TEMPEST IN A TEA POT

It was a “Tempest” worthy of William Shakespeare only because Albert Bacon Fall (above) was a scoundrel of operatic proportions, a self made legal sorcerer and a bombastic, selfish, and vulgar cowboy Caliban.  His villainous reputation was established by a mysterious double murder in the New Mexico desert. But the climax was staged adjacent to an odd looking 75 foot tall sandstone butte (below). Some thought the butte resembled a tea pot, which gave its name to the scandal that finally brought our reprobate down. But the true scandal was Albert Fall's entire greedy life.

“You taught me language; and my profit on't Is, I know how to curse.”

Caliban - Shakespeare's “The Tempest” Act I, Scene 2

Near the low crest of Chalk Hill (above) the search party found a patch of blood soaked sand and some papers belonging to 57 year old Republican lawyer Albert. J. Fountain.  A hundred yards further on, Mescalero Apache scouts found where a man had knelt in ambush, the casings ejected from his rifle still in the dust. 

The buggy tracks led eastward 12 miles into the Jarillas Mountains (above, bg), where the search party found Fountain's carriage “plundered and abandoned.”  Still in the buggy was a note reading, “If you drop this we will be your friends. If you go on with it you will never reach home alive.” And stuffed under the seat was a kerchief wrapped around some change, belonging to 8 year old Henry Fountain. Neither the father's nor the son's body was ever found.

“The clouds methought would open and show riches, Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked, I cried to dream again.”

Caloban - Shakespeare's The Tempest, Act III, Scene 2

When he was a Democrat and accused of masterminding the 1896 double homicide of Albert Fountain and his 8 year old son Henry, Albert Fall said it was just Republicans trying to “crucify innocent Democrats”.  Except Fountain had just obtained criminal indictments against Albert Fall and 23 of his clients and friends.  With Fountain's murder, those cases now collapsed. 

In a courthouse jammed with the alleged killer's allies (above), threatened and intimidated witnesses simply failed to show up. There was no chance of a conviction, but Albert Fall still managed to be arrogant and offensive in his one sided victory. The Democrats were both (above, foreground) found not guilty. And then, two years later, Albert Fall switched parties and became a Republican. And all his friends found it profitable to go with him.

“I'll show thee every fertile inch o' th' island; And I will kiss thy foot: I prithee, be my god.”

Caloban - Shakespeare's “The Tempest” Act II, Scene 2

After having fought statehood for years as a Democrat, in 1912  when statehood came, newly minted Republican Albert Fall became one of New Mexico's first elected U.S. Senators.  In Washington, D.C., Albert became famous for two things - his alcohol fueled poker parties with Ohio Senator Warren G. Harding, and his unrelenting animosity toward Democratic President Woodrow Wilson. 

When the racist Wilson suffered a stroke in 1919, Albert alleged he had been rendered mentally incompetent, and demanded to test the Democratic President's mental acuity.  At the  October examination, Senator Fall hypocritically assured the bedridden Wilson, “I have been praying for you, Sir.” Looking up at his torturer, Wilson inquired, “Which way, Senator?” Albert joined in the laughter, but in November of 1920 it was Senator Fall's drinking buddy, Republican Warren G. Harding who was elected President over Wilson.

“Ban, 'Ban, Cacaliban, Has a new master: get a new man. Freedom, hey-day! hey-day, freedom!”

Caloban - Shakespeare's “The Tempest” Act II, Scene 2

Harding wanted Albert Fall to be his Secretary of State, but party leaders insisted on someone more trustworthy. Said Harding, “If Albert Fall isn't an honest man, I'm not fit to be President of the United States.” When the party leaders refused to back down Harding named Albert his Secretary of the Department of the Interior, a branch of government Albert had been denouncing for decades. Almost the first thing after taking the oath in the spring of 1921 (above), Secretary Fall cajoled Harding into giving him control over the U.S. Naval Oil Reserves in California and Wyoming. 

Fall (above, left)  then quickly granted a no-bid lease for the two reserves in California to oilman Edward Doheny (above, right). 

In December,  Albert (above, left) did the same for oilman Harry Ford Sinclair (above, left), granting him sole access to the Tea Pot Dome field (below), also known as Naval Reserve Number Three.

“Do that good mischief which may make this island Thine own for ever, and I, thy Caliban, For aye thy foot-licker.”

