The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-02-25
|G. OPS RECOVER FROM KNOCKOUT
 BY OIL SCANDAL
|Daugherty's Nerve Brings Them Out Of State Of
 Paralysis
Rv RAYMOND CHAPTER

WASHINGTON, Feb. 24.-Republi- cans are beginning to recover from the speeches. amazement they experienced when the Teapot Dome scandal broke upon their heads, and having found their tongues, they are setting up a counter-offensive, intended to place the blame for the oil leasing policy upon the Wilson administration.
 The first development in this move ment takes the form of a carefully pre- pared statement, issued by the republi- can national committee, which declares that any iniquities involved in the leasing policy must be laid to Senator Walsh, chief mover in the present in- vestigation, and to Josephus Daniels, secretary of the navy under the Wilson administration, and John Barton Payne, secretary of interior during the last year of the same period.
 "The record upon these points is clear, unmistakeable and irrefutable," 1" the republican national committee says, explaining that Daniels wrote, practically word for word, the section of the leasing act of February, 1920, under which Denby acted in signing the Sinclair and Doheny leases, that Walsh fathered the measure in the Senate, and that upon its enactment, Daniels and Payne proceeded to lease oil lands both within and without the naval reserves on a royalty basis.
 Says Leases Were Being Drained
 Supporting the last statement, the committee asserts that within two weeks after the leasing act became a law, Daniels wrote to the chairman of the House naval affairs committee that private oil interests were draining mil lions of dollars worth of oil from gov ernment lands by adjacent drilling and that it was imperative that the navy be permitted to develop its reserves to conserve its supply or oil. To do this, Daniels suggested an amendment, which was adopted, giving his permission to develop, use and operate" the oil re- serves, directly or by contract, lease or otherwise"
 While Daniels was thus trying to check drainage of naval oil lands, Payne, then secretary of the interior, approved 150 leases covering 114,000 acres of oil land adjacent to Teapot Dome naval reserve during the year he was in office, the republican national committee asserts.
 This is the foundation upon which the republican party will attempt to meet the difficulties presented by the Teapot Dome affair. It is the first real attempt to face the fire of the democrats and to stop the incipient panic which had been developed on the republican side eliminating in the nasty trip of Senators Henry Cabot Lodge and George Wharton Pepper to the White House to demand Daugherty's resignation of the President.
 Daugherty Gives Them Nerve
 Strangely, it is Daugherty, the man whom many republicans regard as a millstone around the neck of the party, who is responsible for this belated at tempt to fight back. For weeks the republicans sat in dumb construction as one charge after another was hurled in their laps by the aggressive demo- crats. They seemed utterly unable to pull themselves together for a counter attack.
 Seemingly helpless, they saw the Sen ate direct the President to cancel oil leases. Then they saw the Senate adopt the resolution demanding Denby's ACSASudbAOhs SUOlluSc Ludue d SllhTD Fe- tort to this, but it's force was killed by Denby's prompt retirement a few days later.
 Then the attack swung on Daugherty. But at this point, while all of those around him seemed paralyzed, Daugh- erty took down his blunderbuss and began a single-handed fight. His cour- age, which was remarked even among the democrats, brought the republicans back to life. Chairman Adams followed Daugherty's counter-attack with a vol ley from the republican national com mittee directed at the political black guards" who were attempting to exc cute the attorney general without trial.
 Then on Sunday night, the national committee definitely turned its attack upon the policy of the preceding ad- ministration, marking new phase in the affair. The strategists of the na- tional committee, headed by Chairman John T. Adams and Senator James P. Watson of Indiana, have repudiated the strategic retreat which Lodge and Pepper attempted to execute and are now forcing the party to operate on the old established military principle that the best defense is a strong de- fense.
 SLAYER ADOPTING
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