The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1928-10-11
SMITH REEVES AN ISSUE
BURIED LONG AGO

Governor Smith is finding it very
difficult to break down the assertion
of Herbert Hoover that the record OF
the Republican administration during
the last seven and half years econ
stitutes period of rare courage in
leadership and constructive action"
His job is hard one because he is
up against stone wall of actual and
amazing achievement that is recoe-
nized very generally.
His weapon as welded in Helena,
Montana, was composed of an issue
that is dead and was buried by the
people of the United States at the
election of four years ago. Pretty
short on argument is the Tammany
candidate for the presidency when he
has to dig up the old oil scandals as
a reason why Hoover should be de-
feated
That oil business was rotten-rot-
ten to the core. 1t started in May,
1921, when Secretary Fall in the new
ly formed cabinet of President Hard
ing secured the transfer of the con-
troll of the so-called Navy oil lands
from the Navy Department to the De-
partment of the Interior. Harding
had faith in Fall, who was a Senator
of the United States from New Mex
leo when appointed. Fall played him
false. What the Secretary did was to
deal in secret for the leasing of these
oil lands. 1t was cold blooded," as
Governor Smith says. 1t was "a de-
liberate fraud" No doubt about that.
But there has never been a shred of
evidence to show that the President
himself had knowledge of the vicious
deal, and when the Governor under
takes to hold the Republican Party
leadership and incidentally Herbert
Hoover, who had joined the cabinet
as Secretary of Commerce, to any re-
sponsibility in the matter he is talk
ing the veriest nonsense.
For what happened? An investiga-
ton of the leases produced proof of
corruption on the part of individuals
hidden corruption. Harding died.
Calvin Coolidge succeeded. He turned
the law loose on the betrayers of the
Nation. He appointed Atlee Pome-
rene, Democrat, and Owen j. Robert,
Republican, to prosecute the cases.
Every inch of those oil grounds has
been restored to the Government.
Individual guilt is not party guilt.
But party leadership would have been
guilty had it not cleaned house. 1t
did clean house. 1t cleaned very
thoroughly. Individual corruption on
the part of the Director of the Veter-
ans Bureau and the Alien Property
Northumberland of the war
was discovered and these criminals
are languishing in the Atlanta Peni-
tertiary. No government on earth has
been conducted with a greater degree
of efficiency, of honesty, of success
and of prosperity promotion than that
of Calvin Coolidge.
In 1924 the oil deals had long been
fully uncovered. The Democrats went
into the presidential campaign with
Republican corruption as their main
issue. All the facts were then fresh
in the minds of the public, and this
public mind realized that criminality
had been confined to individuals, had
the utmost faith in the Republican
leadership that had grappled with it
and retained Coolidge in the White
House by an overwhelming majority
of the Electoral College.
That issue, we have already said,
is dead. Jim Reed, the Believing Bull
of Missouri, thought otherwise. He
made corruption his campaign cry
and stumped various states in behalf
of his own nomination at the Houston
convention. He chased delegates, but
the delegates turned and chased him.
A more Inundated candidate never
emerged from a convention, Demo-
cratic or Republican. Even his own
state repudiated him at the recent
primaries and cast him into the outer
darkness. He was far behind the
time.
Now, we have no objection if Gov
ernor Smith, lacking for campaign
material, desires to talk about oil
wells, but we do object most seriously
to his efforts to besmirch Herbert
Hoover. He says of Hoover: "He sat
in the cabinet of the President while
all this was going on and you can
search the record from one end to the
other, you can delve into it in the
minutest detail, and you will fail to
find a single word of condemnation"
But what did Hoover know of the oil
leases? Why, the Governor himself
destroys his own insinuation when he