Caloban - Shakespeare's “The Tempest” Act IV, Scene 1

In the spring of 1922, the railroad town of Casper, Wyoming, 35 miles south of the dome, was abuzz with rumors of equipment bearing the name Mammoth Oil Company which had suddenly invaded the naval reserve. Competitors like New Yorker James Darden quickly pierced that deception, and certain the lease granted to Sinclair was not legal, Colonel Darden decided to become Sinclair's unofficial partner by drilling his own well sideways, into the same dome. As Fall himself explained, “Sir, if you have a milkshake and I have a milkshake and my straw reaches across the room, I’ll end up drinking your milkshake."

“I will have none on't: we shall lose our time, And all be turn'd to barnacles, or to apes With foreheads villanous low.”

Caloban - Shakespeare's “The Tempest” Act IV Scene 1

The problem for Secretary Fall was the “low down son-of-a-bitch” Darden “was an old friend of President Harding. So on a Saturday afternoon, while the Secretary of the Navy was out of the office, Fall told the the Acting Secretary that Harding wanted “squatters” thrown off the dome. Fall added there was ample legal precedent for using U.S. Marines for this duty. There was none, but Fall never showed reluctance in lying to make a profit. 

Within the week Captain George K. Shuler and four enlisted marines were slapping “No Trespassing” signs and padlocks on Colonel Darden's well. And because this was done in front of reporters, Albert Fall had finally taken one step too far.

"I shall laugh myself to death at this puppy-headed monster. A most scurvy monster! I could find in my heart to beat him."

Caloban - Shakespeare's “The Tempest” Act II Scene 2

Long annoyed by Fall's arrogance, the Senate majority Republicans allowed a Democrat from Montana, Senator Thomas Walsh  to investigate the oil leases. 

And when Walsh's investigating committee (above) issued it's first subpoena for documents, Fall responded by burying Walsh in a literal truck load of paper. 

It slowed Walsh, but Darden's complaints finally caused President Harding (above) to separate himself from his old drinking buddy. In March of 1923, Albert Fall was forced to resign from the cabinet, first going to work for Harry Sinclair and then returning to his own 750,000 acre New Mexico ranch, which he called "Three Rivers".  

And then, in August of 1923, President Harding dropped dead of a heart attack. The new President, an honest prig named Calvin Coolidge (above), looking over the looming disaster, decided to make Albert  the fall guy, sacrificing him to the growing public outcry over the massive fraud that had been the Harding/Coolidge administration.

“How does thy honor? Let me lick thy shoe.”

Caloban - Shakespeare's “The Tempest” Act III Scene 2

The truck load of documents supplied to Senator Walsh provided enough heat to keep the scandal simmering for two years. Called before the committee three times Albert swore under oath - once in writing - that he had done nothing illegal.  But late in 1925 questions began to be asked about how Fall had paid for the many improvements to Fall's Three Rivers ranch.  

When put under oath Albert's own son-in-law, M.T. Everhard, was forced to admit he had accepted $198,000 in federal bonds from Harry Sinclair's own hand,  and delivered them to Secretary Fall's own hand. There was also a no interest “loan” of $36,000 from Sinclair, and one of $100,000 in cash from Edward Doheny, the little black bag delivered to "Three Rivers Ranch"  by Edward Doheny's son Ned, and his "friend and body guard" Hugh Plunket.  

In 1927 the Supreme Court ruled the leases on all naval oil reserves were invalid, and control and profits went back to the U.S. Navy.

“First to possess his books; for without them He's but a sot, as I am, nor hath not One spirit to command: they all do hate him, As rootedly as I — burn but his books.”

Caloban - Shakespeare's “The Tempest” Act III, Scene 2

When the federal case went to trial in Los Angeles in 1930. humorist Will Rodgers cracked that Doney's defense team took up three full Pullman railroad cars. The first car was “Just for the little lawyers...to carry the brief cases.” In the third car, said Rodgers, were “the big ones that were in real touch with Mr. Doheny.”  Harry Sinclair's defense team in his Cheyenne, Wyoming trial, took up at least four Pullman cars, according to Rodgers.

Thou liest, thou jesting monkey, thou: I would my valiant monster would destroy thee: I do not lie.

