National Affairs: Villains? Goat?

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Action. The present Secretary of the Interior, Roy O. West, at once acted on Attorney General Sargent's advice and notified Oilman Sinclair's Crude Oil Purchasing Co.* to stop removing Salt Creek oil. To some 100 other lessors in the Salt Creek field, word was sent that the U. S. elected to take all its royalties in cash until further notice. The Department of Justice began preparing a new fraud suit against Oilman Sinclair. Secretary West cancelled all extension contracts for U. S. royalty oil, and ordered investigation of all oil leases made by Fall and still running. Secretary West locked the pump after the oil was gone.

"Villains." The U. S. public speculated as to the relative "villainy" of the principals in the Salt Creek affair. To Oilman Sinclair's record, another black mark was added. It hardly showed against the background. Similarly with Albert Bacon Fall.

To Attorney General Sargent, Assistant Attorney General Donovan, Dr. Work and Secretary West, a "conspiracy of silence" was imputed by Senator Walsh.

To Dr. Work, shrewd businessmen and active Democrats charged gross negligence. Republicans varied in their opinions and said he had been either unfortunate or thickheaded. Most embarrassing to Dr. Work was the comment of the strongly pro-Hoover New York Telegram, leader of the 26 Scripps-Howard chain-papers. Said the Telegram: "Stupidity is the most charitable interpretation. . . . Dr. Hubert Work is a liability, not an asset, to Herbert Hoover. . . . It has long been our opinion that Work is a lightweight. . . . Herbert Hoover would immeasurably strengthen his position with millions of American voters if he would drop that particular pilot."

Goat? Where there are "villains," there is likely to be a "goat." Hard though the thing was on Dr. Work, danger as well as pain threatened the man to whom Dr. Work pointed as the author of his error—Solicitor Ernest Odell Patterson of the Interior Department, the one lawyer whose opinion Dr. Work sought in renewing Sinclair's lease. Dr. Work is, or was, a bland, trusting, optimistic soul, full of cheery conversation and good spirits. Solicitor Patterson was his own choice. He had him appointed in 1926 by President Coolidge—a typical smalltown lawyer-politician from the Midwest, born and raised in Iowa, taken to Washington by a patron (Roosevelt's Secretary of the Treasury Leslie Mortier Shaw), experienced in the work of the Department by two years there (1906-08) as a junior attorney, further trained through holding offices as mayor, judge and state senator in South Dakota. In June 1927, when Sinclair served notice of his intention of exercising his option. Dr. Work asked Solicitor Patterson to study the Sinclair lease. Solicitor Patterson at that time took the view "that Fall rejected all the bids under the advertisement and negotiated a private sale not covered by the advertisement, as he had a right to do." To this view Solicitor Patterson stuck last spring. Last week, he said: "It's a matter of legal interpretation The Attorney General took one view of the facts and I took another. That's all. I have no apologies or excuses to make."