Gwinnett County Public Library
&
The Gwinnett History Museum

announce the next selection of the
History Book Club:

 

 

 

Please join us on Monday, July 20, 2009 at 7PM

Gwinnett History Museum
(Lawrenceville Female Seminary Building)
455 South Perry St., SW
Lawrenceville

For more information, please contact the Museum at:
gwinnetthistorymuseum@gwinnettcounty.com
or
770-822-5178

 

The Teapot Dome Scandal: How Big Oil Bought the White House and tried to Steal the Country by Laton McCartney (2008)

Journalist McCartney examines corruption and scandal at the highest levels of the federal government in his look at the scandal of Warren G. Harding's administration, Teapot Dome. America's top oil companies had funneled money into the Harding campaign, and in return, Harding appointed Albert Fall as his Secretary of the Interior, a position the oil interests believed would open up the Naval Oil Reserves in Wyoming (the Teapot Dome reserve) and California for their companies. Once this quid pro quo became public, Congress pressed Harding to nullify the lease; the Supreme Court ruled that the authority Harding had given to Fall in the first place was illegal. The Teapot Dome scandal showed how monetary political contributions could lead to political corruption, something we now take for granted.