The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1924-04-01
TIE JENNINGS STORY ABOUT
IIAMON

al Jennings, reformed train rob
Der OF Oklahoma, has told his
story TO the Senate committee
which is investigating the Fall
Doheny Sinclair oil reserve affair.
According to AL, it cost Jake Ha-
mon, now dead. $l,00O,000 when
Warren G. Harding. now dead, was
nominated for the presidency in
Chicago, and OF this sum, we are
informed, Senator Penose OF
Pennsylvania, now dead, received
$3.50 900, Harry Daugherty received
$25, 900 and VIII Ii. Hays, a like
amount.
In return for his million dollars.
says AL, Hamon was not only to be
Secretary Of the Interior. but he
was to he rewarded with gencr-
Gus piece Of pie in the form OF
usufruct of public lands. Hamon,
he says, told him all this in Chi
cago at the time OF the national
Republican convention in 1920.
From buying his way to portfolio
in the Cabinet, UamOn, according
to the story, was going to buy his
way later into the presidency and
become the biggest man in the
United States"
Nobody, so far as we know,
thinks Of Jake HamOn as approx
mating anywhere near the ideal
citizen, but it Is hard to believe
that Hamon was the blooming idiot
Jennings makes him out. If the
Jennings story is mistaken inter
probation Of things Hamon may
have said to Jennings. why that's
that; and if it he literally true as
recited on the witness stand. there
is no other conclusion than that
Hamon was so afflicted with the
ego that he was not
for what he said.
Hamon was quoted as saying it
cost him like hell to get the New
York delegation" and quite a bit
Of money to carry oklahoma for
This is the first state
ment or even intimation that the
New York delegation of SO men,
bers was purchasable commodity.
1t will probably be surprise to
such men as Nathan l.. Miller.
James w. Wadsworth, Jr., William
William Boyce Thompson.
Chauncey NJ. Depew, Henry w.
Taft, Henry l.. Stimson, Herbert
Parsons, Charles S. Whitman, Og-
den l.. Mills, Nicholas Murray But
Ter, Charles D. Hills. Jules S.
Bache, Isaac Siegel. Edward NJ.
Morgan and William l.. Ward, all
Of whom were members Of the New
York delegation. In this list are
two former governors OF New York,
two United States senator's. one
president. one former
member of the Cabinet, one near
relative of former President, one
wealthy newspaper editor, one for
mer postmaster of New York city
and several men of STABLE fortunes
who needed none OF Jake lannon's
money to keep the wolf from the
door.
How or when Senator penrose
got the $4,000 does not appear
from the testimony. Having pass
ed on, he can't explain. He didn't
go to the Chicago convention, be-
ing confined to his Pennsylvania
home by serious illness.
If Jake Hamon was such a blab.
Der as Jennings story suggests, it
is quite remarkable that somebody
did not blow the lid off in the cam
paign Of 1920 and start things 60
ing then instead of waiting for
nearly four years. Hamon was a
man of moral obliquity, but he was
so covert about his private life that
comparatively few people of Okla
homa knew about this phase of his
life.
Hamon money may have helped
carry Oklahoma for Harding, but
Hamon showed no interest in the
or state election, and
still the state chose a Republican
for the senatorship and elected
House of Representatives in the
state, a majority of which was Re-
publican.
A man as successful in business
as Hamon usually knows what to
do with his tongue. If in politics
he was cursed with egomania.
much is explained by that simple
fact.-Minneapolis Tribune.