Caloban - Shakespeare's “The Tempest” Act III Scene 2

Edward Doheny paid a high price for his involvement with Albert Fall. In 1929, under pressure by prosecutors for one of them to flip, Ned Doheny and Hugh Plunket died in what appeared to be a murder/suicide. Still, the next year, Edward was found not guilty of bribery. The jury even broke into song after rendering their decision. One disgusted U.S. Senator was prompted to observe, “It is impossible to convict a million dollars in the United States“   But the old oil man did not have the heart to celebrate. 

Edward Doheny (above) served just 3 months for contempt of Congress, but he never recovered from the death of his only son. He died in September of 1935, still one of the richest men in Southern California. The mansion built for the young Doheny and where the murder/suicide occurred, still stands empty in Beverly Hills, as a state park and is often used as a location for movies. 

“I'll not serve him, he is not valiant.”

Caloban - Shakespeare's “The Tempest” Act III Scene 2

In Wyoming, Harry Sinclair (above) received a mistrial after it was discovered his private detectives had been shadowing members of the jury. He was never retried for the bribery, but he was sentenced to six months for contempt of court, which he served in the District of Columbia city jail. He also died one of the richest men in Southern California, in January of 1949

“What a thrice-double ass Was I, to take this drunkard for a god And worship this dull fool!”

Caloban - Shakespeare's “The Tempest” Act V Scene 1

Albert Bacon Fall was the only member of an administration awash in bribes, arrogant enough and clumsy enough to be convicted of accepting a bribe. He remains the only cabinet member in American History (so far) to be sentenced to prison for crimes committed while in office. He served nine months. When he was released in May of 1932 (above), Doheny repossessed Fall's beloved Three Rivers ranch for not repaying the bribe, for which Doheny had been found “not guilty” of paying him.

Fall died a bitter old man,  at the end of November, 1944 in his El Paso Texas mansion, still arguing to the last that his conviction was just political payback. 

I doubt that Albert and the young Henry(above) Fountain, still lying somewhere out there in the New Mexico desert, would agree.

“Flout 'em and scout 'em, And scout 'em and flout 'em, Thought is free.”

Caloban - Shakespeare's “The Tempest” Act V Scene 1

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GEORGIA PEACHES Chapter Eight

 

I think Patrick Henry's death may have been a release. At the urging of George Washington, in the spring of 1799, Patrick stood for one last election - for the Virginia House of Delegates. He ran as a Federalist, which may seem an odd for a man who had  opposed the new Federal Constitution, and Hamilton's Bank of the United States.  Patrick won his last election, but never occupied his seat. He died of stomach cancer on 6 June, 1799. His second wife, Dorothea, quickly married Patrick's friend, Judge Edmund Wilson, thus protecting the family investments from predators who might have cheated a naive widow, probably a predator like  Senator James Gunn..

Once the details of the Yazoo Land sale became public, Senator Gunn was almost universally despised. But six years later he was still a United States Senator. Toward the end of his term he announced he was “disgusted with everything connected with public life” - it was certainly disgusted with him.  In March of 1801 he returned to the old state capital of Louisville, Georgia and at the end of July 1801, in a room full of people, James Gunn died so quietly no one noticed he was dead for several minutes. That would have galled him. One obituary called him “General Yazoo”, a reminder of those runaway slaves he had murdered so many years before, and the millions he had tried to steal from the  tax payers.  A kinder obituary hoped he was “beyond the reach of friendship, or of hatred.”  Not me.

James Jackson was twice elected Governor of Georgia. In his first two year term he personally wrote sections 23 and 24 of the new Georgia constitution, which insured that " “no...order shall pass the General Assembly, granting a donation or gratuity in favor of any person whatever...” except by a two-thirds vote.  During his second term he finally disposed of the temptation of the Yazoo Lands by selling them to the Federal Government for $1,250,000. Georgia was no longer broke.

And when the “Prince of Duels” died on 19 March, 1806, no one was more surprised and disappointed than James Jackson, that he met his demise quietly in his own bed.

And so most of the speculators who tried to profit from the selling the Yazoo swamp  -  Patrick Henry, David Ross, Robert Morris, John Nicholson, James Wilson and James Gunn - most lost everything. Taking a profit would be up to the next generation of “land jobbers”, starting with John Peck, and his partner in “ legal crime”, Robert Fletcher.

