The Teapot Dome scandal was a bribery incident that took place in the United States from 1922–1923, during the administration of President Warren G. Harding. Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall leased Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome and two other locations to private oil companies at low rates without competitive bidding. In 1922 and 1923, the leases became the subject of a sensational investigation by Senator Thomas J. Walsh. Fall was later convicted of accepting bribes from the oil companies.
Before the Watergate scandal, Teapot Dome was regarded as the "greatest and most sensational scandal in the history of American politics". The scandal also was a key factor in posthumously further destroying the public reputation of the Harding administration, which was already unpopular due to its poor handling of the Great Railroad Strike of 1922 and the President's veto of the Bonus Bill in 1922.
Read more about Teapot Dome Scandal: Background, Single-bid Contracts Followed By Kickbacks, The Scandal Breaks, Investigation and Outcome
Famous quotes containing the words teapot, dome and/or scandal:
“Miss Ghote ... hadn’t the slightest intention of sitting passively by and allowing her neighbor the luxury of placing the teapot of her Episcopalian proclivities on her Baptist trivet.”
—Alexander Theroux (b. 1940)
“But in the dome of mighty Mars the red,”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“Gossip isn’t scandal and it’s not merely malicious. It’s chatter about the human race by lovers of the same. Gossip is the tool of the poet, the shop-talk of the scientist, and the consolation of the housewife, wit, tycoon and intellectual. It begins in the nursery and ends when speech is past.”
—Phyllis McGinley (1905–1978)