Teapot Dome Quotes

A Vote for Davis & Bryan is a Vote Against Special Privilege. Remember Tea-Pot Dome.

The policy which has been adopted by the Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of the Interior in dealing with these matters was submitted to me prior to the adoption thereof, and the policy decided upon and the subsequent acts have at all times had my entire approval.

I knew I could get a better price without calling for bids

The press deserved the attacks and criticisms of Will Irwin (1910) and Upton Sinclair (1920) and the muckrakers who followed, and it needs today the watchdog and gadfly activities of the new critical weeklies, but all in all it is now a better medium of mass information.... The 1972 Watergate disclosures, it is true, were made by only a score of the members of the mass media, but I remember Teapot Dome when only one of our 1,750 dailies (the Albuquerque Morning Journal) dared to tell the truth about White House corruption. We have come a long way since.

Mr. Doheny, Mr. Sinclair, and Mr. Fall will have the best attorneys their millions can employ. The United States Government needs the biggest and best prosecutors that can be had to meet those attorneys in the courtroom and carry the criminal prosecution to conviction

It is not for the President to determine criminal guilt or render judgment in civil causes. That is the function of the courts. It is not for him to prejudge. I shall do neither; but when facts are revealed to me that require action for the purpose of insuring the enforcement of either civil or criminal liability, such action will be taken. That is the province of the Executive … I feel the public is entitled to know that in the conduct of such action no one is shielded for any party, political or other reason.

Teapot Dome involved the conservation of the oil resources of the United States, especially those situated upon the public lands.

They can't hurt you now.

The investigation has shown, let us hope, privilege at its worst. The trail is one of dishonesty, greed, violation of law, secrecy, concealment, evasion, falsehood, and cunning. It is a trail of betrayals by trusted and presumably honorable men--betrayals of a government, of certain business interests and the people who trusted and honored them; it is a trail showing a flagrant degree of the exercise of political power and influence, and the power and influence of great wealth upon individuals and political parties; it is the trail of despoilers and schemers, far more dangerous to the well-being of our Nation and our democracy than all those who have been deported

Can the public business be thus transacted and in secret?

it does not make any difference whether it were the Republican or Democratic Party. It is the business of the party in power to face the American Nation, stand responsible for the conduct of its administration, and to give the people of this Nation a prosecution in this case that will restore the confidence of the people not in the party in power merely, or any party, but in their Government, in the integrity of their public officials.

I wouldn't depend on the Justice Department for investigative purposes, nor would I approach the Attorney General's office for information if I were you …. It is my conviction that the man would go to any lengths to protect himself and his friends—and make no mistake about it, the people we are after are friends of the Attorney General. Harry Daugherty has had a hand in every dirty piece of business which has come out of the Harding administration. There is every reason to believe that, at the very least, Daugherty is one of the men who knows the whole sordid story of the oil leases—and there is enough evidence to warrant the suspicion that he himself might have profited from them