment which had seemed invulnerable.

In the Fall-Doheny case, the Govern-ment had little trouble pinning down the $100,000 "loan" that passed from Oilman Doheny to his goodhearted old friend,

Secretary Fall of the Interior Department. The "little brown bag'' used in thatdealbe-came almost as infamous as the lucre itself. But in the Fall-Sinclair case, the Govern-ment had never been able to establish precisely how, when or where certain Liberty Bonds were handed over by Oilman Sinclair to Secretary Fall. Of the bonds themselves, $230,500 worth were traceable to Fall, but only one other man besides the principals had intimate knowledge of where the bonds came from. The third man was Secretary Fall's son-in-law, Mahlon T. Everhart, strapping, bronzed rancher of Pueblo, Colo. Asked to tell, he repeatedly refused. "It would tend to incriminate me,' he said. Among the first things Congress did after sitting for its present session was to amend the Statute of Limitations for the special benefit of Mahlon T. Ever-hart.* Last week, immune to prosecution for any part he took in his father-in-law's affair, he said he had "been through Hell" and testified with evident relief before the Senate Committee on Public Lands. His story was brief and apparently innocent but it clanked the jail keys for Father-in-law Fall and Oilman Sinclair. The personnel of the Committee on Public Lands had altered a lot since Rancher Everhart was last before it.* Its chief prosecutor was, however, the same grim-jawed Montanan, Senator Thomas James Walsh. After being sworn, Rancher Everhart began telling Senator Walsh how Father-in-law Fall had tried to raise money, prior to 1922, for the Tres Rios (Three Rivers) Land and Cattle Co., the ranching concern in which Fall held 50 shares, his daughter's estate 49 shares and Son-in-law Everhart one share (to qualify as a director). In 1922, Fall called his son-in-law to Washington with the stock certificates of this company. When Rancher Everhart arrived he learned some marvelous news. Fall announced, not only that he had found a buyer, but that the Tres Rios ranch was going to be converted into a country club. Three Rivers being a tiny settlement in New Mexico several miles from a branch line of the El Paso & Southwestern R. R., 30 miles from thriving Alamogordo (pop. 2,400) with only a reservation of Apache Indians for near neighbors, many another son-in-law might have asked Mr. Fall leading questions about such a sporting proposition. But Rancher Everhart apparently asked few questions, did what he was told. He learned that Harry F. Sinclair was the name of the buyer and that Mr. Sinclair was to pay $233,000 for a one-third interest in Tres Rios. He met Mr. Sinclair, who led him to a private car in the Washington railroad yards and there produced $198.000 in Liberty Bonds. When Father-in-law Fall received this wad, he pocketed $2,500 and gave the rest back to Son-in-law Everhart to bank in the West. Everhart then went to Manhattan and collected $35,000 more in Liberty Bonds from Sinclair at the latter's office, at the same time opening negotiations for Fall to borrow more money "at a low rate of interest." Mr. Sinclair was wholly affable and, later that year, at Three Rivers, produced a loan of $25,000 in cash right out of his pocket. "Senator," said Rancher Everhart on the stand, "I did not make the deal . . . All I actually did was to get the bonds. . . . All that I know is what I have heard here and what I have read in the newspapers. . . . Thank God, I've got that off my chest!" Senator Walsh believed the witness and shook him by the hand when the hearing closed, as did Senator Kendrick. But before Son-in-law Everhart left Washington, two other facts were established: a) that Sinclair waved aside the stock certificate for his third of the "Tres Rios Club," telling Everhart to put it away for him at Tres Rios, b) that the "Tres Rios Club" never materialized. All that happened was that Father-in-law Fall paid off some debts on the old homestead. Commenting last week on his son-in-law's so belated testimony, Father-in-law Fall said: "It was an open business deal. .... There is nothing to conceal. . . ."

:;;By decreasing from six years to three the lime limit within which a conspiracy must be prosecuted after the act (TIME, Dec. 26).

fThe new chairman was Gerald P. Nye of North Dakota, next-to-youngest Senator. Senators Wagner of New York and Cutting of New Mexico are both brand-new Senators this term. The other New Mexican, Senator Bratton, and Senator McNary of Oregon were new to the Committee. The only old-timers besides Senator Walsh were Senators Kendrick of Wyoming, Pittman of Nevada, Ashurst of Arizona.