It is curious how little notice was taken at the
time of the transactions which have since caused such a hubbub. It was in the spring of 1921, when President Harding had been only a short time in office, that Mr. Fall, the Secretary of the Interior, and Mr. Denby, the Secretary of the Navy, leased to private persons some of the State-reserved oil- fields. These oilfields were reserved, under a policy which was already some years old, for the exclusive use of the Navy. The official excuse for leasing them was that the richness of the fields was seriously threatened by private borings in the neighbourhood, and that the leaseholders were merely put in to remove that danger—to keep the fields in working order till the State might require them. Such au explanation might have been accepted had it not been discovered during the course of the inquiries by the Senate Committee that Mr. Fall had come into possession of large sums of money. Whether his suddenly acquired riches were a coincidence or an illicit payment has yet to be proved. Mr. Fall at the moment is too ill to give evidence. • * * * *
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