The story goes - and it was a fictional story - that on 14 May, 1803, 75 year old John Peck sold to 43 year old Robert Fletcher 15,000 acres of Yazoo land around the Tombigby River, in exchange for $3,000, or about 4 and 1/3 cents an acre.  Fletcher was concerned about receiving a clear title because of the "The Rescinding Act”,  so Peck had included the following addendum, insisting that,  “The title to the premises as conveyed by the state of Georgia (in 1795)...has been in no way constitutionally or legally impaired by virtue of any subsequent act of any subsequent legislature of the...state of Georgia.”

The addendum was important because of the 1603 English case of Chandler v Lopus, which you remember (I'm sure)  established the legal doctrine of Caveat Emptor.  Peck had now provided the guarantee in writing that the 1796 Rescinding Act did not apply, even though Georgia had just sold the Yazoo Swamp-Land to the Federal Government. And in doing so, he had provided legal grounds for Fletcher to sue Peck to get his money back. But then that was not really the point of the entire transaction.

Because Fletcher was a resident of New Hampshire and Peck resided in Massachusetts, the case moved directly into the federal court system – what a lucky break that was. There  it was heard at the circuit court level by the cranky, craggy 74 year old New Englander, William Cushin , who was also a Supreme – another lucky break. Cushin  decided the case for Peck, which allowed Fletcher to appeal to the Supreme Court.

And it is now that the final character in our farce, John Marshal, steps upon the stage. He was a cousin to Thomas Jefferson, and a close friend to George Washington. When the case of Fletcher v Peck reached the high court in March of 1806, Chief Justice Marshall decided that the arguments made by Peck's team of lawyers had been “incorrect”, and so the case was “continued by consent”,  meaning held over for the next term, to be re-argued in October of 1807.  And even then, Marshall did not issue the final ruling until 16 March, 1810, 3 years later, probably because it took him that long to build a unanimous decision. The decision had to be unanimous because for the first time ever, the Supreme Court was declaring that a state law - the Rescinding Act -  violated an article of the Federal Constitution – in this case, section 10 of Article One.

As usual, Marshall wrote the court's opinion. He acknowledged that the members of the 1795 Georgia legislature were guilty of reprehensible actions. However, he reasoned, “The grant, when issued, conveyed an estate...(and) This estate was transferable; and those who purchased parts of it were not stained by that guilt which infected the original transaction.” Thus was born the legal fiction of the “innocent third party” in the Yazoo land fraud, meaning the speculators who had bought the land from the men who had bribed the legislature were to be considered innocent  As if they had not often been the same men working under the mask of a corporation.

Marshall argued that if a concealed defect in a contract could be held against the victim of that concealment, then “All titles would be insecure”. That might be true in the abstract, but referring to the members of the New England Mississippi Company as “innocent” was almost as much a legal fiction as insisting that written guarantees protected buyers in an age when only 3% of the population could read.

Oddly, the only member of the court to disagree with Marshall in writing was Jefferson's only appointee on the court,  William Johnson, from South Carolina. And his only objection was that he thought the Indians had a better claim to the land than did the state of Georgia. Still, Johnson managed, at the end of his argument, to state the obvious. “I have been very unwilling to proceed to the decision of this cause at all,” he wrote, because, “It appears to me to bear strong evidence... of being a mere feigned case.” But having stated that, Johnson then folded his tent and concurred with Marshall's decision. And so the court had decided in favor of the New England Mississippi Company and all the other speculators in the Yazoo land sales.

The cost of that decision became clear in 1814, when the Federal government reached a settlement with all the “innocent third parties” in the Yazoo land fraud. Having already paid Georgia $4 million in 1802  for the land -  the modern equivalent of $63 million -  they now paid the speculators in the various Yazoo companies another $5 million for the same land - the modern equivalent of $50 million.

It made Patrick Henry's scheme to cheat the tax payers of Georgia seem small potatoes. And this would be far from the last time the lawyers wrote and interpreted laws to assist thieves in robbing the public. Such behavior is a stab to the heart of the public's faith in their government. And it all began at the very birth of our Republic.

It was the next generation of Americans who would risk their fortunes to build dams and levees, to drain the Yazoo swamp and keep the river to a path, and who would finally lay bare some of the richest agricultural soil in the world, upon which they would plant and grow cotton. There were profits aplenty for all...except, of course, for the natives who had originally owned the land and the slaves who picked the cotton. It is a sad truth about speculators that like villains in a horror story they generate life for no one but themselves, and misery and debt for everyone and everything else they touch.  And capitalism empowers them.

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