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New Testimony. Counsel for Sinclair, led by Daniel Thew Wright, last week journeyed to El Paso, Tex., to take the aged Fall's testimony for the new trial. Atlee Pomerene, onetime (1911-23) U. S. Senator from Ohio and since 1924 one of the government's special prosecutors, was there, too, to cross-examine the witness. One of the first things Mr. Fall told was that the late J. W. Zevely, Sinclair's personal attorney and the man for whom he named his famed racehorse "Zev", conducted all the early negotiations for the Teapot lease. Then Sinclair went with Zevely to Fall's office (according to Fall) and protested he would lose money the way the lease was drawn. In the end he signed it "reluctantly."
Mr. Fall also talked about his famed lie of 1923—his letter to the Senate saying that Publisher McLean and not Oilman Doheny had "loaned" him $100,000. He named Senator Reed Smoot, onetime Senator Irvine L. Lenroot and a Harding Cabinet Member as the persons who had advised him to write the lying letter. Senators Smoot and Lenroot were quick to deny having anything to do with the letter.
With the new Sinclair trial impending, the Oil Scandal progressed on other fronts.
¶ Inquisitor Walsh propounded a question of legal ethics, suggesting that plump, dapper, white-haired Lawyer Martin W. Littleton might well resign as Sinclair's lawyer. At Sinclair's last trial, Lawyer Littleton said that Sinclair was in no wise connected with the Continental Trading Co., a mysterious, short-lived oil-trading company out of whose profits, transformed into Liberty Bonds, the G. O. P. is now known to have received $160,000 from Sinclair for its Harding campaign deficit. Unless Lawyer Littleton lied to the jury, which Inquisitor Walsh felt was unthinkable, Sinclair must have lied to his lawyer.
"Meddlesome Matties! Scandal mongers!" replied Lawyer Littleton.
¶ Inquisitor Nye announced that his secretary, who was secretary to the late Senator Edwin F. Ladd of North Dakota, Senator Nye's predecessor as chairman of the investigating committee, had told him how, when the Oil Scandal had just broken four years ago, Will H. Hays asked Senator Ladd to meet him at the White House and then, during a taxi ride, tried to persuade him to "call off" the inquiry. Senator Ladd refused.
¶ Presumably acting on orders from President Coolidge, the Department of Justice began an investigation of Sinclair's lease in the Salt Creek oilfields, adjacent to Teapot Dome. This lease, awarded on a royalty basis to Sinclair by Fall in 1922, was renewed last February by Secretary of the Interior Hubert Work, who explained to the Senate Public Lands Committee that it was "a good one for the Government."