teapot dome scandal definition us history

teapot dome scandal definition us history

The Teapot Dome Scandal: A Defining Moment in US History

1. Introduction to the Teapot Dome Scandal

The investigation of the scandal was the largest of its kind in the country. It pitted young, often ambitious, lawyers inside the Bureau of the Department of Justice against established corporate lawyers acting on behalf of the Mammoth Oil Company, other large oil corporations, and the Sinclair Oil Corporation. The investigation also put on trial leading financial and government figures of the day, including Edward Doheny, J. P. Morgan, Robert Sterling Clark, Senator Thomas J. Walsh, Albert Fall, and Harry Sinclair. In that it was the first scandal to cause the criminal conviction of a serving cabinet official, the Teapot Dome scandal was unheard of in its day.

The Teapot Dome scandal was a defining moment in US history, when the culture of politics met the culture of business. The scandal had its roots deep within the political and social structure of the 1920s, which presaged the broader social repression of prohibition. The American public at the time reacted to the scandal with a mixture of dread and resignation. At the time, the public asked again and again, “Is there anything we can do?” The public continued to ask this question as a string of corporate scandals culminated in the passage of the Securities and Exchange Act in 1934.

2. Key Players and Events Leading to the Scandal

Defining key players and events that led to this national tragicomedy give us some perspective of how monumental the sabotage was. Among the key players: Harry F. Sinclair, an American industrialist; Edward L. Doheny, as in the empire; Earl Warren; Senator Thomas Walsh; Bryce B. King; Albert Fall; Senator Burton K. Wheeler; President Warren G. Harding, as the backdrop but leaves office later; Democratic nominee and presidential candidate James M. Cox; President Calvin Coolidge, a small figure in the scandal.

Considered the defining moment in post-WWI US history, the Teapot Dome scandal was a national iniquity. Even the scandals of President Richard Nixon are considered not as dismal. The Teapot Dome is synonymous with governmental corruption and the sinister influences of oil money on federal officials. During the early 1920s, more than a dozen people including Albert Fall were charged with crimes related to the corruption. Secretary of the Navy Edward L. Doheny and oil tycoon Harry F. Sinclair were found to have offered Fall money.

3. Impacts and Consequences of the Scandal

No new studies emerged in the fields of criminology or political science on how corruption cumulative lead to bureaucratic failure. The Nexus of Corruption and Fuels debate was not initiated with papers being written. Neither did a new class of entrepreneur or whistleblower result from the scandal. Instead, the effects can be summarized as having a crippling impact on a number of lives and careers: that of the principal actors involved; that of the public official featuring in the first recorded Presidential press conference; political impact on Hoover’s presidency, notably insofar as it derailed and took the legislative focus and energy away from the Administration’s legislative agenda.

Defining a scandal as one ‘which involves conduct that is reprehensible and wrongful, a breaking of the rules which the society has established as norms,’ would generally imply that scandals lead to an undermining of established patterns of trust and that legitimacy has been lost. In terms of the interests, it serves a section of society with its interests being publicized and impacted upon, albeit often in the negative. Which approach is taken is likely to depend on the consequences and impacts which have arisen from the event taking place in the first instance. The Teapot Dome scandal did not have an immediate impact on the policy process in the sense of new laws, ideas, or even greater transparency and openness in the way in which politicians conducted their work.

4. Legacy and Lessons Learned

The first lesson that can be extracted is this: “If your popularity so depends on the righteousness of cause and intent, there is a high price to be paid for deception.” In sum, the Teapot Dome raises broad and enduring questions about political power and its uses. By then, the political impotence of the administration was as remarkable as its power: the traditional laissez-faire approach in all economic matters, its vehement defense of the executive privilege and opposition to the exigencies of government scandals. Such was the terrible plight of the administration caught in its own cynical undertow. The broader lesson is that “deliverance of authority unto you carries difficult and inescapable perils of power in an era of expanding government and the expansion of politics.” Thus, the damage to the administration and the impact of the public reaction were profound and long-lived. The significance of the Teapot Dome, then, is as much in the national expectation at a crisis of public morality. Such crises, of course, come and go, but they occasionally leave the party system changed.

The significance of the Teapot Dome scandal was overwhelming at the time and contributed to a general consciousness that the Harding Administration was morally adrift. It was the first time in the nation’s history that a Senate was called into special session to investigate an administration, and the scandal was the first for which a special prosecutor was appointed. The not so coincidental facts argue that these were indeed extraordinary events. As such, the Teapot Dome marks the administration as finally forced into the political equivalent of the oncology wing and becomes thus the whore turning penitent, the suicide repentant, the sot reformed: the sort of event that causes all to take stock and ponder the price of original virtue. Call it the administration’s defining experience. It helped to mold not only its public image but also the direction of its policy.