Thomas
Walsh was born at Two Rivers, Wisconsin, on 12th June, 1859. He graduated
from the law department of the University of Wisconsin in 1884 and
that year became a lawyer in Redfield, Dakota Territory. Later he
moved to Helena, Montana.
A
member of the Democratic Party he
was elected to the Senate in 1912. Walsh was a strong supporter of
woman's suffrage and an opponent of child
labour. He headed the Senate Investigating Committee (1922-23)
and played an important role in exposing the Teapot
Dome Scandal.
Walsh
was also chairman of the Committee of Mines and the Committee of Pensions.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed
Walsh as his Attorney General. Unfortunately he died on 2nd March,
1933, before he could take office.
(1)
Thomas J. Walsh, The True History of Teapot Dome, Forum Magazine
(July, 1924)
In the spring of 1922 rumors reached parties interested that a lease
had been or was about to be made of Naval Reserve No. 3 in the state
of Wyoming, - popularly known, from its local designation, as the
Teapot Dome. This was one of three great areas known to contain petroleum
in great quantity which had been set aside for the use of the Navy
- Naval Reserves No. 1 and No. 2 in California by President Taft in
1912, and No. 3 by President Wilson in 1915. The initial steps toward
the creation of these reserves - the land being public, that is, owned
by the government - were
taken by President Roosevelt, who caused to be instituted a study
to ascertain the existence
and location of eligible areas, as a result of which President Taft
in 1909 withdrew the tracts in question from disposition under the
public land laws. These areas were thus set apart with a view to keeping
in the ground a great reserve of oil available at some time in the
future, more or less remote, when an adequate supply for the Navy
could not, by reason of the failure or depletion of the world store,
or the exigencies possibly of war, be procured or could be procured
only at excessive cost; in other words to ensure the Navy in any exigency
the fuel necessary to its efficient operation.
From the time of the original
withdrawal order, private interests had persistently endeavored to
assert or secure some right to exploit these rich reserves, the effort
giving rise to a struggle lasting throughout the Wilson administration.
Some feeble attempt was made by parties having no claim to any of
the territory to secure a lease of all or a portion of the reserves,
but in the main the controversy was waged by claimants asserting rights
either legal or equitable in portions of the reserves antedating the
withdrawal orders, on the one hand, and the Navy Department on the
other. In that struggle Secretary Lane was accused of being unduly
friendly to the private claimants, Secretary Daniels being too rigidly
insistent on keeping the areas intact. President Wilson apparently
supported Daniels in the main in the controversy which became acute
and Lane retired from the cabinet, it is said, in consequence of the
differences which had thus arisen.
The reserves were created,
in the first place, in pursuance of the policy of conservation, the
advocates of which, a militant body, active in the Ballinger affair,
generally supported the attitude of Secretary Daniels and President
Wilson.
They too became keen on
the report of the impending lease of Teapot Dome. Failing to get any
definite or reliable information at the departments, upon diligent
inquiry, Senator Kendrick of Wyoming introduced and had passed by
the Senate on April 16, 1922, a resolution calling on the secretary
of the interior for information as to the existence of the lease which
was the subject of the rumors, in response to which a letter was transmitted
by the acting secretary of the interior on April 21, disclosing that
a lease of the entire Reserve No. 3 was made
two weeks before to the Mammoth Oil Company organized by Harry Sinclair,
a spectacular oil operator. This was followed by the adoption by the
Senate on April 29, 1922, of a resolution introduced by Senator LaFollette
directing the Committee on Public Lands and Surveys to in- vestigate
the entire subject of leases of the naval oil reserves and calling
on the secre- tary of the interior for all documents and full information
in relation to the same.
In the month of June following,
a cartload of documents said to have been furnished in compliance
with the resolution was dumped in the committee rooms, and a letter
from Secretary Fall to the President in justification of the lease
of the Teapot Dome and of leases of limited areas on the other reserves
was by him sent to the Senate. I was importuned by Senators LaFollette
and Kendrick to assume charge of the investigation, the chairman of
the committee and other majority members being believed to be unsympathetic,
and assented the more readily because the Federal Trade
Commission had just reported that, owing to conditions prevailing
in the oil fields of Wyoming and Montana, the people of my state were
paying prices for gasoline in excess of those prevailing anywhere
else in the Union.
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