The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1928-03-19
The People Learn

The oil investigation has been helpful to many
people who never really understood how political
parties got hold of campaign funds running into
the millions what contributors got for their
money.
Another thing they didn't understand was the
significance of handful of party leaders getting
together after midnight in hotel bedroom and pick
ing presidential nominee
Nor did they understand the favorite son game in
picking delegates to a national convention
Now they know more about the game we call
politics. While the surface has been merely
scratched enough has been revealed to show that the
bosses OF politics. finance, and industry who got to-
gether in that hotel room in 1920 were plavng big
game for big stakes.
There was much dickering back and forth Each
OF the bosses with SO many delegates in his inside
pocket knew what he wanted in return for delivering
his delegates One of them was Jake Hamon, big
oil man from Oklahoma.
He wanted the naval oil reserves To get them
he wanted to be Secretary of the Interior in Hardngs
cabinet, with the understanding that the oil re-
serves were to be taken away from the Navy De-
partment and turned over to the Department Of
the Interior
After the election, however, it became necessary
for Jake to become respectable enough to sit in dig
nified cabinet. One of the steps to make Jake re-
spectacle was for him to get rid of his Oklahoma
mistress When Jake tried it, the girl killed him.
So one of the first results of the midnight confer
ence and its outcome in the election was sensational
murder. Another was the suicide of Jesse Smith
IN Washington-but that is another story.
But other oil men stepped in when Jake Hamon
faded out Of the picture Senator Fall of New Mexico
became Secretary of the Interior. Then with DENLY
as Secretary of the Navy and Colonel Theodore
Roosevelt Assistant Secretary of the Navy the oil
reserves were duly transferred from the Navy to the
Interior Department-and by executive order.
The public is familiar with what happened quick
ly after that. The oil reserves-at least those at
Teapot Dome and Elk Hills-quickly passed from the
Interior Department to Sinclair and Doheny.
incidentally, considerable cash conveyed in little
black satchel and thousands of dollars worth of
Liberty bonds passed from Doheny and Sinclair into
the hands of the Secretary of the Interior.
And quite recently the public has learned that
many Liberty bonds and considerable cash subse-
quently passed from the hands of Harry Sinclair
into the hands of Will H. Hays, chairman of the
Republican National Committee in charge of the
campaign of 1920
we now are entering upon the campaign of 1928
Again the various State bosses are trotting out their
laVorte sons and hand picking delegates who will
vote for favorite sons until the midnight bedroom
conference determines what dark horse shall be given
the nomination, provided in the meantime Herbert
Hoover can be pocketed.
If enough delegates be herded together by the
favore son game, the Draft Coolidge" bunk there
will be another hotel bedroom conference at Kansas
City when Hoover has been blocked and the con-
vention deadlocked.
There will be another game of horse trading and
candidate will be picked who will play the game
and stand without htching
And If the candidate is elected, the big bosses who
St IN the game will get their reward and their moneys
worth after the handpicked president is inauguraed
AS for the people-well they'll get pretty much what
they got after March 4, 1921
Another man. claimed to be the original Tom