Tempest Over Teapot Dome: The Story of Albert B. Fall (Volume 16)

Oklahoma Western Biographies #16

by David H. Stratton

Albert B. Fall, interior secretary in the Harding administration, was the first American cabinet member sent to prison for a crime committed in office. In the Teapot Dome affair - the worst modern political scandal until Watergate - Fall leased two naval oil reserves, Wyoming’s Teapot Dome and California’s Elk Hills, to Harry F. Sinclair and Edward L. Doheny and received payments of $404,000 from the two millionaire oilmen. Historian David Stratton pulls no punches as he sheds new light on western and national politics, conservation, and economic development in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Tempest over Teapot Dome describes Fall’s role in Harding’s administration, his tribulations in court before going to prison in 1931, his freewheeling career in New Mexico politics, his lawyering for underdog ranchers in a bloody range war, his gut-fighting style as a U. S. senator who opposed Woodrow Wilson’s foreign policy, and his strident activities as an expert on Latin American affairs, particularly U. S.–Mexican relations.

Fall’s belief in the unrestricted and immediate disposition of public lands was as typically western as his black, broad-brimmed Stetson hat and his love of fine horses.

Genres: History

394 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1998

Reviews

[Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ironically the Warren Harding administration did boast of some accomplishments, but it is primarily
remembered for the scandals attached to his presidency, chiefly the Teapot Dome scandal. At the
center of it was Albert B. Fall, one of the first two Senators from New Mexico and Harding's Secretary
of the Interior.

Fall was born in Kentucky and as a young man took Horace Greeley's advice about going west and
went first to Texas and later New Mexico. He was one of those frontier characters who tried a hand
at a lot of things, mining, cattle raising, and knew how to turn a buck in everything. But in 1891 Fall
was admitted to the New Mexico bar and he discovered politics.

By that time Fall had built himself a nice ranch and in later years entertained many of his Senate
colleagues there in later years. He also made a friend in oil wildcatter Edward L. Doheny also
prominent in the Teapot Dome scandal. Another friend I was surprised to learn was one William
F. Buckley another oil man who raised a large family of conservative bent.

Politics ain't bean bag as Tip O'Neill said, but a particularly rough brand was practiced in the New
Mexico Territory. Fall was a criminal attorney and a good one. He consorted with a lot of the
folks he defriended. His most famous case was defending the killers of Pat Garrett who as we all
know killed Billy The Kid back in the day. He was gunned down and Fall got his killers off.

Fall had a deep interest in Mexico, sparked by oil friends like Doheny who were looking to make
money. So after he was elected in 1912 as one of the first two Senators from New Mexico he was
outraged when Pancho Villa crossed the border and shot up Columbus, New Mexico. To be fair he
was the Senator from New Mexico and Villa was shooting at constituents. He wanted nothing less
than all out war, he found the intervention by Woodrow Wilson which John Pershing led a quarter
hearted effort.

Fall was originally a Democrat and in fact got some territorial posts from Grover Cleveland when the Democrats had the White House. Fall raised a volunteer regiment for the Spanish-American
War which never got to Cuba, but did earn him the friendship of Theodore Roosevelt. Remember
TR spent his time in the west in the 1880s and to him Fall was a great western character, a real
man's man. An opinion he had until the day he died in 1919.

Fall fell right in with old guard Republicans in the Senate who did not like Woodrow Wilson and he
was an opponent of that pie in the sky notion about a League of Nations. He was a good friend of
the Senator from Ohio Warren G. Harding.

Fall had a happy domestic life married to Emma Garland Morgan and he had a son and daughter.
Both children married and both were taken in the influenza epidemic of 1919. A great personal
tragedy. He and Mrs. Fall had a few grandchildren.

So Fall went to the Harding Cabinet and when Doheny and Harry Sinclair wanted a crack at some
oil fields in Wyoming and California that the Navy held title to Fall was eager to make a killing. He
had a laissez faire capitalist attitude and saw nothing wrong in this. He got the Navy to turn the
lands over to the Interior Department and he made out quite handsomely. Once done he resigned
as Secretary of the Interior and returned to New Mexico and what he thought was a comfortable
retirement.

After Harding died in 1923 the scandal broke. Fall became the first cabinet member to go to jail
and the only one until Watergate. He died in 1943 a rather forgotten figure.

Forgotten, but colorful and David Stratton's book will bring out the color.

[Wayne Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author, in his preface, states that an historian advised him that Albert Fall was "a crook and a scoundrel" and that the author should take care not to "whitewash" him. Then the author writes 350 pages doing exactly that, concluding with a Newsweek quote he asserts is impartial: "The ugly chapter in Fall's life could not have been foreseen by the public. His reputation for honesty, integrity and fearlessness had been impeccable." On the contrary, anyone who has read about Fall's early days can only come to the conclusion that his later life's amoral character was just a continuation of who he was. Better reads are "Tularosa" by C. L. Sonnichsen and "The Life and Death of Colonel Albert Jennings Fountain" by A. M. Gibson