Oil Paradox

The eyes of Edward Laurence Doheny, 73, California oilman, were damp with grateful tears. His cheeks were pink with happy excitement. His back tingled pleasantly where his smart lawyer, Frank J. Hogan, had thumped him in high delight. "Thank you and God bless you!" he cried to the nine men and three women jurors who had just acquitted him of bribery, in the District of Columbia Supreme Court.

So ended the last criminal case growing out of the Oil Scandals of the Harding administration.

The charge against Doheny was that he had bribed Albert Bacon Fall, Secretary of the Interior, in 1921, with $100,000 in cash, delivered by Doheny's son in a little black bag, in return for a lease on the Elk Hills Naval oil reserve in California. Five months ago, on practically the same evidence used against Doheny, Fall was convicted of receiving a bribe (TIME, Nov. 11). Admitted by the defense in both cases was the transfer of money, the leasing of Elk Hills. For each jury to decide was the intent behind the giving and the taking of this $100.000.

Fall did not take the witness stand in his own defense. Perhaps because he let others try to establish his intent, his jury disbelieved his honesty, convicted him. Doheny, in his trial, took the stand, insisted his intent was good, that the money was only a friendly loan from which he expected no favors. Perhaps it was because he spoke for himself that the jury believed his honesty, freed him.

Strongest prosecution point: Doheny sent the money to Fall under suspicious circumstances in cash.

Strongest defense point: Fall first asked Doheny for the loan.

On the stand Doheny wept at mention of his son, now deceased, who transferred the money. At exactly the same juncture in Fall's trial and in their joint trial for conspiracy, Doheny also wept.

Bribery, like adultery, is a peculiar crime. It takes two to commit the crime, in fact if not in law. Injury is done to a third party. And culpability between the participants is not always equal before the law. In most states an adulterous wife is more punishable than the man (supposing him single) who committed the offense with her because she has betrayed a marital trust. A bribe-taking public official is likewise more punishable, because he has betrayed a public trust, than the bribe-giver, who is under no specific oath of honesty. The net result of last week's trial was to make the $100,000 Doheny gave Fall a legitimate loan, but the $100,000 Fall took from Doheny a corrupt bribe.

Remarked Fall at his El Paso, Tex. home: "It's up to the people to answer the puzzle."

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